IV THE UPPER CLASSES III

assembly, was one of the reasons why the nobles, and especially
the noble youth, were no longer what they had been*

The nobles had either given war to the commons or had
become degenerate. The picture thus drawn is no doubt in-
consistent That may, to some extent, be explained by the
peculiar attitude of comedy. Aristophanes had no definite
political bias * To the conservatism of most of the comic poets
the miseducated or the dissolute aristocrats of their day were
just as intolerable as the democratic demagogues. The same
kind of view prevailed in religious matters. The pious Nikias
who worshipped the old images of gods caused the poet *s mockery
no less than his colleague who denied all gods - The wise
Aischylos knew — and this was? as may be supposed, Aristo-
phanes' own point of view — that 'neither frieze nor woollen
tunics', neither commons nor nobles, would save the State.3
Party spirit grew sometimes stronger than the attachment of
either side to their Pohs, but the lack of loyalty was much more
manifest among oligarchs than among democrats.4

In general, a certain tendency on the part of the comedians
to hark back to the good old times can easily be recognized.
If we try to grasp the truth which underlies idealization and
caricature, we find as the essential, both in its good and bad
aspects, the aristocratic mode of life, which in the last decades
of the fifth century underwent a critical change This was
caused partly by the new education with which we shall deal
in a later chapter, and partly by the social change in politics.
It was a crisis from which there was no return. For a long time
the Athenian aristocracy had been, politically, socially and
intellectually, the ruling class, also in the democratic State.
Gradually they lost their position and the upper classes changed
in character Much more fatal than the partial intrusion by the
more wealthy among the middle classes was the change the
nobility underwent in itself This was even more devastating
in its effect than the war casualties which had fallen most
heavily on the upper classes. The nobles were rapidly moving
towards self-destruction

1 Cf Gomme, Cl Rev LII (1938), 97$ and above, p 8f

4 These facts are at the bottom of a denunciation of Greek lack of 'patriotism'
in general — rather overdone, I feel — by N M Pusey, Akfbiades and tfo
9iAoTroAu Harvard Studies in C! Phil LI (194.0), 2i$fF