the popular taste had corrupted the very poets themselves. Let us consider just how this tendency manifested itself. First of all, then, in the _Knights_, Aristophanes appeals to the audience to impress the judges by a hearty burst of applause; cf. vss. 544 ff.: So seeing our Poet began In a mood so discreet, nor with vulgar conceit rushed headlong before you at first, _Loud surges of praise to his honour upraise; salute him, all hands, with a burst_ _Of hearty triumphant Lenaean applause_, That the bard may depart, all radiant and bright To the top of his forehead with joy and delight, _Having gained, by your favour, his cause._ [Rogers’ translation] But some of Aristophanes’ contemporaries stooped far lower than this. In the _Wasps_ he warns the audience not to expect “two slaves scattering nuts among the spectators out of a basket” (vss. 58 f.), animadverting upon a scene in a recent play by Eupolis. Again, in the _Plutus_ (vss. 789 ff.) one of the characters refuses an invitation to have titbits distributed and adds: “It is beneath the dignity of a poet to scatter figs and delicacies to the spectators, and on these terms to force their laughter.” In the _Peace_ (vss. 962 ff.) he ridiculed such practices by providing every spectator with at least one grain of barley! A more drastic parody was perpetrated by Hegemon, who brought a cloakful of stones into the orchestra to be thrown at the spectators! It is only fair to state that Aristophanes did not lower himself by using such unprofessional appeals, but the point which I am urging is confirmed by the practice of his rivals and by the fact that he sometimes explains his own defeats by his unwillingness to resort to their methods. From the nature of the case, tragedy could exhibit no appeals so undisguised as the above. To judge from Plato’s language, just cited, in some of the tragedies of his day we might have found closer parallels to these artifices of the comic playwrights. Nevertheless, fifth-century tragedy does reveal how the tragic poets tickled the palates of their auditors. They did this in two ways: first, they appealed to national pride by rewriting the mythology in such a way as to assign to Athenian worthies a part which non-Attic tradition did not recognize; and secondly, they aroused the chauvinistic spirit by the sentiments, whether eulogistic of Athens or derogatory to her enemies, which they placed in their characters’ mouths. These points might be illustrated at great length; it will suffice to mention a few examples.