# Euripides (Mahaffy)/Chapter 1

EURIPIDES.
CHAPTER I.
HIS AGE AND SURROUNDINGS.
1. Nothing is more disappointing to the student of the literature of Greece than the obscurity which clouds the life of almost all her greatest authors. Except in those few cases where our Greek books imply an autobiography by their very contents, such as the fragments of Solon, the Anabasis of Xenophon, or the speeches of Demosthenes, we are thrown back upon notices exceedingly scanty and exceedingly untrustworthy. We may therefore best learn to know the real author, apart from vulgar gossip or trivial anecdote, by studying the age in which he lived and the society in which he moved. Every Greek poet (I might indeed say every poet) is strictly the child of his day, the exponent of a national want, the preacher of a national aspiration, at once the outcome and the leader of a literary public, or at least of a public which craves after spiritual sustenance. From Homer to Menander this feature marks social life in Greece, and makes the history of Greek literature pre-eminently the history of the Hellenic people. ​But in no case are these considerations more important than in that of Euripides, the poet who has bequeathed to us the largest and most varied materials to estimate his age; while on the other hand, his age—the age of [[Author:Thucydides|Thucydides and of Aristophanes, of Pericles and of Alkibiades, of Phidias, and of Alkamenes—is the best known and most brilliant epoch in Athenian history. He was indeed no public man, but a confirmed student, a lover of books and of solitude; but yet certainly the personal friend of Pericles and Socrates, his elder and younger contemporaries, the hearer of Anaxagoras|Anaxagoras and Prodicus; if not the active promoter, at least the close observer of all that was great and brilliant in Athens, then the Hellas of Hellas, the inmost and purest shrine of all the national culture. We will therefore introduce the poet by a short survey of the society in which he lived, and the conditions under which he pursued his art. For those who desire to know more of this inexhaustible subject,—the Periclean age—there is a whole library of fuller books in various languages.
2. The life of Euripides reached from the battle of Salamis almost to that of Ægospotami; his boyhood therefore was in that very obscure period which precedes the blaze of light shed by Pericles and his contemporaries on the full-grown Athenian empire. Except Thucydides' valuable summary at the opening of his History, and Plutarch's Life of Kimon, we have no account of the means by which Athens attained her greatness. But we know that an extraordinary and feverish activity inspired every Athenian, high and low, to build up the imperial sway of his native city. The wise reforms of Cleisthenes had given each citizen an interest in the constitution and a voice in the management of public affairs. The common calamities of poverty and exile, the common glories of victory, especially of naval victory, in which the poorest classes had the main share, welded together all ranks ​and fired all hearts with a common patriotism. And for the first decade, at least, men were content to let internal politics alone, and pursue the foreign policy of which Kimon was the most eminent instrument. It was in fact a democracy still managed by aristocrats, in whom the people saw their natural leaders, and whose social prestige ensured them the suffrages of the lower classes.
But before the poet was come to years of discretion, Pericles had inaugurated a new internal policy, in opposition to Kimon. He was no less an aristocrat; nay, he was the lineal descendant of the old tyrants, who had educated Athens in letters, while they retarded her political development. But, like the old Whig nobility of England, he led the Liberal party against the Tories under Kimon. Hence came constitutional conflicts of great bitterness, terminating in the victory of the popular party and the administration of Pericles. The old aristocratic party, however, remained still a considerable power—an opposition not always constitutional, and always a danger to the Athenian demos, until the Revolution of 411 and the Tyranny of the Thirty forced all its leaders into plain treason towards the State. Then the restored democracy so secured itself that we hear of its opponents as a party no more. But in Pericles' earlier days, we must conceive the Athenians as well versed in constitutional discussions, as perpetually debating the limits and value of an aristocracy, the sovereign rights of the people, the responsibility of magistrates; while no less important questions of foreign policy, of the rights of subjects, of the administration of finance, were brought before the mind of every citizen.
3. Thus the political education which is obtained by the public discussion of constitutional questions, and by that alone, was certainly one of the leading attributes of Athenian society as Euripides grew up. We endeavour nowadays to attain this diffusion of political sense by a public press; but I need hardly remind anyone who has even once joined in a formal ​debate on any such question, how infinitely better man is educated by one debate than by a thousand leading articles or reports. We may therefore subscribe to Mr. Freeman's statement—that the average Athenian citizen, who performed the duties of juryman in the imperial courts, who judged the greater disputes of all the subjects, and who listened regularly to the debates in the Assembly, was better educated in politics than the average members of our House of Commons.
4. On the other hand, it is by no means so certain that the social growth of Athens profited absolutely by this great development of energy and of political insight. There was, of course, a general increase of intelligence, of knowledge about the outlying parts of the Greek world, of intercourse with men from foreign cities, particularly, moreover, of talking power, transferred from public debate to private conversation; all these advances were indisputable. But it is not so clear that the social intercourse did not become too serious a mental exercise, especially when the country life of the old Attic gentry decayed, and Athens began to absorb all the life and intellect of the people. The picture we have of Kimon at the supper-table, singing bis song among the guests in his turn, and narrating his military experiences, is somewhat different from the ideal talk set down for us by later authors, in which we miss the ease and freedom and want of purpose which characterise the social intercourse of the sporting aristocrat. So also the influence of the gentler sex must have been waning rapidly, when power passed from the Alcmæonids to the charcoal burners of Acharnæ or the sailors of the Piræus. The lady of the old country seats in Attica was a very different power from the immured upper servant we find in the plays of Aristophanes and the dialogues of Xenophon.
We may best describe the life of the Periclean citizen in Euripides' youth by comparing it to the life of a London man, who, though married and having children, ​goes early to his business, and spends his afternoon and evening in the club or the House of Commons, only returning to dine or to sleep at home. The Attic boys were sent to day-schools, and attended by old slaves, who were unfit for harder work. The girls were brought up in seclusion as strict as that of a convent. In no case does the Athenian citizen seem to have had time or inclination to educate them himself.
5. There was, moreover, an immense population of slaves, which did all menial work, and made the life of even poorer people a life free from drudgery, with a certain sense of power and superiority foreign to modern democratic society. The great majority of these slaves were not Hellenes, but from the wilds of Thrace and the effete populations of Asia Minor. The Athenians regarded them as the American planters in our day regarded their negroes. But as in the States the frequent case of slaves almost purely European was the weak point of the system, and that which gave the orator and the novelist their chief ground of attack, so the existence of Greek slaves, chiefly prisoners of war who could procure no ransom, was felt a hardship and a misfortune by those who reflected on the improvement of society. Nothing was further from the Greek democrat than to assert by proclamation or otherwise the equality of men. Even the Greek theorists who propounded socialist and communist schemes, propounded them on the aristocratic basis of a select society of privileged equals, served by subjects and slaves. Nevertheless the social discomfort of a wife who was no companion, and of slaves who were not loyal, led to the practical conclusion that the one ought to be educated and the others conciliated, and we hear that before the end of the Periclean period the condition of slaves at Athens was so much better than elsewhere as to suggest the sneer that you might mistake them for freemen in the streets, for they dressed no worse, and the laws forbade you to strike any but your own.
​6. The emancipation of women—a far more difficult advance—was evidently in the mind of Pericles, who himself violated social propriety, not merely by having Aspasia at the head of his house, but apparently by permitting her to receive company and discuss social and moral questions with intellectual men. But this example, and the constant teaching of Socrates in the same direction, were unable to overcome the strong conservative feeling of Attic society, that such a change must be subversive of morals and of home life. Thus it remained an unsettled conflict—one of those problems of the day—in which the theorists are unanswerable in argument, but yet powerless to move the inertness of the public, or retort the ridicule to which their novelties expose them.
7. But these social questions were only the consequence of far deeper and wider problems, which stirred in the minds of men as soon as an assured empire gave them time and ambition for reflection. Moral and social philosophy (apart from the early proverbial or gnomic form) does not strike root until men have somewhat exhausted the rich virgin soil of speculation with larger and vaguer inquiries into the origin of things, the texture of matter and mind, and the nature of their first cause. Theology and metaphysic always precede ethics and sociology as sciences. Early thinkers assume the nature of man as obvious, and desire to probe the secrets of the universe. Thus we have in Greece, beginning earlier than the Periclean epoch, a series of great names in the history of philosophy—Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras—whose speculations on Being and Becoming, on Permanence and Change, on the elements of matter and the laws of their composition, have afforded even to modern German metaphysicians all the best hints for their systems.
These physical and metaphysical philosophers, from Thales onward, all agreed in one important feature—they were thoroughly secular in spirit, and carried on their inquiries without the restraint or justification ​of religious orthodoxy. Of course their conclusions drifted away from ordinary mythology. When the Attic public heard that Anaxagoras, the friend of Pericles, reduced Helios, the blessed Sun, to a mass of red-hot metal, and set up as the prime mover of matter a vague Intelligence, instead of the national Zeus, they were inexpressibly shocked. Yet Anaxagoras had never placed himself in declared opposition to orthodoxy. He probably thought out his system, and taught bis pupils without alluding to it.
8. The work of popularising the theories of the philosophers, and of working out the formal side of knowledge, was taken up by a class of men who, though claiming to be philosophers, were very different from the solitary thinkers just named—I mean the much-decried much-vindicated sophists. The leaders of these—Gorgias, Protagoras, and Prodicus—are represented, even by the bitter enemies of their class, as both able and respectable, undertaking the task of general higher education, and fulfilling through the Greek cities exactly the office of the universities in England. They taught general culture, and, above all, the art of expressing oneself fluently on the topics of the day, as well as the stricter art of disputation, or of maintaining one's ground against an adversary. They of course professed to know all the deeper philosophy of their age, and were ready to talk hard metaphysics with those who challenged them; but their main occupation was with the formal side of knowledge, with our faculty of knowing rather than with the things known by it. Hence they studied accuracy of expression and subtlety of reasoning. They sowed the seeds of that chaste and strict prose style which has modelled all the literature of Europe. They studied rhetoric, and with it the practical sides of politics and of ethics which came into ordinary life. Of course the really eminent sophists excited a herd of imitators, who did not maintain the reserve and respect towards traditional beliefs which characterised Gorgias and Prodicus. These inferior men led the way ​to scepticism in religion and in morals; they preached the supremacy of intellect, the absolute right of private judgment, the new epoch of enlightenment, when logical proofs were to displace moral convictions; and for the moment it seemed as if all society must be set loose from its old and hallowed beliefs, and sent adrift upon a sea of negative arguments and sceptical surmises.
9. Presently, however, the Athenians righted themselves. The encyclopædic pretences of the sophists gave way before the attacks of specialists in science, specialists in philosophy, and specialists in rhetoric. The misfortunes of the State produced a strong reaction towards orthodoxy, and to this reaction Socrates fell a victim. But this came in the next generation. In the Periclean age we must conceive the deeper minds as unsettled by the speculations of philosophy, while the more superficial were attracted by the flippant scepticism of the lower sophists. There was, of course, a large body of vulgar orthodoxy that worshipped the national gods, that consulted oracles and prophets, that believed in dreams and omens. Even Pericles seems to have traded upon this orthodoxy. But the pride of intellect, the love of reasoning everything out, the desire of superiority in debate, were so prominent a feature in society as to spoil conversation, and generally to turn a dinner-party into a debating club. The only author of this period who knows how to compose an easy and natural dialogue is the Ionic Herodotus. Even the early Attic prose of Gorgias was full of artificial graces—he was a sort of Watteau in oratory.
10. But men soon began to seek for clearness and strength in this as in the other arts which had made earlier and more rapid progress. It was indeed in these other arts—architecture, sculpture, probably painting and music also—that the most sceptical might find large and satisfactory results. They were not cultivated by amateurs but by professional artists, whose whole life was devoted to the study of their art. Ictinus and Mnesicles, the builders of the giant ​Parthenon, and the no less splendid Propylæa, astonish all modern architects by the deep scientific knowledge implied in these structures. Phidias distinctly contributed to the support of dying paganism by the majesty of his Olympian Zeus. These men brought their arts from clumsiness of proportion, from the stereotyped curls and smile, into the simplicity and majesty which we may worship, not only at Athens, but in the ruins of Bassæ, or in the wondrous pediment of Alkamenes, lately drawn from oblivion under the sands of Olympia. A great enthusiasm for art seized on the public mind at Athens. Men of after days knew not whether to wonder most at the feverish hurry or the eternal solidity with which these great monuments were built. No contractor, with all the resources of modern mechanics, would undertake to rebuild the Parthenon, with new material, on its site in the time taken for its original construction. Every year saw some statue produced which all the sculptors, from the next generation to this day, cannot rival in all these centuries of time. If ever a people were educated, or could be educated to perfect taste and refinement by contemplating ideal beauty in art, the Periclean Athenians enjoyed that unique privilege. It was, in fact, so essential a part of their life that the authors of that time only mention it in passing allusions.
11. In literature their condition was hardly less favourable. The common use of writing was so lately diffused, and the materials so limited, that they were not flooded, as we are, with spring tides of common and worthless books. But still they were able to procure, and they were taught at school, the poems of Homer and the other early epics, the greatest of the lyric and elegiac poets, and of late years the masterpieces of Æschylus and Phrynichus. It was such an education as Englishmen might have obtained in poetry tn the end of the 17th century, if Shakspere had taken the place of the Bible, with Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton as familiar to men as nursery rhymes to our children. But we ​can find no parallel to the splendid education of the stage, which all the adult population derived from the growing and now paramount tragedy. All the deepest questions of religion and of morals were brought home to men's minds in a manner infinitely more striking than the best and ablest preaching in our Christian pulpits. Indeed there was more poetry of the first order already extant than any average man could master, and that too of every vein and temper, from the ideal pictures of Homer and the soaring flights of Pindar to the mean limping of the plebeian Hipponax and the unsavoury confessions of the ribald Archilochus.
12. This was the sort of society into which Euripides was born, and in which he spent his life. It was a society in many respects intensely modern, with its religious and philosophical scepticism, its publicity of debate, its rational inquiry, its advanced democracy. There was great simplicity of dress and frugality of life, combined with a splendid extravagance in public works and national undertakings. There was a good deal of coarseness and rudeness of manners, combined with a keen appreciation of artistic genius in conception and of beauty in form and colour. There was a great deal of wit and smartness, combined with a tedious taste for disputation and for verbal subtleties. There was a great deal of hard and vulgar selfishness, combined with enthusiastic patriotism and devotion to public interests. There was a great deal of intelligence and enlightenment without any large diffusion of learning; much intimacy with the national literature without many collections of books. And, if the forms of the men and women were not, as I believe, of any remarkable beauty (like those of the Spartans), yet artists had found an ideal canon of perfection unparalleled, save in rare exceptions, throughout the annals of the human race.
These are the more important general features of Periclean society at Athens, which clothe the mere lates of the poet's life and of his works with all their interest and proper meaning.
​But as general readers cannot be expected to have the facts of Greek history fresh in their minds, I here append a chronicle of the principal events in the poet's life, and his chief contemporaries. By this means, at least a skeleton of the period will be conveyed, and old scholars will easily recall through it their former studies. There is, indeed, a great deal of uncertainty about many of the sculptors and painters, of whom we seldom know more than the vague floruit from such people as Pliny. But in every case we can fairly determine the artists' generation, and tell that they were contemporaries of our poet, even when we cannot affirm that they influenced his rising genius.
CHRONOLOGY OF EURIPIDES' LIFE AND TIMES.
| OL. | B.C. | POLITICAL CHRONICLE. | LITERARY AND ARTISTIC CHRONICLE. |
| | 480 | | Pindar 38 years old. |
| 75.1 | | Battle of Thermopylæ. Battle of Salamis (20th September). Victory of Gelon and Theron over the Carthaginians. | Pherecydes the historian "flourished". Æschylus and Anaxagoras at Athens. Birth of Euripides. [But the Parian marble consistently asserts him to have been born 485 B.C. |
| | 479 | | |
| 75.2 | | Battle of Platæa. Battle of Mycale. Commencement of the Ionic Confederacy. Conquest of Sestos. | Birth of Antiphon the orator. Birth of Chœrilus of Samos. |
| | 478 | The re-building of Athens and fortifying of the Piræus. | The sculptors Ageladas of Argos, Canachus and Aristokles of Sicyon, Callon and Onatas of Ægina, had already developed sculpture, and were probably old. |
| 75.3 | | Reforms of Aristides. | Calamis rising; also Pythagoras of Rhegium, the sculptor. |
| | 477 | | Epicharmus' Islands. |
| 75.4 | | Conquest of Cyprus by the Greeks. | |
| | 476 | Conquest of Byzantium. Transference of the Hegemony to Athens. | Pindar's 14th Olympic Ode. |
| 76.1 | | Hiero, tyrant of Gela and Syracuse. Founding of Ætna. | Epicharmos, Sophron, Æschylus, Pindar, and Simonides at Syracuse; also Korax the rhetor. ​Phrynichus the tragedian gains the prize, Themistocles being choregus. |
| | 475 | Organizing of the Delian Confederacy. | Simonides, aged 80, wins a lyric prize. |
| 76.2 | | | |
| | 474 | Prosecution of king Pausanias. | Pindar's 7th Pythian Ode. |
| 76.3 | | | |
| | 473 | | |
| 76.4 | | | The Persæ of Æschylus. |
| | 472 | | |
| 77.1 | | | Pindar's 2nd and 12th Olympic Odes. |
| | 471 | | Birth of Thucydides the historian. Timocreon the Rhodian "flourished." |
| 77.2 | | Banishment of Themistocles. | |
| | 470 | | |
| 77.3 | | Kimon becomes the leading statesman at Athens. | Pindar's 1st Pythian Ode. |
| | 469 | Archidamos succeeds Leotychides at Sparta. | Polygnotus, the painter, and Bakchylides the lyric poet, eminent. |
| 77.4 | | | |
| | 468 | [The alleged late destruction of Mycenæ by Argos in 468 B.C. is to be rejected, though generally asserted by late writers.] | Birth of Socrates. First tragic victory of Sophocles, probably with the Triptolemus. |
| 78.1 | | | |
| | 467 | Death of Pausanias. Flight of Themistocles. Death of Aristides. | Birth of Andokides. Death of Simonides, aged 90. |
| 78.2 | | Pericles begins to assume importance. | Panyasis (epic poet and uncle of Herodotus), eminent. |
| | 466 | Democracy restored at Syracuse. | [The alleged appearance of the atheist Diagoras of Melos, at this time, is to be rejected, and placed about 50 years earlier.] |
| 78.3 | | | |
| | 465 | Death of Xerxes. | |
| 78.4 | | Kimon's victory at the Eurymedon. | ​ |
| | 464 | Revolt of Thasos. | Pindar's 13th Olympic Ode. |
| 79.1 | | Earthquake at Sparta, and revolt of the Helots. Third Messenian War (464–56). | Zeno of Elea "flourished." |
| | 462 | Subjugation of Thasos. | Pindar's 4th and 5th Pythian Odes. |
| 79.3 | | | |
| | 461 | The Attic army sent back by Sparta. | |
| 79.4 | | Breach between Sparta and Athens. Alliance of Athens and Argos. | |
| | 460 | Death of Themiostocles. | Birth of Democritus, and of Hippocrates the physician. |
| 80.1 | | Revolt of Egypt under Inaros. Ephialtes' attack on the Areopagus. | Pindar's 8th Olympic Ode. |
| | 459 | Banishment of Kimon. | Gorgias now eminent. |
| 80.2 | | Megara joins the Attic Confederacy. | |
| | 458 | The Athenians (under Myronides) victorious over the Corinthians. | Æschylus wins the first prize with his Orestian trilogy and the Proteus. |
| 80.3 | | | |
| | 457 | | Death of Panyasis. |
| 80.4 | | Victory of the Spartans over Athens at Tanegra. Murder of Ephialtes. | ​ |
| | 456 | Victory of Athens over Thebes at Œnophyta. | Death of Æschylus (aged 69). |
| 81.1 | | Democracy in Bœotia. Ægina subdued. End of the Messenian War by capture of Ithome. Settlement of the Messenians at Naupactus. Destruciton of the Athenian force in Egypt. | Empedokles and Parmenides prominent. Myron the sculptor, rising. |
| | 455 | | Death of Æschylus at Gela. |
| 81.2 | | | Euripides brings out his first play (the Peliades), but only gains third prize. |
| | 454 | Return of Kimon. Transference of the Federal Treasury to Athens, and first assessment of tribute by the Logistæ. | Parmenides and Zeno at Athens. |
| 81.3 | | | |
| | 452 | Colonisation of the Thracian Chersonese from Athens. | Pindar's 4th and 5th Olympic Odes. |
| 82.1 | | | |
| | 451 | Five years' truce between Athens and Sparta. | Empedokles at Akragas. |
| 82.2 | | | Ion of Chios begins to bring out tragedies. |
| | 450 | Thirty years' peace between Argos and Sparta. | Anaxagoras leaves Athens (first time). |
| 82.3 | | | |
| | 449 | Athenian expedition and victory at Cyprus. Death of Kimon. | |
| 82.4 | | | |
| | 448 | Attack of the Phocians on Delphi. | Cratinus' Archilochi. |
| 83.1 | | | |
| | 447 | Defeat of the Athenians at Coronea. | Archæus exhibits tragedies. |
| 83.2 | | Return and second expulsion of the Sybarites by Kiston. | |
| | 446 | Attic expedition under Lampon to restore the Sybarites. | Pindar's 8th Pythian Ode. ​ |
| 83.3 | | Revolt of Eubœa and Megara from Athens. Subjugation and occupation of Eubœa by Athenians. | Herodotus at Athens. Phidias already prominent, also Alkamenes and Pæonius. |
| | 445 | Thirty years' peace between Sparta and Athens. Embassy of Kallias to Susa, and alleged peace of Kimon. | |
| 83.4 | | | Protagoras, Empedocles, and Melissus (the disciple of Parmenides) prominent. |
| | 444 | Banishment of Thucydides son of Melesias. | |
| 84.1 | | | Completion of the Odeum. |
| | 443 | Founding of Thurii. | Herodotus and Lysias (?) go to Thurii. Hippodamus of Miletus, architect, |
| 84.2 | | | and |
| | * | | Sophocles' Antigone (?). |
| | 441 | | Euripides gains the first prize in tragedy (plays unknown). |
| 84.4 | | | The painter Agatharchus eminent. |
| | 440 | Revolt of Samos, and expedition of Pericles. | Sophocles at Samos. |
| 85.1 | | Death of the Sicilian prince, Duketios. | Decree to limit licence in comedy. |
| | 439 | Subjugation of Samos and Byzantium. | |
| 85.2 | | | Death of Pindar. ​ |
| | 438 | | Completion of the Parthenon. Euripides' Alcestis. |
| 85.3 | | | Sophocles appointed Strategus. The prohibitions against comedy repealed. |
| | 437 | Foundation of Amphipolis. | Commencement of the Propylæa by Mnesicles. |
| 85.4 | | | Law restraining comedy. |
| | 436 | | Pheidias at Olympia. |
| 86.1 | | | Birth of Isocrates. |
| | * | | Cratinus gains a victory in comedy. |
| | 434 | Quarrel of Corinth and Corcyra about Epidamnos. | |
| 86.3 | | | |
| | 433 | | |
| 86.4 | | Alliances of Corcyra and Rhegium with Athens. | Meton invents a sun-cloxk, and reforms the calendar at Athens. |
| | 432 | The Chalcidice revolts from Athens. | Anaxagoras prosecuted for impiety. |
| 87.1 | | Siege of Potidæa by Phormion. Preparations for war between Athens and Sparta. Attacks on Pericles. | Death of Phidias. |
| | 431 | Peloponnesian War. Attacks on Pericles' friends and party. | Anaxagoras leaves Athens. Hippocrates prominent. |
| 87.2 | | First invasion of Attica by Peloponnesians. | Euripides' Medea (third prize). Pericles' funeral oration. |
| | 430 | The plague at Athens. Second invasion. | Attacks of Hermippus (the comic poet) on Pericles. |
| 87.3 | | Deposing and reinstatement of Pericles. Athenian mission to Susa. | ​ |
| | 429 | Capture of Potidæa. | Birth of Plato and probably of Xenophon. |
| 87.4 | | Death of Pericles. | Eupolis begins to exhibit comedies. |
| | 428 | Expeditions of Phormion to Acarnania. Revolt of Mytilene. Third invasion of Attica. | Death of Anaxagoras (aged 72). Euripides' Hippolytus (first prize). |
| 88.1 | | Appeal of the Mitylenæans at Olympia. Escape of 220 Platæans from their besiegement. | |
| | 427 | Death of Archidamos. Fourth invasion of Attica. Surrender of Mytilene. | Aristophanes' Daitaleis (second prize). Embassy of Gorgias from Leontini to Athens. |
| 88.2 | | Surrender of Platæa, and massacre of the inhabitants. Civil war in Corcyra. Renewed pestilence at Athens. | |
| | 426 | | Aristophanes' Babylonians. |
| 88.3 | | Demosthenes in Acarnania. Lustration of Delos. | Zeuxia eminent. |
| | 425 | Eurymedon and Sophocles bring a fleet into Sicilian waters. Demosthenes cuts off the Spartans at Sphakteria by defeating their fleet at Pylos. Fifth invasion of Attica. | Aristophanes' Acharnians (first prize). About this time the Hecuba. ​ |
| 88.4 | | Capture of the Spartans at Sphakteria. Raising of the Attic tribute. Massacres at Corcyra. Operations of the Attic fleet in Sicily. | |
| | 424 | Nikias ravages the Laconian coast. | Aristophanes' Knights (first prize). |
| 89.1 | | Attack on Bœotia. Defeat of the Athenians at Delium. Brasidas in the Chalcidice. He takes Amphipolis, but Thucydides saves Eion. | Polycleitus famous. |
| | 423 | Continued campaign by Brasidas. | Aristophanes' Clouds (first ed.) defeated by Cratinus' Wine Flask. |
| 89.2 | | | |
| | 422 | Phæax sent as ambassador from Athens to Sicily. | Aristophanes' Wasps (first prize). |
| 89.3 | | Campaign of Cleon to Thrace. His defeat and death by Brasidas, who is also killed. Proposals of peace. | Death of Cratinus. Second ed. of Aristophanes' Clouds. Parrhasius, painter. |
| | 421 | Peace of Nikias. | Aristophanes' Peace. |
| 89.4 | | The Athenians capture Skione. | Eupolis active as a comic writer. |
| | 420 | Anti-Laconian alliance in Peloponnesus. Activity of Alkibiades. | |
| 90.1 | | Sparta excluded from Olympic games. Victories of Alkibiades at Olympia. | Euripides' Supplices. |
| | 419 | War between Argos and Epidaurus. | About this time the Ion and Andromache. |
| 90.2 | | | Timanthes, painter. |
| | 418 | Campaign of Agis against Argos. Birth of Epaminondas. | |
| 90.3 | | Agis conquers the allies at the battle of Mantinea. Treaty between Argos and Sparta. | Perhaps the Heracleidæ appeared at this time. ​ |
| | 417 | Banishment of Hyperbolus by the last ostracism. | |
| 90.4 | | War in the Chalcidice. | |
| | 416 | | Agathon gains a tragic prize. |
| 91.1 | | Embassy of the Egestæans to Athens. Capture of Melos. | Eupolis Baptæ. |
| | 415 | Mutilation of the Hermæ. Departure of the fleet for Sicily. | Euripides' Troades (second prize) defeated by Xenocles. Andocides imprisoned. |
| 91.2 | | Alkibiades recalled. The Athenians visit the harbour of Syracuse and winter at Naxos. Alkibiades flees to Sparta. | The law of Syracosios against libelling on the stage. |
| | 414 | Gylippus goes to Syracuse, which is closely besieged. | Aristophanes' Birds (second prize). |
| 91.3 | | Nikias writes for reinforcements. | |
| | 413 | Sixth invasion of Attica. Agis fortifies Dekeleia. Masscre of children at Mycalessus. | Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris about this time. |
| 91.4 | | Demosthenes arrives at Syracuse with reinforcements (August). Complete destruction of the Athenian force at Syracuse (September). Archelaus king of Macedon. | Greek poets and artists invited to Pella by Archelaus. ​ |
| | 412 | War on the coast of Ionia. | Euripides' Andromeda and Helena. |
| 92.1 | | Peisander and the Attic oligarchs in the camp at Samos. | Aristophanes' Lysistrate. |
| | 411 | Antiphon and Theramenes bring about the revolution of the 400 at Athens. Resistance of the army at Samos. | Lysias returns to Athens. Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusæ. |
| 92.2 | | Deposition of the 400, and constitutional changes. Alkibiades recalled. Defeat of Mindarus by Thrasybulus. | Execution of the orator Antiphon. [Here the history of Thucydides breaks off.] |
| | 410 | Victory of the Athenians at Kyzikus. Kleophon prominent. Evagoras king of Cyprus. | Prosecution of Diagoras of Melos for impiety. [Perhaps a few years sooner, but certainly not in 468 B.C., as Suidas states, and Clinton supports.] |
| 92.3 | | Campaigns of Alkibiades in the Hellespont. | |
| | 409 | Re-establishment of the tribute. The younger Cyrus comes to Asia Minor. | Aristophanes' Plutus. |
| 92.4 | | Alkibiades returns in state to Athens. | Sophocles' Philoctetes. |
| | 408 | Lysander appointed Spartan admiral. | Euripides Orestes, possibly also Electra. |
| 93.1 | | | |
| | 407 | Antiochus defeated at Notium. Konon replaces Alkibiades as Athenian admiral. | Commission of Euripides' Bacchæ and Iphigenia in Aulis. |
| 93.2 | | | |
| | 406 | Kallikratidas, Spartan admiral, blockades Konon at Mitylene. | Euripides dies at Pella. |
| 93.3 | | Victory of Athenians at Arginusæ and death of Kallicratidas. Kleophon defeats the Spartan proposals for peace. | Death of Sophocles. |
* ↑ We have nothing analogous, in modern days, to this intimate connection of poets and public, except the relation of the daily press to the people in England, where it is hard to say, in any single case, whether the public leads the papers, or the reverse, action and reaction being constant and immediate.
* ↑ Viz. Watkiss Lloyd, The Age of Pericles; Filleul, L'Age de Pericles; Oncken, Athen und Hellas; and many others.