appears an abnormally characteristic costermonger with a tray of black-puddings. The two conspirators rouse the man to his great destiny. The rest of the play is a wild struggle between the Paphlagonian and the black-pudding man, in which the former is routed at his own favourite pursuits—lying, perjury, stealing, and the art of 'cheek.' The Paphlagonian, of course, is Cleon, who owned a tannery; the two slaves are Nikias and Demosthenes; the previous 'chandlers' were apparently Lysicles and Eucrates. But the poet tells us that, in the first place, he could get no actor to take the part of Cleon, and, secondly, that when he took the part himself the mask-painters refused to make a mask representing Cleon. The play is a perfect marvel of rollicking and reckless abuse. Yet it is wonderfully funny, and at the end, where there is a kind of transformation scene, the black-pudding man becoming a good genius, and Demos recovering his senses, there is some eloquent and rather noble patriotism. The attack is not exactly venomous nor even damaging. It can have done very little to spoil Cleon's chances of election to any post he desired. It is a hearty deluge of mud in return for the prosecution of 426. Such a play, if once accepted by the archon, and not interrupted by a popular tumult, was likely to be a succès fou; as a matter of fact, the Knights won the first prize.
The next year there was a reaction. The Clouds, attacking the new culture as typified in Socrates, was beaten, both by the Wine-Flask* of the 'wreck' Cratînus, and by the Connus* of Ameipsias. Aristophanes complains of this defeat[1] in a second version of the play, which has alone come down to us. He
- ↑ Clouds, 'parabasis.'
