It is plain from the whole character of this play, as well as from the ‘Lysistrata’ and the ‘Women’s Festival,’ that whatever reason the Athenian women might have had for complaining of their treatment at the hands of Euripides, they had little cause to congratulate themselves upon such an ally as Aristophanes. The whip of the tragic poet was as balm compared with the scorpions of the satirist. But it must be borne in mind, in estimating these unsparing jests upon the sex which we find in his comedies, as well as the coarseness which too often disfigures them--though it is but a poor apology for either--that it is very doubtful whether it was the habit for women to attend the dramatic performances. Their presence was certainly exceptional, and confined probably under any circumstances to the less public festivals, and to the exhibitions of tragedy. But women had few acknowledged rights among the polished Athenians. They laughed to scorn the notion of the ruder but more chivalric Spartan, who saluted his wife as his “lady,” and their great philosopher Aristotle reproached the nation who could use such a term as being no better than “women-servers.” These “women’s rights” have been a fertile source of jest and satire in all times, our own included; but there is a wide interval in tone and feeling between the Athenian poet’s Choruses of women, and the graceful picture, satire though it be, drawn by the English Laureate, of the “Six hundred maidens clad in purest white Before two streams of light from wall to wall.”[53] CHAPTER IX. PLUTUS. The comedy which takes its name from the god of riches is a lively satire on the avarice and corruption which was a notorious feature of Athenian society, as it has been of other states, modern as well as ancient, when luxury and self-indulgence have created those artificial wants which are the danger of civilisation. The literal points of the satire are, of course, distinctly Athenian; but the moral is of no exclusive date or locality. Chremylus--a country gentleman, or rather yeoman, living somewhere close to the city of Athens--has found, in his experience of life, that mere virtue and honesty are _not_ the best policy; at any rate, not the policy which pays. He has made a visit, therefore, to the oracle of Apollo, to consult that authority as to how he shall bring up his only son; whether he shall train him in the honest and simple courses which were those of his forefathers, or have him initiated in the wicked but more profitable ways of the world, as the world is now. He is, in fact, the Strepsiades of ‘The Clouds,’ only that he is a more unwilling disciple in the new school of unrighteousness. The answer given him by the god is, that he must accost the first person he meets on quitting the temple, and persuade or compel him to accompany him home to his house.