Old Comedy

No comedies are preserved from 413 or 412 BC. But we do have two — Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae — that were performed in 411. The plot of Lysistrata is overtly political. Scholars have nonetheless found it difficult to detect specific traces within the play of the tumultuous events of 411, much less any concrete recommendations for how to deal with what everyone in the city must by then have realized was a terrible military and political situation. I argue that the play is best understood as evidence for the even more confused and ambiguous situation in mid-412 or so, and that the heroine's plans, procedures and complaints, and how the opposition to them is characterised, offer insight not so much into the ideology of the committed oligarchs who briefly seized power a year or so later, as into widely dispersed patterns of political and social thought that made that seizure possible.

Аннотация: Отождествление агона и конфликта в комедиях Аристофана затрудняет интерпретацию аристофановских пьес в плане содержания и композиции. Комедии без агона и комедии с двумя агонами свидетельствуют о факультативности данного структурного элемента. В работе проводится анализ места агона в структуре комедий Аристофана и его соотношения с конфликтом аристофановских произведений.
Ключевые слова: агон, Аристофан, комедия, конфликт, хронотоп.
Resume: Identification of the agon with the conflict in Aristophanes’ comedies complicates interpretation of substance and composition of his plays. Comedies without the agon and comedies with two agons prove optionality of this structural element. The article analyses role of the agon in the structure of Aristophanes’ plays and their correlation with the conflict of his comedies.
Key words: agon, Aristophanes, comedy, conflict, chronotop.

Ο συνδυασμός παραμυθιακής φαντασίας και πολιτικής καθορίζει την ιδιότυπη φύση της αττικής Παλαιάς Κωμωδίας. Η ελληνική κωμική παράδοση ξεκινάει δίχως πολιτικό χρωματισμό, με το σικελιώτικο δράμα του Επίχαρμου, το οποίο συνεχίζουν στην αθηναϊκή σκηνή ο Κράτης και ο Φερεκράτης. Από τα μέσα του 5ου αιώνα π.Χ., μετά τις ριζοσπαστικές μεταρρυθμίσεις του Εφιάλτη, εκδηλώνεται έντονη πολιτικοποίηση του κωμικού θεματολογίου. Συγκεκριμένοι δραματουργοί προσδίδουν δημόσια διάσταση στα υλικά της προγενέστερης απολιτικής κωμωδίας, για να εκφράσουν τις αγωνίες της δημοκρατικής πόλης σε εποχές κρίσης.

Ο Κρατίνος, ο πατριάρχης αυτού του νέου κωμικού είδους, εστιάζει κατεξοχήν στην πολιτικοποίηση της μυθολογικής παρωδίας (Διονυσαλέξανδρος). Ο Αριστοφάνης, από την άλλη πλευρά, προτιμάει να νοηματοδοτήσει πολιτικά τα θέματα του φαντασιακού, τα οποία χαρακτήριζαν την «παραμυθοκωμωδία» (Märchenkomödie) του Κράτητος και του Φερεκράτη. Αυτήν ακριβώς την πρακτική —σήμα κατατεθέν της αριστοφανικής δημιουργίας— θα διερευνήσουμε μέσω τριών παραδειγμάτων.

(1) Νεφέλαι 340–355: Οι προσωποποιημένες Νεφέλες μπορούν να παίρνουν τη μορφή οποιουδήποτε πλάσματος. Πρόκειται για το μοτίβο του «αλλαγόμορφου» (shape-shifter), διαδεδομένο στο λαϊκό φαντασιακό, αγαπητό και σε άλλα έργα του Αριστοφάνη (πβ. τον Φιλοκλέωνα στον πρόλογο των Σφηκών). Το μοτίβο αυτό συνδυάζεται με την ηθολογική τυποποίηση των ζώων, που είναι παρμένη από τον κόσμο των αισώπειων μύθων: οι θεές των νεφών μετασχηματίζονται κάθε φορά σε ορισμένο θηρίο για να σατιρίσουν συγκεκριμένο ανθρώπινο ελάττωμα. Έτσι ο Αριστοφάνης υποτάσσει το παραμυθιακό στοιχείο στους στόχους του ὀνομαστὶ κωμῳδεῖν και καυτηριάζει σειρά δημοσίων ανδρών της Αθήνας, από τους οποίους οι περισσότεροι συνδέονταν με τον ριζοσπάστη δημαγωγό Κλέωνα.

(2) Αχαρνής 65–114: Αθηναίοι πρεσβευτές, επιστρέφοντας από την αυλή του Πέρση βασιλιά, περιγράφουν την περσική αυτοκρατορία σαν ουτοπική χώρα θαυμαστής αφθονίας με γιγάντια γεύματα και ολόχρυσα βουνά. Ο Αριστοφάνης μεταπλάθει το θέμα της «Καλοφαγαδοχώρας» (Cockaigne, Schlaraffenland), δημοφιλές στις παραμυθοκωμωδίες του Κράτητος, του Φερεκράτη και των οπαδών τους. Στις ουτοπίες αυτού του τύπου η αυτόματη παραγωγή φαγητών από τη φύση συνδυάζεται με απίστευτο πλούτο πολύτιμων υλικών (πβ. τη θρυλική Αιθιοπία του Ηρόδοτου και τη νήσο των Μακάρων στον Λουκιανό). Ο Αριστοφάνης υποβιβάζει κάπως το μοτίβο του φαγητού και δίνει έμφαση στην αφθονία του χρυσού, για να σατιρίσει τις ψευδείς υποσχέσεις των φιλοπόλεμων δημαγωγών προς τον αθηναϊκό λαό. Στόχος του κωμικού ψόγου είναι πάλι ο Κλέων και οι σύντροφοί του, που υπονόμευαν τις ειρηνευτικές προσπάθειες και πάσχιζαν να κρατήσουν υψηλό το πολεμικό φρόνημα του δήμου, καλλιεργώντας την προσδοκία γενναίας οικονομικής ενίσχυσης από την Περσία.

(3) Το σενάριο της Ειρήνης δραματοποιεί πασίγνωστο παραμυθιακό σχήμα, που εμπεριέχεται σε αρκετούς τύπους μαγικών παραμυθιών από τη διεθνή παράδοση. Τρεις πριγκίπισσες (Ειρήνη Θεωρία, Οπώρα) απάγονται από το τέρας (Πόλεμος) και φυλακίζονται σε απόκοσμο τόπο. Ο ήρωας (Τρυγαίος), με τη βοήθεια των συντρόφων του (Πανέλληνες γεωργοί), τις απελευθερώνει και παντρεύεται μία εξ αυτών (Οπώρα). Πολλές λεπτομέρειες της αριστοφανικής πλοκής αντιστοιχούν επακριβώς σε στοιχεία της μίας ή της άλλης παραμυθιακής παραλλαγής, ενώ η απλότητα των ηθικών θεμελίων του δραματικού μύθου θυμίζει την ασπρόμαυρη παλέτα της λαϊκής θυμοσοφίας. Πίσω από το παραμύθι διακρίνεται πάλι η κριτική κατά των λαϊκιστών δημαγωγών που υποστήριζαν τη συνέχιση του πολέμου. Ο «δράκος» φωλιάζει στις πέτρες της Πνύκας και διαλέγει τα θύματά του από τα αγροτόσπιτα της Αττικής.

A close reading of three Aristophanic scenes in which non-elite Athenian citizen characters confront one another in ways which highlight issues relating to the operation of Athenian democratic social values. The analysis teases out an intricate comic interplay between foreground absurdism and background realism.

This is a comparison of Agathon’s role in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae and Plato’s Symposium. Firstly, I examine the Platonic version, and the unique, idiosyncratic part Plato gives Agathon to play, as a host to all, and a hostage to Socrates. Secondly, I discuss his interaction with Inlaw, the ordinary Athenian, in Aristophanes’ play. Such parallel reading allows us not only to refine our outlook on the dramatic construction both of the “talking party” and of the comic performance, but also to capture how really poikilos, for better or worse, that urban love could be. Finally, I analyze the significance of this juxtaposition, as an intertext. Plato, I argue, produces a proper palinode of Agathon, as an erotikos and a mimetic poet. By taking seriously the face-to-face between Agathon and Agathon, two dissonant and yet compatible variations on one man, our picture of Athenian erotic culture emerges sharper, and in greater detail. 
Key words:
Eros, sensuality, praise, blame, softness, manliness, effeminacy, body, language.

For general background, see my Introduction to the Classical Greek Theater.] Contents Aristophanes and Greek Old Comedy Aristophanes' Preserved Works Aristophanes' Clouds and Old Comedy Clouds and the Greek Enlightenment Socrates in Clouds Where feasible, images provided in the text below are embedded with active links to my sources; clicking on the image will allow you to examine the original, which often provides greater detail. Aristophanes and Greek Old Comedy. The historical origins of tragedy and comedy are often sought in Greek religious ritual. A ritual origin for tragedy is difficult to establish, but there are several elements in the socalled *Old Comedy that can be cited to make a good prima facie case for the development of 5 th-century Athenian comedy out of Dionysiac rites. The Greek *komoidia means "the song of the komos." A komos is a communal ritual carouse: on a small scale it is the ancient equivalent of party-crashing and bar-hopping rolled into one, but as part of a communal festival of Dionysus it recalls modern carnivals such as that of Mardi gras (although the ancient rites were usually more organized)a time when normal social rules and inhibitions are cast aside and people party in the streets, singing, dancing, and (often) drinking. The ritualized komos often involved masks and costumes, as does Mardi gras, but was marked by another practice foreign to most festivals in modern North America: *aischrologia or the ritual abuse of individuals. Another distinctive feature, found in many Dionysiac rites and no doubt in some komoi, was the phallos: an imitation penis, often too large for one person to lift with ease, carried on a pole or cart. As with Mardi gras, these rites tended to occur in spring (or mid-to late-winter) and although they may have served a number of psychological, social, or political ends, their main function was to promote fertility by honoring or encouraging the god (and driving away any spirits of blight) through a boisterous display of health, prosperity, and virility. 1

This essay discusses the ancient testimony claiming that the Athenians decreed a second performance of Aristophanes’ Frogs shortly after its original performance in 405 BC. These testimonia have suggested that the Athenians granted Aristophanes this honor because they especially admired the political message
of the play’s parabasis. Some scholars in the nineteenth century questioned this explanation, since the play as a whole itself is more focused on aesthetics than politics, though their skepticism was largely silenced in the twentieth century. This study revisits the question, arguing that skepticism about some details of the testimonia is justified, and suggesting other explanations for a second performance that rely more on contemporary performance culture and aesthetics than politics.

This study focuses on the influence of classical authors on Ben Jonson’s dramaturgy, with particular emphasis on the playwrights Aristophanes, Plautus, and Terence, and the literary satirists Horace, Juvenal, Persius, and Lucian.  Jonson was a man of the theatre just as much as he was a man of letters, and in order to illuminate this aspect of his creative personality the thesis considers how classical performance elements (including the Aristophanic ‘Great Idea,’ chorus, and Terentian/Plautine performative strategies) as well as ‘performative’ elements from classical literature (such as the presentation of satirical personae) manifest themselves in the staging of his plays. The emphasis on performance helps to steer the thesis away from focusing purely on classical literary allusions within Jonson's playtexts, and instead encompasses non-literary elements like theatregrams, modes of performance, spatial practices, and structural techniques that are not necessarily apparent on the page but are key elements of Jonson's dramaturgy.
The thesis contends that, in performative just as much as literary terms, Jonson's appropriation of the classics fits with the creative techniques of imitatio and contaminatio, two practices that placed emphasis on the modelling of literary or dramatic works on the examples of past writers and of the creative blending of these models to produce a new aesthetic object. In addition, it is argued that the moral imperatives that drive Jonson's dramatic output are also a product of both of these creative practices, imbuing it with a blend of Greek and Roman dramaturgical and philosophical viewpoints that create a uniquely Jonsonian dramaturgy that is, in varying combinations, moralising, aggressive, sympathetic, and cynical.
The study proceeds thematically rather than chronologically, and makes use of critical methods and scholarship from a range of disciplines, including performance and comparativist criticism, English philology, classical studies, spatial theory, and reception studies. The whole thesis is unified by its emphasis on Jonson’s imitative and contaminative strategies, which serve as useful conceptual models for examining how he allowed his classical sources to become ‘guides, not commanders,’ their influence giving his work the curious quality of being simultaneously deeply indebted to the ancient authors and playwrights while never being completely beholden to them.
An appendix on all classical allusions in Jonson's comedies as documented by the plays' recent major editors and an appendix detailing the extant records of classical performances c.1450-1650 conclude the thesis.

The popular farces of Doric Greek regions represented a form of traditional folk theatre, based on the performers’ oral improvisations, without fixed scripts. The various local species of Doric folk drama seem to have shared a common heritage and background of basic motifs, amusing situations, and typified personages. Scattered testimonia of ancient antiquarians and polymaths allow a glimpse into these early comic performances, which seem to have developed a rudimentary typology of theatrical characters, who recurred in the improvised scenarios and maintained a standard dramatic function. The stock ethological types of Doric farce included the trickster, a perpetrator of deceptions usually preoccupied with stealing food; the alazon, who posed as a connoisseur of intricate skills and expressed himself in bizarre language; the glutton, intent on satisfying the demands of his belly; the funny pair of the cook and his servant; and the poor jack-of-all-trades. From the confrontations and interactions between these characters a number of equally stereotypical, elementary routines arose, which functioned as minimal plot units and were combined for the construction of a dramatic plotline. Many of these dramatic figures look like rough sketches or archetypical forerunners of the standard personages which will later populate the stage of the literary Sicilian and Attic comedy. Early Doric farces offer a primordial “comedy of characters” in the making. The development of a system of stock types and situations was natural for those forms of improvised folk drama, which needed strong codes to provide a stable supportive infrastructure for the players’ extemporizations.

The significance and influence of Attic drama on Hellenistic poetry has been a topic of little consistent focus in recent scholarship, reflecting the dominant academic emphasis on Hellenistic poetry as a written artefact, allegedly detached from any immediate context of performance. This paper attempts to reverse this trend by setting out the continuing vitality and cultural importance of drama in the Hellenistic world, before exploring the role of Attic Old Comedy as both a precedent and a model for Hellenistic poetry. Much of what is often thought distinctively ‘Hellenistic’ can in fact be shown to have clear old comic precedent: Old Comedy, just like Hellenistic poetry, is heavily intertextual (even to the point of re-appropriating Homeric hapax legomena); engages in frequent generic manipulation; displays a strong interest in literary history; emphasises its own literary and metrical innovations; and displays a self-conscious awareness of the tensions between textuality and performance. Yet more than this, Old Comedy also offered a key paradigm of agonistic self-fashioning and literary-critical terminology which Hellenistic poets could parrot, appropriate and invert. Hellenistic poets’ direct engagement with Old Comedy extended well beyond the famous literary agon of Aristophanes’ Frogs.

Ecclesiazusae, the first surviving work of Aristophanes from the fourth century b.c.e., has often been dismissed as an example of Aristophanes’ declining powers and categorized as being less directly rooted in politics than its fifth-century predecessors owing to the after-effects of Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Arguing against this perception, which was largely based on the absence of ad hominem attacks characterizing Aristophanes’ earlier works, this paper explores how Ecclesiazusae engages with contemporary post-war Athenian politics in a manner which, while different to his earlier comedies, remained closely rooted in the political and cultural concerns of the 390s. By examining the figure of Praxagora, I will first consider recent suggestions that Ecclesiazusae hints at the possibility of an anti-democratic coup. I will then examine how contemporary discussions of constitutional and legal reforms (including the invocation of ‘founding fathers’ such as Solon and Lycurgus) are incorporated into both Praxagora's language and the scenes featuring the Selfish Man and Hags that follow the establishment of Praxagora's regime. Examining these final scenes, I conclude that Ecclesiasuzae does not suggest that the idea of democratic equality itself is fundamentally flawed, but instead argues that Athens needs a suitable leader, well suited to the rough and tumble of assembly rhetoric, in order to successfully function. In the world of Ecclesiazusae, the men of Athens have failed too often to inspire any hope, putting their own interest above the state, and the new leader must be someone different. Thus Aristophanes sets up Praxagora as a female Solon to remake the state and lead the democracy. The second half of the play demonstrates this need for a strong leader, as problems arise both from the quarter of critical bystanders (the Selfish Man and Epigenes, the Young Man in the ‘hag scene’) and from over-zealous enforcers (the Old Women).

Aristophanic comedy combines the materials of popular fantasy with keen, well-targeted satire and criticism of the major political issues of the Athenian state. The Birds can be read as an open parable which illustrates caustically the imperialism of Athenian democracy. Nephelokokkygia, the fantastic city of the birds in mid-air, is in essence a projection of the radical and imperialistic Athens onto the heterotopia of the aerial realm. The comedy was performed while the Sicilian expedition was in full progress, and the Athenian dēmos expected to conquer the entire western Mediterranean. The phantasmagorical polis of the birds, which finally subdues the gods and the men and triumphantly dominates over the universe, looks like a magnificent and grotesque parody of the irrepressible ambitions of Athenian imperialism. As happens with all worthy works of fantastic literature (e.g. the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien), the mythopoeia of the literary creation is an autonomous construct of the imagination, a complete and self-existent secondary world, which does not need reference to external coordinates of meaning. However, behind this self-reliant fantastic creation, one may discern —if one wishes to, and on one’s own hermeneutical responsibility— a general connection with the historical circumstances of the author’s age and milieu.

In the Frogs, similarly, the Hades explored by Dionysus has many similarities with the city of Athens under the dire conditions at the end of the Peloponnesian War, shortly before the final defeat. The Frogs is the only known ancient comedy in which the action is mostly set in the realm of the underworld. The beleaguered Athens of 405/4 BCE, tantalized by the constant fear of defeat and destruction, had come to resemble a city of the dead; Hades seemed to have been transplanted in the agora and the streets of the city. With Aristophanes’ play, Hades also comes to occupy the orchestra of the theatre. Through this brilliant and bitter comedy, Aristophanes attempts to transmit a message of unity and patriotism to his audience: Athens, in order to survive, needs to find again the spirit of courage, self-sacrifice and concord that characterized the city at the time of the Persian Wars. Hence the choice of the warlike and patriotic Aeschylus over the subtle and intellectual Euripides: Dionysus may personally prefer the sophisticated drama of the latter, but has the duty to select a poet in accordance with the public needs and interests of the polis.

Aristophanes’ messages do not seem to have had much effect in practical terms. Athenian imperialism did not abate; the city was not saved. But his great works of dramatic art have lasted through time.

This article expands on recent scholarly attention to the ritual aspects of Athenian Old Comedy, including its possibly cultic and civic functions within the performa-tive setting of the Great Dionysia, and proposes the use of linguistic and other tools as a means of providing deeper appreciation of such aspects of the plays. The article argues the point by applying these tools to a study of the use and occurrence of hymnic, sacrificial and wedding language and themes in Aristophanes' Birds, and by examining the interplay of the stage action with the festival's surrounding ritual and civic events.

The formal beginning of comedy is firmly dated to the Dionysia of 486 b.c.e. 1 For what preceded it there were at least three ancient candidates: phallic processions, Doric comedy and Susarion. Each is supported by visual evidence of the sixth century b.c.e., each explains certain features of Old Comedy, but all have some anomalies as well. Striking is how many forms of performance attested in the sixth century contained comic elements. All these other forms ceased with the introduction of comedies to the Dionysia in 486 b.c.e., which coincides with the ascendancy of the demos; yet it was not until forty years later that comedy becomes unabashedly political. there is certainly no lack of recent scrutiny of the murky early stages of tragedy and dithyramb. 2 Less studied recently is the same process of comedy, for which, in contrast to tragedy and dithyramb, a fortunate combination of epigraphic and literary evidence allows us to date the official beginnings in Athens quite precisely: 3 the first competition at the Dionysia in Athens was in 487/6 b.c.e., and Chionides was

De Ste. Croix famously argued that Aristophanes had a conservative political outlook and attempted to use his comedies to win over lower-class audiences to this minority point of view. The ongoing influence of his interpretation has meant that Old Comedy has been largely ignored in the historiography of Athenian popular culture. This article extends earlier critiques of de Ste. Croix by systematically comparing how Aristophanes and the indisputably popular genre of fourth-century oratory represented the social classes of the Athenians and political leaders. The striking parallels between the two suggest that Aristophanes, far from advocating a minority position, exploited the rich and, at times, contradictory views of lower-class citizens for comic and ultimately competitive ends. As a consequence his plays are valuable evidence for Athenian popular culture and help to correct the markedly fourth-century bias in the writing of Athenian cultural history.

""On the base of the third part of Ion’s monologic prologue (vv. 154-183), where the homonymous young guardian of the Delphic temple, through a strongly realistic, mimetic-pantomimic movement, tries and manages to drive away from the temple some 'birds‛ that threaten its purity, I shall advance the hypothesis that this particular passage (if not Ion in its entirety) recalls intertextually –on verbal and visual level– and alludes critically to the Parodos of Aristophanes’ "Birds" (if not to "Birds" in their entirety). The hypothesis of paracomic referentiality in the case of "Ion" has several implications: First of all, and very obviously, it forces us to exclude the possibility that " Ion" dates before 414 BC. Secondly, this hypothesis adds –or rather confirms– one more ‚comic‛ trace among the many that have been so far sought and identified in Ion’s textual surface. Thirdly, it reinforces the reasonable assumption of ‚mutual‛ artistic influence between Euripides and Aristophanes, who followed parallel paths for a long time in the last decades of the 5th century. Last but not least, such a possibility of paracomic referentiality presupposes a further expansion of the limits of the receptive openness and the readily available decoding abilities of the ancient audience, who were invited to identify and distinguish between the different
inter-textual and inter-performative references employed not only by the more blatant, articulate and denotative ancient comic performance but also by the more discrete, allusive and connotative tragic performance.""

(= Atti del Seminario ‘Politica e filosofia nel mondo antico’, organizzato nel periodo febbraio-maggio 2014 presso il Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità dell’Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, a cura di P. Vannicelli, J. Thornton, F Guizzi, M. Mari).

Abstract. The way Plutarch (Per. 4, 2-3) speaks about Damon as Pericles’ éminence grise is not a literary creation by the biographer, neither it could be seen as imitation of Plat. Prot. 316d-317b (due to the several differences between Plato and Plutarch). The representation of Damon who uses music (lyra) as a veil for his political activity, the charges on Damon of being μεγαλοπράγμων καὶ φιλοτύραννος, are elements strictly tied to the political climate of Periclean Athens, and especially to anti-Periclean propaganda (but to other propagandistic agendas too: e.g. that of sophistai). These propagandistic themes were often espressed on stage, by the authors of Old Comedy, and Old Comedy is often a source in Plutarch’s Pericles; the lyra-parakalymma looks like a lively comical sketch. Therefore, it seems very probable that a comedy was the source for Plut. Per. 4, 3 (perhaps Cratinus’ Thrattai?).   

Riassunto. Il modo in cui Plutarco caratterizza Damone come consigliere segreto di Pericle in Per. 4, 2-3 non può essere considerato una ‘invenzione’ letteraria dello scrittore; né Plat. Prot 316d-317b può essere all’origine di tale caratterizzazione, visti i numerosi elementi differenti. Al contrario, l’immagine di Damone che si serve della lira come di un velo per celare la propria deinotes, come l’accusa di essere μεγαλοπράγμων καὶ φιλοτύραννος appaiono connesse all’atmosfera politica dell’Atene periclea, e alla propaganda anticpericlea (ma non solo: vd. i sofisti); tale propaganda spesso trovava espressione pubblica nella commedia. Proprio i komikoi sono spesso usati da Plutarco come fonte per il V sec. a.C. e la vivida immagine della lyra-parakalymma ben si adatta ad una messinscena. E’ molto probabile dunque che una commedia perduta di V sec. sia la fonte di Plut. Per. 4, 3 (forse le Thrattai di Cratino?).

Στο άρθρο αυτό εξετάζονται όλα τα χωρία από τα σωζόμενα έργα και αποσπάσματα της αττικής κωμωδίας, τα οποία αναφέρονται ρητά ή υπαινικτικά στον Αλκιβιάδη, το τρομερό παιδί της αθηναϊκής πολιτικής κατά τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες του 5ου αιώνα π.Χ. Ο Αριστοφάνης, αν και δεν φαίνεται να παρουσίασε ποτέ τον Αλκιβιάδη επί σκηνής, εντούτοις τον μνημονεύει και τον σατιρίζει αρκετές φορές στα έργα του, από τους Δαιταλής (427 π.Χ.) έως τους Βατράχους (405 π.Χ.). Οι μνείες αυτές χαρακτηρίζονται από εντυπωσιακή επιείκεια. Ο Αριστοφάνης σκώπτει τον Αλκιβιάδη μόνο ελαφρά, για ατασθαλίες της προσωπικής του ζωής ή για ελαττώματα της ομιλίας του, ενώ δεν ασκεί ποτέ σοβαρή κριτική σε καθαρά πολιτικές ενέργειές του. Στον αντίποδα, ο Εύπολις περιέλαβε τον Αλκιβιάδη ως βασικό πρόσωπο σε δύο τουλάχιστον κωμωδίες του, τους Κόλακες (421 π.Χ.) και τους Βάπτες (πιθανώς 416 ή 415 π.Χ.), και τον διακωμώδησε με μεγάλη οξύτητα για τις αδυναμίες του χαρακτήρα του, οι οποίες είχαν ευδιάκριτες επιπτώσεις στην πολιτική του δράση. Ο Αλκιβιάδης του Εύπολι απεικονίζεται ως αδίστακτος καιροσκόπος, κόλακας, ασυγκράτητα φιλήδονος, υπέρμετρα φιλόδοξος και επικίνδυνος για τους δημοκρατικούς θεσμούς της πόλης. Η εικόνα συμπληρώνεται από λίγα αποσπάσματα άλλων κωμικών, που επικεντρώνονται ιδίως στην τρυφή και την ακολασία του Αλκιβιάδη.

Το περιοδικό Παρουσία, επιστημονικό όργανο του συλλόγου των διδασκόντων της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών, εγκαινιάζει τη νέα περίοδό του με τον καινούργιο αυτόν τόμο (21 της συνολικής σειράς), που μόλις κυκλοφόρησε. Ο τόμος περιλαμβάνει, μεταξύ άλλων, εξαίρετα μελετήματα για την αρχαία και τη νεότερη ελληνική φιλολογία, γραμμένα από διακεκριμένους ερευνητές όπως η Σοφία Παπαϊωάννου, ο Δημήτρης Καραδήμας, ο Ιωάννης Πανούσης, ο Βασίλης Βερτουδάκης, ο πλείστα υποσχόμενος Δημήτρης Κανελλάκης και άλλοι. Εν καιρώ το σύνολο των περιεχομένων του θα αναρτηθεί στον ιστότοπο του περιοδικού (http://epub.lib.uoa.gr/index.php/parousia), όπου είναι ήδη διαθέσιμοι όλοι οι προηγούμενοι τόμοι. Πλήρης πίνακας των περιεχομένων του παρόντος τόμου περιλαμβάνεται στο μικρό δείγμα του δικού μου άρθρου που αναρτώ προσώρας εδώ.

This article examines all the passages from the extant plays and fragments of Attic comedy, which openly refer or allude to Alcibiades, the enfant terrible of Athenian politics during the last decades of the 5th century B.C. Aristophanes does not seem to have ever brought Alcibiades as a character on stage, but he mentions and satirizes Alcibiades on several occasions in his plays, from the Banqueters (427 B.C.) to the Frogs (405 B.C.). These references are characterized by impressive lenience. Aristophanes only lightly taunts Alcibiades for misdemeanours in his personal life or for speech defects, but never once criticizes him seriously for his political deeds. On the contrary, Eupolis included Alcibiades as a dramatis persona in at least two comedies, the Flatterers (421 B.C.) and the Baptai (probably 416 or 451 B.C.), and ridiculed him with considerable acrimony for the failings of his character, which had visible consequences on his activity as a politician. Eupolis’ Alcibiades is depicted as an unscrupulous opportunist, a flatterer, an inveterate hedonist, an excessively ambitious man, and a danger for the democratic institutions of the polis. The image is completed with a few fragments of other comic authors, which mainly focus on Alcibiades’ luxury and debauchery.

The journal "Parousia", a scholarly publication of the teaching staff society of the Faculty of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, inaugurates its new series with this volume (21 of the complete series), which has just been published. Among other contributions, the volume includes excellent contributions on ancient and modern Greek philology and literature, written by distinguished researchers such as Sophia Papaioannou, Dimitrios Karadimas, Ioannis Panoussis, Vassilis Vertoudakis, the highly promising Dimitrios Kanellakis and others. In time, the total contents will be uploaded in the website of the journal (http://epub.lib.uoa.gr/index.php/parousia), where all the previous volumes are already fully available. A complete table of contents of the present volume is included in the small specimen of my own article, which I temporarily upload on this webpage.

Mediante un análisis de las representaciones humorísticas de la justicia ateniense en la comedia antigua, este libro se ocupa de relevar y analizar los modos en que el derecho es revelado, imitado, privatizado, suspendido, enseñado o proyectado en el corpus aristofánico. A través de una verdadera poética cómica de la justicia, las distintas estrategias empleadas por Aristófanes en las primeras seis obras de su producción literaria se canalizan hacia la explotación estética del nómos como un recurso primordial de la composición cómica. Sobre la escena, la destreza del dramaturgo se vale de los mecanismos de hiperbolización, distorsión y transcontextualización para refractar la excesiva litigiosidad ateniense y burlarse de la centralidad del universo forense frente a sus espectadores. Este volumen, que constituye el primer estudio acerca de los cruces entre la dimensión normativa y la comediografía política griega, procura ilustrar la importancia del género como fuente para una mejor comprensión del orden legal de la Atenas de fines del siglo V a.C. y, al mismo tiempo, rescatar la utilidad de lo jurídico para una mejor interpretación de las piezas conservadas a partir de un examen de los dispositivos regulatorios en juego.

This paper is concerned with the study of gender as political metaphor. It argues that in ancient Athens, or indeed in other pre-industrial societies, the aristocracy had symbolic feminine attributes, and that "political gender" was performed by the people of the time in order to allegorically signify the political relationships between different social classes; essentially this means that gender and love were perceived as mediums of political expression. His-story, the contemporary production of the past through the lens of "big men", ignores the role of symbolic women, projecting instead today's hyper masculine worldview of what it means to be part of the elite. Mostly based on capital strength and the idea that the nobility was synonymous with warlords and brute force, this view has the direct result of excluding Eros from the political conversation that residually survives in ancient texts. Eros, thus exiled to an exclusively private sphere, such as the private life of individuals, has lost nowadays its multifaceted ancient meanings, and this paper is a step towards recovering them.

Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, einen Beitrag zur Beschäftigung mit visuellen Darstellungen von Identitäten und zugrundeliegenden Erzählstrukturen unterschiedlicher Bevölkerungsgruppen im späten 5. und frühen 4. Jh. v. Chr. zu leisten. Dies geschieht über die Interpretation von Vasenbildern, genauer über die Demaskierung unteritalischer Possenbilder, wie auch über die Betrachtung des direkten Vergleichsmediums, der literarisch überlieferten alten attischen Komödie.

This is a slightly-modified version of a paper I presented at the 2019 conference/workshop series 'Plato on Comedy' at Durham University. It serves as the basis for a (significantly altered) chapter in a volume of the proceedings for CUP. That chapter is now available above,

The 'Protagoras' reproduces the classical comic contrast between Socrates as a chattering, philosophical *ascetic against the flattering, cynical *hedonists that we understand to be 'sophists'. This contrast appeared paradigmatically in Ameipsias' 'Konnos' and Eupolis' 'Flatterers'. Plato relies heavily on these works (and others) in the Protagoras to drive home the distinction between Socrates and his interlocutors in respect of their values regarding pleasure as a good. Thus, no future discussion of the question of hedonism in the dialogue--that is, does Socrates believe pleasure to be an unconditional good?--can benefit without taking this comic dialectic of character into account.

Este artículo se propone analizar la escena del cresmólogo intruso en Aves, revalorizando la comedia aristofánica como fuente de conocimiento histórico. Este análisis se centra en la práctica oracular como una técnica de producción escrita vinculada a la autoridad religiosa. De esta manera, se exploran dos campos de estudios, como la comedia antigua y la adivinación griega, cuyo vínculo no ha sido explorado en profundidad. Para dar cuenta del momento crítico de la institución oracular durante la Guerra del Peloponeso, se reconstruyen perspectivas sobre dicho fenómeno en otras fuentes como Tucídides o Demóstenes. Esto no solo ofrece una mirada «cómica» sobre la adivinación, sino que también permite comprender la práctica oracular como técnica y, en consecuencia, qué elementos de su funcionamiento podían ser manipulados.

This essay calls for a re-evaluation of the image of Dikaiopolis as a selfish, hedonistic figure who stands in sharp contrast to the figures of Trygaios and Lysistrata. Underneath the veneer of self-centeredness and self-indulgence — which is enacted by Aristophanes in the interest of antiwar rhetoric — lies a figure who cares deeply for the well-being of agricultural land and the female-dominated fertility rites of Attica. In support of this argument I offer (a) an attentive re-reading of the Megarian
scene (730-835) which features the bartering of two girls disguised as sacrificial piglets for the Mysteries, and (b) an equally close examination of the figure of Amphitheos.
In the case of the former this entails focusing on the allusions being made to Demeter’s agricultural fertility rituals such as the ritualistic megara (pits) with regard to the Thesmophoria festival, and the figure of Diocles (774) with regard to the Eleusinian Mysteries. In the case of the later this entails an analysis of his genealogy as it relates to Demeter’s religious rites and Attica’s ancestral founders.

Leo Strauss is one of a handful of politi¬cal philosophers to turn his gaze to the political thought of Aristophanes. In his book Socrates and Aristophanes (1966) Strauss provides one of the longest, methodical, comprehensive studies of the Aristophanic corpus. Taking as its starting point Strauss’s interpretation of Aristophanes’s Frogs - as it pertains to the political poetics of Aeschylus and Euripides - this essay seeks to demonstrate that Strauss’s reading of Aristophanes was influenced by Nietzsche’s hermeneutical framework of agonistic impulses. Via an interdisciplinary reading of the agonal erotopoetics involving Aristophanes and his older rival Cratinus, I argue that  Strauss  appreciated the concept of agonal creative contests and its intertextual manifestations. In addition I raise the possibility that, similar to Nietzsche, Strauss’s perplexing style of writing is a mimetic form of agonal intertextuality.

Approaching the subject from a different point of view than Rusten 2006 (Who "invented" comedy), I ask what are the assumptions that underlie both the Aristotelian and modern attempts to explain the existence of Old Comedy, both historically and conceptually. The first is more interested in the derivation of Old Comedy, its precursors; moderns seek for it a single or predominant animating principle.

It is widely acknowledged that continuity through change and coherence through experimentation constitute the defining attributes of Athenian Comedy. A number of major trends and patterns (e.g. politics, obscenity, personal satire) sustain this continuity throughout. At the same time there are certain minor trends, which further corroborate this continuity. Within particularly Middle Comedy we can often detect early traces of distinctive features that reappear in Menander and whose antecedents reach as far back as Old Comedy; e.g. the structure and content of argumentation bordering with fake philosophy, the speech patterns of parasites, as well as a number of other topoi. These characteristics complement our perception of comic continuity by drawing attention to the details. The present paper analyses these details, or “sub-trends”, in an attempt to increase our awareness of the internal mechanisms of the comic genre.

Por ser uma arte que permanece há tantos séculos, o teatro desperta a curiosidade acerca de seus primórdios, existindo várias conjecturas e teorias sobre o surgimento da tragédia e da comédia. Como seria a construção dos personagens cômicos antigos? O que dessa construção permanece em nossos dias? Quais diálogos que o teatro mantém com outras artes, como a Literatura de Cordel na elaboração de personagens cômicos? São alguns dos questionamentos daqueles que se dedicam à musa cômica. Muitos são os recursos utilizados na Antiguidade Clássica que ainda hoje vigoram, pois, afinal, o teatro como a Literatura de Cordel é uma arte híbrida que carrega consigo as marcas da tradição mescladas com os traços do contemporâneo. Um exemplo desse entrecruzamento literário e oral é a constituição dos tipos cômicos como a figura do roceiro astuto, recorrente no primeiro comediógrafo a que temos acesso na cultura ocidental, Aristófanes, em Acarnenses e abundante ainda nas peças teatrais de hoje, como em o Auto da Compadecida, de Ariano Suassuna, ou bem como no cinema, arte que bebeu avidamente do teatro. Quem não recorda as figuras célebres de Diceópolis, o duplo cômico (matuto) de os Acarnenses (Aristófanes) e de João Grilo e Chicó, sendo este uma espécie de duplo, pois representa de forma autorizada, a própria voz do poeta com todas as suas anedotas e os "- Não sei, só sei que foi assim!" ou de algum outro matuto astuto de nossa tradição cinematográfica ou teatral recriado na literatura de cordel, a partir das influências ibérica ou grega?

A careful reading of the passage from Ar. Ec. 877-1111 reveals a bisemical structure. Eros and thanatos are skilfully superposed throughout the scene: Hags' proposal of love to a young boy is seen by their victim as a gruesome attempt to lure him to Death. The character of the three Hags is probably based on that of Empousa, ogress and phasma sent by Hekate.