endeavoured to ruin the author, who in 'The Knights' retorted by a direct
and savage personal attack on the leader of the democracy.

The plot is of the simplest. Dicaeopolis, an Athenian citizen, but a native of
Acharnae, one of the agricultural demes and one which had especially
suffered in the Lacedaemonian invasions, sick and tired of the ill-success
and miseries of the War, makes up his mind, if he fails to induce the
people to adopt his policy of "peace at any price," to conclude a private and
particular peace of his own to cover himself, his family, and his estate. The
Athenians, momentarily elated by victory and over-persuaded by the
demagogues of the day--Cleon and his henchmen, refuse to hear of such a
thing as coming to terms. Accordingly Dicaeopolis dispatches an envoy to
Sparta on his own account, who comes back presently with a selection of
specimen treaties in his pocket. The old man tastes and tries, special terms
are arranged, and the play concludes with a riotous and uproarious rustic
feast in honour of the blessings of Peace and Plenty.

Incidentally excellent fun is poked at Euripides and his dramatic methods,
which supply matter for so much witty badinage in several others of our
author's pieces.

Other specially comic incidents are: the scene where the two young
daughters of the famished Megarian are sold in the market at Athens as
suck[l]ing-pigs--a scene in which the convenient similarity of the Greek
words signifying a pig and the 'pudendum muliebre' respectively is
utilized in a whole string of ingenious and suggestive 'double entendres'
and ludicrous jokes; another where the Informer, or Market-Spy, is packed
up in a crate as crockery and carried off home by the Boeotian buyer.

The drama takes its title from the Chorus, composed of old