Aristophanes

ar'is-toph'a-nes (448-380 B. C.), the greatest comic poet of Greece. He is credited with having written fifty-four comedies, eleven of which are still extant. They were acted in public, and were a sort of "take-off" or running commentary on public life. They throw light on Athenian manners and customs. The Acharnians seeks to strengthen sentiment for peace with the Spartans. An honest countryman sends to Sparta for a sample of the proposed peace, and likes the taste so well that he concludes a treaty for himself and family. The Knights attacks the demagogues of the city, who are likened to rascally stewards. The Clouds assails the professed teachers of rhetoric, Socrates in particular. An indignant father, whose son has turned out both dishonest and impious, proposes to burn both the philosopher and his school. The Wasps is directed against the Athenian love of lawsuits. A house dog, having stolen a cheese, is tried by his master for the offense. Through a love for the formalities of law, the old man makes egregious blunders which result in the ludicrous acquittal of the dog. In The Birds, the birds are persuaded to build a city in mid-air, so as to cut off the gods from man. Other plays as The Frogs, The Banqueters, The Merchantmen, The Storks, etc., are of a similar nature. Peace celebrates quiet and country life. A distressed Athenian sails up into the sky on a beetle's back; he finds the gods busy pounding the Greek states in a mortar; he releases Peace from a well in which she is confined, induces the gods to lay aside pestle and mortar and concludes by marrying a handmaid of Peace.. In The Knights, the following conversation occurs between a sausage-seller and a leading demagogue:

Aristotle (384-322 B. C.), a Grecian philosopher. He was the son of a Macedonian physician, but was early left an orphan. He went to Athens at the age of eighteen to study with Plato. He remained under this great teacher for twenty years, and was called the intellect of the school. Philip of Macedon had ambition for his son who afterward became Alexander the Great, and invited Aristotle to become his boy's tutor. Three years later Philip died and Alexander came to the throne at the age of twenty. Aristotle returned to Athens and opened a school of his own. Here he taught with great success until, on the death of Alexander, he retired to Euboea, where he died. Alexander is said to have sent Aristotle information gathered in his travels and wars, probably concerning new and curious plants, animals, shells, and the like.

Aristotle wrote a large number of learned treatises. Scientific men declare that his was the greatest intellect that Greece produced. Goethe once said that if he could have an opportunity to live his life again he would devote it to a study of nature and Aristotle, adding, "It is beyond all conception what that man saw." His various treatises constitute a sort of encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. Out of forty titles a few may be named as indicating the scope of his writings: Art of Rhetoric, Politics, Art of Poetry, On the Heavens, Researches about Animals, On the Soul, On Sleep and Waking, On Dreams, On Youth and Old Age, On Parts of Animals, On Locomotion of Animals, etc.

In political matters Aristotle favored a large middle class, and thought that government should be in the hands of ordinary average people, for neither the very rich nor the very poor, the very strong nor the very weak, the very noble nor the very mean are readily induced to hear reason. The one extreme is supercilious, the other is rascally. One extreme sins from insolence, the other from villainy. In ethics he taught that happiness consisted in working out one's inward desires, and that every virtue is a golden mean between two vices.

Aristotle introduced the term, four footed, in the study of animals. He described about 150 birds, 20 reptiles, 116 fishes, 60 insects and spiders, 24 crayfish and worms, and 40 clams, oysters, and radiates. His work in natural history was not improved for two thousand years.

Aristotle is also called the Father of Logic. His use of the syllogism is still the basis of modern instruction as: