Early ancient Greek literature follows a somewhat linear pattern through its earlier years; the earliest period comes from oral traditions of the Mycenaean and Dark Age Greek world thanks to men like Homer and Hesiod, then the poets of the early Archaic period had a key part to play in performing the more free form of Lyric poetry, under great poets like Sappho.

The style of written works responded with the time’s ongoing politics. Thus, with the emergence of Athens as a regional superpower following the advent of democracy, the victories in the Persian Wars and the formation of the Delian League, much changed; The innovation of the documentation of history was made via Herodotus, many of the world’s brightest philosophers would gather in the city, and the theatrical genre of tragedy would be pioneered in the great city itself, along with the new genre of comedy.

While Athenian tragedy is well preserved thanks to the surviving plays of men such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides coming down to us over the millennia, ancient Athenian comedy survives to this day almost exclusively from just one man. Luckily for us, that one man happens to be Aristophanes. Amidst the Peloponnesian War, he would see the glorious state for what he saw it to really be, and his plays would become renowned as some of the most self-critical and hard-hitting in the ancient world.

Check out my previous blog on The Early Conflicts of the Peloponnesian War

HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE

Theatre finds itself originating in Greece likely around the late 600's BC in festivals celebrating the fertility Goddess Dionysus, making their way to Athens in the mid 500's. The first known actor is documented to have performed as early as 532 BC, and comedy makes its appearance as a genre in around 487 BC. Skip forward half a century and the Peloponnesian War kicks off in 431 BC, and Aristophanes would find his success in these unfortunate and destructive events.

[ABOVE: West view of the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, constructed in the mid to late 500's BC, reaching a maximum capacity of c.25,000]

ARISTOPHANES

The birth and death dates of Aristophanes are not exactly known, but the rough dates of 445 to 375 BC are the most widely accepted. He was too young to have presented his first three plays, the first two of which are lost to us today: “Banqueters” (“Daiteleis”) and “Babylonians”, which both won him second-place prize in the annual Athenian Lenaea festival in 427 and 426 BC respectively, and “Acharnanians”, which finally won him his first prize in 425 BC, when Aristophanes was barely twenty years old. These three plays and the four after them were the courageous works of one man who dared to take on the restless attacks of the state demagog, Cleon. Like his predecessors, Aristophanes spoke out against the foolishness and futility of war, warning against it in his most celebrated plays. However for nearly thirty years of his life, his home state of Athens would be embroiled in war with Sparta, and would not recover or ever be the same afterwards.

[ABOVE: Roman statue of Thalia, the Greek Goddess of comedy and poetry, from Hadrian's Palace, now at the Prado Museum, Madrid]

Aristophanes showed no respect for politicians like Cleon, who simply pushed Athens further into a conflict it did not need to be in. Aristophanes was a man from a landowning conservative family, who favoured a form of democracy, served by the more intelligent members of society instead of the ones who happened to be the most powerful, over oligarchy. He defended religion while remaining suspicious of contemporary philosophy. Aristophanes’ conservatism did not, however, extend to his rich language, as the obscenity within it is unexpected throughout his work. His rude and crass plays were presented under the eyes of the State, in public and at religious settings, and would have come off like farting at a funeral.

When one steps back, Aristophanes only comes off as rude when we compare him to those great Greek writers who came before him, but comedy’s origins were found in the roots of fertility rites at drama’s very dawn. It’s key to remember that his plays did have very serious messages at their heart - they just dared to laugh at it all at the same time. He recognised that while the world can be a dark place, it is the role of the poet to make it worth living in no matter what. This is a key form of teaching - not done in prose but in lifting the human spirit to new understandings of truth and beauty, remaining just as beautiful even when dealing with the ugly aspects. As put by Classical Dictionary’s John Lemprière:

[Aristophanes was] the greatest comic dramatist in world literature: by his side Molière seems dull and Shakespeare clownish.

THE CHORUS, COSTUMES STRUCTURE AND MUSIC

Highly trained non-professionals, the chorus consisted of two lots of twelve elaborately dressed singers and dancers. They wore masks that suited their roles - like frog masks in the play “Frogs” - these could have been fitting for the role like so, or used in mocking; a dog mask may have been used to mock Cleon in “Wasps”. With the origin of the comedies being the Dionysia fertility festival, chorus members also wore elongated mock phalli, that could be hidden if and when needed. These elements together would have almost certainly helped keep the audience amused more. All female roles were done by men.

[ABOVE: A Greek storage jar depicting a Chorus walking on stilts]

The typical Aristophanic play was structured as such: the prologue was often done in dialogue form. The parados followed, which introduced the chorus, all dancing and singing in their characters. This was followed by the Agon, or debate, and then the Parabasis in which the chorus addressed the audience in the author’s name. Common instruments were the flute, kettledrum and lyre.

TRANSLATING ARISTOPHANES

Aristophanes is no easy task to translate. His plays are lengthy and he stretched the Greek language to breaking point, utilising every fancy Greek word he could. On top of that, he Shakespeareanly introduced plenty of new words and puns into the mix, and his plays meter’s shifted mid-play. While Aristophanes used rhyme himself, it’s hard to translate into modern languages like English and rhyme as well - Greek and English words, of course, sound very different. It doesn’t help that the work being translated is from a foreign place from around 2,400 years ago, with themes and points of view that are harder to relate to.

THE PLAYS

Aristophanes wrote forty-four plays in total, yet only eleven come down to us today. His first five surviving plays were as follows: As said before, “Acharnanians” won him his first first prize at the Lenaea Festival in Athens in 425 BC, before his twentieth year. The next year, “Knights” won him another first prize and was a brave attack on the politician Cleon, then at the height of his power. “Clouds” the following year did not earn great recognition at the time, and had to be re-written; the version we have today is the rework. “Wasps” won him a second-place prize in 422 BC, and “Peace” won him another second-place the following year.

[ABOVE: A table of contents of Aristophanes's surviving plays - minus Thesmophoriazusae and Lysistrata, from Venice, 1498]

These plays were followed by a six-year interval. It isn’t known if any plays were released during this time, however “Birds” in 414 BC earned him yet another first place prize, his last known prize for his plays. In 411, both “Lysistrata” and “Thesmophoriazusae” were released. Then came “Frogs” in 405 BC, “A Parliament of Women” in 392 BC, and “Wealth” in 388 BC. “A Parliament of Women”, produced when Aristophanes was in his early to mid-fifties, there was a slackening of youthful energy that was once brought to his earlier plays, and the use of choruses - once so necessary - was greatly reduced, replaced instead with musical intervals, and by the time of “Wealth” the transformation is complete; this is seen as the move from Athenian Old Comedy to New Comedy.

New Comedy no longer used choruses in large part, and showed their characters as types instead of individuals. It made plots instead of having the story’s context dictate the play’s setting, adopting themes like political satire and direct attacks on individuals. New Comedy was also somewhat the origin of the classic boy-meets-girl trope, as well as the classic story trope of the mixed identity plots. It is really the forefather of modern storytelling as we’re familiar with it today.

HIS WORK

ACHARNANIANS, 425 BC

The simplified plot of Acharnanians is that a farmer, Dicaeopolis, ever impatient with the Athenian government's eagerness for war and their longing out of seeking peace, attempts to make peace with Sparta himself during the Peloponnesian War in an attempt to get them to stop burning his farmland. Right off the bat, the intent here is clear: appeal to the people's needs that they wish to keep their property unharmed, and end the war.

[ABOVE: "The Tipsy God", a statue of Bacchus, the Greek God of wine, by Michelangelo, made in 1496/7]

The war had been going on for around six years now, the countryside of Athens was in ruin and the city itself was riddled with plague. The Acharnanians were a north-western deme of Athens who were among the most heavily disrupted by the Spartans, and in the play they long for revenge. This play is a plea for peace, with the comforts of such ideals balanced with the stupidity and hardships of war.

Close to his goal of achieving peace, Dicaeopolis is unfortunately cut down by a group of Acharnanian charcoal burners, who seek revenge more than peace. Aristophanes notes that tens of thousands of people lose out in war, but those who deal out the weapons and armour are the only ones to profit.

KNIGHTS, 424 BC

The Hippeis (knights) were the equestrian class of Athens, second only to the aristocratic Eupatridai. They were rich enough to be able to buy and maintain their own horses, and accompanied armies into battle mounting them when needed.

[ABOVE: The interior of an Attic red-figure cup showing a rider of the Hippeis (knight) class, from c.500-490 BC, found in Vulci, Italy]

Aristophanes despised only a few things in life, among them was the politician who aided in prolonging the war for Athens: Cleon. By trade, he was a tanner, but became a self-made politician later in life. In the play, Cleon and many other high-end politicians, serve Demos, an Athenian householder. In the play, Demos purchases for himself a new steward, who it turns out is a bully, causing the powerless servants around him to complain. They then discover that a sausage seller will come to replace him. He does just that, and goes on to make Demos young again by boiling him in water, who goes on to return happily to his farm home.

Knights was produced after Aristophanes' first three plays failed to dissuade the Athenian people from supporting the war, instead more enjoying the comedy. He thus felt compelled to make another play bashing Cleon and the pro-war party. At the time, Athens won a successful battle at Pylos in the southern Peloponnese, capturing the city. On the opposite island of Sphacteria, this left 292 Spartan hoplites stranded. Athens feared that attacking them directly would result in heavy casualties, ever since that is exactly what happened to Xerxes' army at Thermopylae when a similar number of Spartans fought to the last man. Cleon rose in the Assembly to persuade Athens that he would have these men killed or captured himself within three weeks if he were given authority over Pylos. He must have been persuasive, because his wish was granted. For further boast, unlike usual Spartan behaviour, the 292 Spartans surrendered to Cleon's forces.

Foolishly yet courageously, this is the moment that the then-young Aristophanes released "Knights". It was also released in response to Cleon's attacks on Aristophanes's earlier play "Babylonians", which portrayed the Delian League allies as slaves grinding the Athenian mill. Aristophanes was actually taken to court by Cleon for slander because of this play. Unfortunately, "Babylonians" doesn't survive for us today.

CLOUDS, 423 BC

Aristophanes, a conservative young man, was not all impressed with the "New Thought" in Athens of the time - that of sophistry. "Clouds" is a parody of the then-current education system, attempting to boil the teaching techniques of the time down to absurdity. He would even come to mock Socrates, accusing the famous philosopher of teaching people to cheat their ways out of debts and lumping him in as a sophist, knowing well both he and Socrates were as anti-sophist as it came; it was too easy to use Socrates as a scapegoat as he was far too easy to parody.

"Clouds"'s main character is Strepsiades, which may translate as "Twister" or "Twistable". Now living in Athens thanks to the war displacing him, his son Phidippides, owning a costly horse, has landed him in debt. Strepsiades then hears of Socrates who, for a fee, will teach people right from wrong. Strepsiades sends Phidippides there to learn how a debt is in fact not a debt, but after he refuses he goes there himself. There, he discovers he is too stupid to learn such high-end education.

Here, two characters appear: Mr. Good Reason and Mr. Bad Reason. Debating, Mr. Good Reason is ousted. Mr. Bad Reason takes Phidippides under his wing to take him to Socrates's class himself, after which the philosopher returns to Strepsiades with Phidippides, declaring him the perfect sophist. Two Creditors appear, coming for money, and Strepsiades is able to confuse them and send them away. After many disagreements at home, Phidippides ends up chasing after his father with a baton, threatening to beat his own mother. Realising he himself is the cause of his son's behaviour, Strepsiades runs off with a servant and burns down Socrates's school.

[ABOVE: Strepsiades and Phidippides in discussion, and Socrates hanging from a basket from the clouds, 16th century engraving]

Strepsiades is shown as a loner and a simple man, who thinks he can avoid paying up his dues in life by cheating. But when he realises his folly, the play has Strepsiades and the audience acknowledge the supremacy of tradition over new ideas. Phidippides is smart but spoilt, and not afraid to run his father into debt, clear as to what his father's character really is. Plato would later go on to say that Socrates's portrayal in "Clouds" aided in his condemnation.

WASPS, 422 BC

"Wasps" is a vicious attack on the Athenian legal system and the passion for lawsuits. Behind this, however, lies the question of how liberal a state can be before crumbling before self-interests. Thus the one in charge of the people's interests may be the one to subvert them for his own gain.

[ABOVE: "The Jury", depicting the Wasps' chorus comprised of elderly jurors whose behaviour resembles that of wasps. Painting by John Morgan, 1861, now held in the Bucks County Museum, England]

In Wasps, Lovecleon, who looked back fondly at the old-school legal system of Athens, put his personal affairs in the hands of his son, Hatecleon, spending his time in the law courts as juror. Hatecleon fails to pull him out of the courts, so they agree to get Lovecleon to prove the efficacy of the jury service. Amidst debates, it is agreed that Lovecleon can stay at home in his own mock-court to keep him busy. His first case sees him put a dog on trial for stealing cheese from another dog, but the former dog is let off since they were taking the food for other hungry dogs.

Hatecleon later invites Lovecleon to a fancy dinner. Lovecleon however gets drunk, abducts the chorus flute player and vulgarly insults the audience. This is meant to be a reflection of the vulgarity of the people running Athens into ruin. Hatecleon wished to help his father, and Lovecleon got to enjoy a lavish life doing what he loved the most. It's unclear whether Lovecleon appreciates his son's intentions.

The chorus of Wasps are dressed as such, with masks and stingers to match. They were able to pull the stinger out between their legs when they were symbolising a wasp attacking. Again, they also wear long, floppy phalli.

PEACE, 421 BC

The Peace of Nicias in 421 BC finally saw Athens and Sparta set aside their spears, for now. Aristophanes was keen to do all he could to promote the peace, while fragile negotiations were underway. Both Cleon of Athens and Brasidas of Sparta, each state's respective warmongerer, have died by this point.

[ABOVE: Roman copy of a depiction of Eirene and Ploutus - Peace and Wealth - which originally stood atop the Areopagus, original by Cephisodotus the Elder, c.370 BC]

Sick of the war, Trygaeus, an Athenian, rides up to Olympus on a dung beetle to ask Zeus what he intends to do about the war. Zeus has washed his hands of the affair, however, burying Peace deep in a cave. Trygaeus and the Chorus - dressed pleasantly when representing Peace and foul when presenting War - thus spend the play attempting to dig Peace up and restore calm to Greece.

BIRDS, 414 BC

During the temporary peace between the main two phases of the Peloponnesian War, one could argue that Birds has no real propaganda behind it. There also was no need to go after a particular warmonger like Cleon. The main star in Athenian politics at the time was Alcibiades. This play almost exists as if Aristophanes was saying that the war was over - they should just have some fun with his plays now.

[ABOVE: Laconian black-figure kylix (a shallow cup for drinking wine) depicting a rider and a winged figure - possibly Nike, the God of victory - among some birds, c.550-530 BC]

Two middle-aged Athenians, Peisetairus and Euelpides, are fed up with the world they live in, and so go in search of a better one under direction of two pet birds. The men seek advice from Tereus, once a king of Thrace and now a king of birds, which leads them nowhere. Suddenly, Peisetairus has a brainwave: just stay with the bird kingdom and make a new home there instead. The only issue is that the birds hate mankind.

"Birds" was made during a comparatively good time for Athens; the Peace of Nicias was holding - albeit shakily - and the city-state had the funds to make a vast military expedition to Sicily. In charge of this expedition was Nicias himself, who was not overly fond of the expedition in the first place, became cautious and irresolute as commander. Come the next year, 413 BC, the army became trapped in the Bay of Syracuse. When captured, the army and crew - over ten-thousand strong - were killed or enslaved, and the fleet of several hundred ships was destroyed. The grand Sicilian expedition turned into perhaps the greatest military disaster in Ancient history, and Nicias was put to death. In short, we should be glad this occurred after Birds was finished, or we may not have it today as we know it.

LYSISTRATA, 411 BC

Come 411 BC, two years had passed since the disaster in Sicily, and the Peloponnesian War officially resumed. Back to his old ways, Aristophanes took a different approach with Lysistrata, one funny enough to get round those in power and serious enough to make them think. Lysistrata is portrayed as a bawdy dame-like figure, in charge of what she hilariously coined as "Operation: Prick".

[ABOVE: Depiction of Lysistrata by Aubrey Beardsley, 1896]

In an attempt to end the war, a young Athenian woman called Lysistrata (meaning "demobiliser") comes up with a strikingly simple solution for the women to stopping the war and getting the men to stay at home: going on a sex strike. For the older women, she encourages them to assault the Acropolis and seize the money funding the war itself. So no money and no sex - every man's hell on Earth.

WOMEN AT THE THESMOPHORIA FESTIVAL, 411 BC

"Thesmophoriazusae" was released in the same year as Lysistrata. Still plunged into war, Athens's people were expecting another hard-hitting play demonising the state and its warmongers, however it was as if Aristophanes shrugged his shoulders to the whole business at hand, turning instead from focusing on the men to the women. A light-hearted play, "Thesmophoriazusae" is about Aristophanes apologising for how the tragedian Euripides makes bad women of the women he gets with, when in truth he believed them to be the state's last glimmer of hope.

The festival of the Thesmophoria was celebrated in mid-October and dedicated to Demeter, Goddess of the soil and fruitfulness. "Thesmophoria" comes from the Greek words "thesmos" and "phoria", meaning "law" and "bringer" respectively, and the festival also celebrated the world's law and order. The women lived on the hill of the Pnyx and dressed entirely in white to symbolise their purity and innocence.

[ABOVE: Kore, the daughter of Demeter, was celebrated alongside her mother by the women of the Thesmophoria Festival. Statue created between 525-500 BC, now held in the Acropolis Museum, Athens]

In the play, the women are celebrating their women-only festival. Euripides learns that they will soon be issuing his death warrant since he depicts them very negatively in his own plays. Desperate for help, he asks his family member Mnesilochus to disguise himself as a woman to sneak into their festival and plead his case. Making it into the festival and giving a speech, word begins to spread amongst the women that a man is among them. Desperate, Mnesilochus grabs a baby and uses it as a hostage to aid in his escape... only for it to turn out to not be a baby, but a vase of wine... which he continues to threaten and stab with a knife. He gets arrested for this... it's a weird play. Euripides then goes through his own long list of self-made characters from his own plays, and impersonates them in an attempt to break his relative free.

[ABOVE: Apulian krater depicting a scene from Thesmophoriazusae, c.370 BC, now held in the Martin von Wagner Museum, Würzburg, Germany]

FROGS, 405 BC

Poetry is the apprehension of Being portrayed through the harmony of words, a view which implies that one must reduce existence's chaos to order. Poets, the "unacknowledged legislators of the world", show what is beyond the textures which unite that which is unique to human behaviour. Aristophanes's "Frogs" enunciates the tragedy of humanity, in his case the decline of Athens as a state and tragedy as an art form.

By 405 BC, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Eurypides were all dead, leaving no great, renowned poets. Thus Dionysus, the God of wine and nature and patron of the stage, goes to Hades and his servant in order to bring back a great poet. Once there, the two cannot decide whether to bring back Aeschylus or Eurypides (Sophocles was still alive when the play was being written in the year before) and go on to discuss the nature of poetry. The discussion evolves to discuss the plight of Athens itself, and if the warring politicians should be brought out and punished, and replaced with more educated people.

[ABOVE: Campanian red-figure oinochoe (wine jug) depicting the costumed Xanthias standing next to a Heracles statuette, c.350-340 BC]

Sparta at the time was devastating Athenian lands worse than ever, and only Athens's navy was barely holding things together. While recently victorious against Sparta at the Battle of Arginusae, losses were heavy for Athens and they would not be sufficient to take on another Spartan navy, especially as Sparta was then being backed with gold by Persia of all places. Worse still, storms further weakened the remaining navy, and all the gold that was once funding the state and its forces were all but depleted, and the competent and charismatic leader Alcibiades, sick of his treatment by the Athenian state, had defected to the Spartans and was parlaying with Persia. It's no wonder Aristophanes was trying to tell the Athenians that they had chosen the worst men to lead them. Peace was offered by Sparta after Arginusae, but warmongers turned this offer down, leading to the final clash at the Battle of Aegospotami, and the defeat of Athens.

A PARLIAMENT OF WOMEN, 392 BC

This play follows some women who attempt to establish and manage a communist-like utopia, where worth is determined by usefulness to the state rather than worldly success or wealth. Men are let go from administrative duties and allowed to enjoy themselves and be allowed free meals, but must be at the disposal of women. Younger people could copulate at will once they had served the elders. It is not the intent of the women to replace or surplant the men, but simply to implement their own system, by simply extending the scope of their expertise as household managers.

This play came at a time when Athens was a shell of its former self: they were defeated by Sparta and had undergone tyranny, public trials and executions and a mass withering of their once boundless wealth and power, while Sparta was the master of Greece. Whatever worked for Athens in the century before no longer worked, and the women thought they may as well try something new, akin to what we would understand as Communism today, which would later be utilised by Plato in his "Republic".

The play has a group of women, convened by Praxagora, an Athenian housewife, disguise themselves as men to pack the Athenian parliament, so they can attempt a coup to save Athens. Successful, Praxagora returns home and discusses the pros and cons of the new order with her husband Blepyrus, while a stranger outside, complying with the new ways, says he will not let go of any of "his" property while expecting to be fed at the communal dinner. He is dragged off against his will by people who claim they now have ownership of him. Blepyrus later appears at the dinner with his arms around two girls, and has clearly let the new regime change him.

WEALTH, 388 BC

It's only somewhat fair to sum up the theme of Wealth ("Plutus") as pointing out how unfairly wealth was distributed among society, yet this is an issue as old as humanity itself. Aristophanes made the character of Plutus an old man rather than the gleaming child of Demeter to point this out. The Greek religion answered why wealth disparity existed in part by saying that Zeus once blinded Plutus so that he could not tell the good from the undeserving, so mortals could not tell wealth and being good apart.

Depressed with the world's dishonesty, Chremylus cynically ponders bringing his son up as a crook. Going to Delphi with his servant Cario, he is told to take the first person home that he meets, which happens to be the old, decrepit man Plutus, who is in a bad way. Chremylus wishes to take him to Asclepius, the God of healing, but is accosted by Poverty, an old hag, who tells them that without poverty then there is no motive to do better. Nevertheless, Plutus is brought to Asclepius and is healed, and Chremylus's return journey is met with many visitors telling him of the positive and negative implications of the cure.

This play is a departure from Aristophanes's usual style and a move towards Attic New Comedy. This new style would pass on to others like Menander and Plautus in Rome, and to us today. The main difference between Old and New Comedy is that the latter is not topical, as individuals become types, wit gives way to humour, rich vocabulary is simplified, bawdiness is reduced, and the Chorus all but disappears. What results is Aristophanes most performed play for generations by far.

[ABOVE: A joint cast of Aristophanes (left) and Menander (right) representing the masters of Old and New Comedy respectively]

Aside from jokes, Aristophanes reveals Athenian culture’s levels at the time: the play’s satire of the people, the city’s institutions and its culture, mocking the politicians, courts, philosophers, and all aspects of the state’s life, giving us a good look into the daily lives of Classical Athens. More surprisingly, his mocking plays were allowed to be performed, and he was rewarded for them; Athenians knew they were living in a messy society and celebrated it. Athens was basically the only society in the ancient world to self-criticise to such a degree, since it was the society that first allowed mass involvement into politics and public affairs - Aristophanes democratised public discourse more than anyone else.

Where historians like Herodotus and Thucydides would wish to keep a record of history for all time, Aristophanes focused on his contemporaries and tapped into a communal understanding of his world to tell his stories. When Sparta was burning down their lands every year, Aristophanes imagined one-man peace deals and flying away to the Heavens to avoid the conflict - he humanised the causes and affects of the war and related to the inner-thoughts of many of the audience members watching his plays.

[ABOVE: Apulian krater, possibly related to Euripides' lost play "Andromeda", suggesting the props that may have been used in these plays, from c.400 BC]

In practice, his plays did not work: Cleon continued to dominate Athenian politics, the sophists continued using rhetoric as a weapon and - spoiler alert - Athens would lose the war to Sparta. He couldn’t save Athens from itself, but watched it destroy itself over his forty year career, yet he would see the city go from a political centre to an intellectual one over time.

He doesn’t fit in with the city’s then-philosophers, epic poets and tragedians, but his profane comedies would inspire the likes of creators right from William Shakespeare to South Park. He was a result of Athens not because it was a perfect society, but because it was anything but perfect.

NEXT POST: THE BATTLE OF PYLOS, 427 - 425 BC: Left Stranded

SOURCE

• "Aristophanes, The Complete Plays", translation by Paul Roche

YOUTUBE LINKS

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"Overly Sarcastic Podcast: Ancient Comedy" by "Overly Sarcastic Productions"

"History-Makers: Aristophanes" by "Overly Sarcastic Productions"

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