94-479: Lysistrata ( / l aɪ ˈ s ɪ s t r ə t ə / or / ˌ l ɪ s ə ˈ s t r ɑː t ə / ; Attic Greek : Λυσιστράτη , Lysistrátē , lit. ' army disbander ' ) is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes , originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all
188-712: A Chorus of Old Women arrives, bearing pitchers of water. The Old Women complain about the difficulty they had getting the water, but they are ready for a fight in defence of their younger comrades. Threats are exchanged, and the Old Men are defeated with the water. The magistrate then arrives with some Scythian Archers (the Athenian version of police constables). He reflects on the nature of women, their devotion to wine, promiscuous sex , and exotic cults (such as to Sabazius and Adonis ), but above all he blames men for poor supervision of their womenfolk. He has come for silver from
282-408: A basket of wool and tells him that war will be a woman's business from now on. She then explains the pity she feels for young, childless women, aging at home while the men are away on endless campaigns. When the magistrate points out that men also age, she reminds him that men can marry at any age whereas a woman has only a short time before she is considered too old. She then dresses the magistrate like
376-474: A boy when the events in The Symposium are supposed to have occurred and it is possible that his Aristophanes is in fact based on a reading of the plays. For example, conversation among the guests turns to the subject of Love and Aristophanes explains his notion of it in terms of an amusing allegory, a device he often uses in his plays. He is represented as suffering an attack of hiccups and this might be
470-453: A clever and discerning audience, yet he also declared that "other times" would judge the audience according to its reception of his plays. He sometimes boasts of his originality as a dramatist yet his plays consistently espouse opposition to radical new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts (notably Euripides , whose influence on his own work however he once grudgingly acknowledged), in politics (especially
564-517: A corpse for laying out, with a wreath and a fillet, and advises him that he's dead. The magistrate storms off to report the incident to his colleagues, while Lysistrata returns to the Acropolis. The debate is continued between the Chorus of Old Men and the Chorus of Old Women until Lysistrata returns to the stage with the news that her comrades are desperate for sex and they are beginning to desert on
658-442: A dramatist and the plays contain few clear and unambiguous clues about his personal beliefs or his private life. He was a comic poet in an age when it was conventional for a poet to assume the role of teacher ( didaskalos ), and though this specifically referred to his training of the chorus in rehearsal, it also covered his relationship with the audience as a commentator on significant issues. Aristophanes claimed to be writing for
752-615: A humorous reference to the crude physical jokes in his plays. He tells the other guests that he is quite happy to be thought amusing but he is wary of appearing ridiculous. This fear of being ridiculed is consistent with his declaration in The Knights that he embarked on the career of comic playwright warily after witnessing the public contempt and ridicule that other dramatists had incurred. Aristophanes survived The Peloponnesian War , two oligarchic revolutions and two democratic restorations; this has been interpreted as evidence that he
846-429: A means of forcing them to conclude the Peloponnesian War . The women are reluctant, but the deal is sealed with a solemn oath around a wine bowl in which the women abjure all their sexual pleasures, including the "lioness on the cheese-grater". Soon after the oath is finished, a cry of triumph is heard from the nearby Acropolis —the old women of Athens have seized control of it at Lysistrata's instigation, since it holds
940-719: A member or sister dialect of the Ionic branch. Greek is the primary member of the Hellenic branch of the Indo-European language family. In ancient times, Greek had already come to exist in several dialects, one of which was Attic. The earliest attestations of Greek, dating from the 16th to 11th centuries BC, are written in Linear B , an archaic writing system used by the Mycenaean Greeks in writing their language;
1034-431: A parabasis have been defined and named by scholars but it is probable that Aristophanes' own understanding was less formal. The selection of elements can vary from play to play and it varies considerably within plays between first and second parabasis. The early plays ( The Acharnians to The Birds ) are fairly uniform in their approach however and the following elements of a parabasis can be found within them. The Wasps
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#17328015939011128-475: A permanent place in proletarian theatre and yet conservative, Prussian intellectuals interpreted Aristophanes as a satirical opponent of social reform. The avant-gardist stage-director Karolos Koun directed a version of The Birds under the Acropolis in 1959 that established a trend in modern Greek history of breaking taboos through the voice of Aristophanes. The plays have a significance that goes beyond their artistic function, as historical documents that open
1222-595: A row). The movable nu can also be used to turn what would be a short syllable into a long syllable for use in meter . Attic and Euboean Ionic use rr in words, when Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use rs: Attic and Euboean Ionic use tt, while Cycladean and Anatolian Ionic use ss: Attic Greek grammar follows Ancient Greek grammar to a large extent. References to Attic Grammar are usually in reference to peculiarities and exceptions from Ancient Greek Grammar. This section mentions only some of these Attic peculiarities. In addition to singular and plural numbers, Attic Greek had
1316-683: A shift from the conventions of Old Comedy , a trend typical of the author's career. It was produced in the same year as the Thesmophoriazusae , another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens' defeat in the Sicilian Expedition . The play begins with these lines spoken by the Athenian Lysistrata and her friend Calonice. Women, as represented by Calonice, are sly hedonists in need of firm guidance and direction. In contrast, Lysistrata
1410-455: A typical anapestic gallop, slows down to consider the revered poets Hesiod and Homer, then gallops off again to its comic conclusion at the expense of the unfortunate Pantocles. Such subtle variations in rhythm are common in the plays, allowing for serious points to be made while still whetting the audience's appetite for the next joke. Though to myself I often seem A bright chap and not awkward, None comes close to Amynias, Son of Sellos of
1504-445: A useful source of biographical information about Aristophanes, but its reliability is open to doubt. It purports to be a record of conversations at a dinner party at which both Aristophanes and Socrates are guests, held some seven years after the performance of The Clouds , the play in which Socrates was cruelly caricatured. One of the guests, Alcibiades , even quotes from the play when teasing Socrates over his appearance and yet there
1598-506: A warmer and more vivid form of comedy than he could derive from readings of Terence and Plautus) adapted a short play Die Vögel from The Birds for performance in Weimar. Aristophanes has appealed to both conservatives and radicals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries— Anatoly Lunacharsky , first Commissar of Enlightenment for the USSR in 1917, declared that the ancient dramatist would have
1692-412: Is an address to the audience by the chorus or chorus leader while the actors leave or have left the stage. In this role, the chorus is sometimes out of character, as the author's voice, and sometimes in character, although these capacities are often difficult to distinguish. Generally the parabasis occurs somewhere in the middle of a play and often there is a second parabasis towards the end. The elements of
1786-526: Is composed in eupolidean meter rather than in anapests and the second parabasis includes a kommation but it lacks strophe, antistrophe and antepirrhema ( The Clouds lines 1113–1130). The second parabasis in The Acharnians lines 971–999 can be considered a hybrid parabasis/song (i.e. the declaimed sections are merely continuations of the strophe and antistrophe) and, unlike the typical parabasis, it seems to comment on actions that occur on stage during
1880-457: Is no indication of any ill-feeling between Socrates and Aristophanes. Plato's Aristophanes is in fact a genial character and this has been interpreted as evidence of Plato's own friendship with him (their friendship appears to be corroborated by an epitaph for Aristophanes, reputedly written by Plato, in which the playwright's soul is compared to an eternal shrine for the Graces ). Plato was only
1974-496: Is portrayed to be an extraordinary woman with a large sense of individual and social responsibility. She has convened a meeting of women from various Greek city-states that are at war with each other. Soon after she confides in her friend her concerns for the female sex, the women begin arriving. With support from the Spartan Lampito, Lysistrata persuades the other women to withhold sexual privileges from their menfolk as
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#17328015939012068-410: Is speaking to the "art" of flattery, and evidence points towards the fact that many of Aristophanes' plays were actually created with the intent to attack the view of rhetoric. The most noticeable attack can be seen in his play Banqueters, in which two brothers from different educational backgrounds argue over which education is better. One brother comes from a background of "old-fashioned" education while
2162-546: Is the Greek dialect of the ancient region of Attica , including the polis of Athens . Often called classical Greek , it was the prestige dialect of the Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that is taught to students of ancient Greek. As the basis of the Hellenistic Koine , it is the most similar of the ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic is traditionally classified as
2256-483: Is the original." Nevertheless, there are competent, respectable translations in many languages. Despite the fact that translations of Aristophanes may not be perfect, "the reception of Aristophanes has gained extraordinary momentum as a topic of academic interest in the last few years." Most of these are traditionally referred to by abbreviations of their Latin titles; Latin remains a customary language of scholarship in classical studies. The standard modern edition of
2350-454: Is the same in both cases, gnomai and theai , but other sound changes were more important in its formation. For example, original -as in the nominative plural was replaced by the diphthong -ai , which did not change from a to e . In the few a -stem masculines, the genitive singular follows the second declension: stratiotēs , stratiotou , stratiotēi , etc. In the omicron or second declension, mainly masculines (but with some feminines),
2444-462: Is thought to offer the best example of a conventional approach and the elements of a parabasis can be identified and located in that play as follows. Textual corruption is probably the reason for the absence of the antistrophe in the second parabasis. However, there are several variations from the ideal even within the early plays. For example, the parabasis proper in The Clouds (lines 518–562)
2538-455: Is useful to comprehend his plays in their historical and cultural context. The themes of Old Comedy included: The structural elements of a typical Aristophanic plot can be summarized as follows: The rules of competition did not prevent a playwright arranging and adjusting these elements to suit his particular needs. In The Acharnians and Peace , for example, there is no formal agon whereas in The Clouds there are two agons. The parabasis
2632-590: The Lenaia and City Dionysia , where they were judged and awarded prizes in competition with the works of other comic dramatists. An elaborate series of lotteries, designed to prevent prejudice and corruption, reduced the voting judges at the City Dionysia to just five. These judges probably reflected the mood of the audiences yet there is much uncertainty about the composition of those audiences. The theatres were certainly huge, with seating for at least 10,000 at
2726-837: The diphthongs eu and au , upsilon continued to be pronounced / u / . Attic contracts more than Ionic does. a + e → long ā . e + e → ē (written ει : spurious diphthong ) e + o → ō (written ου: spurious diphthong) Attic ē (from ē -grade of ablaut or Proto-Greek ā ) is sometimes shortened to e : Attic deletes one of two vowels in a row, called hyphaeresis ( ὑφαίρεσις ). PIE *ky or *chy → Proto-Greek ts ( palatalization ) → Attic and Euboean Ionic tt — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ss . Sometimes, Proto-Greek *ty and *tw → Attic and Euboean Ionic tt — Cycladean/Anatolian Ionic and Koine ss . Proto-Greek and Doric t before i or y → Attic-Ionic s (palatalization). Doric, Aeolian, early Attic-Ionic ss → Classical Attic s . Proto-Greek w ( digamma )
2820-517: The dual number . This was used to refer to two of something and was present as an inflection in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs (any categories inflected for number). Attic Greek was the last dialect to retain it from older forms of Greek, and the dual number had died out by the end of the 5th century BC. In addition to this, in Attic Greek, any plural neuter subjects will only ever take singular conjugation verbs. With regard to declension ,
2914-488: The s (like in the other dialects) lengthens the stem o to the spurious diphthong -ou (see above under Phonology, Vowels): logos "the word" logou from * logosyo "of the word". The dative plural of Attic-Ionic had -oisi , which appears in early Attic but later simplifies to -ois : anthropois "to or for the men". Classical Attic may refer either to the varieties of Attic Greek spoken and written in Greek majuscule in
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3008-696: The "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the archon Eucleides , who oversaw the decision, was to become the Classical Greek alphabet throughout the Greek-speaking world. The classical works of Attic literature were subsequently handed down to posterity in the new Ionic spelling, and it is the classical orthography in which they are read today. Proto-Greek long ā → Attic long ē , but ā after e, i, r . ⁓ Ionic ē in all positions. ⁓ Doric and Aeolic ā in all positions. However, Proto-Greek ā → Attic ē after w ( digamma ), deleted by
3102-670: The 5th and 4th centuries BC ( Classical-era Attic) or to the Hellenistic and Roman era standardized Attic Greek, mainly on the language of Attic orators and written in Greek uncial . Attic replaces the Ionic -σσ with -ττ : Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Aristophanes#Aristophanes and Old Comedy Aristophanes ( / ˌ ær ɪ ˈ s t ɒ f ə n iː z / ; Ancient Greek : Ἀριστοφάνης , pronounced [aristopʰánɛːs] ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC )
3196-550: The Athenians led to some universally read and admired history, as found in the works of Thucydides and Xenophon . Slightly less known because they are more technical and legal are the orations by Antiphon , Demosthenes , Lysias , Isocrates , and many others. The Attic Greek of philosophers Plato (427–347 BC) and his student Aristotle (384–322 BC) dates to the period of transition between Classical Attic and Koine. Students who learn Ancient Greek usually begin with
3290-554: The Attic dialect and continue, depending upon their interests, to the later Koine of the New Testament and other early Christian writings, to the earlier Homeric Greek of Homer and Hesiod , or to the contemporaneous Ionic Greek of Herodotus and Hippocrates . Attic Greek, like other dialects, was originally written in a local variant of the Greek alphabet. According to the classification of archaic Greek alphabets , which
3384-623: The Attic dialect in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD. It is possible that Plato sent copies of the plays to Dionysius of Syracuse so that he might learn about Athenian life and government. Latin translations of the plays by Andreas Divus (Venice 1528) were circulated widely throughout Europe in the Renaissance and these were soon followed by translations and adaptations in modern languages. Racine , for example, drew Les Plaideurs (1668) from The Wasps . Goethe (who turned to Aristophanes for
3478-728: The Attic dialect is couched in verse and his plays can be appreciated for their poetic qualities. For Aristophanes' contemporaries the works of Homer and Hesiod formed the cornerstones of Hellenic history and culture. Thus poetry had a moral and social significance that made it an inevitable topic of comic satire. Aristophanes was very conscious of literary fashions and traditions and his plays feature numerous references to other poets. These include not only rival comic dramatists such as Eupolis and Hermippus and predecessors such as Magnes , Crates and Cratinus , but also tragedians, notably Aeschylus , Sophocles and Euripides , all three of whom are mentioned in e.g. The Frogs . Aristophanes
3572-530: The Bigwig Clan, a man I once saw Dine with rich Leogorus. Now as poor as Antiphon, He lives on apples and pomegranates Yet he got himself appointed Ambassador to Pharsalus , Way up there in Thessaly , Home of the poor Penestes: Happy to be where everyone Is as penniless as he is! It can be argued that the most important feature of the language of the plays is imagery, particularly
3666-576: The Classical Period. Proto-Greek ă → Attic ě . ⁓ Doric: ă remains. Compensatory lengthening of vowel before cluster of sonorant ( r , l , n , m , w , sometimes y ) and s , after deletion of s . ⁓ some Aeolic: compensatory lengthening of sonorant. Proto-Greek and other dialects' / u / (English f oo d ) became Attic / y / (pronounced as German ü , French u ) and represented by y in Latin transliteration of Greek names. In
3760-579: The Mediterranean, including in Ancient Rome and the larger Hellenistic world , and later in the Muslim world , Europe, and other parts of the world touched by those civilizations. The earliest Greek literature , which is attributed to Homer and is dated to the eighth or seventh centuries BC, is written in "Old Ionic" rather than Attic. Athens and its dialect remained relatively obscure until
3854-555: The Theatre of Dionysus. The day's program at the City Dionysia for example was crowded, with three tragedies and a satyr play ahead of a comedy, but it is possible that many of the poorer citizens (typically the main supporters of demagogues like Cleon) occupied the festival holiday with other pursuits. The conservative views expressed in the plays might therefore reflect the attitudes of the dominant group in an unrepresentative audience. The production process might also have influenced
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3948-512: The address. An understanding of Old Comedy conventions such as the parabasis is necessary for a proper understanding of Aristophanes' plays; on the other hand, a sensitive appreciation of the plays is necessary for a proper understanding of the conventions. The tragic dramatists Sophocles and Euripides died near the end of the Peloponnesian War, and the art of tragedy thereafter ceased to develop, yet comedy continued to evolve after
4042-748: The caricatures of him continued up to and even beyond his death. In the absence of clear biographical facts about Aristophanes, scholars make educated guesses based on interpretation of the language in the plays. Inscriptions and summaries or comments by Hellenistic and Byzantine scholars can also provide useful clues. We know from a combination of these sources, and especially from comments in The Knights and The Clouds , that Aristophanes' first three plays were not directed by him; they were instead directed by Callistratus and Philoneides, an arrangement that seemed to suit Aristophanes since he appears to have used these same directors in many later plays as well (Philoneides for example later directed The Frogs and he
4136-408: The charm and grandeur of the Attic dialect made Old Comedy an example for orators to study and follow, and he considered it inferior in these respects only to the works of Homer. A revival of interest in the Attic dialect may have been responsible for the recovery and circulation of Aristophanes' plays during the fourth and fifth centuries AD, resulting in their survival today. In Aristophanes' plays,
4230-480: The controversy over The Babylonians or a subsequent controversy over The Knights . It has been inferred from statements in The Clouds and Peace that Aristophanes was prematurely bald. Aristophanes was probably victorious at least once at the City Dionysia, with Babylonians in 427, and at least three times at the Lenaia, with The Acharnians in 425, Knights in 424, and Frogs in 405. Frogs in fact won
4324-462: The defeat of Athens, and it is possible that it did so because, in Aristophanes, it had a master craftsman who lived long enough to help usher it into a new age. Indeed, according to one ancient source (Platonius, c. 9th century AD), one of Aristophanes's last plays, Aioliskon , had neither a parabasis nor any choral lyrics (making it a type of Middle Comedy), while Kolakos anticipated all
4418-560: The difficulty faced by any producer trying to stage Lysistrata for modern audiences: Pellene was also the name of a Peloponnesian town resisting Spartan pressure to contribute to naval operations against Athens at this time. It was mentioned earlier in the Birds . Lysistrata belongs to the middle period of Aristophanes' career when he was beginning to diverge significantly from the conventions of Old Comedy . Such variations from convention include: Attic Greek Attic Greek
4512-429: The distinction between Eastern and Western Greek is believed to have arisen by Mycenaean times or before. Mycenaean Greek represents an early form of Eastern Greek, the group to which Attic also belongs. Later Greek literature wrote about three main dialects: Aeolic , Doric , and Ionic ; Attic was part of the Ionic dialect group. " Old Attic " is used in reference to the dialect of Thucydides (460–400 BC) and
4606-523: The dramatists of 5th-century Athens whereas " New Attic " is used for the language of later writers following conventionally the accession in 285 BC of Greek-speaking Ptolemy II to the throne of the Kingdom of Egypt . Ruling from Alexandria , Ptolemy launched the Alexandrian period, during which the city of Alexandria and its expatriate Greek-medium scholars flourished. The original range of
4700-465: The elements of New Comedy, including a rape and a recognition scene. Aristophanes seems to have had some appreciation of his formative role in the development of comedy, as indicated by his comment in Clouds that his audience would be judged by other times according to its reception of his plays. Clouds was awarded third (i.e. last) place after its original performance and the text that has come down to
4794-457: The establishment of its democracy following the reforms of Solon in the sixth century BC; so began the classical period , one of great Athenian influence both in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean. The first extensive works of literature in Attic are the plays of dramatists Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes dating from the fifth century BC. The military exploits of
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#17328015939014888-572: The hardest job of all." The English name Aristophanes comes from the Ancient Greek : Ἀριστοφάνης meaning ' one who appears best ' , from ἄριστος ( áristos , lit. ' best ' ) and φανής ( phanḗs ) from the verb φαίνω , lit. ' to appear ' . An Athenian citizen, Aristophanes came from the deme of Kydathenaion . His father was Philippus from the Attic clan ( phyle ) of Pandionis and his mother
4982-609: The herald's situation, but agrees that peace talks should begin. They go off to fetch the delegates. While they are gone, the Old Women make overtures to the Old Men. The two Choruses merge, singing and dancing in unison. Peace talks commence and Lysistrata introduces the Spartan and Athenian delegates to a woman called Reconciliation. The delegates cannot take their eyes off the woman; meanwhile, Lysistrata scolds both sides for past errors of judgment. The delegates briefly squabble over
5076-427: The hero of his third play The Acharnians (staged at the Lenaia , where there were few or no foreign dignitaries), the poet carefully distinguishes between the polis and the real targets of his acerbic wit: ἡμῶν γὰρ ἄνδρες, κοὐχὶ τὴν πόλιν λέγω, μέμνησθε τοῦθ᾽ ὅτι οὐχὶ τὴν πόλιν λέγω, ἀλλ᾽ ἀνδράρια μοχθηρά, παρακεκομμένα... People among us, and I don't mean the polis, Remember this – I don't mean
5170-536: The intellectual fashions of the period—the structure of his plays evolves from Old Comedy until, in his last surviving play, Wealth II , it more closely resembles New Comedy . However it is uncertain whether he led or merely responded to changes in audience expectations. Aristophanes won second prize at the City Dionysia in 427 BC with his first play The Banqueters (now lost). He won first prize there with his next play, The Babylonians (also now lost). It
5264-591: The island of Aegina . Similarly, the hero in The Acharnians complains about Cleon "dragging me into court" over "last year's play." Comments made by the Chorus referring to Aristophanes in The Clouds have been interpreted as evidence that he can hardly have been more than 18 years old when his first play The Banqueters was produced. The second parabasis in Wasps appears to indicate that he reached some kind of temporary accommodation with Cleon following either
5358-447: The latter, it used an L-shaped variant of lambda ( [REDACTED] ) and an S-shaped variant of sigma ( [REDACTED] ). It lacked the consonant symbols xi ( Ξ ) for /ks/ and psi ( Ψ ) for /ps/ , expressing these sound combinations with ΧΣ and ΦΣ , respectively. Moreover, like most other mainland Greek dialects, Attic did not yet use omega ( Ω ) and eta ( Η ) for the long vowels /ɔː/ and /ɛː/ . Instead, it expressed
5452-436: The life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates , although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher. Aristophanes' second play, The Babylonians (now lost),
5546-425: The main reasons why Aristophanes was so against the sophists came into existence from the requirements listed by the leaders of the organization. Money was essential, which meant that roughly all of the pupils studying with the sophists came from upper-class backgrounds and excluded the rest of the polis. Aristophanes believed that education and knowledge was a public service and that anything that excluded willing minds
5640-495: The marriage of the hero Pisthetairos to Zeus 's paramour in The Birds and the "recreation" of old Athens, crowned with roses, at the end of The Knights . It is widely believed that Aristophanes condemned rhetoric on both moral and political grounds. He states, "a speaker trained in the new rhetoric may use his talents to deceive the jury and bewilder his opponents so thoroughly that the trial loses all semblance of fairness" He
5734-443: The men of the land any sex, which was said to be the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace - a strategy that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society . Its structure represents
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#17328015939015828-441: The modern age was a subsequent draft that Aristophanes intended to be read rather than acted. The circulation of his plays in manuscript extended their influence beyond the original audience, over whom in fact they seem to have had little or no practical influence: they did not affect the career of Cleon , they failed to persuade the Athenians to pursue an honourable peace with Sparta and it is not clear that they were instrumental in
5922-489: The more widely used Ionic alphabet, native to the eastern Aegean Islands and Asia Minor. By the late fifth century, the concurrent use of elements of the Ionic system with the traditional local alphabet had become common in private writing, and in 403 BC, it was decreed that public writing would switch to the new Ionic orthography, as part of the reform following the Thirty Tyrants . This new system, also called
6016-441: The other brother appears to be a product of the sophistic education The chorus was mainly used by Aristophanes as a defense against rhetoric and would often talk about topics such as the civic duty of those who were educated in classical teachings. In Aristophanes' opinion it was the job of those educated adults to protect the public from deception and to stand as a beacon of light for those who were more gullible than others. One of
6110-415: The peace terms, but with Reconciliation before them, they overcome their differences and retire to the Acropolis for celebrations. The war is ended. Some events that are significant for understanding the play: Old Comedy was a topical genre and the playwright expected his audience to be familiar with local identities and issues. The following list of identities mentioned in the play gives some indication of
6204-423: The plays can give us insights into the operettas. The plays are a source of famous sayings, such as "By words the mind is winged." Listed below are some of the many works influenced (more or less) by Aristophanes. Alan H. Sommerstein believes that although there are good translations of Aristophanes' comedies, none could be flawless, "for there is much truth in the paradox that the only really perfect translation
6298-429: The polis – But wicked little men of a counterfeit kind.... Aristophanes repeatedly savages Cleon in his later plays. But these satirical diatribes appear to have had no effect on Cleon's political career—a few weeks after the performance of The Knights —a play full of anti-Cleon jokes—Cleon was elected to the prestigious board of ten generals. Cleon also seems to have had no real power to limit or control Aristophanes:
6392-507: The political conservatism of the plays may reflect the views of the wealthiest section of Athenian society, on whose generosity all dramatists depended for putting on their plays. When Aristophanes' first play The Banqueters was produced, Athens was an ambitious, imperial power and the Peloponnesian War was only in its fourth year. His plays often express pride in the achievement of the older generation (the victors at Marathon ) yet they are not jingoistic, and they are staunchly opposed to
6486-432: The populist Cleon ), and in philosophy/religion (where Socrates was the most obvious target). Such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes was an old-fashioned conservative, yet that view of him leads to contradictions. It has been argued that Aristophanes produced plays mainly to entertain the audience and to win prestigious competitions. His plays were written for production at the great dramatic festivals of Athens,
6580-406: The prize at the City Dionysia in 387. It appears that a second son, Philippus, was twice victorious at the Lenaia and he could have directed some of Eubulus ' comedies. A third son was called either Nicostratus or Philetaerus, and a man by the latter name appears in the catalogue of Lenaia victors with two victories, the first probably in the late 370s. Plato's The Symposium appears to be
6674-482: The silliest pretexts (for example, one woman says she has to go home to air her fabrics by spreading them on the bed). After rallying her comrades and restoring their discipline, Lysistrata again returns to the Acropolis to continue waiting for the men's surrender. A man suddenly appears, desperate for sex. It is Kinesias, the husband of Myrrhine. Lysistrata instructs her to torture him. Myrrhine informs Kinesias that she will have sex with him but only if he promises to end
6768-526: The spoken Attic dialect included Attica and a number of the Aegean Islands ; the closely related Ionic was also spoken along the western and northwestern coasts of Asia Minor in modern Turkey , in Chalcidice , Thrace , Euboea , and in some colonies of Magna Graecia . Eventually, the texts of literary Attic were widely studied far beyond their homeland: first in the classical civilizations of
6862-481: The state treasury to buy oars for the fleet and he instructs his Scythians to begin levering open the gate. However, they are quickly overwhelmed by groups of women with long names. Lysistrata restores order and allows the magistrate to question her. She explains the frustrations that women feel at a time of war when the men make decisions that affect everyone, and further complains that their wives' opinions are not listened to. She drapes her headdress over him, gives him
6956-455: The state treasury, without which the men cannot long continue to fund their war. Lampito goes off to spread the word of revolt, and the other women retreat behind the barred gates of the Acropolis to await the men's response. A Chorus of Old Men arrives, planning on burning down the gate of the Acropolis if the women do not open up. They are still making preparations to assault the gate when
7050-431: The stem ends in o or e , which is composed in turn of a root plus the thematic vowel , an o or e in Indo-European ablaut series parallel to similar formations of the verb. It is the equivalent of the Latin second declension. The alternation of Greek -os and Latin -us in the nominative singular is familiar to readers of Greek and Latin. In Attic Greek, an original genitive singular ending *-osyo after losing
7144-589: The stem is the part of the declined word to which case endings are suffixed. In the alpha or first declension feminines, the stem ends in long a , which is parallel to the Latin first declension. In Attic-Ionic the stem vowel has changed to ē in the singular, except (in Attic only) after e , i or r . For example, the respective nominative, genitive, dative and accusative singular forms are ἡ γνώμη τῆς γνώμης τῇ γνώμῃ τὴν γνώμην gnome , gnomes , gnome(i) , gnomen , "opinion" but ἡ θεᾱ́ τῆς θεᾶς τῇ θεᾷ τὴν θεᾱ́ν thea , theas , thea(i) , thean , "goddess". The plural
7238-416: The trial and execution of Socrates, whose death probably resulted from public animosity towards the philosopher's disgraced associates (such as Alcibiades ), exacerbated of course by his own intransigence during the trial. The plays, in manuscript form, have been put to some surprising uses—as indicated earlier , they were used in the study of rhetoric on the recommendation of Quintilian and by students of
7332-407: The unique distinction of a repeat performance at a subsequent festival. A son of Aristophanes, Araros, was also a comic poet and he could have been heavily involved in the production of his father's play Wealth II in 388. Araros is also thought to have been responsible for the posthumous performances of the now lost plays Aeolosicon II and Cocalus , and it is possible that the last of these won
7426-402: The use of similes, metaphors and pictorial expressions. In The Knights , for example, the ears of a character with selective hearing are represented as parasols that open and close. In The Frogs , Aeschylus is said to compose verses in the manner of a horse rolling in a sandpit. Some plays feature revelations of human perfectibility that are poetic rather than religious in character, such as
7520-570: The views expressed in the plays. Throughout most of Aristophanes' career, the Chorus was essential to a play's success and it was recruited and funded by a choregus , a wealthy citizen appointed to the task by one of the archons . A choregus could regard his personal expenditure on the Chorus as a civic duty and a public honour, but Aristophanes showed in The Knights that wealthy citizens might regard civic responsibilities as punishment imposed on them by demagogues and populists like Cleon. Thus
7614-433: The vowel phonemes /o, oː, ɔː/ with the letter Ο (which corresponds with classical Ο , ΟΥ , Ω ) and /e, eː, ɛː/ with the letter Ε (which corresponds with Ε , ΕΙ , and Η in later classical orthography). Moreover, the letter Η was used as heta , with the consonantal value of /h/ rather than the vocalic value of /ɛː/ . In the fifth century, Athenian writing gradually switched from this local system to
7708-426: The war with Sparta. The plays are particularly scathing in criticism of war profiteers, among whom populists such as Cleon figure prominently. By the time his last play was produced (around 386 BC) Athens had been defeated in war, its empire had been dismantled and it had undergone a transformation from being the political to the intellectual centre of Greece. Aristophanes was part of this transformation and he shared in
7802-444: The war. He promptly agrees to these terms and the young couple prepares for sex on the spot. Myrrhine fetches a bed, a mattress, a pillow, a blanket, and a flask of oil, and after delaying the act for some time, locks herself in the Acropolis once more. A Spartan herald then appears with a large burden (an erection) scarcely hidden inside his tunic and he requests to see the ruling council to arrange peace talks. The magistrate laughs at
7896-426: The window on life and politics in classical Athens , in which respect they are perhaps as important as the writings of Thucydides . The artistic influence of the plays is immeasurable. They have contributed to the history of European theatre and that history in turn shapes our understanding of the plays. Thus for example the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan can give us insights into Aristophanes' plays and similarly
7990-495: Was Zenodora. His family was believed to have owned property on the island of Aegina . Little is known about Aristophanes' life, his plays being the main source of biographical information. It was conventional in Old Comedy for the chorus to speak on behalf of the author during an address called the parabasis , where some biographical facts can usually be found. These facts, however, relate almost entirely to his career as
8084-409: Was also credited, perhaps wrongly, with directing The Wasps ). Aristophanes's use of directors complicates our reliance on the plays as sources of biographical information, because apparent self-references might have been made with reference to his directors instead. Thus, for example, a statement by the chorus in The Acharnians seems to indicate that the "poet" had a close, personal association with
8178-546: Was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy . He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate
8272-403: Was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis . It is possible that the case was argued in court, but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights , the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through that play's Chorus , "the author-director of comedies has
8366-487: Was introduced by Adolf Kirchhoff , the old-Attic system belongs to the "eastern" or "blue" type, as it uses the letters Ψ and Χ with their classical values ( /ps/ and /kʰ/ ), unlike "western" or "red" alphabets, which used Χ for /ks/ and expressed /kʰ/ with Ψ . In other respects, Old Attic shares many features with the neighbouring Euboean alphabet (which is "western" in Kirchhoff's classification). Like
8460-404: Was lost in Attic before historical times. Attic retained Proto-Greek h- (from debuccalization of Proto-Indo-European initial s- or y- ), but some other dialects lost it ( psilosis "stripping", "de-aspiration"). Attic-Ionic places an n ( movable nu ) at the end of some words that would ordinarily end in a vowel, if the next word starts with a vowel, to prevent hiatus (two vowels in
8554-538: Was not actively involved in politics, despite his highly political plays. He was probably appointed to the Council of Five Hundred for a year at the beginning of the fourth century, but such appointments were very common in democratic Athens . The language of Aristophanes' plays, and in Old Comedy generally, was valued by ancient commentators as a model of the Attic dialect . The orator Quintilian believed that
8648-509: Was nothing but an abomination. He concludes that all politicians that study rhetoric must have "doubtful citizenships, unspeakable morals, and too much arrogance". The plays of Aristophanes are among the defining examples of Old Comedy. Aristophanes' plays are also the only full-length Old Comedy plays that have survived from antiquity. Thus making them literally among the most defining elements, for defining Old Comedy... For this reason, an understanding of Old Comedy and Aristophanes' place in it
8742-563: Was the equal of these great tragedians in his subtle use of lyrics. He appears to have modelled his approach to language on that of Euripides in particular, so much so that the comic dramatist Cratinus labelled him a 'Euripidaristophanist' addicted to hair-splitting niceties. A full appreciation of Aristophanes' plays requires an understanding of the poetic forms he employed with virtuoso skill, and of their different rhythms and associations. There were three broad poetic forms: iambic dialogue, tetrameter verses and lyrics: The rhythm begins at
8836-491: Was usual for foreign dignitaries to attend the City Dionysia, and The Babylonians caused some embarrassment for the Athenian authorities since it depicted the cities of the Delian League as slaves grinding at a mill. Some influential citizens, notably Cleon , reviled the play as slander against the polis and possibly took legal action against the author. The details of the trial are unrecorded but, speaking through
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