No doubt it was: Aristophanes is writing history here with quite as much accuracy as most historians. Mercury goes on to explain to his visitor that the Greeks are never likely to see Peace again: War has cast her into a deep pit (which he points out), and heaped great stones upon her: and he has now got an enormous mortar, in which he proposes to pound all the cities of Greece, if he can only find a pestle big enough for his purpose. “But hark!” says Mercury--“I do believe he’s coming out! I must be off.” And while the god escapes, and Trygæus hides himself in affright from the terrible presence, War, a grim giant in full panoply, and wearing, no doubt, the most truculent-looking mask which the theatrical artist could furnish, comes upon the scene, followed by his man Tumult, who lugs a huge mortar with him. Into this vessel War proceeds to throw various ingredients, which represent the several towns and states which were the principal sufferers in the late campaigns: leeks for Prasiæ, garlic for Megara, cheese for Sicily. When he goes on to add some Attic honey to his olio, Trygæus can scarcely restrain himself from giving vent aloud to the remonstrance which he utters in an “aside”--not to use so terribly expensive an article. Tumult is forthwith despatched (with a cuff on the head for his slowness) to fetch a pestle of sufficient weight for his master’s purpose. He goes to Athens first; but their great war-pestle has just been lost--Cleon, the mainstay of the war party, has been killed in battle at Amphipolis, in Thrace. The messenger is next despatched to Sparta, but returns with no better success: the Spartans had lent their pestle to the Thracians, and Brasidas had fallen, with the Athenian general, in that same battle at Amphipolis. Trygæus, who all this while has been trembling in his hiding-place, begins to take heart, while War retires with his slave to manufacture a new pestle for himself. Now, in his absence, is the great opportunity to rescue Peace from her imprisonment. Trygæus shouts to all good Greeks, especially the farmers, the tradesmen, and the working classes, to come to his aid; and a motley Chorus, equipped with shovels, ropes, and crow-bars, appear in answer to his call. They give him a good deal of annoyance, however, because, true to their stage business as Chorus, instead of setting to work at once they will waste the precious minutes in dancing and singing,--a most incongruous proceeding, as he observes, when everything depends upon speed and silence; an amusing sarcasm from a writer of what we may call operatic burlesque upon the conventional absurdities which are even more patent in our modern serious opera than in Athenian comedy. At last they go to work in earnest, and succeed in bribing Mercury, who returns when War is out of the way, to help them. But to get Peace out of the pit requires, as Trygæus tells them, “a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull