the 'Peace' and, as might be expected from its theme, lending itself so
readily to suggestive allusions and situations, above all the
'Lysistrata.' The 'Thesmophoriazusae' and 'Ecclesiazusae' also take ample
toll in this sort of the 'risqué' situations incidental to their plots,
the dressing up of men as women in the former, and of women as men in the
latter. Needless to say, no faithful translator will emasculate his
author by expurgation, and the reader will here find Aristophanes'
Comedies as Aristophanes wrote them, not as Mrs. Grundy might wish him to
have written them.

These performances took place at the Festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus),
either the Great Dionysia or the minor celebration of the Lenaea, and
were in a sense religious ceremonials--at any rate under distinct
religious sanction. The representations were held in the Great Theatre of
Dionysus, under the slope of the Acropolis, extensive remains of which
still exist; several plays were brought out at each festival in
competition, and prizes, first and second, were awarded to the most
successful productions--rewards which were the object of the most intense
ambition.

Next to nothing is known of the private life of Aristophanes, and that
little, beyond the two or three main facts given below, is highly
dubious, not to say apocryphal. He was born about 444 B.C., probably at
Athens. His father held property in Aegina, and the family may very
likely have come originally from that island. At any rate, this much is
certain, that the author's arch-enemy Cleon made more than one judicial
attempt to prove him of alien birth and therefore not properly entitled
to the rights of Athenian citizenship; but in this he entirely failed.
The great Comedian had three sons, but of these and their career history
says nothing whatever. Such incidents and anecdotes of our author's