DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0227
WAR MONUMENTS IN DELPHI
211
straight way, and never have good and sound thoughts,
but always use crooked paths 1 A crime is your favourable
position in Hellas ! How do you abound in everything,
in murder which nowhere is so frequent, in selfishness and
avarice which is worst with you I Hypocrites are you,
who can say one thing, and think something quite different 1
Death to you ! ” Nevertheless Euripides is one of the few
who kept their heads, and calls it crazy to want to win fame
or stop human suffering by the spear,1 and in the following
words he proclaims the truth to his age2: “ Oh, you
unblest mortals! why do you seize the spear and murder
one another s' Have done with it I Cast your cares aside,
and live peaceably in your towns among peaceable folk!
Life is too short for this 1 We must strive to live it
through as easily as possible, and not ourselves fill it
with troubles I ” A very lively and full picture of the
feeling of those times is given us by the comedian Aris-
tophanes in the Peace, which was produced at Athens in
the spring of 421 B.C., a few months before the so-called
Peace of Nicias was concluded with Sparta, and throughout
was a plea from the peace party in the city. The war had
lasted ten years, and most people, both in Sparta and Athens,
were longing for its conclusion.3 But peace negotiations
always came to grief in the following way : “ When the
Spartans have won a small advantage they say at once,
* By Zeus, now shall the Athenians get a lesson !' But
if the dear Athenians got a little luck, and the Spartans
came and begged for peace, you said : ‘ By Zeus, now we
will not submit 1 Let them come again, when we have
taken the town (Amphipolis)/ ”
The war contractors were another obstacle, makers of
plumes and spear-shafts, smiths who made helmets and
coats of mail, trumpet-makers and sword cutlers. To them
Aristophanes wishes all that is evil; that they may be
captured by pirates, and forced only to eat barley bread.
In a comic scene, too indecent to be reproduced, it is de-
scribed how plumes, corslets, and helmets can be used
when peace comes and makes them useless. Such indeco-
1 Helena, 1151. 2 Supplices, 949.
3 Cp. for what follows Peace, 447, 1210, 695, 703, 571, 596, 991 and 439.
211
straight way, and never have good and sound thoughts,
but always use crooked paths 1 A crime is your favourable
position in Hellas ! How do you abound in everything,
in murder which nowhere is so frequent, in selfishness and
avarice which is worst with you I Hypocrites are you,
who can say one thing, and think something quite different 1
Death to you ! ” Nevertheless Euripides is one of the few
who kept their heads, and calls it crazy to want to win fame
or stop human suffering by the spear,1 and in the following
words he proclaims the truth to his age2: “ Oh, you
unblest mortals! why do you seize the spear and murder
one another s' Have done with it I Cast your cares aside,
and live peaceably in your towns among peaceable folk!
Life is too short for this 1 We must strive to live it
through as easily as possible, and not ourselves fill it
with troubles I ” A very lively and full picture of the
feeling of those times is given us by the comedian Aris-
tophanes in the Peace, which was produced at Athens in
the spring of 421 B.C., a few months before the so-called
Peace of Nicias was concluded with Sparta, and throughout
was a plea from the peace party in the city. The war had
lasted ten years, and most people, both in Sparta and Athens,
were longing for its conclusion.3 But peace negotiations
always came to grief in the following way : “ When the
Spartans have won a small advantage they say at once,
* By Zeus, now shall the Athenians get a lesson !' But
if the dear Athenians got a little luck, and the Spartans
came and begged for peace, you said : ‘ By Zeus, now we
will not submit 1 Let them come again, when we have
taken the town (Amphipolis)/ ”
The war contractors were another obstacle, makers of
plumes and spear-shafts, smiths who made helmets and
coats of mail, trumpet-makers and sword cutlers. To them
Aristophanes wishes all that is evil; that they may be
captured by pirates, and forced only to eat barley bread.
In a comic scene, too indecent to be reproduced, it is de-
scribed how plumes, corslets, and helmets can be used
when peace comes and makes them useless. Such indeco-
1 Helena, 1151. 2 Supplices, 949.
3 Cp. for what follows Peace, 447, 1210, 695, 703, 571, 596, 991 and 439.