general explanation of the supposed situation and the meaning of the disguises; then the 'parabasis,' the 'coming-forward' of the whole choir as the author's representative, to speak in his name about current topics of interest; then a loose string of farcical scenes, illustrating, in no particular order or method, the situation as reached in the first part. The end is a 'cômos' or revel, in which the performers go off rejoicing. For instance, in our earliest surviving comedy, the Acharnians of Aristophanes, the first part, which has become genuinely dramatic by this time, explains how the hero contrives to make a private peace with the Peloponnesians; then comes the 'parabasis'; then a series of disconnected scenes showing the fun that he and his family have, and the unhappy plight of all the people about them.
Of the oldest comic writers—Chionides, Ecphantides, Magnes—we know little. The first important name is Cratînus, who carried on against Pericles—"the squill-headed God Almighty," "the child of Cronos and Double-dealing"—the same sort of war which was waged by Aristophanes against Cleon. Critics considered him incomparable in force, but too bitter. Aristophanes often refers to him: he was "like a mountain-torrent, sweeping down houses and trees and people who stood in his way." He was an initiated Orphic, who had eaten the flesh of the bull Bacchus,[1] and also a devotee of Bacchus in the modern sense. In the Knights (424 B.C.) his younger rival alluded to him pityingly as a fine fellow quite ruined by drink. The reference roused the old toper. Next year he brought out the Pytîne* ('Wine-Flask'), a kind of outspoken satire on himself, in which his wife Comedy
- ↑ Fr. 357. See Maass, Orpheus, p. 106.
