The Eleven Comedies, Volume 2

808

The cake was placed on the altar, but eaten afterwards by the priest or by him who offered the sacrifice.

809

An allusion to the occupation of Phylé, in Attica on the Boeotian border, by Thrasybulus; this place was the meeting-place of the discontented and the exiled, and it was there that the expulsion of the thirty tyrants was planned. Once victorious, the conspirators proclaimed a general amnesty and swore to forget everything, [Greek: m_e mn_esikakein], 'to bear no grudge,' hence the proverb which Aristophanes recalls here.

810

A verse taken from a lost tragedy by Euripides.

811

Hermes runs through the gamut of his different attributes.

812

As the rich citizens were accustomed to do at Athens.

813

This trick was very often practised, its object being to secure the double fee.

814

He is giving Plutus this title.

815

Within the precincts of the Acropolis, and behind the Temple of Zeus Polias, there stood a building enclosed with double walls and double gates, where the public Treasury was kept. Plutus had ceased to dwell there, i.e. the Peloponnesian war and its disastrous consequences had emptied the Treasury; however, at the time of the production of the 'Plutus,' Athens had recovered her freedom and a part of her former might, and money was again flowing into her coffers.

816

In the Greek there is a pun on the different significations of [Greek: graus],_ an old woman, and the scum, or 'mother,' which forms on the top of boiling milk.

817

In the 'Lysistrata' the Chorus similarly makes its exit singing.