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ARISTOPHANES

As between our ancient silver and the stuff we now call gold.
Those old coins knew naught of alloys; everywhere their fame was told.
Not all Hellas held their equal, not all Barbary far and near,
Every tetradrachm well minted, tested each and ringing clear."

This would be very satisfactory if there was any reason to suppose either that (1) there was an issue of base gold at this time, or (2) the new bronze coinage was jestingly called "the new gold."

P. 56, l. 730, Red-haired things.]—Northerners, especially from the Athenian colonies on the coast of Thrace. Asiatic aliens are comparatively seldom mentioned in Attic writers.

P. 56, l. 733, Scapegoats.]—φαρμακοί, like "Guy Fawkeses." Traditions and traditional ceremonies survived in various parts of Greece, pointing to the previous existence of an ancient and barbarous rite of using human "scapegoats," made to bear the sins of the people and then cast out or killed. See the fragments of Hippônax, 4–8. It is stated by late writers that in Athens two criminals, already condemned to death and 'full of sin,' were kept each year to be used in this way at the Feast of Thargelia. The sins of the city were ritually laid upon them; they were, in ceremonial pretence, scourged before execution; their bodies were burnt by the sea-shore and their ashes scattered. The evidence is given in Rohde, Psyche, p. 366, 4. It is preposterous, to my thinking, to regard this as a "human sacrifice"—a