304 WARANDPEACL XI
soldiers, there was a definite name m use for the 'men who did
not serve*, reflecting actual facts and tendencies of the time,1
Eupohs, the most virile of the comedians, wrote a play,
Astrateutot, m which he described the shirkers as androgynous J
The so-called 'conscript knights" also very likely belonged to
this class, chiefly because they wanted to avoid the expenses
of joining up; others would take the money for their equip-
ment as horsemen without being capable of riding, others
regarded ceremonial actions such as to ride m the Panathenaic
procession as their first duty 3 In brief} there were many who
were 'excellent except m the field'.4
Even the State did not always pay regularly the money due
after the campaign 5 That is probably the reason why the
triremes which please Poseidon are called mistho-phorot^ that is
'carrying [men who have received] their pay'; the god would
not be pleased if as so often the payments were in arrear e At
a later period of the war mercenaries had to be dismissed be-
cause of lack of funds,7 certainly not all the available money
was spent on war purposes
Some of the passages mentioned are more or less common-
place, due to human and all-too-human nature Others are
undoubtedly flavoured by the poet's personal attitude In
spite of such utterances we must not forget that Athens in the
last ten years of the Peloponnesian War won some of her most
remarkable military successes. Many citizens were on active
service and did not see their homes for several months on end.8
There is, however, more behind that abundance of evidence.
The last scene of the Acharmans shows not only how unfairly
the professional soldier Lamachos could be ridiculed as a
militaristic type, but also how the whole military outlook,
everything virile and active, could be satirized in the same
way.9 Is this to be set down only to comic licence and the
pleading for peace and peaceful prosperity? At the end of the
1 darpccreuToi, W niyf, cf P 526f 2 Eupolis 3iff, 3 D
3 ocvocyxiTTrroi, Eupolis 394, 16 D —Eupolis 268 — Xen kipparck 2, i.
4 adesp 451 5K i$66f
6 K 555 The explanation given in the text is that of G Bjork, Eran&s
XXXVIII (1940), 3iff It seems better to agree with the real meaning of
IJLioBcxpopos than the explanation that the fleet was 'earning money' by getting
the tribute to Athens
* Thuc VII, 29, i * L io2ff, Th i i68f
8 A 10695, cf also