IX.

PLUTUS.

There seem to have been two editions of the play entitled 7ze Plutus
(God of Riches). One was produced in 408 8.c.; the other in 388 B.c.
According to the Argument or Introduction commonly prefixed, we
have the second of these two editions. It is said to have been the last
play which the poet exhibited in his own name. His career as a dram-
atist had then lasted thirty-nine years; his first comedy, The Ban-
queters, had been produced, though not in his own name, in 427 B.C.
The character of 7%e Plutus suits this position in the catalogue of the
poet’s works. It is mainly a comedy of morals, and in spirit resembles
the dramas which are classed as the New Comedy, though the form is
the same as that to which we are accustomed in the earlier plays; and
there is something of the same savage satire on individuals.

ONcE upon a time two travellers, a master, Chre-
mylus by name, and his slave Cario, might have been
seen painfully making their way from Delphi to
Athens. The strange thing about them was that
they were following the guidance of a blind man, a
proceeding on which the master insisted, much to
the annoyance of his slave. The latter bewailed the
hard fate which compelled a sensible man to follow
the caprices of a foolish one, blamed the god of the
oracle, who, though he had the reputation of being
both a physician and a prophet, had sent an inquirer
away in a condition of madness. “For what,” said
the slave to himself, “could be a greater proof of

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