It is the second year of the ninety-third Olympiad and the Theatre at Athens is full, for the great dramatic season is at its height, and to-day there is to be performed a new play by Aristophanes, the special favorite of the Athenian public. It is a brilliant scene, but a keen observer, who happened to see the same gathering some five and twenty years ago, must now notice a certain falling off in its splendor. For these five and twenty years have been years of war, and latterly, years of disaster.