Now it can be shown (1) that the stress laid on the comparative is unwarranted, (2) that there are other grounds for refusing to identify the Anthesteria and the Lenaea. (1) There are other passages in classical Greek literature in which the comparative of words denoting age, &c., is used of the oldest, not of two, but of several. Nilsson (Studia de Dionysiis Atticis, p. 54) collects the following, in addition to Homeric instances noted by Kühner-Gerth (Griech. Gramm. § 349, p. 3). Lys. x. 5: ὁ γὰρ πρεσβύτερος ἀδελφὸς Πανταλέων ἅπαντα παρέλαβε καὶ ἐπιτροπεύσας ἡμᾶς τῶν πατρῴων ἀπεστέρησεν. Lys. xiii. 67: ἦσαν τοίνυν οὗτοι, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, τέτταρες ἀδελφοί. τούτων εἷς μὲν ὁ πρεσβύτερος κτλ. Xen. Cyr. v. 1. 6: ὡς δ’ ἡμῶν ὁ γεραίτερος εἶπε (where the context shows that a good many people were concerned. The reading γεραίτερος is far better supported than γεραίτατος). Theocr. xv. 139: οὔθ’ Ἕκτωρ, Ἑκάβας ὁ γεραίτερος εἴκατι παίδων. Other instances could probably be found, in spite of the tendency of grammarians and editors to force these cases into the supposed orthodox form, by emending the comparative to the superlative (as e.g. they have done in Aelian, Var. H. ii. 41). All that the comparative really implies is that one individual case is separated off from the rest, and the rest treated as a single combined group. On this view the ἀρχαιότερα Διονύσια will be the older ceremony, the Anthesteria, as contrasted with the group well known to be recent, viz. the great popular festivals, the City Dionysia and the Lenaea. If πρεσβύτερος and γεραίτερος can be used of one brother as opposed to the rest, why not ἀρχαιότερα of one festival as opposed to the rest, these latter being grouped together in thought as recent in comparison with the one? There is, further, a note by Prof. Capps in the Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. vol. xxxii, summarizing a paper in which he claims to distinguish the meaning of ἀρχαιότερα from that of παλαιότερα, to show that previous critics of Thucydides have confused them, and that on the true view of ἀρχαιότερα the view of Gilbert, Dörpfeld, &c., is impossible. But the paper has not been published as a whole. (2) The Lenaea was celebrated in the month Gamelion, which in other places was called Lenaeon; the Anthesteria in Anthesterion. Gilbert’s attempt to prove that the names of the months were changed and the festivals transferred from one month to another breaks down entirely (Nilsson, l.c., pp. 1-37, disproves it completely), nor would the attempt have been made but for the necessity of providing some such explanation, if the two festivals were to be identified. The separation in time of the festivals is sufficient to disprove their identity.