ARISTOPHANES, a celebrated comic poet of Athens. He was contemporary with Plato, Socrates, and Euripides; and most of his plays were written during the Peloponnesian war. His imagination was warm and lively, and his genius particularly turned to raillery. He had also great spirit and resolution, and was a declared enemy to slavery, and to all those who wanted to oppress their country. The Athenians suffered themselves in his time to be governed by men who had no other views than to make themselves masters of the commonwealth. Aristophanes exposed the designs of these men with great wit and severity upon the stage. Cleon was the first whom he attacked, in his comedy of the Equites ; and as there was not one of the comedians who would venture to personate a man of his great authority, Aristophanes played the character himself, and with so much success, that the Athenians obliged Cleon to pay a fine of five talents, which were given to the poet. He described the affairs of the Athenians in so exact a manner that his comedies are a faithful history of that people. For this reason, when Dionysius^ king of Syracuse, desired to learn the state and language of Athens, Plato sent him the comedies of Aristophanes. He wrote above 50 comedies, but there are only 11 extant which are perfect: these are, Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, Equites, the Acharnenses, the Wasps, Peace, the Birds, the Ecclesiazusae or Female Orators, the Thesmophosiazusae or Priestesses of Ceres, and Lysistrata. The Clouds, which he wrote in ridicule of Socrates, is the most celebrated of all his comedies. Having conceived some aversion to the poet Euripides, Aristophanes satirizes him in several of his plays, particularly in his Frogs and his Thesmophosiazusae. He wrote his Peace in the 10th year of the Peloponnesian war, when a treaty of 50 years was concluded between the [7:3:490] Athenians and the Lacedemonians, though it continued but seven years. The Acharnenses was written after the death of Pericles and the loss of the battle in Sicily, in order to dissuade the people from intrusting the safety of the commonwealth to such generals as Lamachus. Soon after he represented his Birds, by which he admonished the Athenians to fortify Decelaea, which he calls by a fictitious name, Nephelococcygia. The Vespae, or Wasps, was written after another loss in Sicily, which the Athenians suffered from the misconduct of Chares. He wrote the Lysistrata when all Greece was involved in war; in which comedy the women are introduced debating upon the affairs of the commonwealth, when they come to a resolution not to go to bed with their husbands till a peace should be concluded. His Plutus, and other comedies of that kind, were written after the magistrates had given orders that no person should be exposed by name upon the stage. He invented a peculiar kind of verse, which was called by his name, and is mentioned by Cicero in his Brutus; and Suidas says that he also was the inventor of the tetrameter and octameter verse.

Aristophanes was greatly admired among the ancients, especially for the true Attic elegance of his style. 4 , The time of his death is unknown; but it is certain that he was living after the expulsion of the tyrants by Thrasybulus, whom he mentions in his Plutus and other comedies.

There have been many editions of the works of Aristo-. phanes. The editio princeps, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1498, in folio, is a rare and beautiful volume. The best edition is that of Brunck, printed at Strasburg i∏ 1781-3, in 4 vols. 8vo, and reprinted at Oxford in 1810. Nicoemus Frischin, a German, famous for his classical knowledge in the 16th century, translated Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, the Equites, and the Acharnenses, into Latin verse. Quintus Septimus Florens rendered into Latin verse the Wasps, the Peace, and Lysistrata; buthis translation is full of obsolete words and phrases. Madame Dacier published, at Paris, in 1692, a French version of Plutus and of the Clouds, with critical notes, and an examination of them according to the rules of the theatre. Mr Lewis Theobald likewise translated these two comedies into English, and published them with remarks. Mr Cumberland gave a translation of the Clouds in his Observer, accompanied with an able view of the life and genius of the author. A translation of the greater part of Aristophanes, with introductions of considerable length, has been published by Mr Mitchell, in 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1820-22.