against Cleon and Lamachus, as representing the war party; but the poet handles his formidable enemy with a certain caution; while, on the other hand, he goes out of his way to attack Euripides (p, 260), whom he had doubtless already made responsible for the 'corruption of the age' in the Daitalês* We do not know of any personal cause of enmity between the two men; but it is a fact that, in a degree far surpassing the other comic writers, Aristophanes can never get Euripides out of his head. One might be content with the fact that Euripides was just the man to see how vulgar and unreal most of the comedian's views were, and that Aristophanes was acute enough to see that he saw it. But it remains a curious thing that Aristophanes, in the first place, imitates Euripides to a noteworthy extent—so much so that Cratînus invented a word 'Euripidaristophanize' to describe the style of the two; and, secondly, he must, to judge from his parodies, have read and re-read Euripides till he knew him practically by heart.
In 424 Aristophanes had his real fling. The situation assumed in the Knights is that a crusty old man called Demos has fallen wholly into the power of his rascally Paphlagonian slave; his two home-bred slaves get hold of an oracle of Bakis, ordaining that Demos shall be governed in turn by four 'mongers' or 'chandlers'—the word is an improvised coinage—each doomed to yield to some one lower than himself. The 'hemp-chandler' has had his day, and the 'sheep-chandler'; now there is the Paphlagonian 'leather-chandler,' who shall in due time yield to—what? A 'black-pudding chandler!' "Lord Poseidon, what a trade!" shouts the delighted house-slave, and at the critical instant there
