o endeavoured to raise commotions in
the state, such as Cleon, Cleophon, and Hyperbolus; but when a Pericles,
who for many years had governed the commonwealth both in war and peace
with equal wisdom and authority (he might have added, and a Socrates,
declared by Apollo the wisest of mankind) is brought upon the stage to be
laughed at by the public, it is as if our Plautus or Naevius had attacked
the Scipios, or Caecilius had dared to revile Marcus Cato in his plays.

That liberty is still more offensive to us, who are born, and live under a
monarchical government, which is far from being favourable to
licentiousness. But without intending to justify the conduct of
Aristophanes, which is certainly inexcusable, I think, to judge properly
of it, it would be necessary to lay aside the prejudices of birth,
nations, and times, and to imagine we live in those remote ages in a state
purely democratical. We must not fancy Aristophanes to have been a person
of little consequence in his republic, as the comic writers generally are
in our days. The king of Persia had a very different idea of him.(200) It
is a known story, that in an audience of the Greek ambassadors, his first
inquiry was after a certain comic poet (meaning Aristophanes) that put all
Greece in motion, and gave such effectual counsels against him.
Aristophanes did that upon the stage, which Demosthenes did afterwards in
the public assemblies. The poet's reproaches were no less animated than
the orator's. In his comedies he uttered the same sentiments as he had a
right to deliver from the public rostrum. They were addressed to the same
people, upon the same occasions of the state, the same means of success,
and the same obstacles to their measures. In Athens the whole people were
the sovereign, and each of them had an equal share in the supreme
authority. Upon this they were continually intent, were fond of
discoursing upon it themselves, and of hearing the sentiments of others.
The public affairs were the business of every individual, on which they
were desirous of being fully informed, that they might know how to conduct
themselves on every occasion of war or peace, which frequently offered,
and to decide upon their own, as well as upon the destiny of their allies
or enemies. Hence rose the liberty taken by the comic poets, of discussing
affairs of the state in their performances. The people were so far from
being offended at it, or at the manner in which those write