The law also produced distinctions in the male population. They were divided into two classes--citizens to whom many privileges were assigned--and outcasts who had no rights nor privileges. This was a great change from the Homeric times. The subsequent history of the two classes of men is curious and suggestive, but this is not the place to deal with it. Morillot in his treatise on the subject exclaims, “Strange circumstance! It is nearly always on the person of the infants that the law strikes those who transgress its ordinances.” This is true of the Christian era; but at first the law looked solely to the interests of the citizens who made it, and did not suggest culpability on the part of those who were not citizens. (6) DATE OF ‘ECCLESIAZUSÆ.’ The date of the comedy is clearly ascertained within two years. The date of the ‘Republic’ cannot be so definitely ascertained. Accordingly there have always been writers who have maintained that Aristophanes held up to ridicule the communistic ideas of Plato expressed in the ‘Republic.’ In recent times Chiappelli[234] has advocated this opinion, and Rogers, in his edition of the ‘Ecclesiazusæ,’[235] supports it by appealing to the exact resemblances in the words used by both. But Platonic scholars have generally held strongly that the ‘Republic’ is considerably later than the play. The date of the play must be somewhere between 390 and 393. But Stallbaum, in his ‘Prolegomena to the Republic,’[236] adduces what seem to me convincing arguments that that work could not have been published before 385 B.C. Lutoslawski, in his ‘Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic,’[237] maintains that all the parts of the ‘Republic’ except the first book were written after the ‘Phædo,’ which he places between 384 and 383 B.C., and that they occupied Plato for about six years up to nearly his fiftieth year. He and others have remarked that the coincidences between Aristophanes and Plato are slight and that the comedy does not really deal with the special proposals of the philosopher. The ideas in the comedy are too general. The date of the comedy is discussed fully in Kaehler’s ‘De Aristophanis Ecclesiazuson tempore et choro Quæstiones Epicriticæ.’ Jenæ, 1889, which gives the literature and history of the discussion. He holds that there is no connexion between the play and the ‘Republic.’ Prof. Ritchie[238] says of the ‘Republic,’ “Probably written at various times between 387 and 368 B.C.”[239] (7) THE WOMEN OF PLAUTUS.