The Eleven Comedies, vol 1, page 60 by Aristophanes

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61

Homer mentions the wine of Pramnium.

[18] The common people, who at Athens were as superstitious as everywhere else, took delight in oracles, especially when they were favourable, and Cleon served them up to suit their taste and to advance his own ambition.

[19] Famous seer of Boeotia.

[20] Eucrates, who was the leading statesman at Athens after Pericles.

[21] Lysicles, who married the courtesan Aspasia.

[22] Literally, like Cycloborus, a torrent in Attica.

[23] He points to the spectators.

[24] The public meals were given in the Prytaneum; to these were admitted those whose services merited that they should be fed at the cost of the State. This distinction depended on the popular vote, and was very often bestowed on demagogues very unworthy of the privilege.

[25] Islands of the Aegaean, subject to Athens, which paid considerable tributes.

[26] Caria and Chalcedon were at the two extremities of Asia Minor; the former being at the southern, the latter at the northern end of that extensive coast.

[27] As though stupidity were an essential of good government.

[28] The Athenian citizens were divided into four classes--the Pentacosiomedimni, who possessed five hundred minae; the Knights, who had three hundred and were obliged to maintain a charger (hence their name); the Zeugitae and the Thetes. In Athens, the Knights never had the high consideration and the share in the magistracy which they enjoyed at Rome.

[29] It is said that Aristophanes played the part of Cleon himself, as no one dared to assume the role. (See Introduction.)

[30] They were two leaders of the knightly order.

[31] The famous whirlpool, near Sicily.

[32] Eucrates, the oakum-seller, already mentioned, when the object of a riot, took refuge in a mill and there hid himself in a sack of bran.

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