Eupolis wrote against Hyperbolus; in the Dêmoi* he spoke well of Pericles as an orator (frag. 94), but this was after his death and probably did not mean much. In reviling Cleon it was well to praise Pericles, just as in reviling Hyperbolus it was well to praise Cleon. Comedy was an ultra-democratic institution, as the Old Oligarch remarked, yet all the comic writers have an aristocratic bias. This is partly because their province was satire, not praise: if they were satisfied with the course of politics, they wrote about something else which they were not satisfied with. Partly, perhaps, it is that they shared the bias of the men of culture. But Eupolis was more liberal than Aristophanes. Aristophanes does not seem ever to have violently attacked rich people.[1] Eupolis wrote his Flatterers* against 'Money-bag Callias' and his train, and his Baptai* or Dippers* against Alcibiades. The latter piece represented one of those mystical and enthusiastic worships which were so prominent at the time, that of a goddess named Cotytto. Baptism was one of the rites; and so was secrecy, unfortunately for the reputation of those concerned. The Greek layman attributed the worst possible motives to any one who made a secret of his religious observances or prayed in a low voice.
Phrynichus, son of Eunomides, who won his first prize in 429, and Plato, of whom we know no piece certainly earlier than 405, bridge the transition to the comedy of manners, which arose in the fourth century. The Solitary* of Phrynichus is an instance of a piece which was a failure because it was produced some twenty years before the public were ready for it. We have no purely political play from Phrynichus; from Plato we
- ↑ Alcibiades had fallen at the time of the Triphales.*
