[350] The whole passage is full of obscene _double entendres_. Theoria throughout is spoken of in words applicable to either of her twofold character--as a sacred, religious feast, and as a lady of pleasure.
[351] Where the meats were cooked after sacrifice; Trygaeus points to Theoria's privates, marking the secondary obscene sense he means to convey.
[352] "Or otherwise"--that is, with the standing penis. The whole sentence contains a series of allusions to different 'modes of love.'
[353] One of the offices of the Prytanes was to introduce those who asked admission to the Senate, but it would seem that none could obtain this favour without payment. Without this, a thousand excuses would be made; for instance, it would be a public holiday, and consequently the Senate could receive no one. As there was some festival nearly every day, he whose purse would not open might have to wait a very long while.
[354] This was only offered to lesser deities.
[355] In the Greek we have a play upon the similarity of the words, [Greek: bous], a bull, and [Greek: boan], to shout the battle cry.
[356] Theagenes, of the Piraeus, a hideous, coarse, debauched and evil-living character of the day.
[357] That is the vocative of [Greek: oïs], [Greek: oïos], the Ionic form of the word; in Attic Greek it is contracted throughout--[Greek: ois], [Greek: oios], etc.
[358] An obscene jest. The Greek word, says the Scholiast, means both barley and the male organ.
[359] Before sacrificing, the officiating person asked, "_Who is here?_" and those present answered, "_Many good men._"
[360] The actors forming the chorus are meant here.
[361] Lysimacha is derived from [Greek: luein], to put an end to, and [Greek: mach_e], fight.
[362] A tragic poet, reputed a great gourmand.
[364] Eels were cooked with beet.--A parody on some verses in the 'Medea' of Melanthius.
[365] As a matter of fact, the Sicyonians, who celebrated the festival of Peace on the sixteenth day of the month of hecatombeon (July), spilled no blood upon her altar.
[366] A celebrated diviner, who had accompanied the Athenians on their expedition to Sicily. Thus the War was necessary to make his calling pay and the smoke of the sacrifice offered to Peace must therefore be unpleasant to him.