X	RELIGION     AND     EDUCATION	2 8 I
doctors in general did not speak 'doctors'-Latin*, and ordinary
people were able to pick up something of their language and its
technical terms. It was only natural that everybody took an
interest in what the doctor said.
Popular knowledge of tragedy and literature in general was
based on deeper foundations According to Greek belief, the
poets were originally the true sophists, the 'wise men'.1 'To
be in the company of wise men7 like Euripides is a favourite
aspiration of the ordinary citizen.2 Both tragedy and comedy
in themselves prove the high level of understanding and judg-
ment which the poets might expect from their audience,
though there was always a grateful public for obscene and
crude jokes as well.
The comic poets had their share in sharpening the mind of
the people for the subtleties of literary criticism Wherever
one turns in comedy, literary quotations, allusions and parodies
abound, some of them unlikely to be intelligible to the average
listener, though by far the greater number must have been.
It is quite impossible to mention all of them. The number of
references to the works of Euripides alone affords a strong
proof of his immense popularity. Some of the quotations
from him — Alkestis3 famous words, for instance — were com-
monly known even many years after the performance of that
play.3 There are other poets besides Euripides who are
frequently quoted or mentioned, censured or praised: Sopho-
kles, Aisopos, who was very popular and whose fables were
learned by heart in the schools, but who later almost ceased
to be read, and many others, famous or little known.4 It
seems that the model for the sycophant's song in the Birds
1 P 700, 798, F 883, Krateos 2, Eupoiis 447, Plat 140.
2Th2I
3	A 8 9 3 f = Eor Alk 3 67 f; cf also K. 16 = Eur Htpp.345   On other occasions
Aristophanes refers to last year's playsy e g., in the Tkesmophoriaxmtsat of 411 to
Andromeda and Helena? performed in 412 (the chorus Th 1015? — Th-9ii =
£fe/ 365   Seeschol Th 1012,1060)
4	Sophokles, eg    €257, Eupoiis 36, Phryn   31 —Aisopos W 566, 1259,
i4oiff,i446ff,P 129,6 471, 651$ Pkt 68 — Others-A 120, C 534$? 803^
835, ioi2f, B 807, 926f, Th 159$; i68ff, F 661, frg 151, 32 D, Kratinos 6,
324a, Pherekr   153, Eupoiis 139, 361, Plat. 128 —Gilbert Murray, Greek
Studies, 24, regards C 5 34$", the reference to Elektra's recognition of her brother's
hair, as a reference not to Aischylos' Ckoephorai but to the logos, the old and
famous story. But Aristophanes is expressly looking for 'equally clever spectators7;
thns it seems that the allusion is to a pky.