Three More Plays by Aristophanes

Staging Politics

Jeffrey Henderson

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000577532
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: Greek Ancient History

This volume provides modern, uncensored translations of Aristophanes' Acharnians, Knights, and Wasps. These plays, originally a series, are the world's earliest political satires, and are made available here for the first time in one volume, augmented by full introductions and notes.

In these three works, Aristophanes launched satirical attacks on Cleon, the world's first demagogue, and explored the vulnerability of democracy to populist manipulation and disinformation. Henderson's fresh translations and exploration of the themes within them enable readers to explore the perils facing democracy in its first century which are still with us today. The Introduction offers the reader background on Aristophanes' life, Athenian democracy, classical drama, as well as on political comedy, while introductions to each individual play provide the reader with context. An appendix also collects selected fragments from Aristophanes' lost political plays.

Three More Plays by Aristophanes offers an invaluable collection of these works for students and faculty working on classical studies, theatre and theatre history, and drama. The clear translations and contextualizing introductions and notes also make these plays accessible to students of government, law, and political science, and to the general reader interested in any of these subjects.

1. General Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003159407-1

In order to appreciate the nature and status of Aristophanes’ politically engaged comedy, it is necessary to understand at least the basics of the theatrical culture of fifth-century Athens. Unlike modern theater and media like film and television, which for the most part are privately organized entertainments occupying their own cultural niches, Aristophanes’ theater was a major communal experience fully integrated with and reflecting the social, civic, and religious life of the Athenian polis in the first century of its democracy.

I. Life of Aristophanes

The comedies of Aristophanes have been prized since antiquity for their iridescent wit and exuberant fantasy, their originality and sophistication, their rich poetic palette (everything from the lofty to the obscene), the purity and elegance of their language, and their active engagement with social, intellectual, and political life in an important era of Athenian and world history, not least its great experiment called democracy. For political life in that era, Aristophanes provides rich reportage, trenchant analysis, advice, and admonishment from a theatrical platform with broad popular appeal.

Aristophanes was judged in antiquity to be the foremost poet of what is traditionally classified as Old Attic (Athenian) comedy, an era beginning ca. 486, when comedy became an official part of the annual dramatic festival, and ending early in the following century, when comedy began to change into its so-called “Middle” and then “New” periods. Aristophanes was one of the last practitioners of Old Comedy, and his 11 surviving plays are our only complete examples of the approximately 650 that were produced in that era. But in the following centuries scholars could still read 365 of them, and thousands of fragments (quotations or other testimonial information) survive from Aristophanes’ lost comedies and the comedies of rivals; these help to form an idea of the different types and styles of comedy current in this “Old Comic” era. A selection of such fragments, drawn from politically engaged plays, is presented in the Appendix to this volume.

Aside from his theatrical career, little is known about Aristophanes’ life. He was born ca. 447/46, the son of one Philippus of the urban deme¹ Cydathenaeum, and he died probably in 386 or shortly thereafter. By his twenties, his hair had thinned or receded enough that he could be called bald. He seems to have had landholdings on, or some other connection with, the island of Aegina. He was twice prosecuted by the popular leader Cleon for the political impropriety of two of his plays (Babylonians and Knights) and perhaps again for a third, but he was never convicted. Early in the fourth century he served as one of his deme’s representatives on the Council of 500, a representative body that steered and supervised the agenda for the sovereign assembly. At least two of his sons, Araros and Philippus, had careers as comic poets in the mid-fourth century. In Plato’s dialogue Symposium, probably written in the late 380s and after Aristophanes’ death, he is portrayed as being at home among the social and intellectual elite of Athens. Although in some respects the historical veracity of Plato’s portrayal is unverifiable, Aristophanes does align himself in his plays with contemporary upper-class, landowning conservatives: he thanks influential fellow demesmen for their assistance when he was still a novice playwright (Clouds 528); in Acharnians (6–8, 299–302), and in Knights he claims solidarity with the upper-class cavalry corps against their common enemy, Cleon, whom he presents sneeringly as a lower-class tradesman; and in Frogs (686–705) he advocates for the re-enfranchisement of those punished for their involvement in a coup in 411–410, when for about 12 months the democratic constitution was replaced by oligarchic regimes. He also generally champions conservative social, intellectual, artistic, and political views, insofar as these could be portrayed as serving the interests of the democratic populace at large: see further “Comic Politics” (section VI, below).

Aristophanes’ career spanned 40 eventful years. He was one of a number of impressive young comic poets who began their careers after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 and the death of Pericles in 429, including Eupolis, Phrynichus, and Plato Comicus, and he was the most successful: after his debut in 427 he won in the 420s alone at least four first prizes and three second prizes; and not more than one or two lower rankings are known during his subsequent career. After his victory with Frogs in 405, the people voted him an honorific crown of sacred olive for the political advice that he had given in that play, and decreed that the play should have the unique honor of being performed a second time. After the war, which ended in 404, Aristophanes’ creativity seems undiminished, as he played a leading role in the transition from Old to Middle to New comedy.

Forty-four comedies ascribed to Aristophanes were known to the Alexandrian scholars of the third and second centuries, who first collected and edited his plays; four of these they thought spurious. From these Alexandrian editions, 11 complete comedies and some 1,000 brief fragments of his lost comedies survive.

Aristophanes’ plays are as follows: extant plays are asterisked, with their dates (if approximate, < means before, > after) and, when known, the festival at which each was performed (see II, below):

• 427 L? Banqueters (2nd prize); produced by Callistratus.
• 426 D Babylonians (probably 1st prize); produced by Callistratus
• 425 L *Acharnians (1st prize); produced by Callistratus
• 424 L *Knights (1st prize); produced by Aristophanes
• 424 (D?)-422 Farmers
• 423? L Merchant-Ships
• 423 D Clouds I (3rd prize or lower); produced by Aristophanes. *Clouds II, an incomplete and never-produced revision abandoned ca. 417
• < 422 (D 425?) Dramas or Centaur
• 422 L Proagon (1st prize); produced by Philonides
• 422 L *Wasps (2nd prize); produced by Aristophanes.
• 421 D *Peace I (2nd prize); produced by Aristophanes.
• 421–12 Seasons
• 418? > Women Claiming Tent-Sites
• 417 > Anagyrus
• ca. 415 > Polyidus
• 414 L Amphiaraus; produced by Philonides
• 414 D *Birds (2nd prize); produced by Callistratus
• 413–11 Heroes
• 413–06? Daedalus
• 411 L*Lysistrata; produced by Callistratus
• 411 D *Women at the Thesmophoria I
• 410–09 Triphales
• 410–05 Peace II
• 410–405 Women at the Thesmophoria II
• 410 > Lemnian Women
• 409 > Old Age
• 411–09 > Phoenician Women (after Euripides’ play)
• 408 Wealth I
• ca. 408 Gerytades
• 405 L *Frogs (1st prize); produced by Philonides; reperformed by civic decree, probably 404 L
• ca. 402 Telemessians
• < 400 Danaids
• < 400 Fry-Cooks
• < 395? Aeolosicon I
• ca. 398–89 Storks
• 391 *Assemblywomen
• 388 *Wealth II (1st prize?)
• 387 D Cocalus (1st prize); produced by Araros
• 386 or later Aeolosicon II; produced by Araros (perhaps the same play as Aeolosicon I without the choral parts)

II. Democratic Athens

Democracy means “rule of the demos” (sovereign people), and in the case of fifth-century Athens this definition needs no fine print: the sovereignty of the Athenian demos was more absolute than in any other society before or since. The Athenian demos consisted of citizen males at least 18 years of age. The polis, or city-state (comprising the city of Athens, with its great harbor at Piraeus, and the surrounding territory of rural Attica), consisted of households (oikoi) – buildings, land, property including slaves, and money – each headed by a citizen male, whose male children (or if there were none, his closest male relatives) would inherit the oikos. Citizenship was by native birth, and beginning in 451 citizenship required that not only the father but also the mother be native-born. In the fifth century, the demos numbered about 30,000, who were greatly outnumbered by the rest of the Attic populace: the women, children, slaves, and resident aliens who were wards of the demos, excluded from membership and therefore from any participation in government. For the enfranchised citizens, however, the democracy was fully representative: the demos included both the wealthy classes – the landed and commercial elites, a minority known as “the few” or hoi oligoi – and “the many” or hoi polloi.

Regardless of their wealth or position, all members of the demos were equal under the law,² which they legislated and administered collectively and directly, and they were not only entitled but obligated to participate in government. The democratic revolution, ratified in 508 and perfected in the reforms of Ephialtes in 461, had allowed the wealthy to retain their property and various privileges in return for contributions on behalf of the polis; these included both voluntary and certain obligatory liturgies (“services”), one of which was service as choregos (“sponsor of a chorus”) for a production at the annual dramatic festival (section III, below). Each liturgist was drawn annually by lot from a list of those socially and financially eligible to undertake a given service. In the end, democracy worked because the elite accepted that the demos would normally have a role in decision-making and so only rarely sought to limit its franchise, while the demos accepted that there would be inequality and found ways to put it to use for the general good, so only rarely sought to murder or expel the rich, or to seize their property.

All decisions affecting the governance and welfare of the polis were made by the direct and unappealable vote of the demos meeting either together in the Assembly or separately as juries in a lawcourt. There was no standing government, judges, legislators, or professional politicians: the polis was managed collectively by all members of the demos in good standing and at least 30 years of age. In addition to being able to vote in Assembly and serve as members of a jury in legal cases, members of the demos were chosen by lot from a list of those financially, mentally, and physically able to perform service in a given capacity; those allotted held office in periods ranging from one day to one year. Liturgists were similarly chosen by lot to fulfill the services befitting wealthy members of the demos. The only exceptions to this lottery system were military commanders, who were elected to one-year terms, and holders of certain ancient priesthoods, who inherited their positions.³ The demos determined whether anyone holding any public position was qualified to do the job, and in an audit following completion of his term, whether he had done it satisfactorily. Litigants in court represented themselves: there were no attorneys or prosecutors, and the verdict of the jury, which could number in the hundreds, was final and unappealable.

By custom, though not by legal statute, all military commanders and most assembly speakers and holders of powerful allotted offices came from the wealthy classes. But their success depended on the good will of the demos as a whole, which always had the final vote. Large fines, confiscation of property, exile, enslavement, and death were punishments that the people could wield against malefactors however wealthy, just as any citizen could summons any other citizen to court. Policy was determined by a vote of the Assembly on proposals by individuals who rose to speak. By thus empowering all citizens individually to participate in managing the state, and collectively to decide between proposals and arguments made to them by ambitious, elite individuals, the democracy tried to balance egalitarianism and elitism. All members of the demos, whatever their individual differences in wealth and power, were politically and ideologically equals at the civic level, so that all could pride themselves on belonging to an exclusive and all-sovereign corporation. It was said that the demos collectively held the power once wielded by individual sovereigns – kings or tyrants – a concept central to the allegorical characterization of Demos in Aristophanes’ Knights (Henderson 2003).⁴ Like politicians and litigants, comic poets performed for the people, on whose favor they depended for success.

Drama played a unique role within the democracy. Although its traditions stretched into the remote past (section IV, below), and its producers and composers came from the ranks of the highly educated elite, drama soon became an official and very prominent element of democratic life, with distinct and important roles to play. As a festival, it attracted the largest and most representative audience to assemble during the year: no one was excluded from attending, and all categories of people were portrayed on stage, no matter that the exclusive and gender-marked civic culture of the democracy encouraged the ideological marginalization, political subordination, and public invisibility of private oikoi, the women who managed them, and the slaves who worked within them. In the pre-democratic period, the polis had been run by noble families, and there had been no strict dichotomy between polis and household: powerful families were members of an entitled aristocracy, and women could play important social and symbolic roles as mothers, wives or daughters eligible for dynastic marriages. Under the democracy, by contrast, “civic” (male/executive spheres) and “private” (female/family spheres) tended to be sharply distinguished, so that women were increasingly removed both physically and notionally from those civic spaces that were defined as male, and differences in wealth and pedigree were elided in a public sphere where all were legally and ideologically equal. Drama was the one communal event that could portray and appeal to polis norms and ideals older than democracy, and it remained institutionally positioned both within and outside the civic spheres of the demos. Drama could take advantage of its unique position to explore tension-points within the developing democratic dichotomies of civic and domestic, publi...

Índice

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Notes on the Translation
• 1. General Introduction
• 2. Acharnians
• 3. Knights
• 4. Wasps
• Appendix: Selected Fragments of Lost Plays
• Bibliography