[100] A sacrifice and a public feast were synonymous, for only a small portion of the victims were offered to the gods. [101] “The sausage–seller in Aristophanes promises to offer a thousand goats to Artemis Agrotera (outbidding in jest the offering of thanks for the battle of Marathon), whenever a hundred trichides, a small kind of fish, were sold for an obolus, which was therefore an impossibility.” Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens. [102] The seats in the Pnyx. [103] _κᾷτα καθίζου μαλακῶς ἵνα μὴ τρίβῃς τἠ ν ἐν Σαλαμίνι_, v. 783. That the respected member on which the chief stress of the battle of Salamis had fallen, might be exempt in future from all common friction. [104] Bacis was an ancient Bœotian seer of high reputation, who prophesied the Persian invasion among other things: see Herod, viii. 77. The name and existence of Glanis, like the oracles to be produced, is a ready fiction of the sausage–seller. [105] We are not answerable for the fidelity of Mr. Mitchell’s translation of this, or of some other lines. The corresponding line in the original is indeed hardly susceptible of translation. [106] A city of Arcadia. A word of similar sound means “lame.” [107] The Grecians indulged their luxury in the article of drinking–vessels in an extravagant degree, and every sort of cup had its peculiar appellation. There is no allusion contained in the names introduced here. [108] Pallas, the tutelary deity of Athens. [109] _Ros._ Take you me for a sponge, my lord? _Hamlet._ Aye, sir, that soaks up the king’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed. When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing, and then, sponge, you shall be dry again.—_Hamlet_, iv. 2. Mr. Mitchell’s translation is plainly modelled on this passage; and is more like that than the original. Vespasian is said to have promoted the most rapacious collectors to the highest offices, whom he was commonly said to use as _sponges_, that he might squeeze them out when they had sucked up enough.—_Sueton._ c. 16. [110] Where he had served Demosthenes the same trick, see p. 232–3. [111] Cleon had received a chaplet in full assembly from the people. [112] The lowest tradesmen only took their stand at the gates of the town: every answer is made to show the utter baseness of Cleon’s rival, and thus to place himself in the most ignominious light. [113] Parodied from Euripides’ description of the dying Alcestis taking leave of her bridal bed, v. 181. [114] Jupiter, the protector of Greece. [115] Thucyd. v. 16. [116] Evelyn’s Memoirs. [117] Roger North, Examen, p. 204. [118] Queen Elizabeth’s birth–day. These processions were in 1679 and 1680. [119] Life of Edmund Calamy, vol. i. p. 84. [120] Burnet, Hist. of his own Times, p. 430. Oates had before only deposed to a plot among the Jesuits to murder the king.