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Gender, space and warfare in the early plays of Aristophanes

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Gender, space and warfare in the early plays of Aristophanes

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Content GENDER, SPACE AND WARFARE IN THE EARLY PLAYS OF
ARISTOPHANES
by
Chiara Sulprizio
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CLASSICS)
August 2007
Copyright 2007 Chiara Sulprizio
ii
Epigraph
Everywhere you shut me in. Always you assign a place to me. Even outside the frame
that I form with you…You mark out boundaries, draw lines, surround, enclose…What is
your fear? That you might lose your property. What remains is an empty frame. You
cling to it, dead.
-- Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions (1992)
listen,
you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!
-- Lucille Clifton, “What the Mirror Said” (1980)
iii
Dedication
For my family
iv
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the chair of my committee, Amy Richlin, for her guidance and
support, as well as her inspiring enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Susan Lape,
Nancy Lutkehaus, Clifford Ando, and Tom Habinek for the helpful insights and
suggestions each offered me at various stages of this project. Lastly, my thanks go to
Ethan Adams, who for eight years somehow managed to keep me convinced that I could
accomplish this goal. It would not have been possible for me to complete this project
without the financial support I received from the University of Southern California.
v
Table of Contents
Epigraph ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract vi
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
The Place of War, Gender and Comedy in Aristophanes’ Athens
Chapter 2: A Separate Peace? 23
Acharnians
Chapter 3: A World Without Women…Almost 59
Knights and Wasps
Chapter 4: No-Man’s Land 144
The Curious Case of Clouds
Chapter 5: You Can’t Go Home Again 213
Peace and the Peace of 421 BCE
Conclusion: The Feminized Polis 281
Looking Forward to the Women’s Plays
Bibliography 295
vi
Abstract
This dissertation examines how Aristophanes articulated and staged gender
difference in his five earliest extant comedies, which were produced in succession during
the initial period of the Peloponnesian War. These plays present a diachronic picture of
the war’s destabilizing effect on the Athenian political system and its sex/gender system,
which underpinned the democratic state through its regulation of marriage and
reproduction. By submitting these plays to a historicized and socio-spatial analysis, I
explain why the comic stage became such a potent venue for the conflation of the
political and sexual conflicts occurring in Athens during the 420s BCE. I also consider
the ideological developments that prompted Aristophanes to foreground the feminine in
his later work.
Through his use of geographic imagery and his manipulation of the theatrical
space, Aristophanes emphasized the intimate relationship between civic identity and
gender identity. In particular, he employed the feminine spaces of the body and the
home, or oikos, as metaphorical battlegrounds, where physical and ideological conflicts
could be synthesized, scaled down and humorously represented. The depiction of these
spaces as contested sites in male struggles for dominance relied upon and reproduced the
longstanding discursive association that equated women with property or territory. It was
also influenced directly by the belligerent and imperialistic climate in which he produced
his works.
Aristophanes’ representations of femininity evolved gradually, culminating in
his “women’s plays,” wherein females occupy male-identified civic spaces to achieve
social change. Female characters appear sparingly, however, in his earlier comedies,
vii
where the settings are largely domestic. As these plays progress, the absence of women
becomes increasingly problematic for the male characters: it hinders their efforts to
distinguish themselves from one another, and allows the violence and unrest brought on
by the war to engulf the safe space of the home. Their denial of the feminine and the
oikos as necessary, active elements of Athens’ political life thus compromises the plot’s
successful resolution at times. It also provokes the emergence, at the end of these plays,
of female figures who express dissenting or alternate perspectives, and who prefigure the
dynamic heroines of Aristophanes’ later plays.
1
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The Place of War, Gender and Comedy in Aristophanes’ Athens
War is the father of all things [pÒlemow patÆr pãntvn].
-- Heraclitus
Love is a battlefield.
-- Pat Benatar
Anyone who is familiar with fifth-century Greek history knows that in 427 BCE
Athens was sorely in need of a good laugh. War had officially broken out with Sparta
four years previously, and in response, Pericles, the Athenian general and leading
politician of the time, had compelled the inhabitants of Attica to leave their rural homes
and move into the city. As the historian Thucydides reports, this was highly disruptive to
their usual way of life: “Deep was their trouble and discontent at abandoning their
homes and the hereditary temples of the ancient state, and at having to change their
habits of life and bid farewell to what each regarded as his native city.”
1
The Spartans
took to ravaging the Attic countryside, which they would do regularly for the next
several years, while the city proved too small to hold all its new residents. Plague broke
out as a result in 430; it decimated the population, even taking down Pericles in its wake
the following year.
2
Thucydides, who himself contracted the plague during this period
but managed to survive it, explains how its spread throughout the city had so great a
destabilizing effect that those who survived assumed lifestyles of “lawless
1
Thuc. 2.16. All passages of Thucydides cited herein are translated by Strassler (1996).
2
Thuc 2.47-55. He discusses Pericles’ death at 2.65. It is estimated that between one-quarter and one-
third of the population died from this disease, the identity of which is still hotly debated. See most
recently, Morens and Littman 1992 and 1994 (with bibliography); Morgan 1994 and Soupios 2004.
2
extravagance.” It seems that, in the face of so much death, they came to view their lives
as fleeting and insignificant; they therefore did whatever they pleased openly, without
regard for honor, law or the gods.
3
Out of these bleak and volatile circumstances a group of comedians emerged,
who competed at making light of the city’s plights and at raising the spirits of its
inhabitants each winter, during the dramatic festivals of the Lenaea and the City
Dionysia.
4
Among them was one Aristophanes, son of Philippus and resident of the
urban deme Cydathenaeum, who would go on to become “the foremost poet of Old Attic
Comedy.”
5
His first play, Banqueters, now lost, was performed in 427 BCE, when the
Peloponnesian War was in full swing: the revolt of one of Athens’ most valuable allies,
Mytilene, was ongoing, and would end that summer with a last-minute decision not to
exterminate and enslave the Mytilenians as punishment for their disloyalty, as had been
previously agreed upon by the Athenian people.
6
The summer of 427 would also see the
surrender of Plataea, a neglected Athenian ally, and its annihilation by the Thebans (with
the sanction of the Spartans), as well as the catastrophic self-destruction of the
community of Corcyra by its oligarchic and popular factions, which compelled
3
Thuc. 2.53.
4
The civic institutionalization of comic performance was a relatively recent phenomenon: the City
Dionysia began to include comedies in 486 BCE, while the Lenaea incorporated them around 440; see
Pickard-Cambridge 1988. A useful chronology of events pertaining to the development of Athenian
comedy and to Aristophanes’ life in particular can be found in Silk 2000, 18-21.
5
According to the ancient Life (PCG III.2, T 2), he was born in 443/2 BCE, though this seems a bit
late. Henderson (1998, 2) assumes his birthdate “probably fell within a few years of mid-century.”
6
They decided instead to kill a thousand of the “prime movers in the rebellion,” to demolish the walls
of the city and confiscate its ships, and finally, to turn the island of Lesbos into a cleruchy. See Thuc.
3.2-50.
3
Thucydides to pause and reflect at length on the extreme terror and disorder that attend
upon civil strife.
7
He famously recounts how,
Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was
now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a
loyal supporter; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was
held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question
incapacity to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of
manliness; cautious plotting a justifiable means of defense.
8
It is also at this point in his narrative that he concludes, “the cause of all these evils was
the lust of power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded
the violence of parties once engaged in contention.”
9
The cycle of violence described
here by Thucydides, which, like the plague before it, stemmed from the war and
destroyed indiscriminately, was the product of a relentless desire to acquire, possess and
thereby dominate land and resources, including people.
10
In this instance, it was
perpetuated by Athens’ imperial ambitions and its need to always “keep grasping at
more.”
11
When considered from the ancient perspective, there was nothing incredibly
unusual about Athens’ military endeavors, since, in this highly agonistic culture, war
was nothing extraordinary. As is well known, it was the primary activity that defined the
Greek world; it was the means by which to preserve cities and territories, and accrue
wealth, as well as the means by which men obtained personal glory and negotiated their
social status. This understanding of war was so deep-rooted that it seemed natural.
Already in Homer, the hero Sarpedon explains matter-of-factly to his cousin that the
7
On Plataea, see Thuc. 3.52-68; and on Corcyra, see 3.70-85.
8
Thuc. 3.82.4.
9
Thuc. 3.82.8.
10
On the similarity of war to an epidemic, see Ehrenreich 1997, 132-4.
11
The phrase “kept grasping at more” (meizÒnvn »r°gonto) occurs at Thuc. 4.41.4.
4
reason they had been rewarded with “special honors, pride of place and so much fine
property” in their homeland of Lycia was “so we'll stand in the Lycian front ranks and
meet head on the blazing fires of battle, so then some well-armed Lycian will say,
'They're not unworthy, those men who rule Lycia, those kings of ours.’”
12
War was thus
experienced as normative, perpetual and ubiquitous, in spite of its disruptive nature. It
had a formative and homogenizing influence which permeated all aspects of Greek
society: political structures, religious systems, and cultural institutions – of which the
Athenian dramatic competitions were a part – all replicated the violent dynamics of
defense and appropriation that governed the practice of warfare.
13
The humor that was produced by this society was not immune to war’s coercive
influence either, and this was especially true of Aristophanes’ comedies. His plays were
not just political; they were polemical – both their structure and content were determined
by and engaged directly with the events of the Peloponnesian War, as well as with the
men who were responsible for it, like the city’s most notorious and outspoken
demagogue, Cleon, who had come to power after Pericles. In this regard, Aristophanes
was not unique: he was the inheritor of a well-established tradition of political satire and
invective that had originated with the iambic poets, and his contemporaries were also
12
Homer, Iliad, 12.310-9. Trans. Ian Johnston (2006).
13
In Plato’s Laws, the Cretan character Clinias articulates this point of view. He explains, “All are
always at war with one another; and if in war there ought to be common meals and certain persons
regularly appointed under others to protect an army, they should be continued in peace. For what men
in general term “peace” would be said by him [i.e., the Cretan legislator] to be only a name; in reality
every city is in a natural state of war with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds, but
everlasting. And if you look closely, you will find that this was [his] intention; all institutions, private
as well as public, were arranged by him with a view to war” (1.625e-626a; trans. Jowett).
5
crafting confrontational comedies.
14
Yet there was something distinctive about
Aristophanes’ comic style and the manner in which he represented the conflicts that were
tearing his city apart; something which resonated with his original audiences, as well as
with later readers of his work.
15
I believe it was his employment of gender difference, in
particular his representations of women and his experimental reconfigurations of the
relationship between public and private, oikos and polis – in the words of Arlene
Saxonhouse, his humorous attempts at “incorporating diversity” – as a critical and
political response to the war, which constitute this “something.”
16
It must be more than a coincidence that nearly all of Aristophanes’ eleven
remaining plays (which are also the only complete works which exist from the period
and genre of Old Comedy) take the topic of war, and the intracommunal conflict it
generates, as their explicit theme.
17
Aristophanes’ first five extant plays in particular –
Acharnians (425 BCE), Knights (424 BCE), Clouds (423 BCE), Wasps (422 BCE) and
Peace (421 BCE) – because of their topicality and temporal proximity to one another,
present a vivid composite picture of the war’s increasingly destabilizing effect during
this period, not just on the Athenian political system, but on the dichotomies and
hierarchical ideological structures which ordered thought and regulated society.
14
On the relationship between the two genres, see Rosen 1988. Aristophanes’ rival Cratinus had
recently satirized Pericles in his Dionysalexandros, blaming him for bringing the war upon Athens,
while his other main rival, Eupolis, would write a number of plays which ridiculed prominent
politicians (e.g. Callias, Hyperbolus, Alcibiades) during the same period. On Cratinus and Eupolis,
see Heath 1990; Storey 2003; and relevant chapters in the collection edited by Harvey and Wilkins
(2000).
15
Henderson (1998, 1 n. 1) argues that Aristophanes’ preeminence in his own time is confirmed by
Plato’s portrayal of him as the representative of comedy in the Symposium, which was written c. 380.
16
1992, 53. The subject of Aristophanes’ speech in the Symposium also seems to corroborate this
view.
17
Silk (1998, 14-16) provides a list of the forty-four plays attributed to Aristophanes by late antique
scholars, and brackets the four titles which were declared spurious by them.
6
Of these traditional dichotomies, that of man/woman was fundamental; it was
“probably the most vigorous expression of meaning available to ancient Greek culture,”
and it was metaphorically aligned with other significant oppositions, including war/peace
and polis/oikos.
18
The discursive patterns that resulted from the juxtaposition of these
terms – i.e., woman/peace/oikos and man/war/polis – received ever increasing attention
from Aristophanes, culminating in his extended treatment of them in his women’s plays,
Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae. His revaluation of these dichotomies
and his insistence on war’s negative impact on them in Lysistrata are what he is best
known for today, and this play has accordingly been the focus of a large part of the
modern scholarship concerned with gender ideology in his works. By contrast, the issue
has tended to be overlooked in his earlier plays, presumably because of the paucity of
female characters featured in them.
The questions that arose for me in pondering these circumstances were: What
prompted Aristophanes to foreground the feminine in his later comedies?
19
Is it
significant that this happened nearly twenty years after the onset of the war? In order to
answer these questions, I decided to return to his early plays and re-examine the
gendered representations found therein. In so doing, I sought to shed light on the
historical developments and ideological transitions that inspired him to embellish and
expand these representations into those for which he remains famous in the present day.
18
Foxhall 1989, 23.
19
It should be pointed out that Aristophanes did produce a number of comedies which were based on
mythological themes and which, presumably, given their names, featured women prominently. They
include Danaids, Lemnian Women, Phoenician Women, and Seasons. These plays are neither extant
nor are their dates secured – Henderson (1990, 293 n. 73) states that they were “all apparently
produced after 415.” While this may support my view of Aristophanes’ increasing employment of
females in his plays, I do not consider them in the course of this inquiry.
7
When considered as a series, Aristophanes’ early plays are revealed to constitute
a multi-stage cultural document that is well-suited to a historicized reading. These plays
capture Athens at a crucial and confrontational moment of change, and they encapsulate
in their progression the growing pains, the resistance and the fear that accompany all
such paradigm shifts.
20
It was the magnitude, severity and imperialist intent of the
Peloponnesian War, which had pitted Greek against Greek, and which had upset the
conventional boundaries between self and other, inside and outside, that set this shift in
motion. In this regard, it was unlike the wars that had preceded it – a “war like no other,”
as historian Victor Davis Hanson described it in a recent book. As I will explain in more
detail momentarily, it infused Athenian society with so great an ethos of hostility and
self-interest that, in due course, the conflict came back home and reproduced itself
throughout the community. Athens’ civic institutions in particular, which had evolved in
response to war and which promoted its continuance, were now riven by it and were no
longer able to fulfill their normative functions. As Thucydides explained, the social
upheaval was so extensive that even language itself had stopped functioning properly.
Of course, comedy was one of these institutions, and like war, it operated in a
contradictory manner. It was not simply a means of reducing stress and escaping from
worldly concerns; it was an alternate form of combat, a competitive and ritualized
practice, which subverted and disrupted the social order through abuse, absurdity and
vulgarity in order to re-negotiate and ultimately reinstate it.
21
However, because what
20
On this point, see Reckford 1987, 400-2.
21
These contrasting views of humor are explored by Richlin (1992, 70-80), who summarizes the
major theories that posit humor as essentially “good,” as exemplified by the Bakhtinian notion of
carnival and the Aristotelian idea of catharsis, and those that view it as “bad” (i.e. harmful, protreptic,
a legitimating tool of dominant ideology). Both models have been applied to Aristophanic comedy,
8
constituted order at Athens was deteriorating in the face of so much conflict and
instability, Aristophanes, in his guise as one of the city’s comic representatives, was
presented with the challenge of both making sense and making fun of this deterioration
as it was happening. He met this challenge in an appropriately soldierly fashion, battling
it out year after year with his poetic rivals and his political adversaries, as he composed
what we might consider the first extant popular response to living through war.
The content and spirit of his works, especially those of the early period, thus
reveal Aristophanes to be a quintessential product of his time: he was a clever but
conflicted mediator of the volatile and traumatic transformations Athenian society was
undergoing, who did his best to please his audience with traditional and therefore
comforting forms of humor at the same time as he sought to acclimate it to a rapidly-
changing world through comic innovation and education. He was not simply “a passive
transmitter of social realia,” but rather, as Thomas Hubbard argues, “a creative
individual who [was] at much at war with his social environment as he [was] inevitably a
part of it.”
22
And, as I intend to demonstrate, there is no better indicator of Aristophanes’
conflicted position as “traditional innovator” than the ambivalent manner in which he
represents gender and sexual difference, in particular femininity, in his early plays.
and both approaches have yielded valuable insights. See Sutton 1994 on catharsis in ancient comedy,
and Carriere 1979, Edwards 1993, Mollendorf 1995, and Platter 2007 on Bakhtinian tendencies in Old
Comedy; contra see Henderson 1990, as well as Winkler 1990, who argues that the dramatic festivals
were part and parcel of ephebic training, and operated as “the occasion for elaborate symbolic play on
themes of proper and improper civic behavior, in which the principal component of proper male
citizenship was military.” Halliwell 1991 posits a useful synthesis of these approaches for Old
Comedy, stating: “[it] was able to incorporate, within a civic framework of celebratory ‘play,’ uses of
laughter which have the ostensible marks of hostile and antagonistic derision” (295).
22
1991, viii.
9
The hierarchical sex/gender system produced by the patriarchal culture of Athens
was, like comedy and all other social constructions, influenced directly by the
hegemonic and paradoxical practice of warfare.
23
As a result, the gender identities it
prescribed for both male and female were inconsistent and unstable. Every male citizen
was compelled to become a warrior, and his status and honor were determined by his
ability to fight, acquire and protect his property (or that of his state) from other
warriors.
24
Masculinity and warfare were therefore “mutually reinforcing cultural
enterprises,” but they were also the source of a problematic catch-22, since warfare, that
key mechanism by which men distinguished themselves from each other, was also the
same one that rendered them all identical, ultimately making of them either slaves or
cannon fodder.
25
The contradictory political ambitions that derived from this no-win
situation – male unity and harmony in the face of chaos on the one hand, and martial
valor and preeminence among men on the other – only inspired further conflict, and in
war-torn fifth-century Athens, the negotiation of these opposing aims broke down,
giving way to what I term a “crisis of masculine sameness.” The entrenched and
internecine nature of the war increasingly limited the ability of male citizens to
distinguish themselves militarily and politically, except in death or dishonor, while the
23
It has been one of the primary aims of feminist anthropology to historicize the development of
systematic organized warfare and the transition to patriarchy, and thereby undermine their status as
natural occurrences or evolutionary progressions. See the work of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead
(especially her 1940 essay, “Warfare Is Only an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity”), as well as
Fry 2007, Enloe 1990 and 2000, Elshtain 1995, Lerner 1986, Gimbutas 1982 and 1989, Sanday 1981,
and the collections edited by Lorentzen and Turpin 1995, Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974, and Reiter
1975.
24
Of course, in more stratified societies like that of Athens, not every man actually became a warrior;
it was typically a select group – usually those of means – who undertook to fight on behalf of the
community. But the labor and allegiance of all the community’s members was beholden to this group
of warriors, and they embodied the ideal paradigm of masculinity to which all men aspired.
25
Ehrenreich 1997, 129.
10
adoption of a harmonious or egalitarian standpoint was equally untenable – it was
perceived as antithetical to the city’s belligerent aims, passive, and, worst of all,
unmanly. This crisis and its negative consequences for both the individual and the polis
are well-represented by Aristophanes through the conflicted personae of his early male
protagonists.
As male citizens became locked in an unending battle with themselves and with
war itself, women became part and parcel of the property which they were fighting to
defend. This was because women’s reproductive capacities were the main means by
which the patriarchal system of violence, appropriation, ownership, and transference
through legitimate heirs was maintained. Monogamous marriage was established to
regulate women’s sexuality and assure paternity; it was a practice which complemented
and justified that of war, and which confirmed women’s designation as property, or use-
objects, for male consumption.
26
Monogamy also facilitated the commodification and
sexual exchange of women as a seemingly peaceful form of male social interaction, in
contrast with war, but the objectives of both activities were always the same: to acquire
and retain property, and thereby enhance status.
27
It should also be pointed out that the systematic practice of slavery came into
existence around the same time as monogamous marriage, and it too was a product of
26
There continues to be debate over who benefited more from the transition to monogamy – men or
women. The debate is centered on whether women brought monogamy about as a means of protecting
themselves and their children, and as an antidote to the confusion brought on by communal marriage
practices within clans, or whether men instituted it as a safeguard so that they would know the
paternity of their children. I follow Friedrich Engels (1977, 273-77) in viewing both of these as
determining factors, though it seems clear that monogamy ultimately served to benefit men. He claims
that women first sought the form of the “pairing family” precisely because men were not renouncing
group marriage, but that men then used this as an opportunity to introduce “strict monogamy” (for
women only) in response to the new social forces I am discussing.
27
Rubin 1975 provides the best explanation of the patriarchal “traffic in women.”
11
the successive development of agriculture, war, and property ownership. It was thus
conceived along the same ideological lines as marriage, and therefore sheds light on the
issue of whose interests are served by these institutions, as it is far more obvious in the
instance of slavery whom it stood to benefit most: the land-holding warrior class.
The exceptional and valuable role ascribed to woman within Greece’s patriarchal
culture – as the object that guarantees continued ownership of all other objects –
ironically served to perpetuate the cyclical violence of war rather than minimize it, since,
in this guise, woman was the most important resource or property over which men
competed. In addition, the misrecognition and denial of personhood that female
objectification necessitated belied the fact that women were still agents, with the ability
to make decisions and effect different outcomes, especially with respect to their
sexuality and the paternity of their children.
28
It was woman’s mutability, her
simultaneous existence as object and subject, which enabled patriarchy to thrive, but it
was this same quality which also had the potential to disrupt and destabilize it.
Women were thus viewed as the primary generators of conflict among men, as
well as the means to its resolution, and their sexualized bodies became prime sites of
contestation in men’s struggles for social dominance as a result of their paradoxical
positioning within this ideological system. The problems these struggles caused for civil
society were the central preoccupations of the earliest literary narratives of ancient
Greece. In the Iliad, Homer used the figure of the captive Briseis and the fight that
ensued over her between Achilles and Agamenmnon to create a microcosmic tableau,
28
Victoria Wohl investigates tragic representations of this dynamic and the disastrous results it
produces in her book, Intimate Commerce: Exchange, Gender and Subjectivity in Greek Tragedy
(1998).
12
which reflected back upon Helen and the larger conflict of the Trojan war. He thereby
highlighted the circularity and inevitability of this kind of conflict, and offered a
sustained commentary on war’s pervasive influence, not only on political and military
organization, but on constructs of gender and sexuality. His exploration of the violent
and systematic process by which women are appropriated, objectified and commodified
– in short, how they are dominated – reveals that that these activities did not just serve
an economic purpose, but also operated as a means of communication among men.
29
Another consequence of the paradoxical position of the female was that it made
her the target of much male hostility and resentment, which manifested itself in a variety
of ways that sought to control her, to exploit her as a sex object and to exclude her, in
spite of her necessity, as an inferior other. In Greece, the emergence of this misogynistic
attitude accompanied the rise of the polis in the seventh century – another period of great
social strife, both within and between communities. As Marilyn Arthur explains:
In the city-state, the private side of man’s existence, his headship of an
oikos, is the condition for his incorporation into the state as a citizen. The
distinction between public and private is therefore maintained, only now
the private life of man is a sub-category of the public sphere. Insofar as
women continued to be associated with the private side of life alone, they
now appear as a sub-species of humanity. That is to say, women had
29
Richlin 1992, xvi. Hesiod likewise explored the interrelation of intracommunal conflict, property
and women throughout Works and Days, and he attempts to instruct his male reader in how each
aspect must be managed in concert in order to achieve a rewarding and stable life. The understanding
of women as the generators of conflict is also reiterated by Herodotus, who introduces it at the outset
of his work in order to critique its usefulness as an approach to historical inquiry. The series of
retaliatory abductions he describes, of Io, Europa, Medea, and finally Helen, display the same
cyclicality and lack of resolution they did in Homer’s narrative, and, because of this, he dismisses
them as unable to provide a definitive explanation of the origins of conflict, in this case, between the
Greeks and the Persians. His critical stance was perhaps idiosyncratic in its questioning of the
traditional point of view, and of the actions that resulted from it, but this did not detract from its
cogency. In fact, as we will see, it was a stance Aristophanes felt compelled to have his hero,
Dicaeopolis, oppose in Acharnians, through his redeployment of the trope of the abducted woman as
an explanation of how the Peloponnesian War began.
13
before been conceived as an aspect of life in general; now they are seen as
an aspect of men’s existence.
30
The contempt that developed for this “sub-species” not only facilitated women’s political
disenfranchisement and justified their relegation to the domestic sphere, it also gave rise
to antagonistic personal and sexual relations between men and women, which themselves
took the form of a “war of the sexes.”
In this “war,” as in real war, brutality and rape were established strategic
practices. But misogyny also reproduced itself in less extreme forms throughout ancient
Greek culture, and it relied on comedy in particular to achieve this end. It was the literary
and performative genre which capitalized on the female as an object of sexual humor.
Women were ideal comic targets: their ambiguous ontology made them fun for men to
play with, although this “play” naturally took on a forceful and exploitative cast, given
the broader contexts of its enactment. More importantly, though, it was through humor,
through the employment of invective and cynicism, and through obscenity or grotesque
“degradation,” as Mikhail Bakhtin terms it, that men could finally circumvent that
“obstacle” standing in the way of the satisfaction of both their lustful and hostile desires
– namely, the female subject and the insecurity she engendered.
31
Her subjection to this
discursive process ironically confirmed and celebrated her objectification, at the same
time as it unified men over and against her as the enemy other.
32
As Kate Millett
explains, “Misogynist literature, the primary vehicle of masculine hostility, is both an
30
1973, 36.
31
Freud 1960, 101. I discuss Bakhtin and the concept of “grotesque degradation” in more detail in
Chapter Three.
32
See Sedgwick 1985, especially Chapter Three, where she uses a comic text (Wycherley’s The
Country Wife) in order to demonstrate the ways in which “the routing of [male] homosocial desire
through women is clearly presented as compulsory” (49).
14
hortatory and comic genre. Of all artistic forms in patriarchy it is the most frankly
propagandistic. Its aim is to reinforce both sexual factions in their status.”
33
In men’s
comic war of words, then, women were most effectively portrayed as the losers of the
war of the sexes.
It might be said that the originary concern of comedy about women was with
“putting them in their place,” and in ancient Greece that place was the home, the oikos
and its private sphere, with which they were equated as a result of their property or
object status: “As the mother of her husband’s children, a woman is the equivalent of
cultivated land, owned by her husband; she is thus incorporated into her husband’s
house, his soil, his hearth.”
34
(Of course, the existence of female slaves only served to
confirm this understanding.) And yet, men’s comic assertion of this affiliation was an
overly compensatory response to the problematic “social fact” of female “transgression,”
which itself was necessitated by the patriarchal system of exchange and ownership:
“Woman is a mobile unit in a society that practices patrilocal marriage, and man is not.
From birth the male citizen has a fixed place in the oikos and polis, but the female
moves.”
35
The irresolvable dilemma that was created by women’s equivocal positioning
with respect to the oikos rendered her the “enemy within” – duplicitous and dangerous,
yet nonetheless indispensable.
36
33
1970, 45.
34
Dougherty 1993, 64.
35
Carson 1990, 136.
36
Gardner (1989, 54), who relies on Aristophanes’ plays to explain “male anxiety” regarding women
at Athens, sums up the underlying logic succinctly: “Marrying, for the man, was a risk. It meant
letting someone from another oikos inside the defenses of your oikos – but it was a necessary risk,
both to have heirs and successors, and also to increase the security of your oikos by establishing ties
of friendship with others. Every other oikos was a potential enemy.”
15
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this dilemma, preserved in the tired modern joke
“women – you can’t live with `em, you can’t live without `em,” was the subject of the
earliest known surviving fragment of Greek comedy, the exasperated utterance of an
otherwise unattested figure called Susarion, from c. 581-60 BCE: “Listen, people!
Susarion says this, the son of Philinus, from Tripodeske in Megara. Women are an evil;
and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house without evil; for to marry or not to
marry – both are evil.”
37
His comment naturally calls to mind Hesiod’s Pandora, the first
human embodiment of this ambivalence; a “beautiful evil” made of earth yet nonetheless
“sheer artifice,” who was given to men as a punishment for their theft of fire from the
gods.
38
The dilemma she posed continued to be explored by the iambic poets, and the
playwrights of Old Comedy also exploited its humorous potential in a variety of ways.
The works of Aristophanes stood well within this misogynistic tradition, and he too
represented females as assimilated to the space of the home, and to the lands, fields and
farms of the countryside, in an effort to put them in their place. It is his comic
configuration of the female as a spatialized entity, and in particular the changing
significance of this discursive trope throughout his works, that will be the specific focus
of this study.
I here approach these issues from a theoretical perspective which is gaining
increasing attention within classical scholarship, and which sheds a new and distinct
light on why the ancient comic stage was such a potent venue for the representation and
37
Gerber 1999, 510 ( = PCG VII, 661-63). As Dover notes, the authenticity of these lines is “highly
improbable,” and Susarion was possibly a “fictitious person” (OCD
3
1996, 1458 s.v. “Susarion”).
Even if it is a late attribution (see Rusten 2006, 42-4; 59-60 on the vexed historical transmission of the
verses), it is still significant that this topos is what later writers assumed to be the original concern of
comedy.
38
Hesiod, Theogony, 570-89.
16
metaphorical conflation of the political, military and sexual conflicts facing Athens in
the late fifth century. I conduct a socio-spatial analysis of Aristophanes’ early plays,
paying special attention to his use of geographic imagery and his manipulation of the real
and imagined space of the theater as a means of emphasizing the intimate relationship
between civic and gender identity at Athens. In undertaking what I would describe as
this “area study” of Aristophanic comedy, I seek to understand more generally the extent
to which ancient Athenian notions of space and sexual difference depended on one
another for their intelligibility and their effective expression, as well as the degree to
which they both influenced and were influenced by the diverging political attitudes and
practices of the culture at that critical moment in its history.
Long before the misogynistic conception of women as the “enemies within”
came to the fore, femininity, and above all the female body, was associated with the
earth and natural features of the landscape, and with spatiality in general, in ancient
Greek culture. The primacy of this relationship is preserved at the semiotic level, in the
words used of spaces and places, a large number of which are feminine in grammatical
gender (e.g., pãtra/patr¤w, ga›a/g, xra and pÒliw).
39
It is also contained
within the earth-affiliated identities of female goddesses, such as Gaia, Demeter and
Hecate, and in the figure of the nymph, whose individuality is nonexistent yet whose
39
I can only speculate on how it is that these lexical forms came to be, but that does not take away
from the fact of their feminine overtone, which was noticed, commented upon and even played with
by ancient writers. There are also words for space that have neuter or masculine gender (e.g., êstu,
x«row, dmow), and while I have not yet given full consideration to their implication for my
argument, I can speculate that this ascription is not due simply to an analogy that posits the feminine
as particular and the masculine (or neuter) as universal. These words are perhaps more abstract, at a
conceptual remove from the absolute terms listed above, which seem to derive from and reflect in
their morphology the directly lived experiences of reproduction and corporeality. As I go on to argue
above, femininity is the basic cultural referent for such experiences. Also, proper place names are
typically feminine, as they follow one of the (usually unexpressed) antecedents from the list above.
17
identity is invariably bound to a specific location. This association of spatiality and
femininity both produced and was reproduced by two interrelated ideologies of sexual
difference, each of which contributed in its own way to an understanding of woman as
“fertile ground” for the play of ideas, the production of meaning, and, most importantly,
the presentation of competing political views.
The first of these ideologies depended upon an equation of the reproductive
capacities of the female with those of the land, and of the cultivated field in particular,
which was “appropriate to Greece’s agricultural economy,” as Page duBois observes.
Within this scheme, “Like the fields of the earth, women must be cultivated, ploughed
by their husbands, to ensure a new crop of children, which is like the crops of the
fields.”
40
This metaphorical association of woman with the field, and its intensification
in the form of woman-as-furrow, reflects Greece’s transition from a prehistoric hunter-
gatherer society to a stratified, property-owning society, which had been prompted by
the development of agriculture, and which brought about the concomitant practices of
organized warfare and monogamous marriage, as discussed previously.
41
Accordingly, it
was retained in the traditional formula used in Greek wedding betrothals: “I give you
40
1988, 39. Her discussion of the woman-as-field metaphor and its place in ancient Greek society
largely inspired the present study and informs it throughout.
41
Thucydides acknowledges the direct influence that agricultural development and land tenure had on
the emergence of warfare at the outset of his history (1.2.3-4): “The richest soils were always most
subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the
Peloponnesus (Arcadia excepted), and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the
land favored the enrichment of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile
source of ruin. It also invited invasion.”
18
this woman for the plowing of legitimate children,” which, as we will see, receives much
play in Aristophanes.
42
Although the woman-as-field designated the space first marked off by patriarchal
culture, the representational system of metaphors that proceeded from it “encoded the
female body on a spectrum of alienation from the earth” and, by extension, from its own
reproductive powers.
43
For duBois, this alienation from the earth culminates in the
association of woman with the writing-tablet, which accompanies the development of the
second ideology of sexual difference mentioned above. According to this phallogocentric
line of thought, the female body is merely an empty space, defined as such by its genital
lack, which serves as a container or as the material foundation upon which the masculine
universe is built (or written). Woman-as-tablet thus remains a demarcated and enclosed
space, but her generative capabilities are denied and paved over, and her objectification
is complete, in contrast with the woman-as-field. In other words, she paradoxically
“is/provides space for man, but occupies none herself.”
44
Elizabeth Grosz explains that
this idea is best exemplified in ancient thought by Plato’s concept of chora, or “the
chasm for the passage of spaceless Forms into a spatialized reality,” which retains the
qualities of the womb or field, but which is an idealized version of it, insofar as it
“engenders without possessing,” “nurtures without requirements of its own,” and
42
The phrase is preserved in Menander, Dyskolos 842-4, Samia 726-7 and Perikeiromene 1013-4. See
Lape 2004, 13-17 on the performative significance of this phrase and on the political significance of
Menander’s comic representations of marriage, which, she argues, are “inextricably tied to the
continuity of Athenian democratic and transnational polis culture” during yet another time of much
political instability – “the initial and most fraught period in the transition to the Hellenistic era” (10).
43
1988, 34. DuBois notes that there is no absolute chronological progression in their employment:
“They coexist, comment on one another, replace one another at times, and inhabit a contested site.”
44
Irigaray 1993, 18. Her earlier book, This Sex Which Is Not One (1985), is perhaps the definitive
work on the topic of woman as lack in phallogocentric discourse.
19
“evades all characterizations including the disconcerting logic of identity, of hierarchy,
of being.”
45
DuBois explains that the trajectory of this representational system away from the
earth was directly related to the historical developments experienced at Athens in the
fifth century. She describes how the metaphors of woman-as-field and furrow reached
the limits of their signification as a result of “the declining emphasis on cereal
agriculture, and the growing dependence on…mercantile enterprises of all sorts.”
46
During this period, men moved into the polis in ever greater numbers, having become
estranged from their rural lands, while the area that comprised their property became
increasingly smaller and more compact (that is, if they retained property at all). Because
property ownership and masculine gender identity were so closely linked in this society,
this change created anxiety, especially regarding the proper place of women within the
growing city. The spatial metaphors that evolved in response to these changes reflected
this “hemming in,” and they were especially concerned with female containment within
the built environment and with interiority in general. The representation of woman-as-
oikos was accordingly reasserted, though over time it took on a narrower scope and a
more urban flavor than it had previously.
The main reason for Athenian men’s alienation from their rural land was
warfare, specifically the invasion of the Persians in the early part of the century and the
later invasions by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War, which were discussed at
the outset of this chapter.
47
As Arlene Saxonhouse explains, “The crisis of the
45
Grosz 1995, 122.
46
1988, 69.
47
DuBois 1988, 82-5.
20
Peloponnesian War forced the Athenians to confront the conflict between the private and
the public – between the farms which they saw being burnt by Spartan soldiers and the
city into whose walls they had retreated.”
48
Aristophanes was one of the cultural
mediators of this conflict, and he elaborated and embodied this spatialized figuration of
femininity on the comic stage, employing it, as well as its metaphorical referent, the
oikos, as a sort of battleground, wherein both this and other conflicts occurring within
Athenian society could be synthesized, scaled down and humorously represented, if not
resolved. However, this comic employment of the spatialized feminine, which situated
serious critiques of the city’s belligerent policies and practices within a light-hearted
domestic milieu, also contributed to the naturalization and eroticization, and thus to the
continuation, of these same policies and practices by deliberately mystifying and
obfuscating the distinction between geopolitical domination and sexual conquest.
49
The spatial configuration of the ancient stage, as an outside area in front of a
façade which most often represented a house with a door leading into it, often required
that what happened inside be brought out to view. This transposable quality made it an
ideal venue in which to negotiate this conflict between private and public, especially as it
pertained to women.
50
Through their very appearance, female characters were
necessarily “publicized,” and their paradoxically indispensable yet inadmissible position
in society was effectively exposed. This is due to the fact that, in order to represent the
oikos and to signify and preserve its distinction from the polis, the theatrical woman had
48
1980, 66.
49
Dougherty 1999, 283.
50
So Padel 1990, 344: “Conflict in the dramas between male and female, public and private…is
intricately related to the theater’s physical contrast between real and imagined, seen and unseen
space.” See also Bassi 1999 on the domestic architecture of the stage and its relation to the theme of
homecoming in tragedy.
21
to be portrayed as either absent (i.e. within) or public (i.e. on stage). And yet, it was
through both her absence and her “publication” that she also undermined this distinction
and fostered the collapse of these categories into one another. In other words, she was
both boundary maker and boundary breaker. Froma Zeitlin explains the problem in this
way:
In the contest over rights to control domestic space that the stage
conventions exploit, it is the woman and not the man who by reason of her
close identification with the house…consistently rules the relations
between inside and outside and shows herself as standing on the threshold
of betwixt and between.
51
Throughout his oeuvre, Aristophanes came up against this problem of how to
best represent the woman-as-oikos, given the rapidly changing relationship that both had
with the polis during this chaotic period. As a comedian, it was his task to critique and
upset the status quo, though, as noted previously, this was ultimately undertaken in the
service of reinstating it in an updated form, which improved the traditional model of the
masculine self. In keeping with this, Aristophanes’ plays sought to reaffirm the
traditional distinction between public and private, urban and rural, and the idealized
forms of gender difference that pertained to these oppositions – those of male autonomy,
dominance and mobility, and those of female passivity, reproductive instrumentality and
domesticity. He attempted to enact this affirmation in the early plays by suppressing the
female presence or by containing it implicitly within the oikos, but this proved to be an
unsatisfactory solution.
Comic Athens, like its real-life counterpart, had been turned upside-down by the
war, along with the dichotomies it depended on for its structure and intelligibility. The
51
1985, 73 (my emphasis).
22
home and its inhabitants had been urbanized, while men had been enclosed within the
city. As a result, the absence of female figures, rather than signify women’s secure
emplacement within the oikos and men’s free reign in the city, came to suggest its
terrifying opposite – women’s unchecked dispersal throughout the polis and men’s
imprisonment within the home. As Aristophanes’ early works progressed, this
frightening prospect only became more of a reality, despite his best efforts to deny or
avoid it. It was only much later, in his women-themed plays, that he was finally able to
admit the possibility of the public or politicized female, and represent the oikos as
always already part of the polis. In the meantime, however, as will be shown, the result
of female absence was a crescendo in the confusion, disorder and rage displayed by his
male characters, as well as further conflict among them.
In Acharnians, the main character, Dikaiopolis, enacts his fantasy of a private
peace in his rural oikos, and this idealized situation allows the women and girls in the
play to figure as passive, stable and masterable, like the oikos itself. Still, his attempt to
turn his oikos into a personal agora exposes the impracticability of such a set-up. His
discounting of the spatial realities occasioned by the war gives way to his continued
objectification of the feminine, which prompts the reinstantiation of the cycle of violence
among men, rather than its termination. In Knights, Wasps and Clouds, the male
protagonists continue to try to either appropriate or reproduce the “safe” space of the
oikos (in the forms of the assembly, the law-court and the sophistic school) without
admitting and incorporating the feminine as a necessary element. The results of this are
twofold: 1) women become increasingly conspicuous in their absence and eventually
emerge from the background to express their dissent; 2) as the level of conflict and
23
instability intensifies in the war and in the city, the male characters’ efforts to distinguish
themselves also intensify and inevitably fail, and both the oikos and its embodied female
counterparts become venues for further rivalry and conflict, rather than spaces of peace
or refuge. In Peace, Aristophanes finally sets aside the war-torn oikos and reclaims the
space of the theater as a feminized sanctuary, in which the delights of food and sex can
again be freely enjoyed by men. This change sets the stage for the appearance of the
urbanized women of his later plays, most notably the heroine Lysistrata, who undertakes
to domesticate the polis as a means of restoring peace and prosperity to Athens, and who
thereby establishes harmonious relations between the sexes.
24
CHAPTER TWO
A SEPARATE PEACE?
Acharnians
Property fears theft because it is theft.
-- Edmund Burke, Othello: An Essay to Illustrate a Method (1951)
Acharnians was staged at the Lenaea of 425 BCE, where it won first prize. It
was the third of Aristophanes’ plays to be produced and it is the first of those still extant
today.
1
It is viewed by many commentators as the most successful and the most enduring
of his early plays, as much of its action and imagery, as well as its narrative structure, is
reproduced and elaborated in his subsequent comedies. The year of its production was
the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War. During this time, the land of Attica had been
systematically invaded and laid waste by Spartan invaders, and, as a result, the rural
population had been forced to move into the urban perimeter.
2
Thucydides reports that in
the summer of 426 the Spartans had been prevented from invading Attica because of
earthquakes; however, they resumed their attacks the following summer, after the
performance of Acharnians. It was perhaps this moment of respite which prompted
Aristophanes to make such a strong case for peace in this play. But there was still a great
deal of fighting in which the Athenians were invested elsewhere (namely, in Sicily and
Amphilochia), and the events that would ensue in the summer of 425 at Pylos effectively
ensured that the war would continue.
3
1
See Sommerstein 1984, 32. Aristophanes’ first three plays were produced by Callistratus. The lost
Babylonians of 426 BCE may have also won first place, but it is uncertain.
2
Thuc. 3.89; 4.2.
3
On the fighting that occurred in Sicily and Amphilochia in winter of 426/5, see Thuc. 3.103-15. He
describes the Athenian victory over the Ambraciots, who came to aid the Peloponnesians in
25
In Acharnians, the deplorable conditions that resulted from mandatory habitation
inside the walls of Athens are contrasted with the freedom and productivity of the
country, and it is this spatial dichotomy that appears at first to structure the play. The
hero Dicaeopolis makes the distinction explicit early on, when he describes himself as
“lying in garbage by the ramparts” (l. 71), in contrast with his former rural existence in
the deme of Acharnae.
4
He imagines his deme as so full of life and abundance that it was
capable of speech: “my own deme…never cried ‘buy coal,’ ‘buy vinegar,’ ‘buy oil’; it
didn’t know the word ‘buy’; no, it produced everything itself, and the Buy Man was out
of sight” (ll. 34-6). Dicaeopolis overstates the deme’s degree of self-sufficiency in
traditional comic fashion; but even so, throughout the play it is revealed that the
dichotomy he imagines is no longer applicable. The repeated devastation of the fields by
the Spartans has rendered his vision an out-of-date fantasy, one that may not be
recoverable for some time, if ever.
5
Dicaeopolis’ own actions in the play contribute to and thereby confirm the
collapse of this ideological binary structure. It seems that even after he has concluded his
private peace and returned home, he cannot escape the lifestyle he has come to know in
the city. He decides, in response to Lamachus’ threats to wage eternal war on the
Amphilochia, as “by far the greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic city in an equal number of
days during this war” (3.113.6). Pylos will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Three.
4
Dicaeopolis’ portrayal of city life for the rural population is echoed in Thucydides at 2.17: “many
also took up their quarters in the towers of the walls or wherever else they could. For when they were
all come in, the city proved too small to hold them.” Aristophanes reiterates that people were living in
“barrels and shanties and garrets” for eight years at Knights 792. On the relationship between city and
countryside in Attica, see Osborne 1985 and 1987; also Whitehead 1986.
5
Compton-Engle (1999, 367) also contests the commonly held view that the second half of the play
depicts an unambiguous return to the country. In note 25, she cites several instances where this
dichotomy has been reproduced unproblematically in modern scholarship. On the similarities between
the social spaces inhabited by Dicaeopolis in the first and second half of the play, see A. Bowie 1993,
19-20.
26
Peloponnesians, to outdo him by converting his oikos into a market where all different
groups of Greeks may trade (ll. 620-5). Through this transformation of his private
property into a public venue, Dicaeopolis ends up politicizing the home, even though
this is seemingly contrary to his original intention. By engaging competitively with
Lamachus, who stands as the incarnation of war’s coercive and disruptive quality, he
inadvertently gets entangled in the political and military conflicts of the city again.
6
As a
consequence of this, the domestic space becomes a battleground for the competing
ideologies represented by the categories of urban and rural, while its inhabitants and its
visitors become trophies and casualties of the battle being fought within it.
In the end, Dicaeopolis and his rural peace appear to triumph: he wins the
drinking contest of the Choes during dinner with the Priest of Dionysus, while Lamachus
is wounded by a vine prop on military duty at the Boeotian border (ll. 1075-7, 1085-94).
7
But this final victory is not achieved at home; rather, it requires Dicaeopolis to move to
the polis for its enactment, while his rival must travel to the most marginal hinterlands to
execute his orders. This paradoxical spatial interchange suggests that the private market
he has created is unsustainable; it occupies a compromised position which allows it to be
subsumed into the urban domain, both conceptually and physically, over the course of
6
Moorton (1999, 39) translates Lamachus’ name as “Hyperwar” and argues that he is “virtually
identified with Polemos,” the figure discussed in the next note.
7
This scene, along with the allusion to drunk Athenian youths who incited war by stealing Megarian
whores (ll. 524-29), and the description of the drunken, rowdy figure of Polemos from the second
parabasis (ll. 978-87), underscores the agonistic link between alcohol consumption and violence, as
well as their affiliation with the god Dionysus. Scaife 1992 discusses the game of kottabos in
particular as a metaphor for “more hazardous forms of competition” up to and including war.
27
the play. That the Megarian, its first patron, identifies it as a “market in Athens” would
seem to corroborate this transition (l. 729, égorå 'n ÉAyãnaiw).
8
Why is this the case? Why is the oikos-as-agora unable to remain distinct from
the other civic spaces of Athens, and detached from the internal and external battles of
the city? There is the obvious point of economic necessity – Dicaeopolis has no choice
but to interact with the public, even if some are excluded, in order for his market to
thrive.
9
But I think there is a deeper structural rationale governing the comic trajectory of
the oikos toward the polis.
In Acharnians, urbanity is associated with masculinity, and both of these cultural
categories are (over)determined by the practice of war and the political ideologies it
engenders. Urbanity stands in opposition to rural domesticity, which is, by analogy,
feminine, private and peaceful. These polarities depend for their intelligibility on the
traditional patriarchal view of land and women as passive objects that may be owned,
bought and sold by men. But the extraordinary spatial disruption precipitated by this
war, in which so many families were displaced into the city and left without homes or
property, undermined this oversimplified view. Dicaeopolis’ decision to establish a
domestic agora is an attempt to rehabilitate the old ideological structure and to re-
colonize the home – to make it productive again. It is an act of political agency through
which he asserts his masculine and citizen identity, but, when considered from a critical
8
Contra see Olson 2002, 259 v. 729; although I would not go so far as to say that Dicaeopolis’ agora
is the central agora of the city of Athens either, as Compton-Engle does (1999, 368). Fisher (1993, 41-
4) makes an interesting argument for Dicaeopolis’ continued “marginality” and his at least partial
isolation from the city at the end of the play based on the solitary nature of the drinking-contest of the
Choes, but this does not invalidate the home’s previous absorption into the urban sphere. He also
seems to go too far in asserting that the ambiguities, spatial and otherwise, embodied by Dicaeopolis
obscure any coherent political message in the play.
9
See Olson 1991 on Dicaeopolis’ economic motivations for establishing his market.
28
perspective, this same act comes to appear contrived and unnatural. This is because
women, as economic agents and, more importantly, as mothers, are ultimately what
makes the oikos stable and productive.
Dicaeopolis’ contradictory treatment of female characters in the play exposes the
fraught status of the urbanized home in Athenian political ideology, and the impossible
position of women both within and without it. As we will see, their participation is what
makes his peace feasible: mother and daughter sanctify and demarcate his newly
founded “micropolis,” as well as prepare the celebratory feast.
10
Yet, at the same time,
his handling of the Megarian’s daughters and his understanding of the war as originating
in the theft of prostitutes work both to minimize and malign this female influence.
Dicaeopolis’ conflicted attitude inevitably results in his perpetuation of the cycle of
violence and appropriation to which he was trying to put an end by establishing peace.
Rather than preserve the traditional state of the oikos by acknowledging the feminine
power it houses, then, he ends up further destabilizing it by selling it out.
The consequences of this appropriation for the home’s female inhabitants are
troubling, as it divests them of the only place in Athenian society that properly pertains
to them and exacerbates their already vulnerable position in the context of the war.
However, it is also problematic for the male characters. For by annexing the home’s
female attributes and applying them to their own political ends, they themselves become
feminized through spatial contamination. And while this may be the only way that peace
can legitimately become the pursuit of men – even if only on the comic stage – the
success of Dicaeopolis in this endeavor presents the viewers of Acharnians with another
10
The term is Moorton’s (1999, passim).
29
set of issues to ponder: Could a masculinized oikos exist and function in Athens? If so,
what would it look like, and how would the war affect its makeup? These are the
questions that Aristophanes will wrestle with, and his audience will be forced to
confront, in Knights, Wasps and Clouds.
At the point in time when Acharnians and the other early plays were written, it
seems that Aristophanes did not yet find it necessary to turn to a model of complete
otherness like femininity in order to make his argument for peace. Perhaps this was
because it continued to be imagined as a realizable goal in the form of a “status quo
ante,” that is, as a return to the terms of the Thirty-Year Peace that bound Athens and
Sparta before the war.
11
The plight of the peasant-farmer or, in this case, the charcoal-
burner, still offered enough of an alternate point of view, but it was also able to arouse
sympathy by retaining a masculine, and therefore Athenian, ethos. In Acharnians in
particular, there is still hope that citizens would use their political power to turn things
around if they so wished; hence the opening scenes of the play.
The play begins with the appearance of the protagonist from the wing, who
wanders into the orchestra alone. He takes a seat and begins recounting some of the
delights and pains he has experienced as a viewer of recent political and dramatic
spectacles. He quickly informs the audience that at this moment he finds himself at an
empty meeting of the Assembly on the Pnyx, to which everyone else will arrive late, as
11
Newiger 1996, 157. Taaffe (1993, 30) expresses a similar point of view: “Acharnians still presents
peace as a positive and affirmative possibility.”
30
they are “gossiping in the market” (ll. 20-1). He waits impatiently, and complains that
there is no interest in peace-making in this place.
With this opening, Aristophanes not only makes his audience immediately aware
of the fact that in Athens the theatrical is political (and vice versa), he also implicates
them directly in the action. This is a point and a metatheatrical technique that he will
develop in a variety of ways throughout this play and others. Many scholars have
emphasized the self-sameness of the comic audience and the democratic bodies of
citizens who made up the Assembly, the Senate, and the jury courts, and they have
investigated the potential that existed for cross-pollination between the two as social
institutions.
12
By seating Dicaeopolis among or near the spectators, Aristophanes
exploits this potential, and he does so in overtly spatial terms, which aid in his efforts to
make the audience identify with his hero’s political position.
That the theatrical is political in Acharnians is never in doubt; as Lowell
Edmunds emphatically states, “The play is thoroughly political.” But his further claim,
that “Aristophanes has a clear program,” is more problematic.
13
There is an ongoing
debate among scholars as to what exactly his political message is in this play and how
seriously it may be taken.
14
There is also the related question of whether the points of
view expressed are even those of the playwright, or merely those of his main character,
12
See Longo, Goldhill, Henderson, and Ober and Strauss in Winkler and Zeitlin 1990, as well as Wise
1998 (esp. Chapter Three), Slater 2002 (esp. Chapter Four), and McGlew 2002.
13
1980, 1.
14
Fisher (1993, 31-2) summarizes the scholarship along familiar lines: he identifies a “Doverian”
camp, which emphasizes ritual and carnival; and the “Croixian” camp, which detects an intentional
political program.
31
who is himself an inconsistent figure in need of more precise identification.
15
For my
part, I believe there is a coherent message that is unequivocally anti-war – Hans-Joachim
Newiger’s generally accepted classification of the play as one of Aristophanes’ three
“peace-plays” seems to confirm this.
16
That the comic details informing this position and
the manner in which they are presented are inevitably going to be ambiguous, outlandish
and even ridiculous need not take away from the larger viewpoint. Thus, the
presumption of many scholars, that the comedy cannot be interpreted in any definitive
way, since it does not put forth persuasive arguments and logical solutions, seems to me
misguided. In its own way, as Dicaeopolis says, “even comedy knows what’s right” (l.
500).
17
Both the speech of Dicaeopolis at lines 497-556, as well as the parabasis (ll. 626-
664), seem at pains to stress (through repetition) that the poet’s advice is sound and just,
and therefore politically useful, especially with respect to the treatment of allied states.
The idea is also bolstered by the speech of Dicaeopolis at lines 377-84, in which he
speaks in the persona of Aristophanes about his legal altercation with Cleon in the
previous year (he does this again at line 502). Both speeches have been described as
confusing due to the slippage that occurs between the authorial point of view and that of
the character. They also feature an extra element of ambiguity, which derives from each
speech’s invocation of the world of tragedy. In the first instance, Dicaeopolis speaks
with his head literally placed on a chopping block; in the second, he dons the rags of the
15
This issue is taken up most notably by A. Bowie 1982. E. Bowie 1988 argues that Dicaeopolis is a
caricature of Aristophanes’ rival, Eupolis (contra, see Parker 1991); while Sutton 1988 (seconded by
Slater 1989) contends that Aristophanes acted the part of Dicaeopolis in the performance of
Acharnians.
16
1991, 143-8.
17
Variants of this phrase, tÚ d¤kaion, recur in the parabasis at lines 645, 655 and 661.
32
Euripidean beggar, Telephus, in order to convey his critical, and perhaps unpopular,
point of view to the city. This paratragic maneuvering reinforces the gravity of the play’s
pro-peace stance, while the doubled voices of poet and actor seem to lend emphasis to,
rather than garble, its political message. This is also the view of Thomas Hubbard, who
insists, “The blurred lines between the historical and dramatic realms…are not meant to
be disambiguated; they are meaningful precisely in their overlap and indeterminacy.”
18
Finally, there is the explicit claim put forth by the chorus leader at lines 647-49:
Even the King, in questioning the envoys from Sparta, asked them first
which side was stronger in ships, and then which side this poet profusely
abused; because those folks, he said, have become far better and far likelier
to win the war, with him as an adviser.
Here Aristophanes posits an important and determinative relationship between comedy
and political decision-making, and, more specifically, he touts its influence (which is
equal to that of the fleet!) on military success or failure. Whether he overstates its degree
of influence or not, both here and elsewhere he makes a clear case for comedy as a
singularly potent cultural mechanism, which safeguards and renews society by
deliberately inverting and thwarting its expectations. In other words, the comic process
is a valuable asset to the Athenian community that is not to be discounted, regardless of
its effect on real-life choices. Thus, while Aristophanes cannot compel the city to make
peace, nor is the solution he imagines in Acharnians without serious problems, he
nonetheless provides a “crucial political space” in which citizens are free to “fantasize
18
1991, 59.
33
different futures, and different possibilities for individual, bodily, and collective
fulfillment.”
19
Returning to the play, Dicaeopolis begins to lament the sad state of affairs he has
encountered on the Pnyx with a cry of “oh city, city” (l. 27, Œ pÒliw pÒliw). This is not
only mock-tragic, a signal of seriousness, but also an indicator of how his concern with
war and peace will be articulated, as it is a few lines later: “I gaze off to the countryside
(égrÒn), desiring (§r«n) peace, loathing the city (stug«n...êstu) and yearning for
my own deme (dmon poy«n).” This is a spatially motivated outcry, which may have
been underlined by the fact that the deme of Acharnae could be seen from a seat in the
theater, as it lay approximately seven miles northeast of it.
20
Dicaeopolis’ statement makes the case for Aristophanes that the problem at issue
in Acharnians is real; it is able to be looked upon and experienced, even from within the
confines of the theater. He succeeds at locating the audience, along with the action, both
inside and outside at once, and thereby blurs the line between fantasy and reality all the
more. He reveals the ancient theater to be what Michel Foucault termed a “heterotopia,”
that is, a real place, fundamental to its society, which acts as a counter-site, or “a kind of
effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found
within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted.”
21
By
19
Kipnis 2000.
20
My argument presumes that Aristophanes’ Lenaean plays were performed in the Theater of
Dionysus, and not in the unidentified precinct known as the Lenaion – an idea based largely on line
504, where Dicaeopolis affirms, “we are alone and the contest is, (§)p‹ Lhna¤ƒ.” Olson (2002, 202
v. 504) claims that the phrase is a “fossilized remnant of an earlier period” when the precinct did
feature dramatic competitions. This view is contested by Russo (1994, 2) and Slater 1986, among
others.
21
1986, 24. Foucault himself identifies the theater as a heterotopia. In describing the third principle
that defines a heterotopia, that it is “capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces,
34
emphasizing the overlap of inside and outside Aristophanes is able to bring his deme, to
which he will soon travel, into the urban comic realm. In this way, he not only affirms
that the theatrical space is a political space, invested in the realia of daily Athenian life;
he also presents the theater as a model for the heterotopic role that the oikos will adopt in
this play, as a marginal counter-site that is mutable, and that exists both inside and
outside the polis.
It should be noted that Dicaeopolis’ protest is not uttered just in spatially
dichotomizing terms; it is also articulated in the language of love and desire (and their
opposites). It is an inversion of the Thucydidean Pericles’ exhortation to the Athenian
citizens to be “lovers of the city” (2.43.1), and its appearance here introduces a theme,
that of the eroticization of politics, which will only gain in prominence in Aristophanes’
future plays.
22
It is my contention that the tendency to understand civic power relations
in sexual terms in Aristophanic comedy is in part the result of the political domestication
that occurs as the oikos becomes increasingly incorporated into the space of the city. In
Acharnians, there are only brief allusions to this phenomenon because it is only just
beginning to take place, and its expression is accordingly less obscene and less violent
than in later plays. However, by the time that Knights is produced, the oikos and polis
have become virtually indistinguishable, and, as we will see, the “pornification” of
several sites that are in themselves incompatible,” he adduces the example of the theater first: “Thus it
is that the theater brings onto the rectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places
that are foreign to one another” (25).
22
On this topic, see Wohl 2002, whose chapter on Knights will be discussed in more detail in Chapter
Three, and Ludwig 2002, who bases much of his argument on Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s
Symposium. Aristophanes also pokes fun at the idea of the city-lover at lines 143-6. Theorus the
ambassador claims that while in Thrace he was “drinking with Sitalces,” the Odrysian king who was
“exceedingly pro-Athenian, too, and your true lover,” so much so that he even wrote “Athenians are
handsome” on the walls.
35
politics is a dominant and pervasive concern. Before this, however, we must consider
how the actions of Dicaeopolis contribute to this transition within Aristophanes’ comic
world.
An inefficient meeting of the assembly occurs in the theatrical Pnyx, in which
virtually nothing is resolved, except a trip to the Prytaneum for the Persian ambassadors.
Dicaeopolis is compelled through his frustration to mount the stage and speak,
abandoning his position as one of the audience members/assemblymen. He decides to
transact his own private thirty-year wine truce with Sparta through the magical agency of
the character Amphitheus: “Take these eight drachmas and make a treaty with the
Spartans for me alone and my children and the missus” (ll. 130-2).
23
His decision to do
this is contrasted with his refusal of the offer of one Theorus, an alleged flatterer,
perjurer and associate of Cleon, who presents him with a troop of Odomantian soldiers
from Thrace. He tells Dicaeopolis, “Pay these fellows two drachmas and they’ll
swashbuckle all of Boeotia” (ll. 159-60). Dicaeopolis, taking note of their circumcised
phalloi, mocks the suggestion: “Two drachmas for these docked cocks? The crowd who
row our ships and defend our city would sure yell about that!” (ll. 161-3). The soldiers’
defective masculinity is not just a sign of their barbarity; it also marks their militarism as
wrongheaded and backwards. As Dicaeopolis notes, the last thing the city needs is more
23
This exceptional character, who appeared at line 45 and identified himself as the descendant of
Demeter and Triptolemus, is sanctioned by the gods to make peace with Sparta. His main dramaturgic
function appears to be to speed along the peace process for Dicaeopolis by acting as his intermediary.
There is a debate over whether Amphitheus can be identified with a contemporary individual, which
is summarized by Olson (2002, 82-4, v. 46). Ultimately I agree with his conclusion that “much of the
point of identifying the character…with Eleusis is that the cult was fundamentally concerned with
agricultural fertility, the recovery of which for the Attic countryside is a central concern of Ach. as a
whole.” It should also be noted that, at the end of Knights, the truces referred to in Acharnians are
anthropomorphized into young naked girls (Sponda¤), who accompany the personification Demos as
he revels in the victory of the Sausage-seller.
36
fighters on the payroll. By rejecting Theorus’ offer, then, he asserts his power as both a
man and an Athenian citizen, but also seemingly aligns “real” masculinity with the
choice of peace.
Dicaeopolis thereupon goes home to celebrate the Rural Dionysia by entering a
door in the skene, though not before being warned by Amphitheus of the impending
anger of his fellow demesmen (ll. 178-202). The belligerent chorus appears at this point,
singing a song that moves the audience to the agricultural area that is the object of the
war and the setting of the next scene: “On my side malevolent war waxes strong against
them on account of my lands” (ll. 226-8). Dicaeopolis orchestrates the Dionysiac ritual,
and through it the state of peace, though tenuous, is made manifest. His festival seeks to
re-affirm the contrast between inside and outside, and war and peace, as it was
previously expressed – through the dichotomy of urban and rural. In particular, his goal
seems to be to thwart the chorus’ association of these lands with the devastation of war,
and to effectively separate his oikos from spaces of political conflict, i.e., the city and his
deme. He appears to succeed in this, but, ironically, it turns out to be too seamless a
success.
This is because the socio-spatial “purification” enacted in Dicaeopolis’ Dionysia
is achieved through the agency of his female family members. His daughter assumes the
traditional role of basket-bearer in the phallic procession, while his wife watches from
the roof.
24
Their appearance confirms the status of Dicaeopolis’ oikos as a peaceful and
productive space outside the city, but, at the same time, their prominence and influence
24
The daughter gives instructions to the mother to assist her at line 245, while Dicaeopolis instructs
his wife to watch from the roof at line 262. Previous to this, at line 131, Dicaeopolis referred to his
wife using the rare poetic word plçtiw, which derives from the adverb p°law, or “nearby.” As
Taaffe notes, she is thus already defined in terms of proximity to him (1993, 155 n. 8).
37
confound the dichotomous hierarchy upon which the play and its peace depend.
25
They
are shown to be not simply the objectified rewards of peace, extensions of the land and
home restored, but public actors (albeit in a “private” celebration) whose
indispensability to Dicaeopolis’ endeavor implicitly acknowledges them as the
legitimate purveyors of peace and as the true guardians of the oikos. Mother and
daughter are thus figures of liminality, and their portrayal here suggests that the home,
no matter how far away it is from the city, is always already a middle ground, one which
is both foundational to and alienated from political society.
Neither Aristophanes nor his hero seem aware of this possibility; instead, they
continue to adhere unquestioningly to the traditional association of peace with passivity,
femininity and the rural oikos. This creates a problem for Dicaeopolis, however, because
it leaves him with no significant role, no place, and no power. In fact, the play could
theoretically end at this point, since its ostensible objective, to return peace to the
countryside (or at least to his part of it), has been accomplished. But this would be
unacceptable for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it would require the
emasculation of Dicaeopolis, who would have to “surrender” himself to the domestic
domain and all that it stands for. It is for this reason that Dicaeopolis must reconstitute
his home as a polis, or more specifically, as an agora. This is the only means by which
he may regain control and social standing, but, unfortunately, it will also require him to
undermine the peace that has been attained. For, in establishing his new market-polity,
he must reinstate the violent and appropriative policies that govern the formation of (as
25
See Habash (1995, 560-7) on the Rural Dionysia’s function as a celebration of “generative fertility”
in the play.
38
well as the destruction of) city-states and the preservation of empire. This includes the
objectification and commodification of women as well as men, which Dicaeopolis, as a
comic persona, will carry out largely through mockery and verbal abuse.
This process begins immediately, and takes Dicaeopolis’ daughter as its first
target. During the phallic procession, he closely monitors her appearance and
movements. He also draws attention to her sexuality and potential marriagability at the
same time as he degrades her: “Blest the man who’ll wed you and beget a pack of ferrets
as good as you at farting when the dawn is nigh” (ll. 253-8). Despite the presence of the
phallus, the daughter seems to be the true focus of the procession, and it is precisely the
centrality of her role that enables her to serve simultaneously as the butt of her father’s
joke. As Lauren Taaffe points out, she “displays to the audience in the theater the origins
of comedy, of which she, as the object of sexual double entendres, is an essential
ingredient.”
26
In other words, she is the mechanism upon which this scene relies for its
comic lucidity, and it is through her sexual objectification (which, not coincidentally, is
effected in the presence of an iconic phallus), that Dicaeopolis is able to begin
reestablishing himself as a comic hero and a man of power. But the presence of his wife
limits the extent to which he may use his daughter in this way. In her position as rooftop
spectator, she defines the boundaries of propriety, as well as of Dicaeopolis’ property, in
the scene. She also serves as a reminder, albeit an understated and transitory one, of who
truly defines and preserves the oikos.
Dicaeopolis accordingly moves on from his own nearest and dearest, only to set
his attention on another, more viable target. In the phallic hymn he sings, he reiterates in
26
1993, 25.
39
more explicit fashion the sexual and spatial dynamics that informed his interaction with
his daughter, but applies them instead to a slave girl:
Phales…after six years I greet you, as gladly I return to my deme, with a
peace I made for myself, released from bothers and battles and
Lamachuses. Yes, it’s far more pleasant…to catch a budding maid with
pilfered wood – Strymodorus’ Thratta from the Rocky Bottom – and
grab her wrist, lift her up, throw her down and take her cherry (ll. 266-
275).
This is a rape fantasy without limits, a hostile response to the strictures and decorum of
the domestic sphere, as they are embodied in the figures of wife and daughter. By
expressing his desire to violate and appropriate, Dicaeopolis retakes his position of
mastery over his home and his lands, and reclaims his masculinity. The figure of the
slave girl legitimates his efforts by making them seem natural and justified: as a slave,
she is already an object; as a foreigner (her name means “girl from Thrace”), she is an
enemy; and as a thief, she conveniently provides him with an excuse for his behavior –
turf protection. In addition, this fantasy, uttered as it is in the presence of his already
sexualized daughter, aligns her with the slave girl for the male-identified audience, and
suggests that all women, regardless of status, serve the same purpose and merit the same
treatment.
It is ironic that the violent rape envisioned by Dicaeopolis, which draws upon the
language of the palaestra, is contrasted with the horrors of war, and is understood as a
reward for his establishment of the state of peace.
27
One can easily see how such a
scenario would only beget further conflict among men, and nullify the fragile peace that
had just barely been instituted. And indeed, this is precisely what occurs, as the chorus
27
On the athletic language used here, see Olson 2002, 151 vv. 274-5.
40
runs on and interrupts the ceremony in order to chase down Dicaeopolis and pelt him
with stones (ll. 280-3).
28
All but he and the chorus flee inside, and fighting nearly breaks out as he
attempts to explain his reasons for making peace with the Spartans. The chorus members
refuse to listen, and finally he resorts to counter-threats: “Then I’ll bite you! I’ll kill in
return your nearest and dearest; for I’ve got hostages of yours; I’m going to fetch them
and cut their throats!” (ll. 325-7). The chorus fears that he has one of their children
locked up, but it turns out to be a basket of coal, a characteristic product of the region,
upon which the livelihood of the chorus depends. This is a preview of the extended
tragic parody of Telephus that Dicaeopolis will take up in a moment, but it also reveals
that the metaphorical conflation of land and woman, which informed Dicaeopolis’
previous actions, remains the source of his influence here. In this case, however, he
reverses his strategy, and personifies the earth’s product as a child. Even though this
strategy has feminine overtones, its result is the same: Dicaeopolis defiantly
demonstrates his ability as a man to define the existence of others, whether as object or
subject. This ability, which he will also go on to exercise in his private agora, is
understood and respected by his fellow demesmen, who react fearfully, as if the basket
of coal really were alive. They even refer to it as their fellow demesman (l. 334,
dhmÒthw), coeval and “coal-eague” (l. 336, ,mÆlika...filanyrak°a). It is this
transposition, coupled with the threat of force, which compels them to let him speak.
28
It is noteworthy that, at lines 238-40, the chorus leader called for silence when he saw that
Dicaeopolis was going to make a sacrifice. It is only after the phallic song that this injunction is
seemingly forgotten and the chorus continues on with its plans to attack.
41
And speak he does, though not before visiting the house of Euripides, in order to
array himself “in guise most piteous” (l. 384). His disguise, as the beggar Telephus,
presumably enhances the gravity of his message, but it is not so much Dicaeopolis’
paratragic posturing that is of interest in this scene; rather, it is the continued
manipulation of domestic space, which keeps the broader notions of liminality and
femininity at the forefront of the action.
29
Dicaeopolis knocks and asks if Euripides is at home (l. 395, ¶ndon), to which the
door-slave responds, “he’s within and not within, if you get my point” (l. 396,
oÈk ¶ndon ¶ndon §st¤n, e8 gnmhn ¶xeiw). Dicaeopolis asks how this is possible, and
the slave informs him that the mind of the poet is outside, “collecting versicles,” while
his body is inside “composing tragedy,” and that it is “quite impossible” for him to come
out (ll. 398-9; 402). At this point, Dicaeopolis identifies himself for the first time and
insists that the poet have himself wheeled out (l. 408, §kkuklÆyht'), to which Euripides
grudgingly assents.
30
Euripides appears on the ekkyklema, and is thus able to come out
while remaining technically within.
31
It is this in-between position, along with the set of
costumes that accompany him, which mark him as a feminized character, who occupies
an ambivalent role not unlike that of Dicaeopolis’ wife and daughter. Helene Foley
argues that by portraying the tragedian in this way, Aristophanes suggests that “comedy
reveals the unglamorous but important truths that tragedy hides behind the stage.”
32
I
29
On this scene and its paratragic overtones in particular, see Foley 1988 and Harriott 1982.
30
Olson (2002, 180 vv. 408-9) notes that this passage, and another in Thesmophoriazusae (ll. 96,
265), are the “strongest direct evidence for the use of an ekkyklema to represent interior scenes in late
5
th
-c. tragedy.”
31
Dale 1969, 288.
32
1988, 44.
42
would suggest that it likewise reveals the extent of Dicaeopolis’ dependence on the
oikos, and its necessity to the success of his political endeavors. When understood along
these lines, the rolling out of the ekkyklema may be viewed as a vivid physical enactment
of the oikos’ gradual incorporation into the political realm in Acharnians.
Euripides reluctantly agrees to costume Dicaeopolis, who is then finally able to
give his big speech on the causes of the war.
33
There is some truth in his basic argument,
which singles out the Megarian Decree as a prime motivator of the conflict.
34
But his
rationale, in taking a turn for the humorous, falls back on a familiar trope that is
foundational to the sexual politics governing Greek society. He incorporates into his
account the story of three stolen sluts, who function as the proverbial straw that started
the war:
But then some tipsy cottabus-playing [Athenian] youths went to Megara
and kidnapped the whore Simaetha. And then the Megarians, garlic-
stung by their distress, in retaliation stole a couple of Aspasia’s whores,
and from that the onset of the war broke forth upon all the Greeks: from
three sluts! And then in wrath, Pericles, that Olympian, did lighten and
thunder and stir up Greece, and started making laws worded like
drinking songs, that Megarians should abide neither on land nor in
market nor on sea nor on shore (ll. 524-34).
This account obviously evokes the image of Helen, and many scholars have seen in this
passage an allusion to the opening of Herodotus’ Histories, wherein a series of
mythological abductions is described, and then dismissed, as the reason for hostility
33
It should be noted that Dicaeopolis’ interaction with Euripides ends with him insulting the poet’s
mother as an “impoverished hawker of wild herbs” (Henderson 1998, 117 n. 63). Euripides responds
with outrage, denies his request for chervil, and demands that the doors of his house be shut and
barred (l. 479).
34
So MacDowell 1983, 151-4; Moorton 1999, 34. Contra see Heath 1987, 17; Carey 1993, 257; and
Fisher 1993, 38. The relevant passages in Thucydides are 1.39, 1.67 and 1.144.
43
between the Greeks and the Persians.
35
Whether this is the case or not, the basic claim,
that female sexuality, especially when left unguarded, generates conflict among men, is
one that the audience would have been familiar with. If nothing else, it may have evoked
the militaristic strategies of rape and enslavement that were routinely being used on
“enemy” women and children at this period in time.
36
The appearance of this trope here is significant because it illuminates the
ideological underpinning of women as property which determines Dicaeopolis’ own
actions within the play, and facilitates the contextualization of these actions as part of a
“natural” cycle, rather than history merely repeating itself. Indeed, the scenario he
imagines, of discord erupting from the theft of sexually objectified females, is, in many
ways, the logical corollary of his previous fantasy involving the rape of the slave girl,
Thratta.
37
Dicaeopolis’ version of the events that led to war is thus coherent with his
character and his previous treatment of female characters, in spite of its implausibility
and gross oversimplification. What is more, as a male character who perceives himself
to be a representative of peace and a restorer of the rural oikos, he has no choice, given
the rigidly dichotomous structure of his world, but to associate women with war, and
blame them for its outbreak. His reference to Aspasia in particular lends further support
35
Fornara 1971 and MacDowell (1983, 151) argue against the allusion.
36
Gaca 2007.
37
Olson (2002, 150 vv. 272-5) points out that “under normal conditions, the rape of another man’s
slave was an act of hybris, which could be prosecuted by means of a graphe brought before the
Eliaia.”
44
to this view, as the Peloponnesian War was often held, rightly or not, to have been
undertaken for her sake by Pericles.
38
This episode not only demonstrates the conflicted position of the female as
simultaneous object and subject (and her increased value in the guise of the former) in
both Dicaeopolis’ world and Athenian society at large; it also reenacts in the telling the
process of appropriation and objectification it describes. It exploits female figures as
objects of humor among men and, by blaming them for the actions taken, renders them
comic scapegoats. While this may have had a unifying effect on the male audience, it
only seems to cause more dissension among the chorus members on stage. Half of them
agree with Dicaeopolis, while the other half remain opposed to him. Fighting wells up
again, and the pro-war side calls upon Lamachus to come to their aid with
reinforcements (ll. 564-571). Dicaeopolis takes the opportunity to upbraid him about the
inequitable treatment of military men, and again adduces the polarity of urban/rural,
aligning it with that of young/old, as he presents his argument: “That’s why I was
sickened and poured a truce, when I saw grey-haired men in the ranks and lads like you
arrantly malingering, some drawing three drachmas’ pay on the Thracian coast” (ll. 599-
602).
39
It is at this point that Dicaeopolis decides to establish his market, as a means of
opposing Lamachus’ plan to wage perpetual warfare.
38
On Aspasia as a historical personage, see Henry 1995. Olson (2002, 210 vv. 526-7) notes that
Euripides called her “Helen” (fr. 267), while Plutarch (Per. 24.2) and others report that Pericles
attacked Samos in 441/0 BCE on her account. See Thuc. 1.115.
39
The topic of the city’s differing treatment of old rural men and young urban men is also a guiding
theme of the parabasis; see lines 676-718. It appears from this that the lack of difference among
Athenian men, which accompanies the breakdown of discrete social spaces and contributes to the
hostile atmosphere within the city, has yet to become a serious problem. It will, however, be a major
preoccupation of Aristophanes’ next few plays. See Chapters Three and Four.
45
This continuation of conflict signals the limitations and incongruities of the
argument presented by Dicaeopolis regarding the causes of the war. But, because the
misogynistic line of reasoning that informs his account is so persistent and ubiquitous, so
fundamental to the patriarchal culture of Athens, it happens that, once he has his own
market, he makes the same mistakes with which he previously charged the city.
40
As
Foley remarks, “His private market ultimately displays the vices that were said to lead to
or support the war in earlier scenes: traffic in sexuality, exclusion from markets and the
exploitation of war to make individual profits.”
41
I believe that the troubling
consequences of this replication are most evident in the next scene, featuring the
Megarian and his daughters, which is perhaps the most memorable and disturbing scene
of the play.
42
At line 729, a Megarian man enters with his two young daughters, poor and
starving. He hails the (Athenian) market, saying that he missed it as a son misses a
mother or as a mother mourns her son, then resolves to sell his children by means of a
“trick” not five lines later (l. 738, maxanã).
43
He dresses them up and sells them to
Dicaeopolis as “piggies” (l. 739, xo¤rouw, a slang term equivalent to “pussy”). The
extended double entendre that develops from this obscene “trick” has received a good
deal of scholarly attention, and many explanations have been put forth to explain its
40
Dicaeopolis sets up his market on the stage after the parabasis at lines 719-28, with boundary
markers and his treaty proudly posted. His enlistment of three leather whips as trade commissioners is
particularly portentous, as it points to his continued application of violence as a means of supervising
the market.
41
1988, 45.
42
Taaffe (1993, 28) calls it “arguably the most gruesome example of black humor in Aristophanes’
repertoire,” and notes that it “brings home the effects of war effectively.”
43
The syntax of the line (730) is ambiguous: §pÒyoun tu na‹ tÚn F¤lion ™per mat°ra. Olson
(2002, 259 v. 730) contrasts this salutation with lines 816-7, where the Megarian expresses his
eagerness to sell his wife and mother, in addition to his daughters.
46
prominence and protraction. Jeffrey Henderson explains that it is meant to introduce the
related motifs of food and sex, and to reestablish Dicaeopolis’ identity as a “natural
man,” who rejects deception and freely enjoys his bodily desires.
44
Mark Golden rightly
views the scene as an expression of male fear and anxiety toward female sexuality, and
employs a structuralist analysis in order to explicate the elements of wildness and
domestication, sacrifice and death that appear within it.
45
Lauren Taaffe offers a slightly more nuanced reading, which proceeds from the
points made by Golden. She points out that, once in costume, the girls are
simultaneously animalized and reduced via synecdoche to their sexual parts – un-human
but fully female.
46
In addition to this, their conversion from people to property is
indicated by their emplacement within a large sack at line 745. All these changes render
the girls prime scapegoating material, as they are now unable to speak or move, and have
been reduced to their “problem” parts. Interestingly, though, it takes some
encouragement on the part of the Megarian to get Dicaeopolis to go along with his trick;
despite the Megarian’s insistence that the girl is a piggy “in the Greek sense,”
Dicaeopolis points out that it nonetheless “belongs to a human being” (ll. 773-4). To this
the Megarian replies, “Yes, by Diocles: it belongs to me! Whose do you think it is?” (ll.
774-5). The basic misrecognition fueling this joke – that man is the owner or proprietor
of women’s sexuality – finally seems to make sense to Dicaeopolis, who ceases
questioning the Megarian at this point, and accepts his designation. He concludes the
sale, and acquires the girls/“piggies” in exchange for a paltry bit of salt and garlic.
44
1975, 60-1.
45
1988, passim.
46
1993, 28.
47
It seems that the contents of this joke reveal the one crucial deception that must
be overlooked, and thus maintained, by Dicaeopolis in order for his market to succeed.
What is more, the joke’s contents also determine the success of Acharnians as a comedy.
Both depend upon the capacity of the female to function as an object of exchange –
whether comic, sexual or economic – among men. As Taaffe explains it, “Here male
characters manipulate females for their own gain [i.e. money, food and sex]; without the
feminine element, however, there would be no gain and no joke.”
47
She goes on to argue
that women are necessary comic elements both here and in the scene of the Rural
Dionysia because of their sexual and theatrical qualities – they facilitate play within
play, ritual parody, references to the invention and practice of comedy, and the linkage
of food consumption with sex.
I would add to these points that the selling of the Megarian’s daughters must be
considered, and I would argue that it was, in light of the reference to the three stolen
sluts who caused the war to break out. As was the case previously with Dicaeopolis’
daughter and the slave girl Thratta, the “piggies” scene must be understood as resulting
from the attitude and actions that preceded it. In fact, by juxtaposing all the scenes in
which females figure in Acharnians up to this point, it is possible to see each as a
distinct phase of the larger ongoing cycle of violence that inspired Dicaeopolis’ plan of
action in the first place. His daughter embodies the sexual and reproductive potential of
the female, which must be enclosed and regulated, often by means of force, as it is in the
fantasy episode with Thratta. This paves the way for the sexual objectification of
women, as well as the proliferation of violence, which is exemplified in Dicaeopolis’
47
1993, 29.
48
account of the reciprocal theft of the prostitutes and the subsequent outbreak of war. The
systematic commodification and consumption of women that results from war is
reiterated finally by Dicaeopolis’ and the Megarian’s collusion in the “trick” of young
“piggies” for sale at market.
The humor derived from this scene serves to transfer hostility away from the
Megarian, who was technically an enemy of the Athenians, toward his daughters.
48
This
parallels Dicaeopolis’ transference of blame onto the prostitutes for the outbreak of war.
In both instances, he attempts to restore male solidarity and shore up the new association
of masculinity with peace over and against the specter of the wearisome war-inducing
woman. Yet the scenes that follow suggest that his efforts in this regard are misguided
and ultimately ineffective. This is because his market was established on the same
principles of aggressive territoriality and financial gain which underlie the imperial
polis, and which perpetuate the violent cycle described above, rather than put an end to
it. This much was already evidenced by the similar manner in which females, especially
those from outside their respective borders, are valued and treated. As to be expected,
the chorus takes no notice of this; instead they celebrate this market’s superiority to the
one in Athens, where they are forced to interact with a variety of detestable poets and
politicians (ll. 842-59). These men have been successfully reunited as rural old
demesmen by Dicaeopolis’ speech, but both this song and the contents of the parabasis
reveal that they have done so out of shared hatred for the city and its inhabitants. The
next few scenes make evident, however, how alike these two places really are.
48
At line 784, Dicaeopolis points out that these piggies are unsuitable for sacrifice. It is clearly his
intent to subject them to this legitimate form of violence after “fattening them up” (i.e., having sex
with them).
49
In these scenes, Aristophanes continues to engage with the idea of the market as
a space of exchange, both in the economic and ontological sense. Dicaeopolis’
ownership of his agora not only allows him to acquire wealth, it enhances his power to
transform people into things and vice versa. He demonstrates this ability in various
ways, and while gender difference is not the humorous hinge upon which each
transformation depends, the previous cycle of female exploitation, which culminated in
the sale of the Megarian’s daughters, sets the stage for his more general employment of
this tactic. It is clear, in addition, that the practice of enslavement, which was so
pervasive and so intimately tied to warfare, plays a highly influential role throughout.
At line 860, a Theban peddler appears and offers to sell Dicaeopolis an
assortment of Boeotian culinary treats.
49
Dicaeopolis desires an eel, a delicacy from
Lake Copais. The Theban addresses it in mock-tragic style, as “most venerable mistress
of fifty Copaic maidens,” then instructs it to “step forth here and grant your favors to our
host” (ll. 883-4, ¶kbayi t«de k±pixãrittai t“ j°nƒ).
50
Dicaeopolis goes on to
apostrophize the feminized eel in the language of love: “O dearest and long desired, you
have come, the heart’s desire of comic choruses” (ll. 885-6). He tells his children, who
have just come out of the house, to say hello to the lady-guest (l. 892, tw j°nhw), and to
prepare a funerary-inspired barbeque for her.
This sea creature has become a woman worthy of tragic lament. Her
personification brings to mind the contrasting fate which was recently suffered by the
49
For an insightful reading of the contrast in character between the poor Megarian and the rich
Boeotian, and their significance to Aristophanes’ pro-peace message, see Moorton 1999, 38-9.
50
Both Henderson (1975, 160) and Olson (2002, 295 v. 884) note that this phrase has strong sexual
overtones. Olson remarks that it is “as if the Boiotian were a pimp rather than an itinerant trader.” In
Lysistrata, a woman is described by the female members of the chorus as “an eel from Boeotia” at
line 702.
50
Megarian’s animalized daughters. The difference in their treatment is striking, and yet
both are to end up as sexual sacrifices of sorts, to be consumed by Dicaeopolis. This is
also the first time that his oikos is clearly shown, through the appearance of his children
and servants, to be incorporated into his agora.
51
Its continued status as a liminal space is
what allows Dicaeopolis to disguise his business transaction with the Boeotian as a
lover’s or wife’s homecoming (and death). The ease (or, in Freudian terms, the
economy) with which this domesticating transposition is enacted is the source of its
humor. It implies that the coercive practices employed by Dicaeopolis up to this point
are normal and beneficial pursuits for men in general.
52
Moreover, their repeated use
against female characters, and the technique of animalization in particular, make these
practices seem natural.
What the Theban receives in return for the she-eel is not surprising, given all that
has preceded it. Dicaeopolis first offers him a number of items that he doesn’t need; he
then hits upon the idea of furnishing him with an informer, which apparently both his
market and that of Athens have in abundance, whom he will pack up like a pot (l. 905,
k°ramon; l. 936, êggow).
53
Right at that moment, the informer Nicarchus enters,
seeking to expose Dicaeopolis’ and the Theban’s illegal trade. He is swiftly silenced and
transformed in an extended scene, wherein he is packaged for transport and his future
utility and value to the Theban are discussed. At the same time, they notice that this
informer-turned-pot is making a “chattering and fire-cracked noise, altogether
51
When he takes the “piggies” inside at line 835, it is assumed, but not explicitly clear, that he is
entering his home.
52
Men like the Megarian, to offer just one example.
53
An informer has already appeared once before, at lines 918-28, to harass the Megarian, but he was
quickly whipped away by Dicaeopolis’ “Market Commissioners.” The Megarian responded to this by
pointing out the pervasiveness of this problem in Athens.
51
godforsaken” (ll. 932-4). Both Douglas Olson and Alan Sommerstein explain that the
“pot” makes noise because it has been struck or kicked, in a parody of the process by
which pottery is tested to see whether it has cracked during firing or not.
54
Dicaeopolis
insists that it is sturdy, despite these noises and despite the apprehension expressed by
the chorus leader about its reliability (ll. 940-4). Dicaeopolis’ handling of the “pot”
reflects the physical violence and harsh treatment to which many slaves were commonly
subjected, but the fact that the informer has been turned into a ceramic receptacle, an
object long associated with femininity and sexuality in the Greek culture, calls attention
to his and all slaves’ increased sexual vulnerability as well.
55
The chorus sings the praises of Dicaeopolis’ market again, once he has chased
off Lamachus’ slave, who wants to do business with him, and gone inside the house. The
chorus leader then conjures up the image of Polemos, or Warfare, whom he personifies
as a drunken party-crasher:
I will never welcome Warfare into my house, nor will he ever recline at my
side and sing the Harmodius song, for he is an unruly fellow when he
drinks. When we enjoyed every bounty, he crashed our party and inflicted
all kinds of damage, upending, spilling, and fighting; and the more I kept
inviting him ‘to drink, recline, take this cup of fellowship,’ the more he
kept setting our vine props afire and violently spilling the wine from our
vines (ll. 979-87).
As mentioned previously, this passage bears directly on the incendiary role that alcohol
consumption can play in the perpetuation of violence, though it also attests to the
importance of wine in facilitating social harmony and peace. Polemos’ figuration as a
wild symposiast who enters homes uninvited reintroduces the traditional association of
54
2002, 305 vv. 929-51; 1984, 202 vv. 932-4.
55
The most conspicuous example of this association is the jar of Pandora. See West’s translation of
Hesiod’s Works and Days, and the discussion there (p. 168). See also duBois 1988, 47-54; and
Hanson 1990.
52
masculinity with war, which Dicaeopolis has been attempting to subvert. It seems,
however, that it is precisely the success he has enjoyed in converting his oikos into an
agora that has inspired the chorus leader’s allegory. Dicaeopolis’ success emboldens the
chorus leader to imagine that, unlike in the past, his own home can now also withstand
the spread of war. The chorus leader’s confidence that the domestic realm, in its new
incarnation, can remain unaffected by the devastation results in his restoration of the
female affiliation with peace, and in the celebration of sex and fertility that this
necessarily entails.
The chorus turns to sing of Diallage, or Reconciliation, the antithesis of Polemos
and the “companion of Cypris the fair and the beloved Graces,” who takes the form of a
beautiful maiden (ll. 987-90).
56
She is immediately sexualized by the chorus leader, who
employs the traditional imagery of agriculture to describe his relationship with her. True
to form, he characterizes her as a plot of land he will enclose, mocking the ceremonial
language used in ancient Attic weddings:
Ah but if I got hold of you, I think I could still strike home three times.
First, I’d shove in a long rank of tender vines, and beside that some fresh
fig shoots, and thirdly a well hung vine branch – this oldster would! – and,
around the whole plot (xvr¤on), a stand of olive trees, so that you and I
could anoint ourselves for the New Moon feasts (ll. 994-99).
This fantasy brings the play full circle, as it were. The chorus leader’s erotic invocation
of Reconciliation naturally gives way to her appropriation (“if I got hold of you”) and
enclosure (in “a stand of olive trees”). As a potential marriage candidate, she calls to
mind the daughter of Dicaeopolis, but, at the same time, the latent violence expressed in
56
Both Taaffe (1993, 30) and Sommerstein (1984, 205 v. 989) conceive of Diallage as an onstage
character, presumably because of her later appearance as such in Lysistrata. I agree with Newiger’s
assessment that, in this play, she is not represented onstage, but is merely imagined by the chorus, just
like her belligerent counterpart (1996, 148).
53
the chorus leader’s treatment of her recalls Dicaeopolis’ own fantasy about the slave girl
Thratta. It is my contention that the desire articulated here, to create a separate space of
peace that is fruitful and impervious to warfare, depends directly on the (mis)perception
that this is what Dicaeopolis has achieved in his private market. As the next scenes make
clear, however, our hero’s actions have actually had much the opposite effect. The home
is revealed to be fully integrated into the conflict-ridden urban sphere, not separated
from it.
At line 1000, a herald arrives and announces a drinking contest in honor of the
Choes, the second day of the Anthesteria festival, which celebrated the maturing of the
wine stored at the previous vintage and the coming of spring. His announcement
prompts the emergence of Dicaeopolis, as well as his servants and womenfolk, whom he
orders to prepare the holiday feast. Both Henderson and Sommerstein posit that these
secondary characters appeared on the ekkyklema in this scene.
57
This means of bringing
the domestic interior outside enacts, in explicitly spatial terms, the completed
incorporation of the home into the public domain.
58
The indistinguishability of these
formerly discrete spaces contributes to the further objectification of their inhabitants,
who now exist simultaneously as extensions of the oikos and as potential wares in the
market. The extent of their power is also diminished, and is restricted to a narrowly-
defined, manageable space, if it is represented by the ekkyklema. Either way, their
participation in and enjoyment of the peace is shown to be limited. The highly
57
1998, 184 and 1984,135. Olson (2002, 337 v. 1096) expresses skepticism regarding its use.
58
In contrast with the previous appearance of the ekkyklema in the scene involving Euripides, here its
“passengers” express no hesitancy about coming out, nor eagerness to get back in; it seems they
remain onstage until at least line 1096, when Dicaeopolis tells his slave to “close up” (sÊgkl@e).
54
circumscribed positioning and activity of the female characters in particular contrasts
with their decisive roles in the Rural Dionysia celebrated earlier in the play.
It is worth recalling at this point that, from the beginning, peace was
characterized as a commodity, an object of exchange for male consumption, which was
bought for eight drachmas by Dicaeopolis with the help of Amphitheus. It remains a
commodity in the agora of Dicaeopolis as well, notwithstanding the chorus’
personification of it, and in fact it is more sought after than ever. Dicaeopolis’
unwillingness to sell it, trade it or give it away is what truly renders this situation distinct
from that encountered at the outset. He demonstrates this in the scene with Dercetes of
Phyle and with the Best Man, to whom he says he “wouldn’t pour a drop for a thousand
drachmas,” even in exchange for some meat (l. 1055).
Dicaeopolis’ attitude seems to change, though, with the appearance of the
Bridesmaid. She whispers the request of the bride in his ear and, surprised by it, he
repeats it aloud: “Her very earnest request to me is, that her husband’s cock be allowed
to stay at home!” (l. 1060, o8kourª tÚ p°ow).
59
Dicaeopolis decides to fulfill her
request, explaining “I’ll give some to her and her alone, since she’s a woman and is not
deserving of the war” (ll. 1061-2, ,tiØ gunÆ 'sti toË pol°mou t' oÈk éj¤a).
60
He
then offers her some of the peace in liquid form, which he explains is to be rubbed on
the penis “whenever they call up troops” (ll. 1065-6). And with this, the couple departs.
59
A. Bowie (1993, 34) notes that the verb o8koure›n and its cognates are “regularly used of keeping
women at home” and when used of men, they “carry overtones of cowardice.”
60
All the manuscripts have éj¤a; Bladyes’ emendation to a8t¤a is, as Olson (2002, 329 vv. 1061-2)
notes, “no improvement,” though it is understandable, given the common ascription of blame to
women for the outbreak of hostilities among men.
55
This is a minor scene in Acharnians, but it is one that is crucial to my reading of
the play. Dicaeopolis’ ventriloquization of bride and bridesmaid obliges him to
indirectly acknowledge (in obscene terms) the positive influence of female sexual desire
in preserving peace, and its status as a power that is worthy of male respect and
exception. He is meant to appear sympathetic specifically to the conflicted social
position of women, and this recalls again his reliance on his daughter in carrying out the
phallic ritual and his hopes for her betrothal, as well as the chorus’ matrimonial
overtures to Reconciliation.
61
Nonetheless, Dicaeopolis’ main actions (and fantasies)
throughout the play serve to undercut his message here, and although his attitude toward
female sexuality and its relationship to warfare has evolved, it is still as problematic as
ever. This is because his usurpation of the space of the home to create his market has
deprived the female characters of their only sphere of influence. It has also facilitated his
appropriation of their unique capacity to engender peace through sex and reproduction,
and thereby to keep men at home. Ironically, it seems that what was once perceived to
be the cause of conflict is now ineffectual against it.
This is why the bride is forced to petition Dicaeopolis for some of his peace: her
own youth and fertility are no match for the persistent party-crasher that is war. Perhaps
more troubling is the fact that she must petition him by proxy, as it would be unseemly
for her to appear in the very public venue that his oikos has become. In the end,
Dicaeopolis’ consolatory gesture toward the bride turns out to be a means of avoiding
the larger issue she epitomizes – the lack of political standing held by Athenian women
– which, of course, cannot yet be represented on the comic stage. With his magical
61
Edmunds (1980, 22) also notes the resemblance between the bride and Dicaeopolis’ daughter.
56
dispensation, then, Dicaeopolis continues his quest to associate peace with masculinity,
despite his admission that women are not deserving of war’s ill effects. But, because this
necessitates his feminization and his fixed installation within the home, it ultimately
proves to be an unfeasible solution. Dicaeopolis therefore responds by doing the only
thing he can, even though he has achieved what he wants: he reasserts his manhood by
beginning the cycle of competitive violence all over again with his old enemy
Lamachus, and by returning to the city for the drinking contest of the Choes.
62
A messenger appears at the door opposite Dicaeopolis’ house at line 1073 and
summons forth Lamachus for guard duty in the mountain passes. Right away,
Dicaeopolis is invited to dinner with the priest of Dionysus by another messenger. Each
man begins to prepare for his respective journey in an elaborate scene wherein a series
of culinary and military objects are juxtaposed and contrary actions are performed in an
effort to reaffirm the dichotomy of war and peace, as well as that of urban and rural. The
previous achievements of Dicaeopolis are supposed to restore symmetry and stability,
and in a way this does occur, except now the polis is the place where peace should be
enjoyed, while in the rural hinterland war rages on. As is quickly revealed, though, this
restoration is brief and untenable, since hostility continues to determine the rivals’
relationship to one another, as well as to the outside world.
Although they do not do battle with each other directly, both Lamachus and
Dicaeopolis describe their pursuits – i.e., drinking and fighting – in a stichomythic
exchange that identifies them as essentially alike. Lamachus, for example, dons his
62
See Slater (1993, 412): “Geographically, the play has moved through a cycle, too: away from the
city at war at the beginning, out into the countryside, and now back to the city, where Choes and
Chutroi would be celebrated.” He goes on to note that Dicaeopolis would probably be going to the
theater, since that is where the priest currently is, viewing the performance.
57
cuirass, proclaiming, “In this I bolster me to meet the foe.” In response, Dicaeopolis
grabs his pitcher and says, “In this I bolster me to meet my fellow drinkers” (ll. 1134-5).
After some time, they finally depart, going in opposite directions to spread the seeds of
conflict and competition to other areas, apparently. The song of the chorus which
follows on their departure attests to the speed and efficiency with which the epidemical
violence instigated by these characters reproduces itself. Harsh curses are uttered against
one Antimachus, who they claim dismissed them without dinner when he was a
producer at the Lenaea (ll. 1154-5). In anger they shout, “I hope some drunkard…
knocks him on the head; and when he wants to grab a stone I hope in the darkness he
grabs in his hand a fresh-shat turd, and holding that glittering missile let him charge at
his foe, then miss him and hit Cratinus” (ll. 1166-73). While it is unclear who exactly
this Antimachus was, it is nonetheless significant that the chorus is directing its anger
against someone whose name means “Against War.”
63
As is to be expected, in this sustained atmosphere of male hostility and
competition, women-as-objects feature prominently. They are the rewards to be enjoyed
by Dicaeopolis and all men who partake in the peaceful side of life, as is evident from
the messenger’s list of dinner treats: “Everything else stands ready: couches, tables,
pillows, coverelets, garlands, perfume, morsels; the whores are there; cakes, pastries,
sesame snaps, rolls, dancing girls, Harmodius’ beloveds, pretty ones (kala¤)!” (ll. 1089-
93). As such, they stand in sharp contrast with the figure of the Bridesmaid, who
actively sought out the benefits of peace on behalf of the bride. I would suggest that it is
63
Sommerstein (1984, 210 v. 1150) notes that this Antimachus is not identifiable with any of the
several men of the name known from this period.
58
the triumph of Dicaeopolis’ agora, and his incorporation of it into the civic sphere, that
enables his continued commodification and consumption of women, even in peacetime.
The final scene of the play makes this clear: Lamachus returns from the border,
wounded and wailing, while Dicaeopolis comes back from dinner with two nameless
naked girls on each arm, “piggies” grown up, whom he lustfully fondles and kisses
(without regard for his wife, ll. 1198-1202).
64
The two men once again draw attention to
their contrasting positions, and Lamachus is finally taken away to the doctor, while
Dicaeopolis marches out with the girls, followed by an exultant chorus.
In the end, Dicaeopolis’ achievement of peace is to be admired and celebrated by
the audience, and understandably so, given the alternative. There is also something to be
said for the broader concept that informs his plan: in the peaceful and “Just City,” which
the character Dicaeopolis is meant to embody, the home should be recognized and
respected as a significant political entity.
65
Unfortunately, the manner in which he
attempts to politicize the oikos, by “marketizing” it and commodifying its female
inhabitants (those who are not already slaves), turns out to be flawed and
counterproductive to his goal of legitimating the peace he has acquired. This is
evidenced by the fact that, even within the area to which his private treaty pertains, his
64
It is commonly assumed that the nude mute females who appear at the end of Aristophanic
comedies were male actors in stylized female bodysuits, although there is some support for the view
that actual female prostitutes appeared in these roles. Zweig 1992 summarizes the arguments. For the
purposes of this study, I think it most illuminating to suspend judgement and consider both
possibilities – if they were real women (which is admittedly less likely), then the broader points I am
making about their exploitation as objects and their function as comic “fall guys” are that much more
persuasive and plausible; however, if they were men costumed as women, it lends further credence to
my claim that traditional gender identities had become so destabilized and confused at this time in
Athens, that citizen men often had to resort to distinguishing themselves from one another by
employing a female (and therefore feminizing) referent. This problem presents itself most clearly in
the parabasis of Clouds, which is discussed in detail in Chapter Four.
65
Further discussion of the significance of Dicaeopolis’ name can be found in the sources listed in
notes 13, 14 and 15 of this chapter.
59
success in suspending conflict is limited and temporary. What Dicaeopolis does not
realize is that his market’s dependence on women (and others) as objects of exchange is
itself dependent upon the larger cycle of violence and appropriation which he was
seeking to halt. It is, in fact, the direct product of it.
Despite the prominence of female figures in this play, especially as compared
with the other early comedies we will examine, Acharnians lacks an explicit
acknowledgement of the vital role of the feminine in maintaining and protecting the
domestic sphere. Women’s inclusion as active players in political society and the
integration of their space as a venue of decisive political importance for Athens are
phenomena that the Aristophanic stage will not be able to represent for another fourteen
years, until Lysistrata. And yet, the idea is always already there, looming in the
background and ever so occasionally encroaching upon the foreground, as is the case
here. In fact, the two naked nameless girls who exit with Dicaeopolis are perhaps its
most vivid enactment in Acharnians, as it is their presence, and not the respective skills
and feats of the rivals, which ultimately distinguishes the males from one another. But it
is Dicaeopolis’ acquisition of them and their sexual capacities, which they display by
rubbing his erect phallus on command at line 1216, which confirms his position of
mastery, as well as his problematic peace, once and for all. As before, however, the
extent of this fantasy peace’s influence is very limited; it applies only to the confines of
the comic theater, and only for a short period of time, as the fortuitous turn of events that
Athens was to experience with regard to the war during the coming summer would make
the issue of peace a non-issue altogether.
60
CHAPTER THREE
A WORLD WITHOUT WOMEN…ALMOST
Knights and Wasps
Imperial domesticity is a domesticity without women.
-- Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather (1995)
The success of Acharnians at the Lenaea of 425 BCE was followed by another
first-prize win in 424, with Aristophanes’ production of the play Knights. The
extraordinary events of the previous year at Pylos, when the Athenians took 120 Spartan
soldiers prisoner and in which Cleon had played so definitive a role, led to Aristophanes’
production of a play that continued its obsession with this figure on the level of both
personal rivalry and political conflict.
1
It could perhaps even be argued that what was
previously a more personally motivated antagonism is transformed in this play to a
political struggle for the hearts and minds of the Athenian demos, as this is what the
characters of Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller essentially act out for the personification
of the citizen body, Demos of Pnyx Hill.
The content and spirit of this play hark back more directly to comedy’s primitive
structures and the influences that determined them, at least as they were laid out in the
introduction to this work. That is to say, what Aristophanes depicts is essentially a series
of hostile competitions between male peers for prestige and power, which are meant to
1
292 soldiers were captured at Pylos altogether, but only 120 of them were Spartiates. Aristophanes
had satirized Cleon extensively in his play of 426, Babylonians, and the result of this was some sort of
prosecution or at least the threat thereof. An exhaustive amount has been written on the historical
relationship between Cleon and Aristophanes in general; for starters, see Welsh 1978, Edmunds 1987,
Carawan 1990, Atkinson 1992, and McGlew 1996. I will say more on Aristophanes’ possible
prosecution by Cleon in 426 at the end of this chapter.
61
reform the existing hierarchy of social relations.
2
It is a form of intracommunal conflict
that has been precipitated by another larger competition, which is, in this case, the
Peloponnesian War. The popular tradition of verbal dueling, which is preserved in the
blame poetry of iambic poets such as Archilochus and Hipponax, influenced
Aristophanes’ portrayal of the conflict in this play, and its enactment by two slaves
within the household of the figure Demos also recalls the conventional designation of
blame poetry as affiliated with those of lower social rank or standing.
3
What is distinct
about Aristophanes’ version, however, and what will be analyzed herein, is his depiction
of the breakdown of this regulatory social mechanism and the political upheaval that
results from its collapse. It is my contention that this depiction depends on the
auspicious turn of events that Athens had experienced at that point in the war, and on the
divided political climate to which this turn contributed within the city. That the
overriding concern in this play is not with peacemaking, as it was in Acharnians, seems
to confirm this point. At this moment in time, peace of any kind was perceived as an
unrealistic goal, since it could neither be forced upon Athens from without nor decided
upon from within, and accordingly it gets very little play here.
4
In contrast with what might be expected, the household unit, and not the polis or
some section thereof, is the geographic entity that corresponds most closely to the
2
This is also the case in Wasps; cf. Reckford 1987, 522 n. 17: “The structure of Wasps is unusually
agonistic.” Vaio (1971, 347-8) also discusses Wasps’ exceptionally hostile nature.
3
On verbal dueling in ancient Greek poetry, see Collins 2005 and Parks 1990 (on Homer). On its
function in Knights, see Hesk 2007. Richlin (1992, 74-6) considers the function of verbal dueling in
the context of ancient Rome, while Rosen and Marks 1999 compare the ancient practice with modern
gangster rap. For cross-cultural anthropological analyses of verbal dueling, see Dundes, Leach and
Ozkok 1970 (Turkey); Gossen 1974 (the Chamula of Mexico); and Bowen 1989 (Sumatran
highlands). On the ancient affiliation of blame poetry with the low or base, see Nagy 1999, 224-31.
4
On this point see Worthington 1987 and Slater 2002, 84. This view is expressed openly by the
Senate members at lines 668-73: “We don’t need treaties, let the war drag on!”
62
persona of Demos. Kenneth Dover has pointed out that there is a great deal of
inconsistency in the presentation of this allegory, which slides freely between oikos and
polis.
5
I, along with Kenneth DeLuca, view this spatial slippage as a fundamental
collapse that serves to reflect back the many other breakdowns that are occurring in the
play, and, correspondingly, in Athenian society.
6
However, while DeLuca takes this as a
starting point for understanding the problematic necessities that arise from absolute
democracy, and thus situates his inquiry within the confines of the system as such, I
depart from this by looking beyond the political confines altogether. Instead, my
argument requires that we observe how what is seemingly excluded from this comic
depiction still lingers in the background and influences its outcome.
7
Although it may
have been both clever and worthwhile for Aristophanes to present the city as one big
oikos in order to drive home his points about Cleon and the dangers of demagoguery, I
propose that there is one glaring error in the manner in which he went about it – there are
no women in this oikos. In reality, the demos as a citizen body did exclude women and
slaves from its constitution, and that of course is why the figure of Demos is represented
as a man. However, this contrasts with typical ancient allegorical practice, which
represents cities and nations, as well as most other intangible entities, as female.
Aristophanes relied upon this trope often in his plays (e.g. Diallage in Lysistrata,
5
Dover 1972, 93. We cannot, therefore, “clearly exclude here the sense of political district or
‘deme’,” as does MacDowell (1995, 84). DeLuca (2005, 11 n. 3) sees this not as a flaw, but rather as
the hinge upon which the play must be interpreted. The conceptual alignment of oikos and polis was a
conventional way of understanding politics and has a long history as a metaphor in pre-democratic
literature. Aristotle also takes it as his starting point in Politics almost one hundred years after this
play’s production.
6
DeLuca 2005, 4.
7
Lysistrata’s speech to the magistrate in the play of her own name (ll. 507-28) is the first place where
women’s political invisibility is openly acknowledged and problematized by Aristophanes.
63
Basileia in Birds), and so this departure from the norm highlights the lack of female
figures here even more. Demos, then, is in many ways an unnatural or unusual
personification according to dominant Athenian ideology, just as an oikos with no
women is.
8
This domestication of political problems and places happens again in Wasps, the
second-place winner at the Lenaea of 422 BCE, as Bdelycleon turns the oikos into a
lawcourt in a last-ditch attempt to keep his father from attending jury service. But here
again, no women appear in the household (with the exception of two female slaves
mentioned in passing at lines 768 and 826), and this lack of female presence enables the
blurring of civic and domestic spaces upon which the play depends, both for its structure
and its humorous content. In this instance, the spatial confusion is experienced through
the eyes of a supposedly crazy old man, but it is still meant to have an effect similar to
that of Knights: to criticize Cleon and his volatile political style, and to illustrate the
repercussions of dysfunctional social relations and institutions within the larger context
of the war. The level of anger and exasperation in Athens had only increased since the
production of Knights, and this was due in large part to the failed truce of the previous
year (423 BCE), which was occasioned by the ill-timed revolt of Scione.
9
The
resentment and confusion that resulted from this diplomatic failure is given its fullest
expression in Wasps, which reflects both the lack of progress that was being made in
peace negotiations within the city, and the expectation that general hostilities between
8
Segal (1996, 5) discusses Aristophanes’ domesticating tendencies more generally, and he points out
in note 17 how even the earliest comic fragment, that of Susarion, which was discussed in the
introduction, clearly expresses the idea that “a home cannot do without a wife.”
9
On the revolt of Scione and its consequences for Athens and Sparta, see Thuc. 4.118-22.
64
the Greek cities would inevitably resume.
10
In this chapter, we will examine how
Aristophanes relied upon the same themes and techniques in his efforts to depict the
turmoil brought on by cyclical violence both within and between communities, and how
in each play this included the unsuccessful effacement of the feminine and the
subsequent dissolution of distinct social spaces.
It should be noted that the lost plays Farmers and Merchant Ships were most
likely produced in the interim between Knights and Wasps (at the Dionysia of 424 and
the Lenaea of 423, respectively), and presumably further developed the trend toward
political critique through the portrayal of intracommunal conflict.
11
The first Clouds,
which was also produced in the interim, at the Dionysia of 423, also shares some
thematic traits with these plays; however, because it departs from them somewhat in its
content and its structure, and because it underwent extensive revision at a later date, it
will be discussed in a later chapter.
As I argued previously with respect to Acharnians, female figures act as
conceptual boundaries, and the ways in which they are represented spatially on the stage
emphasize this function. They signify the limitations of an argument or point of view.
They also absorb or embody the paradoxes and inconsistencies that these viewpoints and
arguments sometimes produce. Because women do not really figure in Knights or in
Wasps, there is thus more room for disorder and aporia: social spaces collapse into one
10
This is the view of Sommerstein (1983, xv-xix), and it is supported by the disparaging remarks
made in the play about Cleon’s good luck at Pylos (l. 62), the difficulty of blockading Scione (l. 210),
and the desire that someone, probably Laches, be prosecuted for treason because of the failure of the
truce (l. 288).
11
On the dating of these plays, see Silk 2000, 19. For hypotheses, fragments and testimonia related to
these plays, see Edmonds 1957, 598-603, 686-93. I will discuss the female chorus of Merchant Ships
in more detail below.
65
another, contradictions are more explicit and exasperating, and, interestingly, there is a
stronger tendency towards violence of various kinds. This includes a great deal of
misogyny, which is mostly verbally expressed in the form of rape fantasy, but is
sometimes physically acted out on the female characters at the end of a play. It is
probably no accident that this is where women do show up if they show up at all, acting
simultaneously as delimiters of the cycle of competitive violence presented in these
plays, which could continue indefinitely, and as the victims of this cycle. In some ways,
they function as deae ex machina, but their power is feeble and fleeting, as they achieve
only a provisional, though necessary, stop in the action of the play, coming on the scene
too late to make any real difference.
12
Aristophanes’ comic presentation of the collapse of social spaces and the
resultant confusion over boundaries and their dissolution is meant to signify a crisis in
Athenian civic identity, and, as we will see, these plays repeatedly call attention to the
lack of distinction between male citizens in particular. In the case of both Knights and
Wasps, this is elaborated along class lines, in the relationship between slave and master,
rower and knight, farmer and merchant, as well as generationally, i.e. between father and
son.
13
These oppositions are also prevalent in Clouds, although it is my view that the
female figures of the cloud chorus influence how these relations are represented, and
thereby alter the message and outcome of the play. In general, however, Aristophanes’
plays of this period reveal that what previously served to distinguish between citizen self
and other in Athens had lost much of its resonance at this point in history. Again, this
12
On Aristophanic deae ex machina, see Finnegan 1995, 12.
13
On the ideological implications of father-son conflicts during this period, see Strauss 1993, passim.
For the theme in Aristophanes, see Sutton 1993, with special focus on Wasps and Clouds on pages 17-
37.
66
phenomenon is, to a great extent, the result of the war’s destabilizing influence, but it
derives as well from the precarious geographic positioning of Athens and Sparta, and
from Athens’ conflicting desire for both imperial expansion and autarky.
14
The confused
notions of inside and outside (often denoted as public and private), and the fragmentary
world-view that this desire subsequently engendered, are often represented
geographically or spatially by Aristophanes.
The democratic system’s successful functioning through the reproduction of
citizens required that certain relations between female bodies and the spaces of the
community be articulated. The codes and practices, whether legal, religious or economic,
which were produced in response to this need, most often by those in power, were
intended to serve a regulatory function within the culture. These codes and practices
were reproduced and played with on the dramatic stage, sometimes in order to draw
attention to their limitations and contribute to the redefinition of their parameters, but
most often in order to reinstate and secure them. Aristophanes contributed much to this
discursive project, especially in the women’s plays, but in these earlier plays the
important role of female characters in regulating difference and preventing stasis among
male characters has yet to be fully fleshed out by him. In both Knights and Wasps, there
are moments that foreshadow the more radical approach that he adopts later, but these
generally remain latent and underdeveloped. Rather, he continues to work within the
14
It should be noted that democratic ideology and its institutions have a significant role to play here,
and while I do not address directly how they influenced Aristophanes’ comic output, it is assumed
throughout that they enable and often govern both its form and the topics he was concerned to depict
onstage. The literature on the interaction of drama and democracy is extensive. With respect to
comedy in particular, see Gomme 1938; Ste. Croix 1972, 231-44, 355-76; Heath 1987; Henderson
1993; Osborne 1993; Carey 1994; Slater 2002, and the essays by Longo, Henderson, Goldhill, Ober
and Strauss, and Redfield in Winkler and Zeitlin 1990. DeLuca 2005 focuses on the issue of
democracy specifically in Knights and Ecclesiazusae.
67
paradigmatic structure afforded by the current social realities of Athens, and accordingly
the plays have a more frustrated and desperate tenor. As a result, although Knights and
Wasps were quite successful insofar as they were victorious at the civic festivals, as
dramas in and of themselves they are not altogether as lucid or enduring as many of his
other plays, and are far less often read.
Knights
The beginning of the play finds two slaves outside the house, lamenting the
amount of influence that the new slave Paphlagon has acquired over their master,
Demos, and his entire household. Very early on, they present the audience with two
elaborate geographic metaphors that at once situate and disorient through their mixing
up of familiar places both within and outside the city, unfamiliar though real places, and
thoroughly imaginary places. Their goal is to emphasize the extent of this new slave’s
influence, as well as his oppressive omnipresence. At line 75, the first slave
(Demosthenes) describes Paphlagon (Cleon) as having “one foot in Pylos, and the other
in the Assembly…[with] his legs spread so far apart that his asshole’s smack dab over
Buggerland (Xãosin, lit. “among the Chaonians”), his hand’s in Shake Downs
(A8tvlo›w, lit. “among the Aetolians”), and his mind’s on Crime-ea (Klvpid«n, lit.
“in Clopidae”).”
15
These punning place names provide Aristophanes with the opportunity to
ridicule Paphlagon/Cleon: Chaonia recalls the word xãow, or “gap,” and links him with
pathic behavior; while Aetolia and Clopidae call to mind the common practices of
15
All translations are from Henderson (1998) with my occasional alterations, unless otherwise noted.
68
extortion and theft through their resemblance to the words a8te›n, “to demand, ask” and
klc, or “thief,” respectively.
16
Yet each of these places also has a specific negative
connotation in relation to the war, and this makes their mention all the more biting:
Chaonia was a region in northwest Epirus which bordered on the Ionian Sea, and, in 429
BC, its inhabitants allied with the Peloponnesians and unsuccessfully battled against the
Athenians and their allies in the nearby area of Acharnania.
17
What is more, Chaonia
was directly adjacent to the island of Corcyra, where terrible massacres among the
democratic and oligarchic factions had led to the eventual self-destruction of that
community in 425.
18
As Thucydides describes it, this episode brought the hostilities to a
new low on all sides, as it exposed, within the space of a single city, the inevitable and
devastating outcome of prolonged cyclical violence. Likewise, Aristophanes’ reference
to Aetolia recalls the disastrous expedition of the Athenian general Demosthenes there in
426, in which numerous allies and 120 hoplites were killed, whom Thucydides describes
as “by far the best men in the city of Athens that fell during this war.”
19
Finally,
Clopidae was a “small Attic hamlet,” probably near Aphidna in the northeast, which like
Acharnae and several other rural demes, had suffered great devastation over the years at
the hands of the Spartan invaders.
20
This passage articulates power in spatial or geopolitical terms, and the invocation
of actual places reminds the audience how far this power extends beyond the confines of
16
Sommerstein 1981, 148-9 vv. 78, 79.
17
Thycidides explains the reasons why the barbarian Chaonians were allied with the Peloponnesians
and recounts their extraordinary role in this attack at 2.68 and 2.80-1.
18
On Corcyra, see Thuc. 3.70-85 and 4.46-8
19
Thuc. 3.98.4. He goes on to relate how the general stayed behind in Naupactus after this, “being
afraid to face the Athenians after the disaster.”
20
Sommerstein 1981, 149 v. 79.
69
the city itself. However, through his derisive punning and exaggeration, Aristophanes is
also able to contest and undermine all these political claims to power, and lay bare the
shaky hold that the city had upon these places. He uses this technique again when the
same slave entices the Sausage-seller into countering Paphlagon:
21
You’re going to be top dog of them all, of the market, the harbors and
the Pnyx! You’ll trample the Council, cut down the generals, put people
in chains and lock them up, fuck/suck cock (laikãseiw) in the
Prytaneum!…And that’s not all. Here, climb higher up, on this table,
and survey the islands all around…What else [do you see]? Ports and
cargo ships?…Then how can you deny that you’re flourishing? Here
then, swivel your right eye toward Caria and the other one toward
Carthage…The point is that all this is yours to buy and sell! (ll. 164-177)
In spite of their size, strength and distance from Athens, Caria and Carthage were both
places which Athenian generals aspired to control during this time. Caria is named as a
tribute-paying ally by Thucydides; however, both the instances he records of attempts to
collect funds from the Carians, by Melesander in the winter of 430/29 and by Lysicles in
the winter of 428/7, ended in failure, with the killing of each general and his men.
22
Similarly, Carthage may have been viewed as a potential area of imperial acquisition,
since the Athenians thought they were on the point of gaining control of Sicily, which
was Carthage’s neighbor. Later in the play personified triremes will complain that
Hyperbolus wants to make an expedition to Carthage with one hundred of them (l.
1302). As Alan Sommerstein notes, “any such ideas will have faded when their fleet
21
Between the first and the second of these passages, the slaves decide to get drunk (ll. 91-100). This
is not simply an homage to Dionysius as the god of the theater and a source of divine inspiration; it is
also an appropriate precursor to the fight that these slaves will provoke between the Sausage-seller
and Paphlagon (who himself is drunken and passed out; cf. line 104).
22
See Thuc. 2.9, 2.69 and 3.19. Lysicles has already been insulted as a “sheep-monger” who aspired
to power at line 132. Keen (1993, 152-7) offers an insightful analysis of these campaigns in Caria, and
concludes that they were somewhat dire attempts to reign in this region, and to thereby acquire more
revenue while gaining control of the waterways that accessed Persia.
70
returned from Sicily later in 424 having accomplished very little.”
23
To have acquired
both of these places in one fell swoop, as the slave suggests, is a preposterous fantasy.
These two comments reinforce each other and provide the audience with vivid
imagery in the form of a conceptual map, which emphasizes Athens’ centrality and the
magnitude of its political and economic influence, even as it calls attention to its
militaristic failures and calls its legitimacy, or the legitimacy of its representatives, into
question. And as with any map, there is a legend which aids in the decipherment of the
places represented and their relation to one another. This is where the references to
physical violence, sexual prowess and imperial aspiration in each passage come into
play. The slave succinctly lays out the spiraling logic that informs this map at the start of
the second passage: violence, which is born of the desire for territory or property, is
conveyed through the verbs “trample,” “cut down” and “lock up.” This desire comes to
be framed in naturalizing sexual terms – thus the phrase “suck cock in the Prytaneum”
where “eat” might be expected.
24
The Sausage-seller then mounts the table so that his
desire may extend even further, to the islands, ports, and cargo ships (,lkãdaw, l. 171),
until finally all the places and persons previously mentioned have been commodified by
way of his objectifying gaze: “all this is yours to buy and sell.” Paphlagon’s exemplary
physical positioning in the first passage corroborates the slave’s line of reasoning in the
second, and the pleasure both slaves are depicted as deriving from their overstepping of
set physical boundaries is therefore to be understood by the audience as a general
23
1981, 212 v. 1302, with reference to Thuc. 4.65. These desires persisted more or less throughout the
war, and were repeated by Alcibiades previous to the outcome of the expedition to Sicily (Thuc. 6.15,
6.90).
24
There is debate over the precise meaning of the term laikãzein. Jocelyn 1980 argues that the term
refers specifically to fellatio, while Henderson (1975, 153 n. 12) cautions against such a narrow
reading. The difference is immaterial to the broader point under discussion.
71
tendency toward excess, indifference and disdain for all other kinds of social boundaries,
be they gendered, ethnic, or economic.
With these metaphors, then, Aristophanes not only sets the stage and informs his
audience of the nature of the competitions that will take place; he also maps out clearly
what is at stake overall in the slaves’ feud, which is not just the favor of the demos, but
the continuance of the entire Athenian imperial project, including the war itself. Both the
positive and negative consequences of the ideology of violent acquisition that is
represented in these metaphors had been experienced in reality at Athens, but here,
within the first two hundred lines, the negative aspects are given emphasis, albeit in a
cleverly subversive fashion. Aristophanes’ decision to portray the debate in this way at
the outset gives the impression that the citizenry had yet to derive much insight from
these negative experiences, and that he therefore took it upon himself to recall and
highlight them in this dramatic production, especially through his derogatory portrayal
of Paphlagon/Cleon.
25
The rest of the play is an enactment of the competition between the two slaves,
which the Sausage-seller wins early on. The play follows closely the pattern laid out by
Dover, of “crisis—parabasis—illustrative episodes,” as the Sausage-seller goes on to
demonstrate his superiority during the final scenes, in which Demos is rejuvenated and
Paphlagon is exiled.
26
The metaphors employed by Aristophanes in the remainder of the
play are scaled down from the national level to the domestic, and draw in particular on
the imagery of food, cooking and consumption, rather than that of geography. This
25
This approach did not have much effect on public policy, as Cleon was voted a second term as
general shortly after this production. This outcome will be discussed in more detail below.
26
1972, 66.
72
transition is appropriate to a play featuring household slaves and market vendors, yet it
also brings home the larger effects of imperialism to the Athenian populace and makes
Aristophanes’ critical viewpoint on the subject more palatable.
27
References to eating
and digesting bring his critique directly into the material realm, as the slaves’ battle for
political dominance becomes a glorified eating contest. Thus Paphlagon claims that he
will “polish off a plateful of hot tuna…wash it down with a pitcher of neat wine, then
screw the generals at Pylos” (ll. 353-5), to which the Sausage-seller replies, “Yes and it’s
cow belly and hog tripe I’ll gobble down, and drink up the gravy, and then without
washing my hands I’ll throttle the politicians and harass Nicias!” (ll. 356-8).
This metaphorization effectively synthesizes the slaves’ conflict within the space
of the male body, where progress (or lack thereof) is charted by following the digestive
tract ever downward, from the mouth, to the stomach, and then to the anus and penis. In
the gastrological periplus that Aristophanes elaborates throughout the course of the play,
food may be understood as the ship of state, and the difficulty with which it passes
through the body is indicative of the many problems that stand in the way of political
harmony and efficacy. Athens turns out to be severely constipated, but the discussion of
food and digestion, which inhabits a kind of discursive middle ground, does eventually
give way to the emergence of complex metaphors of both excretion and intercourse,
culminating in the (homo)sexual imagery toward the play’s end. One particularly vivid
image which recurs throughout the play, and which combines these themes, is that of the
27
It is outside the scope of this work to consider the prominence and significance of food in
Aristophanes, but it is a topic that has received much attention elsewhere. See, for example, Schmitt-
Pantel 1992, 222-31; Thiercy 1997 and Wilkins 2000. On food in Knights in particular, see Marr
1996.
73
Sausage-seller’s special talent for stealing meat by inserting it in his anal cavity (cf. lines
428, 484).
Representations of downward motion, whether within the body or by it, will
recur and intensify in Aristophanes’ subsequent plays, as will the efforts of the
protagonists to resist it. These are instances of what Mikhail Bakhtin termed
“degradation,” in which he claims all forms of parody and grotesque realism participate:
“Degradation here means coming down to earth, the contact with earth as an element
that swallows up and gives birth at the same time.”
28
The ambivalent status of the earth
or ground, so determined by its simultaneous existence as womb and grave, is shared by
the lower bodily strata – the belly, buttocks, and reproductive organs. Therefore, “to
degrade an object does not imply merely hurling it into the void of nonexistence, into
absolute destruction, but to hurl it down to the reproductive lower stratum, the zone in
which conception and a new birth take place.”
29
Within this paradigm, the concept of the
grotesque body would seem to be epitomized by the female body, and by its qualities of
incompleteness, doubleness (i.e. its ability to contain another within itself), and
openness. And, because of this association, it is possible to understand comic movement
downwards, as well as its deferral, as an engagement with, or avoidance of, the feminine
principle. In Knights, female characters and references to women are virtually non-
existent, but this does not preclude the action of the play from moving toward the lower
bodily stratum. However, as I intend to show, in the end the “new birth” that derives
from this movement is illusory and flawed.
28
Bakhtin 1968, 20-1.
29
Ibid. Bakhtin goes on to adduce the image of the senile, pregnant, laughing hag as a “typical and
very strongly expressed grotesque” (25).
74
As mentioned previously, there is an extended scene late in the play that depicts
political interaction as a form of homoerotic exchange. In this scene, the slaves
undertake to heighten the stakes of their rivalry by each claiming to be the lover
extraordinaire of the personified Demos. This is what Andrew Scholtz refers to as the
“demophilia topos,” and it begins with Paphlagon’s declaration, “Because I adore you,
Mr. Demos, and because I am your lover!” (l. 732,,tiØ fil« s', Œ Dm', §rastÆw
t' e8m‹ sÒw).
30
Yet, in spite of the passion displayed by the two adversaries, this “love-
off” fails to establish a winner in the contest for Demos’ favor.
It is my contention that this stalemate occurs for two related reasons. First, the
romantic relationship between the slaves and Demos adheres to a pederastic model,
which, even under the most ideal of circumstances (which these clearly are not), is not
ultimately a procreative relation. Second, by this point, both in the play and in reality,
the corrosive effects of incessant struggle have come to permeate the community,
creating a situation in which men’s ability to delineate a meaningful social hierarchy
among themselves has been severely compromised. This much is substantiated by the
confusion which distorts and muddles distinct sexual positions in particular, to the point
that all are rendered equally impotent. Finally, the emasculating sameness that has
overwhelmed all participants in the play’s conflict is replicated in the spatial
disintegration that takes place throughout the course of the play. It should be noted that
this amorous competition takes place outside the door of Demos’ house (l. 725), which is
indistinguishable from the Pnyx, as well as from other public venues. The oikos thus
30
Scholtz 2004, passim.
75
retains no autonomy; it is now simply another combat zone in a fruitless war to
determine male superiority.
To summarize: Difference is unable to be produced in the domesticated city-state
of Knights because there is no means by which to reproduce it. In other words, it is the
perpetuation of familial lines of descent that is indispensable to the constitution and
continuation of both the oikos and the polis, and it is warfare, and the lesser forms of
conflict it inspires, that make this goal impossible to achieve. The ersatz rejuvenation of
Demos at the end of the play not only succeeds in calling attention to the lack of women
and children so necessary to this project; it also exposes the erotic rivalry of the slaves
for what it really is – a depraved and exploitative liaison. Before we consider this
conclusion in more detail, let us briefly examine the sequence of competitions leading up
to it.
Shortly after the slaves have convinced the Sausage-seller to oppose Paphlagon,
Paphlagon comes out and begins threatening them. He in turn is physically attacked by
them, and the chorus of knights aids them in this. The chorus leader yells, “Hit him, hit
the scoundrel...the chasm and Charybdis of rapacity…Come on hit him, pursue him
shake him up, mix him up…give out with a war cry as you attack him!” (ll. 242-54).
These insults not only recall his spread-legged stance and gaping anus from lines 75-9,
but also feminize him through their mention of the monstrous, mouth-like daughter of
Poseidon and Gaia. When the chorus refuses his pandering overtures, Paphlagon begins
trading insults and threats of violence with the Sausage-seller, in what MacDowell and
others refer to as an exemplary moment of Aristophanic slanging and flyting, with the
76
chorus as witness.
31
This turns into a more orderly debate on each one’s claims to
impudence and shamelessness, as well as a critique of each other’s rhetorical abilities,
though it does slip into the realm of taunts and threats again at various points (cf. lines
361-80). They come to blows again momentarily at lines 451-56, but at this point
Paphlagon runs off to the Senate to inform on the Sausage-seller on trumped-up charges
of conspiracy with “the Medes” and “the Boeotians” (ll. 478-9). The Sausage-seller
eagerly follows, primed for the fight by the slaves and the chorus, who compare him to a
wrestler and a fighting cock (ll. 490-97).
Here the parabasis intervenes, in which the audience’s fickle love of the new
with respect to comic playwrights is discussed (ll. 518-40). A. M. Bowie views this
commentary on poetic succession as parallel to the political succession that is occurring
in the play, and, as such, it underscores the competitive cycles that have overtaken
Athenian society.
32
Given the prominence of the theme of cyclical violence, it should
come as no surprise that what follows are prayers to Poseidon and Athena for victory in
the war (ll. 551-64; 581-94) and a eulogy of the cavalry horses, who, it is claimed, were
able to board ships, and like men, row themselves to Corinth and set up camp there (ll.
595-610).
33
Here again, the larger, real conflict ultimately determines and reflects back
on all the others that are taking place both on and off the stage, and, as the example of
the anthropomorphized horses at sea makes clear, this strife-filled state of affairs
contributes to the dissolution of clear social and spatial boundaries, and brings about a
31
MacDowell 1995, 98. See also Hesk 2007.
32
1993, 63-4. See also Slater 2002, 77. Note also that Aristophanes compares himself to a rower who
must work his way up the ranks to pilot (ll. 542-4).
33
Sommerstein (1981, 177 v. 604) views this as a reference to the attack on Corinth that was
undertaken in 425, in which Nicias, with the aid of the Athenian cavalry, was victorious.
77
comic world in which sameness is a governing principle that impinges indiscriminately
upon almost all the creatures, things and places within it.
After the parabasis, the Sausage-seller returns from the Senate and reports back
to the chorus on the rhetorical battle that has taken place there. He emerges as the winner
of a debate surrounding the price of sprats (ll. 644-62), and even induces the councilors
to shout down Paphlagon’s desperate and disingenuous request that they listen to the
Spartan herald’s peace proposal (ll. 667-9). One might think that this victory would have
settled the score between the two opponents, since the Sausage-seller has demonstrated
himself to be more politically persuasive, but instead this all turns out to be an
ineffectual offstage side-show, with no greater significance than to show off the
impotence and uselessness of the Senate members.
DeLuca points out how this failure is represented in spatial terms:
Whether the Senators were public-minded or not, they are no longer. For
after declaring that the war continues, “they leapt over the railings at
every point” and made a dash for the agora (675). The barrier between
the Senate and the outside, like the barrier in every human being
between self and city, has been obliterated. It can no longer keep the
Senators vigilant defenders of the public good just as surely as it cannot
keep them within the confines of the Senate.
34
Here again, it is made apparent that there are no boundaries left anymore to distinguish
between the different male-identified social spaces and their functions in the city; all and
all within them have been equalized.
35
It is worth pointing out that, within the Council-
34
2005, 37. This collapse is paralleled at line 641 by the Sausage-seller’s shattering of the turnstile
with his rear upon his entering the Council house to speak.
35
DeLuca (2005, 40 n. 9) regards the agora as an interstitial space, with both private (commercial)
and public (governmental) qualities, which is a sound reading and accords well with his argument.
But when considered from a gendered perspective, it seems more unambiguously public, given that
both commercial and governmental matters were the domain of men, and that women’s activities
there were perceived as improper tout court, despite their being necessary. For a woman, selling
78
house, Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller’s argument continues to turn on the equivocal
and constipatory issue of food, and, unsurprisingly, it is unable to be resolved. The
councilors’ clamor for the war to drag on at this point authorizes the continuation of the
slaves’ rivalry as well; hence their exhortations to the Sausage-seller to ready himself for
the remaining rounds of fighting at line 688. It is also here that Aristophanes returns the
action to where it began – to the door of the oikos, the entrance to the only place left in
the civic landscape that can still be imagined, however vainly, as differentiated from
other compromised areas and protected from violence. Sadly, this will prove to be a
shorter-lived fantasy than any so far encountered in the play.
Back outside the house, Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller finally resolve to call
Demos out to act as a judge of their deadlocked dispute. Paphlagon suggests that Demos
hold an assembly right away to find out which of the two is more devoted to him (ll.
746-8). The homey, intimate atmosphere of this assembly sets the stage for the
introduction of the “demophilia topos,” which begins with Paphlagon’s professions of
love to Demos, quoted previously. In this turn to the language of love and the comfort of
home, one might expect, at last, a resolution of the slaves’ differences; but instead, the
opposite occurs – the rivalry becomes more heated and frantic than ever. Demos’
confounded position as both arbiter and object of the dispute seems to guarantee this
outcome, but this is never given consideration. It is only demonstrated through his
ambiguously shifting sexual position in the scenes that follow.
anything was highly unbecoming, and it was only a matter of degree of difference from the vending of
vegetables, for example, to outright prostitution. See Schaps 1979, 18-20.
79
Both Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller rely on the language and conventions of
pederasty in their efforts to win the favor of Demos, and thereby achieve political
supremacy.
36
There is nothing inherently offensive about this, as pederasty, when
practiced according to age and class restrictions, was a socially acceptable form of
masculine acculturation, which took place both within the home and elsewhere. But, in
this formulation, Demos, an old man, takes up the highly unbecoming role of public
eromenos to two slaves, who have already proven to be experienced eromenoi
themselves (recall Paphlagon’s buttocks looming large over Chaonia, and the Sausage-
seller’s talent for hiding meat in his rectum). Victoria Wohl goes so far as to characterize
the slaves as kinaidoi, as men who “not only submit to sexual humiliation but like it,”
and it is this – their boundless pursuit of pleasure as an end in itself, without any
educational component or regard for class or age difference, as evidenced by the ease
with which they slide from the position of erastes to eromenos – which compromises the
pederastic institution and renders it susceptible to becoming nothing more than illicit and
unproductive sex.
37
Scholtz puts it this way: “Take that [i.e. guidance and mentoring]
away, and the reciprocities of pederasty became vulnerable to interpretation as a more
disreputable form of quid-pro-quo, to wit, porneia.”
38
This much is confirmed by the
remark of the Sausage-seller to Demos at lines 737-40: “You’re like the boys who attract
36
The chorus implies that this is the true endgame of their conflict: “Keep doing this (i.e. talking
glibly), and you’ll be the greatest man in Greece, hold sole power [in the city], and rule over the
allies” (ll. 837-9). Similarly, Demos says his intent is to “award the reins of the Pnyx” to the one who
treats him best (l. 1109).
37
2002, 85.
38
2004, 273. In fact, I think it is possible to argue that the type of relationships presented here are
even more debased than those assumed in prostitution, as they often seem to be undertaken primarily
for the sake of gratifying desire, with the secondary concern being financial profit.
80
lovers: you don’t give yourself (prosd°xei) to the fine upstanding ones, but to lamp
sellers and cobblers and shoemakers and tanners.”
As the political pederasty of Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller plunges into the
realm of prostitution (or something worse), it becomes another tawdry relation of
consumption, determined not by any social hierarchy, but simply by flattery, self-
interest, and perhaps, at the best of moments, by economic gain. The commodification of
these relationships is universally objectifying, and it is therefore somewhat misguided to
try to decipher “who’s on top” in this scenario, as all are degraded alike. The observation
of Scholtz on the failure of the homoerotic idiom to establish a position of mastery is
worth citing here: “The imagery…so infuses reversal, contradiction and conflict into
democracy as to leave the system in a state of virtual war with itself.”
39
For our
purposes, we could substitute the word “masculinity” for “democracy” in this quotation
and the sense would remain the same. Wohl reaches a similar conclusion: “In this play’s
orgy of sexual positions, the distinction between erastes and eromenos loses all
meaning, as demos and demagogue take turns buying and selling vile favors.”
40
Ironically, the one striking effect the application of the debauched demophilia
topos does have is that it ends up emasculating all its participants through its emphasis
on prostitution and their shared penchant for the passive position in sexual intercourse.
Thus, at lines 764-6, Paphlagon prays to Athena, asking that, “if in service to the
Athenian Demos I have been the leading man, after Lysicles, Cynna and Salabaccho,
may I continue to dine in the Prytaneum for doing nothing.” Lysicles was a prominent
39
2004, 274.
40
2002, 90.
81
demagogue as well as the lover of Aspasia after Pericles’ death, who died on the
previously mentioned expedition to Caria in 428, while Cynna and Salabaccho were
infamous Athenian prostitutes.
41
Paphlagon’s indifference or inability to distinguish
between the two reveals that not only have he and, by implication, the Sausage-seller
(and all other men) been neutralized politically, they are also now equally subject to
feminization as a result.
42
Paphlagon’s original comment, that he is the lover of Demos, recalls and mocks
the exhortation of the Thucydidean Pericles, that the people become lovers of the city
(§raståw gignom°nouw aÈtw).
43
As Wohl has argued, in this formulation the
feminine city acts as a mediator of the love between demos and demagogue; but, in the
Aristophanic imaginary, the city retains no autonomy and its gendered aspect is
subsumed in the identity of Demos.
44
His portrayal as an eromenos here allows him to
take up what was previously the role of the city, while the love that was previously
41
Sommerstein 1981, 184 v. 765.
42
Wohl (2002, 84) cites a scholium on line 428, where the chorus comments on the Sausage-seller’s
ability to hold meat in his rectum, that makes the connection between femininity and pathicism
explicit: “…He [i.e. Aristophanes] wants to cast aspersions on his licentiousness, since in his youth he
[i.e. the Sausage-seller] was treated like a woman.” In Ecclesiazusae, Aristophanes will himself make
the observation that women would make the best orators because “young men who’ve been reamed
the most are also the most effective orators” (ll. 112-4). He is made to reiterate this point of view in
Plato’s Symposium (192a67): “They who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are
young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are
themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert
that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but
because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is
like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof
of the truth of what I am saying.” (Trans. Jowett).
43
Thuc. 2.43.1.
44
2002, 87.
82
reserved for the city is transmuted into a perverse kind of self-love, which takes the form
of “direct erotic intercourse between the demos and its leaders.”
45
To my mind, this line of reasoning may be taken a step further. It is only once
Demos assumes this simultaneously feminizing and infantilizing position, and the
boundary between city and self collapses, that the oikos is able to be fully appropriated
into the political landscape. It was mentioned at the outset that Demos lived on the Pnyx
(cf. line 42), but now, with Paphlagon’s request that an assembly be held and Demos’
insistence that he “wouldn’t sit anywhere else” (l. 750), the conversion is complete. The
home is now simply another place where the slaves may continue their conflict, but,
because of the erotic turn the dispute has taken, it also comes to share in the qualities of
another public venue frequented by men: the whorehouse.
It is intriguing that the Sausage-seller agrees to the idea of holding an assembly,
but asks that the meeting not be conducted on the Pnyx (l. 749). Demos’ negative reply
makes sense, given that there is really nowhere else for him to go.
46
The Sausage-seller
explains that he is reluctant for the judgment to occur on the Pnyx because, “When he’s
at home the old fellow’s the shrewdest of men, but when he’s sitting on that rock,
[Demos] gapes like a chewer of dried figs!” (ll. 752-5).
47
Based on what has already
transpired both at home and in the Senate, it should be clear by now that a change in
45
Ibid.
46
Here again, as in Acharnians, the actors move into the orchestra, and the audience takes on the dual
roles of festival-goers and Assembly members. See my discussion on the symmetry of these spaces in
Chapter Two.
47
The final phrase, §mpod¤zvn 8sxãdaw, has been interpreted in a multitude of ways by both ancient
and modern commentators. Given the leit-motif of “gaping” that runs throughout the play (cf.
Henderson 1972, 68), it would seem to refer to Demos’ anus, which has been widened through
intercourse, and perhaps to the diarrhetic quality of dried figs. Whatever Demos’ gaping may compare
to, it is not as important as the larger contrast being described by the Sausage-seller.
83
location is irrelevant to the resolution of the slaves’ quarrel. The domestic space has
been compromised and incorporated into the undifferentiated and conflict-ridden public
domain. No place is safe anymore, and brazenness truly does “fill the whole land.”
48
Nonetheless, both slaves cling to their respective areas, seemingly hopeful that each will
retain meaning and authority.
49
This is also impossible, because together they have
succeeded in divesting political speech and action of any power, not only by eroticizing
them, which might have retained some educational or at least coercive value given the
pederastic context, but by reducing both of these forms of social interaction to mere
pandering.
Aristophanes exploits the ambiguities at play between politics, pederasty and
prostitution in order to illustrate even more vividly than before the problems that the
erasure of difference between men can produce. The rival slaves had no choice but to
undergo the process of feminization in order to differentiate themselves in the eyes of
Demos, while Demos himself becomes subject to a similar process by virtue of being
their love-object. This particular transformation is especially necessary because no
female characters or children have appeared so far who can intercede and embody this
ambiguous position on their behalf (although both women and children will appear in the
end, once it is too late). The result is that the competition must go on. Rather than break
48
This is the accusation directed at Cleon by the chorus at line 305.
49
De Luca (2005, 50-2) offers a compelling reading of why the Sausage-seller aligns himself with the
domestic realm, while Paphlagon supports the political realm. My point, however, is that in many
ways the distinction is immaterial, and that each character’s insistence on maintaining a division
between private and public indicates a failure to acknowledge the problematic structural dynamics
that enable this ideological division in the first place. As DeLuca himself notes, the change in venue
has no effect on Demos’ behavior: “Given Demos’ self-interestedness, one might say this split is
purely cosmetic” (46). What is required, therefore, is not a change in venue, but rather a change in
Demos “himself.”
84
the deadlock, then, this contest of seduction only managed to expand the vicious circle
of sameness, subsuming within itself rather than preserving the only remaining bastions
of alterity within the Athenian political landscape – femininity, childhood and the oikos.
The chorus rallies the slaves to continue their fight in terms befitting a naval
battle (ll. 756-62). There is a lengthy though pointless argument over who has done more
for Demos, which reverts to the by-now stale and indeterminate imagery of food and
eating for the most part.
50
The erotic motif does appear once again, when Paphlagon
claims he has undertaken a policy of “butt surveillance” (l. 878, prvktothre›n, trans.
Wohl) in order to put a stop to the city’s passive homosexuals (kinoum°nouw), but
because he is already known to be among their number, the Sausage-seller is able to
quickly undercut his claim, citing the fact that he did this only out of the fear that these
men would become future rivals (ll. 879-80). (As usual, it takes one to know one.) It is at
this point that the Sausage-seller finally begins to gain the upper hand. He offers Demos
a cushion upon which to rest his buttocks (l. 784), but it is Paphlagon’s audacious
comparison of himself to Themistocles that gives the Sausage-seller the opportunity to
ridicule his rival’s shortcomings, not just in the realms of sexual prowess and culinary
skill, but in political leadership and, more specifically, urban planning.
To Paphlagon’s claims that he has done more for the city than Themistocles, the
Sausage-seller exclaims incredulously,
50
The culinary-inspired arguments presented in this scene run like a commentary on current war-
related events, especially as they involve Cleon, and much of this commentary is corroborated in
Thucydides’ account. Included are references to living in shanties and garrets for eight years (ll. 792-
4; cf. Ach. 71-2), Cleon’s refusal of offers of peace (ll. 794-6), Athenian ambitions in the Peloponnese
(ll. 797-807), bribery of the allied cities (ll. 801-2; esp. Mytilene, ll. 833-5), the vexing problems of
jury pay (ll. 797-807), the unfair auditing of outgoing government officials (ll. 824-7), and, finally, the
recent incidents at Pylos (ll. 844-59).
85
You’re comparing yourself with Themistocles? He found our city’s cup
half-full and filled it the rest of the way, and he baked the Piraeus as
dessert for her lunch, and added new seafood dishes to her menu while
taking away none of the old; whereas you’ve tried to turn the Athenians
into tiny-townies (mikropol¤taw) by building partitions (diateix¤zvn)
and chanting oracles (ll. 813-9).
51
It is this charge, of failure to properly manage the physical space and material conditions
of the city, that sparks concern in Demos. His assimilation to the feminine city via
“eromenization” is imperfect for the reason that he is a man; he confuses the needs of the
city with his own bodily needs and desires, which have been neglected by his slave and
lover. The charge causes him to resist, and to rebuke Paphlagon for the first time: “Shut
up, shut up, you, and stop your nasty mudslinging. You’ve been getting away with
hoodwinking me for far too long already” (ll. 821-2). Ironically, though, he is powerless
enough at this point to be ignored, and the battle continues without cease.
Eventually Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller must resort to what amounts to
bribery in the form of gift-giving. The Sausage-seller has already offered Demos a
cushion on which to sit; he now provides him with a new pair of shoes (l. 871) and a
tunic (l. 881). Paphlagon attempts to counter the favorable effect these gifts have on
Demos by offering him his leather jacket, but Demos refuses it, citing its stench of
rawhide (l. 892). Paphlagon then offers Demos money, the three obols of jury pay which
Cleon had recently instituted, though he never actually hands it over (l. 905). Finally,
51
Thucydides (1.93.3-7) says, in describing Themistocles’ building of the port, that it was he who
“first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea and forthwith began to lay the foundations of empire.”
Perhaps we should understand the “seafood dishes” (i.e. fish, 8xyËw) to be islands subsequently
subdued by Athens. The reference to the “cup half-full” is less clear (the word “cup” is not in the
Greek – it simply says the city was “half-full”); the scholia understand it to refer to the rebuilding of
the city after the Persian wars, while Sommerstein (1981, 187 v. 814), citing Plutarch (Them. 31.1),
conjectures that it refers to the prosecution of water thieves undertaken by Themistocles during his
appointment as controller of water-supplies.
86
and somewhat perplexingly, each man touts his services as a cosmetologist, offering to
rub ointment on Demos’ shins, pluck out his hairs, dab his eyes with a “bunny tail” –
they even ask him to use their hair as a handkerchief (ll. 906-10).
Words and deeds, whether violent or amorous, seem to have no effect now;
accordingly, the rivals can only turn to the realm of objects and to the processes of
objectification. This turn only seems to heighten the emasculating effect that was given
such prominence in the erotic contest of the previous scene. There, the sullied
reputations of the slaves hindered their attempts to assert themselves as the active lovers
of Demos, even though they did so in a manner that recalled suitors vying for the hand
of a boy or maiden. Here the imagery is taken a step further, evoking not just courtship,
but reproduction and childrearing. The slaves have now also become mothers or nurses
who are fussing over the child Demos.
52
But Demos is neither child nor woman, and the
slaves’ aggressive efforts to colonize his body, whether sexually or aesthetically, reveal
the boundless and improper extent to which their desire to acquire has grown.
53
It also
mimics their indiscriminate co-optation of the spaces of the city for their own political
and economic benefit, which is itself informed by the real-life policies of violent
appropriation governing both the maintenance of the Athenian empire and the treatment
of its enemies during this time.
52
Paphlagon has already been characterized as a nanny feeding a baby Demos at line 716.
Sommerstein (1981, 192 vv. 906-9) notes how the diminutives kul¤xnion, lkÊdria, and
t»fyalmid¤v “give the impression of a mother…talking to an infant.” Demos’ makeover, both here
and later in the play, also anticipates the derisory dressing-up of the Proboulos and the Relation in
women’s clothing that will occur in Lysistrata (ll. 531-8), and in Thesmophoriazusae (ll. 213-65),
respectively.
53
The fact that slaves are attempting to subjugate a free male in these ways also calls attention to the
utter impropriety of the situation.
87
Demos’ makeover in this scene looks forward to the end of the play, in which he
has been “boiled down,” or rejuvenated and made beautiful, by the Sausage-seller (l.
1321, éfecÆsaw). But this is also the point at which we might expect to see women or
female figures come into play, given the typical denouement of an Aristophanic play and
the placement of the action within the domestic sphere. However, because the oikos and
its defining relationships have been both politicized and perverted by the slaves with the
consent of Demos, this “solution” is not applied. Instead, the thwarted gift-giving rivalry
only accentuates the desperation of its participants and further provokes their anger:
Paphlagon nearly “boils over” (Íperz°v) at line 920, and the competition descends yet
again into threats, then into absurdity and incoherence in the form of oracles and dreams.
From lines 960 to 1095, there is an elaborate scene in which the two slaves
present prophecies to Demos and debate their meaning. It is humorous for many reasons,
including its parody and word play, but it mostly serves to prolong the competition and
to show how even religious speech had become meaningless through its misuse by
politicians. It is just after this exchange that the infantilized Demos is ready to choose
the Sausage-seller to act as his steward and teacher (ll. 1097-9), but Paphlagon
intervenes, and it is decided that the slaves will have a final cook-off to determine the
matter of who does more for Demos once and for all.
While the two are inside the house preparing food for him, Demos reveals to the
chorus that he is no fool and that his actions have a purpose. He explains that the food
offerings of the slaves are mere trifles; what he seemingly wants to consume are the
rivals themselves. His language at first implies that they are his “daily pap” (l. 1126,
brÊllvn), and that this is why he deliberately fattens them up, only to strike them
88
down (l. 1130, §pãtaja) once they are full.
54
The chorus understands this action in
sacrificial terms, but in fact, it has more of a sexual overtone. For, as Demos goes on to
explain, he does not intend to eat them, but rather to penetrate their mouths with a
verdict tube (l. 1150, khmÚn katamhl«n), and force them to vomit what they’ve eaten,
or, to his mind, what they’ve stolen. This imagery, which conflates the themes of food
and sex that have run parallel throughout the play, exposes the extent to which the once
normative male body and its digestive and sexual processes have been disrupted by the
unnatural ends to which they have been put. Although Demos is never actually portrayed
as making good on this threat, it does foreshadow his return to the position of erastes
after his rejuvenation. But perhaps more importantly, it reveals his complicity in the
continuance of the hostile cycle of appropriation, subordination and consumption
initiated by the slaves. Like them, he defers its ending in the hopes of acquiring more,
even if what he acquires is a regurgitated mess.
Of course, the cook-off that ensues after this exchange is not able to produce a
victor and Demos has made it clear now why not. The foot-race and the opening of the
food baskets, which occur at lines 1211-20, resolve nothing either, even though it is clear
that the Sausage-seller has given all his food to Demos, and Paphlagon has kept most of
his. How can this play end? Only in an unsatisfactory manner, it seems. Paphlagon
returns to the well-trodden ground of oracle-mongering, and, in so doing, essentially
forfeits the contest of his own will by believing his own oracle, which stated that he
would hold power “until another champion arises”: a sausage-seller “who’s more
54
The conjunction te...te links together the two desires of Demos – to consume and to fatten – at
lines 1125-8. In addition, the word brÊllvn contributes to Demos’ infantilization. Sommerstein
explains that it derives from brË, the cry of a child wanting a drink (1981, 203 v. 1126).
89
disgusting than he” (cf. lines 134-43).
55
This is a mock-tragic misstep that results in his
swooning onto the ekkyklema and asking to be rolled inside (l. 1249). His entry into the
house as a sign of his defeat completes his effeminization; meanwhile, the Sausage-seller
is praised by Demos.
56
As it turns out, the Sausage-seller has contradicted himself in order to confirm
Paphlagon’s oracle, which was already shown to him by the first slave at lines 195-201.
That the Sausage-seller wins the contest by lying is not at all surprising; what is
revealing, however, is the nature of the lie and the fact that Paphlagon falls for it. The
Sausage-seller makes clear his identity as a hash-slinger and male prostitute, and thereby
confirms the oracle (l. 1242). But this is somehow not convincing enough for Paphlagon,
and ultimately, the entire rivalry hinges upon a question of geography: Did he sell
sausages “in the marketplace or at the city gates?” (ll. 1245-6). To this, the Sausage-
seller answers, “at the gates,” which causes Paphlagon to swoon. But then, when asked
his real name by Demos ten lines later, he replies, “Agoracritus, because I made my way
by haggling in the marketplace” (l. 1257). What is the significance of this lie? It is true,
as Sommerstein notes, that the city gates were a “far more disreputable location for
traders than the Agora,” but why is this the distinction which ends the debate?
57
The fact is, the play must end somewhere, and as a comedy, it must end
somewhere funny. And somewhere funny is most often somewhere else, somewhere
external to the masculine self and its territory. But, in the city of sameness that has been
55
On this point, see Slater 2002, 81.
56
His words, “Be gone and farewell, my crown; against my will do I abandon you. Some other man
will take you as his own, no greater thief, but luckier perhaps,” parodies Alcestis’ farewell to her bed
in Euripides (ll. 177-182): “Some other woman will take you as her own, not much more prudent
(sfrvn), but luckier perhaps.”
57
1981, 208 v. 1246.
90
constructed in Knights, where else is there to go? The Sausage-seller’s depravity is so
great that it knows no bounds; he therefore makes no distinction between being an
insider or outsider, a good guy or a bad guy. His triumph is problematic because it is
indifferent. As will be seen in the end, it is Demos and not he who concerns himself with
the details of Paphlagon’s so-called punishment, which consists of merely switching
places with the Sausage-seller. For this to be a satisfactory end in the eyes of the comic
audience, it must convey a true degradation, worthy of exclusion – Paphlagon cannot
simply retire to the agora and continue buying and selling. That would not only make
clear the insoluble impasse at which the play’s conflict has arrived (if it is not clear
already); it would also imply both Aristophanes’ and the audience’s own acceptance of it
and its consequences. Consequently, Aristophanes has no choice but to make Paphlagon
believe momentarily in the fantasy of discrete social spaces, so that a sense of propriety
or at least a sense of respite (in other words, an end) can even exist.
58
Once all have gone inside, the chorus sings the second parabasis. It is only at this
point in the play that the theme of femininity comes to the fore, though, as is to be
expected, it is articulated through contradictory language and imagery, the purpose of
which requires further elucidation. The chorus begins with some old-fashioned personal
invective, and the chorus leader continues the attack on one Ariphrades, brother of the
58
Without speculating too much on the variety of responses that this play may have engendered, I will
say that Aristophanes seemed to be more preoccupied with achieving some kind of unifying cathartic
effect in Knights than with any other play under analysis. Aside from the prominent theme of
overeating and its corollaries, purging and excretion, Demos refers to Paphlagon explicitly as a
farmakÒw at line 1405. The word is only used once elsewhere in the extant Aristophanic corpus: at
lines 731-2 in Frogs, where he says that men of the type resembling both Paphlagon and the Sausage-
seller (i.e. redheaded foreigners, worthless sons of worthless fathers) would not have been used
by "the city before this,” even as “random scapegoats.” The literature on comic catharsis is
substantial. With respect to Aristophanes, see Sutton 1994 and Reckford 1987.
91
musician Arignotus and a disciple of the philosopher Anaxagoras. He was also possibly
a comic poet, and therefore rival of Aristophanes, who says about him: “He pollutes his
own tongue with disgraceful gratifications, licking the detestable dew in whorehouses
(kasvre¤oisi), besmirching his beard and disturbing the [ladies’] hotpots (§sxãraw)”
(ll. 1284-6).
59
What exactly is this doing here? According to Henderson, “the private practice
of cunnilingus was not considered irregular,” and indeed, it is referred to in positive
terms in Ecclesiazusae (ll. 846-7) and in Peace (l. 716).
60
Nonetheless, Ariphrades’
overwhelming preference for it does suggest he is sexually deviant and therefore worthy
of mockery. But why abuse a cunnilinctor out of all types of deviant at this moment?
Niall Slater, following Piero Totaro, believes that this passage serves to “link the oral
sexual impurity of sophistic politicians to their impurity of political speech.”
61
This is
surely part of Aristophanes’ motivation, and accordingly, he draws on the familiar
imagery of the os impurum, “the unclean mouth that supposedly results from oral
intercourse,” as a means of undermining his rival’s rhetorical ability.
62
This also accords
well with the theme of eating that has been given such prominence in this play.
However, Aristophanes could have just as easily chosen to ridicule him (or some other
rival) as a fellator, especially given the pederastic metaphors that have governed his
sexualized interpretation of politics up to this point. There seems to be something more
at play in this highly offensive caricature.
59
On Ariphrades’ appearances in the Aristophanic corpus as the inventor of cunnilingus and as the
disciple of Anaxagoras, see Henderson 1975, 185, and Degani 1960, respectively.
60
1975, 51.
61
2002, 82.
62
On the os impurum, see Richlin 1992, 26-8.
92
I believe that the exegetical key to this passage lies in the pronouncement that
follows this attack: “Anyone who doesn’t loathe such a man will never drink from the
same cup with me” (ll. 1288-9). This strategically placed piece of invective is meant to
restore a general ethos of masculine unity now that the competition between Paphlagon
and the Sausage-seller has finally ended. It does so through its insistence upon proper
forms of commensality, which stands here, as elsewhere in the play, as a metaphor for
proper male sexuality. But, because masculinity itself has been compromised irrevocably
by the previous sexual and culinary activities of these two slaves, to the point that no
position of mastery either with respect to eating or sex can be discerned, the only way to
recover any sense of propriety is by introducing a “new” category of deviant masculinity
which depends on a differentiating external influence, in this case, the female presence
that has been suppressed until now. Ariphrades is employed here as an object of derision
and scapegoating through his depiction as a female-identified figure who has been
emasculated through direct contamination. His characterization therefore verges on
outright misogyny, since women serve as the passive objects that foster this man’s
deviance and the speakers’ repugnance.
It is true that there is no direct verbal reference to women per se in this passage;
there are only the words “whorehouses” (kasvre¤oisi) and §sxãraw, which means
“blackened hearth” or “brazier,” and is a slang term for the female genitals.
63
Interestingly, though, this choice of word puts the hearer right back into the context of
63
kasrion, or “whorehouse,” and the related words kasvr¤w and kasalbãw, which mean
“whore,” all seem to derive from the word kasw, “hide” or “skin,” i.e. “leather that is toughened by
repeated rubbing,” according to Henderson (1975, 212). Cf. the Latin term, scortum. On §sxãra, see
also Henderson 1975, 143 and duBois 1988, 121-3.
93
the home, and in particular to that area of the oikos that was principally associated with
(young) women. By satisfying his peculiar desire, Ariphrades may be read as bypassing
the areas of the city that are riven with fear and conflict (e.g. senate, assembly, agora),
and as returning to the source of life – the hearth and home, and the women inside it. He
infiltrates the oikos successfully, and is even able to co-opt the space for his own use, but
he does this without the application of force, and thus without making it another
contentious venue in which the political battles of men may be fought. In doing this, he
presents an alternative model of how to understand the exceptional position of the oikos
within the city – as a place where sex is nourishing, if not wholly productive, and not
disruptive and futile – but, unfortunately, this model is presented only in order to be
rejected and ridiculed. In his zeal, Ariphrades perhaps moves too far in the downward
direction, arriving at a sexuality which is equally as problematic or degrading as that of
Paphlagon and the Sausage-seller, and which contributes to the perversion of the home
as whorehouse discussed previously. But it is only through his oppositional example that
the play can finally move toward articulating a viable norm, and that norm, as we will
see in the end, is reproductive heterosexuality.
The play continues its turn toward heteronormativity in the antistrophe which
accompanies the story of Ariphrades. It contains a caricature of personified triremes who
confer and refuse to sail out on expedition to Carthage, a place that has already served as
a symbol of excess in this play (cf. line 174):
‘They’re saying that somebody’s requisitioning a hundred of us for an
expedition to Carthage, a lowlife male citizen, that brackish Hyperbolus.’
They all agreed that this was awful and intolerable, and one of them spoke
up, who’d never been boarded by men, ‘God forbid he should ever be my
94
commander! If need be, I’d sooner grow dilapidated right here and be
rotted by woodworms’ (ll. 1303-8).
Another trireme chimes in and continues the protest, suggesting that they sail to either
the Theseum or the shrine of the Furies and sit in asylum there. She then proclaims,
“Never shall he make a fool of the city by being our commander!” (ll. 1311-3). The
imagery of ships sitting in asylum in Athenian sanctuaries parallels the description of
horses at sea that was encountered at lines 595-610, and may be taken as evidence of
continued socio-spatial confusion. But its placement here serves another, more primary
function. The transition from the previous passage to this one replicates the comic
process as it was laid out in the introduction: men ridicule one another by exploiting
each other’s relations with women as a source of trouble and weakness; then female
figures become the targets of comic abuse themselves. However, here we encounter an
unexpected twist – the female triremes do act as objects of humor, but their message is
sensible and defiant, reminiscent of women’s traditional cultic joking.
Carl Anderson points out that this is the closest thing to a speaking role for
women in the play, and argues that they perform a role that is “integral to the design of
the comedy…and to the political message that Aristophanes elaborates in Knights.”
64
They introduce a new and necessary female perspective, thereby delimiting the cycle of
competitive violence that has consumed the play, and enable the upcoming transition to
a “new” Demos. Their comments were perhaps more palatable to the male-identified
audience coming from triremes rather than real women; but, either way, the message is
clear: simply trading one bad politician for another (i.e. Hyperbolus for Cleon) is not a
64
2003, 4-7.
95
real solution to the problems facing the city. Rather, what is needed is a fundamental
“change in the nature of politics” itself.
65
Aristophanes’ presentation of the triremes anticipates his approach in future
plays. The virgin ship’s glorification of spinsterhood foreshadows the sex strike in
Lysistrata, but the ships’ appearance here serves as a preview of his upcoming
production, at the Lenaea of 423, of ÑOlkãdew, or Merchant Ships.
66
This play, which is
identified in the third hypothesis to Peace as one that was staged on behalf of peace,
along with Acharnians and Knights, featured a chorus of female ships, who seems to
have described the difficulty of importing supplies to the city during wartime.
67
Likewise, the Wineflask of Cratinus, also produced in 423, but at the Dionysia where it
took first place, had a parabasis containing a personification of triremes which echoed
Aristophanes’ Merchant Ships.
68
Needless to say, the image of talking triremes was one
which had much comic potential, and it certainly seems to have inspired Aristophanes’
dramatic choices in the future with respect to the representation of women and their
political views.
After this choral interlude, the Sausage-seller returns and announces that he has
transformed Demos into a beautiful aristocratic youth, garbed in purple robes and cicada
65
On this point, see Slater 2002, 83. Anderson (2003, 5 n. 20) cites Henderson’s point that these
sentiments in the mouths of male characters might have produced anxiety and resentment, and he goes
on to note that while these triremes present themselves as respectable members of society (one
identifies herself by her patronymic and one is portrayed as a virgin), the joke also relies on the
common literary motif which equates prostitutes with ships (see Anderson 2003, 6 n. 22 for citations).
66
Hubbard 1991, 34.
67
See fragments 400-29 in Edmonds (1957, 686-93). The hypotheses to Peace are most readily found
in Olson 1998, 1-4.
68
O’Higgins 2003, 212 n. 92. Wineflask also featured an attack on Aristophanes for his alleged
plagiarism of Eupolis, who (it is said) helped Aristophanes finish Knights. This story is found in
various scholia of all three playwrights; Sidwell 1993 assembles the evidence and concludes that the
story is fictitious.
96
brooches, who lives in the “violet-crowned Athens of old” (l. 1323). It seems that his
skills in cosmetology, as well as magic – two distinctly feminine pursuits – have come in
handy after all. Demos then makes his entrance into a space which the Sausage-seller
identifies explicitly as the Propylaia (l. 1326), and thereupon all hail him as “the
monarch of Greece and of this land” and as “king of the Greeks” (ll. 1330; 1333).
69
This
is the only public space left within the city to be appropriated for the sake of political
supremacy, and its status as a religious center gives divine sanction to Demos’
monarchical rule.
70
Wohl points out that the fantasy of an elite demos enacted here is inherently
paradoxical: “The democratic viewers are asked to identify with and support the
Knights, not Demos, who is presumably their embodiment. The play’s moral dynamic
demands that the demos become what it is not and not what it is.”
71
The self-negation
and dislocation that this choice requires are, in effect, suicidal, and it is therefore
difficult to envision Demos’ transformation as a solution, however fantastical, to the
problems presented in the play. Because of this, Wohl advocates an ironic reading of the
play’s ending, but this requires the imputation of more intentionality to Aristophanes,
and to his audience, than the text allows.
72
It is perhaps safer to view Knights’ turn to
“democratic tyranny” as the only possible next step able to be imagined in the gradual
69
They have already compared him to a “man with tyrannical power” (êndra tÊrannon) at line
1114.
70
Said 1997, 353.
71
2002, 110.
72
Wohl 2002, 112. I agree with her assessment that “far from a miraculous transformation in
democratic politics, then, the rejuvenation continues the political prostitution and vulgar gratification
the play condemns” (120). But the conclusion she derives from this, that “Aristophanes’ dexios
theates, if not the gullible Demos, should surely realize this,” does not necessarily mean that he (or
they) did.
97
process of masculine equalization that has been occurring throughout.
73
The elision of
other types of difference, especially sexual and spatial difference, has paved the way for
this political development, as has the successful substitution of the Sausage-seller for
Paphlagon in the role of demagogic lover of the people. And, in keeping with this, there
are two final incidents, one sexual and one spatial, that attest to the continuation of the
competitive cycle responsible for this untenable state of affairs.
Demos converses about his former self with the Sausage-seller, who basically
recaps for him, given his amnesic state, what has happened in the past 1300 lines. The
Sausage-seller then absolves Demos of guilt for his mistakes, and blames instead the
politicians who have deceived and manipulated him with promises of love, overlooking
the fact that he himself is one of them (ll. 1341-2). Finally, he encourages Demos to
implement new fair-minded policies that appear orderly and democratic: all returning
oarsmen will be paid in a timely fashion, each infantry-man will stay on his original
muster list, and only bearded men may “rendezvous in the market place” (ll. 1350-83).
Demos’ newly-established tyranny allows these fantasies of distinct and correct
masculine identities to be restored to their proper places. It even allows the Sausage-
seller, who is himself sexually and socially compromised, to ridicule other men known
73
Men’s efforts to distinguish between self and other are confounded by the figure of the tyrant,
whose appearance here is appropriate, since he is a conflicted embodiment of both. According to
Vincent Farenga (1981, 19), the tyrant not only exposes the paradox of mimetic desire that governs
men’s relations with each other, but typifies man in his unsuccessful attempts to resolve this paradox
on his own. Interestingly, Farenga’s analysis of Book VIII of Plato’s Republic reads like a synopsis of
Knights: “Polity, a collective form of the Self, enters a steady process of degeneration until it goes
beyond the bounds of propriety into democracy (i.e., anarchy) and finally tyranny. The crisis
announced by these two extremes of polity clearly results from loss of difference…A mutual
exchange of identities and a scandalous equivalence or reciprocity between opposites…now occur
everywhere: ruler and ruled, old and young, father and son, citizen and metic, teacher and pupil, even
man and woman, all change places. Every “Self” is transformed into its “Other,” revealing in all this
chaos that it was differance which sustained their opposition in the first place and not simple negation.
Now nothing appears to be itself, and otherness is rampant” (6).
98
for their effeminacy, and paradoxically deny them a place in this new political order:
“Then where are Cleisthenes and Strato going to do their rendezvousing?” he asks, to
which Demos replies that he will send them and the youths like them out hunting (l.
1383). These plans are ill-conceived and therefore suspect; and indeed, the narcissistic
nature of tyranny, with its tendency to objectify all equally within its domain, would
itself seem to be a major impediment to any real restoration of differences. They will
remain as irrelevant to Demos as they were before.
Nevertheless, as a reward for these “changes,” the Sausage-seller presents
Demos with a slave boy, who is presumably to be used for sex and who is promptly
assimilated to the folding-chair (l. 1386, Ùklad¤an) he brings out: “Please accept this
folding-chair and a well-hung boy to carry it for you.” He is also presented with two
thirty-year treaties (l. 1389, Sponda¤) that were alluded to in Acharnians, who take the
form of girls and who had been hidden in the house by Paphlagon. Demos asks if he may
“nail them to a thirty-year contract” (l. 1391, katatriakontout¤sai), and the
Sausage-seller informs him that they are for taking back to his farms (l. 1394,
e8w toÁw égroÁw), the existence of which was only alluded to briefly at line 805.
Both Wohl and Slater argue that these figures enable Demos to return from the
status of love object to that of vigorous erastes, with dominance over male and female
alike.
74
The appearance of the female treaties in particular is meant to ensure that
heteronormative relations are restored, as is their naturalizing affiliation with Demos’
farms, but this is not what happens. Despite being full of words, these treaties turn out to
74
Wohl 2002, 111; Slater 267 n. 56.
99
be speechless, and therefore useless.
75
And, what is more, there is no imminent peace
deal to be brokered here; therefore, in the end, Demos goes to the Prytaneum with the
Sausage-seller, not to his farms. The treaties’ and the boy’s primary status as objects and
not people reveals that Demos’ transformation has been merely cosmetic, and that
nothing has changed; they are both simply additional accoutrements in the gift-giving
rivalry that continues from before. The restoration of Demos’ masculinity is therefore
just a sham, and it is only his amnesia, and our indulgence of it, that allows his
fantastical return to the past to be understood as a form of viable political change.
Finally, Demos’ corrupted transformation is reflected in the spatial adjustments
or substitutions that occur in the final moments of the play. When asked how he will
punish Paphlagon, the Sausage-seller remarks that he will do “nothing severe” (l. 1397).
Paphlagon will merely trade places with him, taking his old job at the city gates (l.
1398), which consists of selling sausage and prostituting himself alongside other female
whores (l. 1400; cf. line 1242). Meanwhile, the Sausage-seller will take Paphlagon’s seat
in the Prytaneum in a “frog-green robe” (l. 1406, batrax¤da, trans. Sommerstein), of a
kind typically worn by women, presumably engaging in fellatio or intercourse, just as
was prophesized at the outset. Pauline Schmitt-Pantel argues that these spaces are
opposed to one another, with the Prytaneum representing the ordered center of the city,
and the gates representing the wild periphery.
76
But this reading adheres to a topographic
75
Recall again the words of the Senate members: “We don’t need treaties!” The superfluousness of
these figures allows them to be read as ironic foils for the protesting triremes of the second parabasis.
76
1992, 225.
100
model that is no longer applicable; as the sexually similar actions of both men suggest,
these areas (as well as all others) have become indistinguishable from one another.
77
In sum, Knights reads like a blurry snapshot of the chaos that results from the
expansion ever outward of competitive violence among men. The play charts the
successful overtaking of distinct civic and sexual identities and their affiliated locations,
as well as their subjection to the disruptive and destructive process of equalization
engendered by this violence. The continued spread of war throughout Greece and
beyond and the dangerously defiant mood at Athens in 424 ensured that no one, whether
citizen or not, remained immune to the effects of this process. Correspondingly, no area,
whether inside or outside the city walls, was exempt either. In contrast with Acharnians,
where the oikos was imagined as a safe haven that could be detached from the city,
Knights reveals that the home has been transformed into yet another battleground, and it
is now undifferentiated from other public spaces, like the agora, the Pnyx and the
Acropolis.
Because of this, there is quite literally no place for women, and accordingly,
female characters figure less in this play than any other under analysis. There is no
opportunity presented for the restoration of stable and productive (i.e. heterosexual)
human relations, and femininity is therefore unable to be incorporated in any meaningful
way by Aristophanes. And yet, the female presence remains necessary; it seems to be the
only means by which men may preserve a semblance of difference among themselves.
77
Wohl (2002, 122 n. 112) also comments on this spatial shift; however, she views
Paphlagon/Cleon’s positioning at the city gates as the establishment of a “new boundary of political
respectability,” by which the political “inside” and “outside” of the city may be discerned. I would
argue that at this point in the play the notion of political respectability no longer exists, and therefore
any attempt to determine a coherent civic boundary for it is futile.
101
For this reason, they turn to the realm of imitation, though this also proves to be an
imperfect strategy, as evidenced by the following episode.
Buried deep within the scene in which the Sausage-seller and Paphlagon recite
competing oracles, the Sausage-seller links Cleon’s actions at Pylos directly with
effeminacy, remarking:
The fact is, Paphlagon was drunk when he took that bold gamble. Ill-
advised scion of Cecrops, why do you think this a great deed? Even a
woman can bear a burden should a man put it on her, but fight she cannot,
for if she should fight she would shit! (ll. 1054-7).
78
As Sommerstein makes clear, “the load that a woman carries is presumably that of a
foetus, which…requires a man to bring it into being.”
79
This statement serves to devalue
and dismiss the unique ability of women to bear children; however, its application to a
male in this instance exposes the fear that must accompany this dismissal. For, when
men are made to imitate women, they not only become unable to fight, they still remain
unable to bear children. For a brief moment, then, this failed impersonation unwittingly
reveals the necessary role of women in sustaining life and acquiring peace. The
“defective” woman that is Paphlagon/Cleon can only “shit,” and can only pantomime
giving birth to a new Demos. This is true also of the Sausage-seller, who simply plays
the part more convincingly. But both are also “defective” men, who can neither master
nor impregnate what is ultimately also a “he.” Knights easily reaches the lower bodily
78
The scholia identify the final lines of this statement as a paraphrase from a passage in the Little
Iliad, in which two girls are overheard disputing who has a better claim to Achilles’ armor: Ajax or
Odysseus? One girl argues that because Ajax carried Achilles’ body out of the battle, he should
receive it. To this, the other girl responds disdainfully in the way cited above (though without the
expletive (she says instead “fail with fear,” cf. fragment 2 in Evelyn-White 1914). To put these words
in the mouth of the Sausage-seller is therefore, ironically, a further feminization of himself.
79
1981, 200 v. 1056. He goes on to say that Cleon may be understood as merely having “brought to
birth” the scheme that was originally “fathered” by the general Demosthenes, which resulted in the
victory at Sphacteria.
102
strata so essential to the comic world, and it is, accordingly, a funny play. But the
“conceptions and new births” that take place, which amount to little more than a hoax
makeover and two piles of excrement, are strained, contrived and, in the end, an
unsatisfactory solution to the problems presented within it.
The play appears to end abruptly, without any reference to or comment by the
chorus about exiting in song and dance, often found at the end of an Aristophanic
comedy (cf. Acharnians, Wasps, Peace, Lysistrata). There are only the words of Demos:
“Somebody escort that one to his new place of business, so that the foreigners he used to
strong-arm can have a look at him now!” (ll. 1407-8). David Welsh offers an intriguing
reading of this exceptional exodos. He claims that the word lvbãomai, or “strong-
arm,” connotes physical outrage, and would therefore have recalled, among other things,
Cleon’s brutal stance toward the Mytileneans in 427. This had prompted Aristophanes’
mockery of him in his play Babylonians, as well as the prosecution for insulting the
demos and its representatives in front of foreign dignitaries, which Cleon subsequently
undertook against the playwright in 426.
80
He concludes that by positioning Paphlagon
outside the city gates at the end of Knights, Aristophanes gave the ambassadors, who
would visit the city for the Dionysia a few weeks later, the opportunity, “in comedy at
least, of observing Cleon’s ignominy as they enter the city.”
81
As this reading suggests,
just like the members of the Senate and the rival slaves he depicted in Knights,
Aristophanes had every intention of continuing the hostilities between himself and
Cleon, regardless of whether this took place inside or outside the confines of the theater.
80
On this charge and the trial, see Ach. 377-82. For secondary literature on the topic, see Norwood
1930, as well as the works cited in note 1 of this chapter.
81
1990, 428. He also concludes that Aristophanes did not undertake the attack sooner (i.e. in
Acharnians) because he had been “wounded by the legal action” (429).
103
And indeed, all of these rivalries did continue, both in Clouds, but even more so, as we
will see, in his play of 422, Wasps.
Wasps
This play, like Knights, begins with two slaves outside the house, who are again
lamenting the situation they currently find themselves in. They have been put on night
watch in order to guard against a “monster” escaping from the house (l. 4), but they are
finding it difficult to stay awake, as it appears they have gotten drunk.
82
They decide to
share their dreams with each other, which MacDowell views as a series of warm-up
jokes for the audience; Reckford, however, views them as an interpretive key to
understanding the cathartic dynamics of the play, since dreams, like jokes, facilitate
psychic relaxation.
83
As in the oracle-interpreting scene in Knights, there is a great deal
of topical allusion and personal invective directed towards Cleon and his allies. The
dream of Sosias, in which “sheep were meeting in an assembly on the Pnyx” (l. 31-3),
also recalls the opening scenes of both Acharnians and Knights, and insists again on the
homology of the spaces as organized, shared and performative.
84
Aristophanes’ repeated
emphasis of this point suggests that he was still contending with the issues of masculine
sameness and social collapse that had concerned him in previous plays, and that he was
continuing to articulate them through the medium of spatial representation. Because the
82
On the slaves’ drunkenness and its association with the cults of Sabazius and the Corybantes, to
which they refer at lines 8-9, see Borthwick 1992.
83
MacDowell 1995, 150; Reckford 1987, 221. As in Knights, wine and dreams are the impetus and
inspiration for the comic plot, but, in contrast with Reckford, I believe their effectiveness in bringing
about a catharsis has become increasingly limited by the time of Wasps. Here wine and dreams seem
rather to introduce, as Borthwick argues (275), the theme of madness that pervades the play.
84
Slater 2002, 86; see also Crane 1997, 201.
104
stage lent itself well to the portrayal of the interchangeability of social spaces, he
continued to rely on it as a means of drawing attention to the overlapping areas of civic
life. But the endings of both Knights and Wasps attest to an inability or unwillingness on
the part of the civic body, and the protagonists who represent it, to acknowledge this
tendency in reality, especially as it pertained to domestic space.
85
The dilemmas that
arose from this disavowal – for the citizen male and for his relationships with others –
were what Aristophanes was trying to present and negotiate in these plays. This turned
out to be a very difficult feat, however, under the circumstances at that time in Athens.
It was so difficult, in fact, that by the time of Wasps it had become madness-
inducing.
86
As the slave Xanthias explains to the audience at lines 67-75, they have been
posted as sentries by their master to ensure that the “monster” does not escape from the
house. It turns out that this monster is actually none other than their master’s father,
Philocleon. He is described as suffering from a “strange illness” (l. 71, nÒson
éllÒkoton), and after a few feigned incorrect guesses from the audience, Xanthias
reveals that he is a filhliastÆw, or a “jury-service lover” (l. 88). Xanthias describes in
detail the symptoms of this illness, which consists mostly of a fetishization of the objects
and landmarks associated with the lawcourt. In fact, he suffers so terribly from this
illness that it literally marks his body: “he rises with three fingers clenched permanently
85
Crane (1997, 198) summarizes the problem as it appears in Wasps succinctly: “Wasps articulates a
struggle between the individual oikos (“household”) and the polis that threatens to subsume it. This
tension is the direct product of material conditions that emerged in the classical period…” He goes on
to note that the conditions that inspire this “struggle” are the direct products of Athens’ policies of
militarism and imperialism.
86
The subject of Philocleon’s madness has been addressed by many modern scholars, and constitutes
something of a mini-obsession of its own within the scholarship on this play. See, most notably,
Paduano 1974; Reckford 1987, 274-81; Sidwell 1990; Borthwick 1992; Beta 1999; and McGlew
2004, 28-32.
105
together because of his habit of clutching his voting pebble…and he attaches himself to
the pillar in front of the court like a limpet.” His identity is thus determined more than
anything through his relation to this location and its tokens, and no longer through his
relations with kin.
87
For this reason, Gregory Crane is able to state emphatically, “As far
as Philocleon is concerned, the lawcourt in the agora is his personal oikos.”
88
The consequences of this transposition are twofold. The first is that it causes
problems for his household, in particular for his son, Bdelycleon, who has tried every
means of treatment for the illness to no avail, and has taken to confining his father in the
house. This also proves to be unsuccessful, though, as the irrepressible old man manages
to find ways out, of varying degrees of absurdity. The real action of the play begins with
a performance of this very problem, as Bdelycleon rouses the slaves in order to prevent
the old man’s escape yet again. A slapstick physical routine ensues which has Philocleon
attempting to escape via the drain, the chimney and the roof tiles; he finally attempts to
flee in the manner of Odysseus, by clinging to the belly of a donkey, but he is ultimately
forced back inside.
A number of references are made to a large net that has been placed over the
courtyard of the house in order to confine Philocleon.
89
A. M. Bowie reads this as an
ephebic reference: “Nets do not belong in the oikos, but in the wild, so that, in symbolic
terms, he has turned the civilized space of the house into a hunting ground, the classic
87
So also at lines 385-6, Philocleon requests that he be buried under the railings of the court by his
fellow jurors.
88
This quotation and the previous one (which refers to lines 94-6 and 104-5) are from Crane 1997,
219-20.
89
See lines 131-2, “We countered by draping the whole courtyard with netting,” and line 164, “Then
I’ll gnaw through this netting with my teeth!”
106
locus of the ephebe.”
90
This is a compelling reading, as it calls attention to the oikos’
ability to take on masculine qualities, even despite the marginal position of the ephebe
between youth and adulthood. This theme will recur in the symposium scene later in the
play. The view of Danielle Allen, that “Philocleon’s seclusion in the house wrapped in a
net is an explicit statement of maleness having been subsumed within the feminine,”
obscures this masculine aspect of the home and overlooks the fact that no women appear
to be present within this oikos. She thus oversimplifies somewhat the polyvalent role of
domestic space in the play.
91
The second and more significant of the consequences of Philocleon’s domestic
identification with the lawcourt is that as long as he remains in the house, which is
devoid of significance for him, he has no identity and therefore no standing. Thus, in his
first “appearance” climbing up the chimney, when asked, “Who are you?” by his son (l.
144), he refers to himself as “smoke” – a “common metaphor for nothingness,”
according to Bowie.
92
Just after this, when he insists on getting out in order to hear a
case, Philocleon informs his son that the Delphic oracle has prophesied that if he ever
acquits anyone, he will wither away (éposklnai, l. 160). Lastly, in his parody of
Odysseus, he imitates the legendary naming pun, calling himself OÔtiwÉ
Apodrasipp¤dou or “Noman, son of Escapides” (l. 185).
While these episodes present the audience with a hilarious physical spectacle,
they are also fraught with threats of violence and some actual abuse. “I beg you, let me
out or I will explode!” exclaims Philocleon at line 162. A few lines later he tragically
90
Bowie 1993, 84.
91
Allen 2000, 132.
92
Bowie 1993, 84.
107
cries out, “Heaven save me, how can I kill you? Quick, give me a sword, or better yet, a
penalty tablet!” to which his son responds, “The man’s set to commit some awful
crime!” Again a moment later, he threatens his son, “Leave me alone or we’ll soon be
fighting” (l. 190). These exuberant outbursts are appropriately placed, as they are parts
of the first agon of the play, but even more tellingly, they reflect back in microcosm the
anger and conflict that have arisen from the upheaval of social relations in the city. In
this case, the transference of power is domestic – the son has become the master of the
household, while the old man has been deprived of his position both literally and
figuratively; thus there is, he believes, only one stable place left to him – the lawcourt.
93
Wasps continues the trend that began in Knights, and accordingly, the oikos in
this play has already become a hostile and unsafe environment, a fortress that retains
little if any of its former function as a sanctuary. The home itself has become unsettled,
revealed as a spatial arrangement whose ideality rests on imprisonment.
94
Crane argues
that this is because the trouble, which he says “is located as always outside the house,”
has been brought inside “through the person of Philocleon.”
95
His distinction between
inside and outside is unnecessary; the point seems to be rather that there is no real barrier
between the two areas anymore, despite both father and son’s efforts to keep them
separate. After all, why would Bdelycleon contrive to restrain his father from breaking
out of the house if he is the one who now threatens it? Douglas Olson similarly
addresses this issue and claims that the key to understanding the play’s larger dramatic
structure lies in “the recognition that there is no effective difference between
93
Sommerstein (1983, 158 v. 69) notes that this was a fairly common arrangement when a father grew
old, and that sons were under a legally enforceable duty to maintain their fathers.
94
Lee 2004, 110.
95
Crane 2002, 218.
108
Philocleon’s status in the city, understood in the way his son insists it must be, and his
position in the house.”
96
So far in the play, Philocleon has been described as crazy at
several points, precisely, it seems, because he has not yet realized this fact. But from his
perspective, he has yet to display any behavior that is truly inconsistent with his
situation; his overwhelming desire to attend jury duty appears to be a logical response to
his relative powerlessness at home. This is obviously a source of annoyance to his son,
but, as will be shown, in the arguments Bdelycleon puts forward concerning his actions,
he nowhere argues that the household is threatened directly by his father serving on
juries; instead, he offers political and economic arguments on behalf of the good of the
city, and a general desire for his father to live according to the same class standards as he
does.
97
Bdelycleon and the slaves succeed in getting Philocleon into the house just at the
moment when the chorus, comprised of his fellow jurors, comes to take him off to the
courts. Xanthias suggests a violent course of action – attack them with stones (ll. 221-2)
– but Bdelycleon rebukes him, pointing out their waspish character and their ability to
counterattack with their stingers. They turn out to be frail, poor and bitter old men, still
delighting in their past military exploits, though requiring the assistance of their
exaggeratedly young sons in making their way. The chorus leader delivers his first
speech at this point and immediately recalls a particular moment of glory from his past
which, though brief, forecasts a great deal concerning how the feminine will figure in
96
Olson 1996, 137.
97
At lines 338-41, Philocleon explains to the chorus that his son has restrained him because he
doesn’t want him to “hear cases or do any harm.” (The two activities were also equated by Philocleon
at lines 320-2.) “Instead,” he goes on to say, “he wants to wine and dine me, though that’s not what I
want.”
109
this play. When on guard duty at Byzantium (fifty-six years earlier), he and another juror
stole a bread-woman’s kneading bowl, then made firewood of it and boiled some
porridge with it. This is the play’s first reference to a female, and notably, she is a) a
foreign enemy, b) poor, and c) the victim of theft disguised as military activity; in other
words, an ideal comic target.
98
Just the mention of her reaffirms the chorus leader’s
masculine identity, and unifies and legitimates all men, whether young or old, rich or
poor, as soldiers.
99
Her appearance anticipates that of Myrtia, the bread-woman who is
assaulted by Philocleon in the penultimate scene of the play, and the similarity of their
situations signals unmistakably the lack of development or resolution that characterizes
the play.
Almost immediately after this, an argument ensues between the chorus leader
and his son, which rapidly escalates to threats of abandonment on the part of the boy,
and punishment on the part of the father. The boy then asks for some figs, but the father
refuses him, citing their dire poverty. The conflict ends with the son crying, “Why then,
miserable mother, did you bear me?…Boo hoo, all we can do is bawl” (ll. 312, 315).
100
This scene underscores the problematic relationship between father and son with which
the play is concerned. The child’s appeal to an absent mother encapsulates at once the
feelings of frustration and anger that are thematic to Wasps, but it also bespeaks a desire
98
This does not include the allusion to Cleon as a fãllaina pandokeÊtria in Sosias’ dream (l.
35), which Sommerstein (1983, 154 v. 35) translates as “omnivorous whale.” The word
pandokeÊtria, he explains, refers to loud and uncouth woman innkeepers.
99
Cf. Philocleon’s bravest exploit in youth: the stealing of vine poles (ll. 1200-01).
100
As with the “piggies” scene in Acharnians, the presentation of this child conveys comic sentiment,
but it also hints at their misery. There are two other references to children in this play, appearing in
court on behalf of their parents, see lines 568-9 and 976-8. See Ehrenberg (1962, 197ff., 208ff., 242-
4) and Golden 1990 on children in Aristophanes generally, with specific references to Wasps on pages
95-6, 112-4.
110
for rescue and protection by means of female intervention. As this is not forthcoming,
the boy turns instead to the shopping bag (yulãkion) he carries, addressing it and
lamenting it (oddly) as nothing more than a “useless ornament” (énÒnhton êgalma, l.
314). Apart from emphasizing their destitution, the bag is associated with the feminine
through its resemblance to the womb, and I would suggest that, given the lament that
preceded it, it may be read as a kind of paltry substitute for the boy’s missing parent.
101
It is also the case that this scene calls attention to the differing economic status
of Philocleon as compared with the other jurors, as David Konstan has argued; however,
the larger concern being communicated and enacted physically is that whether rich or
poor, the interdependence of male kin, especially in the absence of their female
counterparts, has become a site of tension and conflict rather than support or
solidarity.
102
All oikoi are equally threatened by the aggression and competition that
arise from changing relations of power within them.
The prominence of this theme in Wasps recalls the broader fluctuations of power
that were occurring in the Athenian political sphere, which themselves were the product
of the currently unfavorable military situation. As mentioned previously, Scione was
being blockaded by Athens because of its defection the previous year, which had
rendered the one-year armistice null and void. There was division in the city over the
decision to punish the colony with enslavement and death, given that peace had been so
101
The word êgalma may also be translated as “image,” which lends some support to this reading.
See Henderson (1975, 27) on an obscene usage of the word yulãkion in Euripides’ Cyclops.
102
Konstan 1995, 22.
111
recently been within grasp.
103
Bdelycleon’s joke at line 210 – “I’d be better off
blockading Scione than this father of mine!” – synthesizes these national and civic
conflicts into a domestic dispute, and thereby not only calls attention to their similarity
and interrelation, but also reveals the degenerative spiraling effect that violence and
warfare have on all forms of social organization, whether large or small.
At this point there is an exchange between Philocleon and the jurors regarding
how best to get him out of the house without his son or the slaves noticing. He again
prays for Zeus to objectify him, to alter him so that he may escape as hot air, a climbing
vine, a sauce or a stone (ll. 324-32). This desire to be transformed from human to object
is a humorous reversal that is in keeping with his madness; however, it also speaks to the
desperation that arises from his powerlessness and placelessness. For Philocleon, to be a
thing, preferably a small or malleable thing, is the only way to retain presence and
function. He suggests as much, when, encouraged by the chorus to engage in a military
maneuver he used at the battle of Naxos in order to escape, he declines, citing his old age
and loss of strength. He claims that this is “an entirely different situation” from that of
his youth (ll. 354-6), and yet, he still relies upon military metaphors to describe what is
occurring: “But now soldiers in arms are drawn up for battle and patrol the passes, two
of them at the door holding skewers and watching me like a cat whose stolen some
meat” (ll. 360-4).
104
His success in chewing through the nets around the house
103
See Thuc. 4.122. This explains Xanthias’ allusion to Cleon’s “good fortune” at line 64. It is a
reference to the timeliness of Scione’s revolt, which had the unintended effect of returning Cleon to
favor.
104
Objectification in comedy almost always takes slavery as its implicit subtext, and in wartime the
threat of enslavement was very real. It is therefore ironic that, in contrast with Acharnians, where
being turned into an object was a punishment to be feared, in Wasps it has come to be seen, even if by
a crazy man, as a liberating alternative to otherwise hopeless circumstances.
112
transforms him into an animal and effectively satisfies his desire for objectificaton, but
he gets caught letting himself down on a rope, and thereupon Bdelycleon directs a slave
to swat his father back with branches of the harvest wreath (ll. 398-9).
105
The chorus responds by immediately bringing out their stingers, which have
often been viewed as signifying doubly as weapons and phalloi, though the arguments as
to how they were costumed and how this whole scene was staged are numerous.
106
Kenneth Reckford presents the most persuasive and multilayered analysis of the chorus.
As wasps, they embody danger and anger, and these traits are amplified by their roles as
jurors and soldiers, whose “sting” is represented by their styluses and spears,
respectively. Jury duty has become for them a form of surrogate warfare. The stingers
also recall at the same time as they contrast with their phalloi: “as they grow old [their]
frustrated sexuality has turned into a habitual feeling of anger and…the exercise of their
power in court has taken on a perverted yet still strongly erotic quality,” as evidenced in
the earlier scene in which Philocleon fetishized the lawcourt.
107
The body operates here
as an ideal locus for the comic interplay of meaning, as it conveys simultaneously and
unambiguously both the psychic fragmentation that is occurring and the effort being
made to reintegrate the masculine self. As such, it demonstrates most effectively the
105
Before letting himself down, Philocleon speaks a prayer to the hero Lycus, a mysterious deity
associated with the lawcourts, whose identity has been debated by scholars (see Sommerstein 1983,
180 v. 389; Bogehold 1967). What is interesting is that Philocleon appeals to him as a neighbor (l.
389, ge¤tvn; l. 393, plhsiÒxvron) and vows “never to piss or fart on [his] fence” (l. 394). Even as
he tries to escape, the preservation of physical boundaries remains important to him and he seems to
place his faith in this god as an enforcer of spatial norms. This hero will be invoked by Philocleon
again at lines 819-24, where he will request that Lycus’ shrine be erected so that the makeshift
household court can function properly.
106
Stone (1981, 381) argues that the stingers protruded from the back and that the chorus did not wear
phalloi at all. Others, including myself, believe that they wore both stinger and phallus, while some
believe that the phallus and stinger were one and the same. Stone (392 n. 15) provides a summary of
the various viewpoints of this debate. See also MacCary (1979, 144-6) on Philocleon as ithyphallic.
107
Reckford 1987, 236-8.
113
complex discursive pattern governing the direction of the play ultimately toward failure.
Comedy, because of its tendency to economize as a means of producing humor, lays a
great deal of emphasis on similarities. But in this example and in this play generally,
humorous substitution (e.g. phallus = weapon = stinger) eventually descends into an
intolerable state of sameness among the men which turns out to be anything but funny.
From lines 422 to 432, an all-out battle takes place between the two parties that
is represented in the text in unambiguous militaristic language: “Now every man wheel
this way, draw stingers and charge him, with ranks closed in good order…Division One
get riled up and dive-bomb his ass! Division Two stab all around his eyes and fingers
too!” This is basically a descent into civil strife of the worst kind, namely, father vs. son
and slave vs. master. Athens had good reason to fear the “homecoming” of this type of
conflict, as it had begun to spread five years earlier with the devastating revolution in
Corcyra, and had persisted right up to their present-day troubles in Chalcidice. Yet, in
spite of all of the destruction and hardship they had both inflicted and suffered, the
Athenians were compelled by the infectious momentum of the war to remain on the
offensive. In this regard, they were in the paradoxical position of being both a master to
their subject cities and slaves of the “rough master” that is war (Thuc. 3.82.2,
b¤aiow didãskalow) – a fact which Bdelycleon is about to point out.
In the conflict occurring on stage, Philocleon and the chorus seem to embody
this untenable position, and they express outrage regarding the inversion that has taken
place, even emphasizing the many beatings they have administered to the ungrateful
slaves in the past (ll. 439-52). They seem completely unaware of the cycle of violence
they have perpetuated and of which they are now the victims. Meanwhile, Bdelycleon
114
and Xanthias are finally able to repulse the chorus successfully by means of smoke and
stick. Given the uneven number of combatants in this battle, this outcome is implausible,
but it is necessary so that the play may continue.
108
The result is that at this point
Bdelycleon says, “Might we enter into discussion and compromise without this fighting
and shrill screaming?” (ll. 471-2). Through the figure of Bdelycleon, Aristophanes here
presents the hope that words and persuasion still retain some of their political meaning
and power, but, given the political climate, the prognosis is not favorable.
109
The chorus responds to this request as they have at various points previous to
this, with accusations of conspiracy and aspirations to tyranny (ll. 342-5, 417, 464, 474).
Bdelycleon dismisses these claims, and indeed the valence of the chorus’ words
themselves, by trivializing and commodifying their allegations of tyranny through his
metaphorical invocation of the market-place. He compares their threats with the cheap
goods to be found in distinct areas of the agora (e.g. sardines, perch, sprats, onions).
However, not unlike his father, he employs the figure of a lower-class woman – in this
case, a haranguing vegetable lady – to indicate the inherent worthlessness of such claims
and of those making them (ll. 496-9). In an even more scandalous turn, his slave,
seemingly encouraged by his master’s comments, takes the comparison to the next level,
that of outright prostitution: “My slut got sharp-tempered with me too, when I went to
108
Philocleon claims that the reason the chorus was repulsed is because they were “munching on
Philocles’ songs” (l. 462). As Henderson notes in his translation (1998, 280 n. 34), he was the nephew
of Aeschylus and a tragic poet, who wrote in a harsh and bitter style. This claim highlights the
ambivalent quality of poetry, which, like femininity, operates as both instigator of and antidote to
violence in ancient culture. On this point, see Bergren 1983, passim.
109
McGlew (2004, 13) argues that persuasion is presented in this play as a cathartic or purifying
process, by which “the citzen is…restored to his true…political self.” While compelling, this reading
does not fully explain why persuasion does not ultimately succeed in solving the play’s basic
problems and conflicts, nor does it explain why violence remains so prominent at its end. On
Bdelycleon as embodying the voice of Aristophanes, see Olson 1996, 144 n. 32.
115
her place yesterday noon. I told her to ride me, and she asked if I was jockeying for
tyranny a la Hippias” (ll. 500-03). For a brief moment, all the male characters are unified
in their opposition to tyranny through their denigration of women. Even slave and master
are able to experience a harmonious rather than fractious kind of equality and similarity,
though not before initiating an alternate conflict between the sexes. Within this conflict,
the sexual position of the slut may be understood as a disadvantageous position which
the slave seeks to impose upon her, and would thus seem to underscore both his
manliness and his civic authority. However, her resistance, coupled with the titillating
image of a woman on top, also works to undermine his power, and looks forward to
other forms of female resistance that will be encountered increasingly in both this and
Aristophanes’ future plays.
110
This downplaying and dismissal of the chorus’ accusations makes room for the
verbal agon between father and son, with the chorus of jurors serving as jury. They point
out that everything is at stake in this contest, which Philocleon has already
acknowledged by asking for a sword that he may fall on if he loses (ll. 522, 534-5). As
mentioned, Bdelycleon begins by pointing out that his father is a slave who thinks he is a
master (ll. 517-9); this serves both to domesticate the larger disputes facing Athens, and
to situate the problems that Philocleon has as a result of these disputes in a realm over
which Bdelycleon has some power. Philocleon vehemently denies his son’s claim,
however, and goes on to explain all the profit he derives from “plucking the fruits of
110
Cf. the oath of celibacy sworn by the women in Lysistrata, which includes this pronouncement (l.
231): “I won’t crouch down like the lioness on a cheese grater!”
116
Greece” (l. 520, karpoum°nƒ tØn ÑEllãda).
111
This consists of a number of
unexpected declarations, all of which emphasize his megalomania, and the confused
violent and erotic impulses that govern it and allow it to thrive.
Philocleon mentions first the sycophancy of the defendants, and the popularity
and influence he derives from their pre-trial fawning (ll. 548-58). Next, he alludes to the
Schadenfreude he experiences once the court is in session. His description of this ends
with a joke that again rests on the most pitiful and assailable of comic targets, the
daughter of a pleading defendant, who seemingly becomes the victim of his sexual
assault: “And if enjoy a bit of pork, I’m supposed to heed the cry of his daughter” (l.
573). Given the canonical Greek description of marriage as “for the plowing of
legitimate children,” this imperial understanding of the “plucking of the fruits” oddly
makes sense, as it naturalizes and legitimates this practice.
112
Just previous to this, there
is a pun made about the young son of this defendant which also has sexual overtones.
The father pleads, “If you enjoy the bleat of the lamb, please pity the cry of the kid!” (l.
572). This joke may play upon the genitive forms of the words érnÚw, “of a lamb,” and
írrenow, “of a male,” and thus succeeds in at least animalizing the boy; however, the
sexual allusion is only made clear by Philocleon’s reference to the daughter, who is not
only animalized, but openly sexually degraded, just as the Megarian’s daughters were in
Acharnians.
111
Sommerstein (1983, 189 v. 520), citing Thucydides (2.38.2), suggests that the reference to
plucking fruit was a familiar piece of political rhetoric used to describe the imperial tribute at this
time.
112
Cf. Philocleon’s remark at line 634 about “stripping an unwatched vineyard,” which was a
proverbial way to describe an easy success, and his remark at line 850, “I’ve been needing to plow
(élok¤zein) this field,” which describes his desire to vote the dog guilty by marking his wax tablet.
117
Philocleon then goes on to offer a list of the benefits that accrue to him as a
juror, which includes inspecting boys’ genitals for their dokimasia, enjoying the
dramatic and musical performances of desperate defendants, and the perpetration of yet
another outrage against a woman (ll. 578-87). He participates in what amounts to the
auctioning off of an epikleros to the highest bidder, in defiance of her father’s last will
and testament, and without any consequences. Here Bdelycleon points out the error of
his father’s ways, saying, “It’s wrong of you to unclasp the heiress’ endowments,” but
this is in service of furthering the joke, as kÒgxh refers both to the will’s seal and the
girl’s vagina, while diayÆkh signifies both the testament and the girl’s physical
condition (l. 589).
113
In other words, this citizen woman, rather than being protected, is
freely exploited, not only legally but sexually as well. Moreover, this act of
“enslavement” is virtually indistinguishable from the way that the female relative of an
enemy was often treated, and replicates Athens’ own horrible treatment of its female
subjects in places like Corcyra and Scione. The imagined body of the woman serves to
reflect back to the audience the extent to which notions of inside and outside, and the
social relations they govern, have become distorted and confused at this time. It also
bears the brunt of the violent repercussions that this situation engenders. The misogyny
expressed in this vignette is somewhat startling, but Aristophanes actually manages to
take it one step further in his portrayal of Philocleon’s incestuous familial relations.
113
Here is the full Greek: tw d' §piklÆrou tØn diayÆkhn édike›w énakogxuliãzvn. See
Henderson 1975, 142; and Sommerstein 1983, 192-3 vv. 583-6. This joke anticipates some of the
themes and problems with which New Comedy was concerned.
118
Until this point there has been no mention made of any female family members
by Philocleon, Bdelycleon or the slaves. However, at lines 605-12, there is this
description of the “nicest part” of Philocleon’s life as a juror:
When I come home with my pay, everyone gives me a warm welcome at
the door…First my daughter washes me and oils my feet and bends down
to kiss me, calling me ‘daddy’ while she tries to fish out the coin with her
tongue. And the little woman fusses over me and brings me a pastry, and
then sits by and coaxes me, ‘Eat this, nibble this up!’
Where this wife and daughter are for the duration of the play remains a mystery; what is
significant and appalling is how the extent of Philocleon’s so-called madness has
facilitated his own misrecognition of his relationship with both his wife, whom he
envisions as treating him like a child, and even more importantly, with his daughter. The
consequences for his public actions with respect to women appear to redound to his
home life, and it is as if his daughter continues in the role of the degraded epikleros from
the previous section, acting rather as a slave or prostitute would. Dover comments on the
inappropriate eroticism of this scene, and even goes so far as to call it “the only
[passage] in comedy which dares to hint at the enjoyment of incestuous contacts,” while
Sommerstein tries very hard to downplay it altogether by rendering it “metaphorical.”
114
It is followed, very appropriately, by Philocleon’s arrogant comparisons of himself to
Zeus (ll. 619-24), another well-known practitioner of incest, and by a great deal of self-
congratulatory boasting.
The phrase “lust for power” accurately sums up Philocleon’s attitude and
behavior in these scenes, but why does it so often take the form of misogyny? In his
madness, it seems that Philocleon exposed a truth that had been largely suppressed at
114
Dover 1972, 127; Sommerstein 1983, 194 v. 609.
119
Athens: In large part, the power of the state depends upon the subjugation of women.
Perhaps this denial is part of the longstanding illness that Bdelycleon claims the city is
suffering from at line 651, and for which his father is the proverbial “poster child.”
115
By
presenting the polis as “an objectified oikos,” Aristophanes has been able to replicate the
imperial obsession of the state in Philocleon’s illness, and the resultant war in the
generational struggle for mastery over the oikos.
116
What has been played down until this
point, however, is the fundamental role of women in both of these undertakings. This has
to emerge eventually, and it is my contention that Philocleon’s hostile treatment of
women and his inability to distinguish between them, whether inside or outside the home
and regardless of status, bespeaks a latent awareness of this fact. It also testifies to a
large-scale failure on the part of the citizen body, and maybe even on the part of the
poet, to incorporate women in a constructive fashion, the consequence of which is
violent and distorted sexual relations.
117
In the more immediate context of the play,
though, the misogyny expressed by Philocleon serves to foreshadow his realization,
which will occur in the next scene, that his power has waned. It also foreshadows the
collapse of spatial boundaries that will result from his realization, by operating as a form
of premature overcompensation for this loss.
Beginning at line 655, Bdelycleon offers his counterarguments, which are
derived from mathematical calculations and economic projections, and therefore seem
115
Interestingly, Bdelycleon uses the verb §nt¤ktv, “to give birth in,” to describe the appearance of
this illness in the city.
116
Crane 1997, 213.
117
The existence of the later plays, which emphasize women’s roles as protagonists and activists,
suggests that, at some point, Aristophanes recognized the indispensability of the feminine in the
political life of the city. I comment more on this phenomenon in the concluding chapter of this work.
120
both sensible and plausible in comparison to the arguments of Philocleon.
118
He explains
to his father and the old jurors the processes of extortion and shortchanging, bribery and
corruption that rule the city, and how they are implicated in the smooth functioning of
the imperial system. In so doing, Bdelycleon essentially spells out the by-now well-
rehearsed Aristophanic view of the situation. Philocleon finds this slightly troubling, but
still does not see how this state of affairs makes him a slave (l. 681). Bdelycleon then
goes on to explain how the negative aspects of these political arrangements trickle down
and harm the lawcourt system and its jurors by keeping them in poverty and depriving
their votes of any significance. Here he alludes to “some young faggot, Chaereas’s son,
spreading his legs like this, all dandied up and waggling his ass,” who orders the old
men around and makes twice the money they do by fixing cases beforehand (ll. 687-8).
Only through his sexualization and feminization of this foe is Bdelycleon able to
successfully convey to his father that he is affected directly by this dysfunctional system,
and thereby unseat him.
It is at this point that Bdelycleon deals his final rhetorical blow. He explains how
Philocleon has wasted the opportunity to become wealthy because he has been “boxed
in” by these populist posers (l. 699, lit. §gkekÊklhsai, or “encircled”), which he
contrasts ironically with the opportunity to be “master of a multitude of cities from the
Black Sea to Sardinia” that Philocleon has squandered.
119
With this assertion,
Bdelycleon recalls for Philocleon his identical position within his own oikos, and it
becomes clear that in either case he is basically trapped. Philocleon’s response is one of
118
On the accuracy of the figures given by Bdelycleon, see Sommerstein 1983, 197-8 vv. 660-3.
119
This is a geographic exaggeration, but one that succeeds in making Bdelycleon’s point for him. Cf.
the cartographic imagery used by the slave, both to describe Paphlagon and to encourage the Sausage-
seller to oppose him, at lines 75-9 and 164-74 in Knights.
121
utter despair; he becomes paralyzed and proclaims, “I can’t even hold my sword; I’ve
gone limp” (l. 714). With this mock-tragic gesture, he signals his defeat and his
impotence as a warrior, as a juror and finally as a man. The chorus members second him
in this by throwing down their sticks (or at least by saying they are doing so, l. 727), and
declaring themselves convinced by Bdelycleon’s argument.
Bdelycleon now offers his father a tantalizing list of items that he will provide if
he agrees not to attend jury service anymore. It includes food and clothes, and
culminates with “a whore to massage his cock and loins,” which fully emphasizes his old
age and impotence (ll. 739-40). Even though Bdelycleon does manage to come through
with some of these items later on in the play, his promises follow on the heels of another
set of false promises, this time of gifts of grain and land (i.e. Euboea), offered by the
demagogues to their angry constituents in order to appease them (ll. 714-24). Bdelycleon
had mentioned these in order to discount them as mere bribes; however, his own offer,
and its proximity to those of the demagogues, serves to highlight the similarity of
approach adopted by each, and recalls the failed gift-giving rivalry in Knights. This does
not go over well with Philocleon, who yells, “Don’t promise me any of your promises!
What I yearn for is to be over there…There is where I want to be” (ll. 751-2, my
emphasis).
There seems to be a desperate longing on the part of both father and son for each
space to remain distinct and autonomous, but after another brief attempt on the part of
Bdelycleon to discriminate between the house and the court – “don’t go there (§ke›se)
anymore, but stay right here (§nyãde aÈtoË)” – he gives in and tries to make the best of
this collapse by establishing a make-believe in-between place, the household court (l.
122
765). Right away though, it becomes evident that this solution is highly problematic, as
it is merely a change of venue, and the little change it does effect in the operation of the
legal system is for the worse, since a tyranny or monarchy is more or less established,
with Philocleon acting as judge, jury and executioner, and Bdelycleon acting as the
cheating magistrate who, like Cleon and the other demagogues, manipulates the verdicts
of cases.
120
This retreat into the private sphere not only undermines the democratic
institutions of the city, it also generates a “contraction of civic consciousness,” which
allows both father and son to continue to impart erroneously both spatial and political
autonomy to the household, as if it were immune to the larger social forces that
determine its own composition and organization.
121
The fact that virtually nothing has changed is further evidenced by the first
“case” Bdelycleon suggests be called in the household court: “Say the maid opens the
door without permission…Vote her a stiff single penalty” (ll. 768-9).
122
As Jeffrey
Henderson has pointed out, opening the door signifies the maid’s making herself
sexually available, the “penalty” for which is forcible sex, or rape.
123
Bdelycleon
encourages his father, saying, “It’s what you used to do all the time anyway,” and
thereby affirms that a misogynistic and objectifying view of sexual difference is very
much still in play here (l. 770). The imagined treatment of this woman, and her
120
On this point, see Reckford 1987, 253; and Slater 2002, 98.
121
Konstan 1995, 25. Lines 799-804 corroborate this reading, as Philocleon there celebrates the
fulfillment of a prophecy which asserted that each Athenian would build a private lawcourt in his yard
and judge cases in his house. This recalls a return to the “rough justice” dealt out to the “children and
wives” in the households of the uncivilized Cyclopes of the Odyssey, as well as the violent retributive
actions taken by Odysseus himself against the maids and the goatherd at the end of the poem (9.114-
5; 22. 470-533).
122
Here is the Greek: ˜ti tØn yÊran én°ƒjen S shk‹w lãyr&, taÊthw §pibolØn chfie› m¤an
mÒnhn.
123
Henderson 1975, 137.
123
assimilation to a doorway, effectively undermines any dissimilarity between the spaces
of the home, the court and the liminal household court, in spite of Bdelycleon’s efforts to
convince Philocleon how different each is, and how home is so much more comfortable
and accommodating (ll. 772-84). Rather than view the servant girl’s act of opening of
the door as a potential “way out” of this chaotic setting, the men and the poet view her as
the door itself, and thus they perceive her agency to be a transgression deserving of
abuse and punishment.
124
In replicating the space of the lawcourt, then, they not only
reinstate the corrupted norms and processes that structure Athenian society, including its
gender and class hierarchies, but they also bring the many flaws of these systems into
high relief.
Philocleon decides to go along with his son’s scheme, having little choice in the
matter, and so Bdelycleon and the slaves begin to set up the “court.” This whole scene, a
play-within-a-play, is very ingenious, though its humor relies for the most part upon its
descent into the realm of objects. As in both Acharnians and Knights, conditions have
reached a point where only objects are able to retain meaning and utility; here they even
do double duty, taking on qualities that they do not normally possess. This dual usage
aids in blurring the spaces rather than differentiating them – ladles are voting urns,
kitchen utensils are witnesses, and a chamber pot is the water-clock (ll. 806-7, 853-7).
As mentioned previously, these tokens and their proper placement are constitutive of
Philocleon’s identity, and they continue to be fetishized by him, this time taking on a
religious quality.
124
Although it is unclear why this servant girl opened the door, when one considers the contrasting
image of Philocleon’s daughter, standing by the door and awaiting his arrival as discussed above, it is
not implausible to think that perhaps she was contemplating an escape from this madhouse herself!
124
Just before the first case is called, Philocleon gets very upset because the court
railing, “the first of the holy objects to meet our eyes,” and the ever-crucial barrier
between inside and out, has not been set up (l. 831). He runs inside and grabs “Hestia’s
pigpen” to serve this purpose. This appropriation of the goddess’ property is called
“sacrilege” by Bdelycleon (l. 845, UerosulÆsaw), but Philocleon still manages to
transform and legitimize this theft by portraying it as preparation for his sacrifice of an
unwitting defendant.
125
This act, and indeed this entire scene, which consists of a series
of appropriations and objectifications on the part of both father and son, paves the way
for the chorus to congratulate them on peacefully settling their differences. They claim
they will celebrate the “truce” between father and son by singing a propitious song, now
that the “warfare and strife” between them have been settled (ll. 863-7). In the meantime,
further legitimacy is lent to the household court through the enactment of a new
initiatory sacrifice and prayer to Apollo Agyieus, guardian of streets and public places,
which Bdelycleon devises and instigates “right outside his [own] door” (l. 871).
Unfortunately, however, these efforts prove worthless, as they do not ultimately achieve
their desired effect: to purge Philocleon of his “excessively harsh and hardhearted
disposition” (l. 877). Not unlike the oracles in Knights, religious speech and action have
been rendered useless through their haphazard application in an ill-defined and
125
Lalonde (1982, 77-79) argues that “Hestia’s pigpen” may have been a reference to “the Council
House [i.e., the Bouleuterion] with its renowned drÊfaktow surrounding an orchestral area with
bema and sacred hearth where officials may have made a purificatory sacrifice of sucking pigs before
each meeting.”
125
improvised domestic temenos. Reckford even goes as far as to label this “quasi-religious
fraud.”
126
In the midst of this scene, while Philocleon is fetching the improvised railing,
Bdelycleon becomes exasperated by his father’s fastidiousness and cries, “What is the
big deal? Love of place is such a powerful thing!” (l. 834,
t¤ pote tÚ xrm'; …w deinÚn S filoxvr¤a). With this seemingly spontaneous
exclamation, Bdelycleon discloses to the audience, albeit dismissively, the three
underlying and interrelated concepts that generate the conflict embodied in the play and
move it forward – desire, space and power. As the French feminist writer Claudine
Herrmann explains it, “the disposition of space for man is above all an image of power,
maximum power having been achieved when he can dispose of the space of others.”
127
Here, as elsewhere in Aristophanes, the desire to enact this process on the space of the
body, particularly though not exclusively on the female body, is ever-present and is often
achieved with violence. In the meantime, however, what we find is the reclaiming and
reconfiguration of space as a means of acquiring or retaining power and asserting the
masculine self. Philocleon’s own mania for inscribing defendants with guilt from the
jury box replicates this destructive longing.
128
As long as the masculine relationship to
space is constituted through a patriarchal ideological nexus of ownership, power and
identity, then the problems encountered here by both father and son, and by extension,
by Athenian civil society, will never be solved. They will just move from venue to
126
Reckford 1987, 254. For a more sympathetic and optimistic reading of this scene, see Sidwell
1989, 271-7.
127
Herrmann 1989, 114.
128
The word filoxvr¤a also recalls the list of maladies put forth at the beginning of the play (ll. 74-
84), and thus exposes how spatial affinity can take on the quality of an unhealthy obsession when it is
improperly managed.
126
venue, reinstantiating themselves along different axes and recreating unstable
hierarchies.
Finally, at line 894, the trial of the dog Grabes, who has stolen a cheese from the
kitchen and eaten it, commences. This is an elaborate parodic reenactment of a situation
involving the distinguished Athenian general Laches and his supposed embezzlement of
funds while on campaign in Sicily from 427 to 425 BCE.
129
It is noteworthy that he was
a supporter of the peace, proposing and effecting treaties in 424/3 BCE and negotiating
the treaty of 422/1 BCE with Sparta; perhaps this explains his sympathetic portrayal by
Aristophanes in this play.
130
It is speculated that Cleon may not have ever prosecuted
him on this or any other charge, but that he publicly threatened to do so at some point. In
their portrayal as dogs, both Laches and Cleon become marginal figures, appropriate to
the liminal setting of the household court, and Aristophanes is able to bring to life what
had previously only been a metaphor to describe his enemy.
131
He also illustrates vividly
in this vignette his “little story with a point” (l. 64) by synthesizing the systemic
problems of empire and their consequences for democracy into a domestic courtroom
129
On Laches’ military activities in Sicily, see Thuc. 3.86, 3.90, 3.103, and 3.115. He makes no
mention made of either embezzlement or a trial for it. For modern interpretations of the actions of the
historical Laches, see Mastromarco 1974; MacDowell 1995, 165-7; and Olson 1996, 138-42. Braund
(1999, 321-5) bases his argument that Laches was active “in the Thraceward region” just before 422
BCE, and thus a timely figure for parody, on two geographical puns found at lines 968-9. Bdelycleon
asks his dad to take pity on the defendant Grabes, for he “lives on a diet of giblets and bones.” The
words used for giblets (traxÆli') and bones (ékãnyaw) recall the northerly region of Trachis and the
Thracian city of Acanthus, which he argues was “very much in the news at Athens in the later 420s,”
given its revolt from Athens in 424.
130
See Thuc. 5.43, 5.19, and 5.24 for the active role Laches took in procuring peace for Athens.
131
See Bowie 1993, 90 on marginality. Aristophanes’ verbal descriptions of Cleon as a dog are found
at Knights 1017-24, 1030-4; Wasps 1031; and Peace 313.
127
melodrama.
132
But since no change has taken place in this household, and thus not in the
court either, it makes for the same results – Philocleon overwhelmingly desires to
convict, and only though a trick on the part of Bdelycleon does he manage to acquit.
Bdelycleon’s success in this scene is short-lived since it is due to deception (i.e. he
speaks on behalf of Grabes), and this is evidence of the fact that his previous arguments
had no lasting effect on his father, though he does not yet seem to realize it.
Philocleon’s shock at having acquitted someone makes him faint for a moment
and then declare himself utterly defeated, saying, “Then I am nothing” (l. 997,
oÈd°n e8m' íra). He is led inside by his son in order to get ready for a symposium, and
the chorus comes on to sing a belligerent parabasis (ll. 1009-21). First, the chorus leader
takes the opportunity to remonstrate with the audience for its treatment of Aristophanes
the year before, when he won third prize for Clouds. He outlines the trajectory of his
career for them, as he did in the parabasis of Clouds, and insists on Aristophanes’ artistic
integrity by invoking the sexual purity of the muses, claiming that he never turned “the
muses he employed into pimps” (l. 1028).
133
The sexualizing imagery contradicts his
point, though it does complement his earlier comparison of these deities to a team of
chariot horses whose mouths he reins in (l. 1022, stÒmay' SnioxÆsaw). He goes on to
recount the battles that the playwright fought on behalf of the audience against the
monstrous Cleon, who is again compared with Cynna, the famous prostitute, and with
other well-known informers.
132
Both Bowie (1993, 91) and Lalonde (1982, 78) point out that there actually was a place in Athens
where lifeless things and animals were tried – in the Prytaneum. On the origins and function of this
court, see Hyde 1917 and MacDowell 1963, 85-9.
133
Cf. Clouds 528-534.
128
Next, the chorus sings about its former prowess with respect to dramatic
performance, violent combat and especially sex, pointing out their phalloi and stressing
the close connection between these three activities: “Ah once upon a time we were
valiant in choruses, and valiant in battle, and above all most valiant where this is
concerned” (ll. 1060-3). Though they lament their loss of power, the old men
nonetheless consider themselves stronger than the effete and therefore pathic young men
of the moment. And so the generational conflict continues, as if in contrast to both the
previous and upcoming scene. The chorus leader feels compelled to explain the
significance of the stingers (although by this point it must be obvious), but he goes a step
further in attempting to distinguish his breed from other Athenians by calling up the
timeworn notions of autochthony (l. 1076) and martial excellence during the Persian
war: “To this day barbarians everywhere insist that there’s nothing manlier than an Attic
wasp” (ll. 1089-90). In an ironic twist, it is now only the outsider, the foreigner who is in
a position to judge Athenian men accurately, and not their peers. It is also as if having a
phallus is no longer enough of a mark of distinction; a man now needs to literally expand
the space of his body and acquire a stinger as well. Unfortunately for the chorus, the two
are much too similar to make any true difference, as is pointed out by the chorus leader
himself at lines 1114-6: “The problem is there are drones sitting among us who have no
stingers, who stay at home and feed off the fruits of the tribute without toiling for it.”
This comment not only recalls Hesiod’s comparison of women to lazy drones in
Theogony (l. 595, “the drones stay at home in the covered hives and reap the toil of
others”), but also corrects its ascription of these negative traits to the female gender.
Aristophanes’ portrayal of men as drones thus continues the domesticating theme of the
129
play by situating the problems of masculinity and the economic problems of empire
within the seemingly manageable space of the home.
134
The action of the play continues with Bdelycleon’s aesthetic transformation of
his father into a respectable elite male. This is very reminiscent of the makeover scene
with Demos in Knights, and reiterates the idea that superficial change does not
necessarily affect what lies beneath.
135
Philocleon trades his worn garment (tr¤bvn, l.
1131) for a cloak (xla›na) and a “poncho” (my rendering of kaunãkh, l. 1137), as his
son informs him of this item’s foreign origin and its expense. Geographic knowledge of
the empire, and enjoyment of its revenues, is critical to Philocleon’s new identity, and
this fact must be made readily apparent to his wealthy peers in the sympotic
environment. His joking reference to the poncho as “a shaggy goatskin (sisÊra) from
Thymaetidae [i.e., a coastal deme]” signifies the limits of his experience, in contrast with
Bdelycleon, who either ignores or misses the joke, and replies condescendingly, “No
wonder; you’ve never been to Sardis. Otherwise you’d have recognized it” (ll. 1138-40).
As in the case of the stingers and phalloi, the body operates here as a site of contestation
and political transformation that must be mapped out in order to remain intelligible. To
Bdelycleon, his father’s body appears to take on the qualities of empire itself, as his
change of dress expands him physically, intellectually and economically. Philocleon,
however, views it as a “death” by smothering (l. 1134), and refuses to participate in his
own costuming, preferring to be clothed in “a crock pot.”
136
Reckford fittingly compares
Bdelycleon’s attempts to constrict his father in this scene with his attempts to imprison
134
For another reading of the two passages, see Allen 2000, 133.
135
Cf. Knights 906-12.
136
This is my rendering of kr¤banow, or covered earthen vessel for baking bread, at line 1153.
130
him in the house at the beginning of the play. He refers to it “the spring mechanism”
effect, whereby “the more P.’s nature is restrained, the more violently it…break[s]
forth.”
137
There is a final joke in the dressing scene that deserves mention. Bdelycleon
insists that his father put on a pair of Laconian boots (1. 1157, Lakvnikãw), but he is
unwilling. Bdelycleon then exhorts him to put in his foot and “push down firmly into
that Laconian,” to which Philocleon replies, “It’s a crime to make me set foot on enemy
sole!” (ll. 1161-2). The pun resolves well in English because of the homophony of “soil”
and “sole,” while in Greek it hinges on the ambiguity of the feminine gender of the
substantive adjective, which describes both the boot and the land of Sparta itself, with
g understood as its natural referent. Therefore, when Philocleon steps into the boot, he
steps into hostile territory. This joke does manage to dehumanize and objectify the
Spartan polis and its people, and make them seem easier to harm and subdue. But it does
not succeed in contributing to restoration of Philocleon’s manhood, despite the fact that
his forceful and penetrating gesture is couched in the language of combat. This is
because he has already suffered a kind of feminization through his participation in his
son’s dress-up game. This is further evidenced by what comes next: he is told to “step
forth like this, like the rich do, with a sort of lavish swagger” (ll. 1168-9,
diasalaknison).
A scholium discussing this rare word preserves a couplet of tetrameters from
Aristophanes’ comic rival, Hermippus, which Ralph Rosen, following Meineke, joins to
another fragment from Hermippus found in Athenaeus. Together they read, “On my
137
Reckford 1987, 275.
131
journey I came to the spleen-land of the Cylicranians; and so I saw Heracleia, and a fresh
young city she was…but later I saw her turned into a helot (éneilvthm°nhn), playing
the harlot (kasalbãzousan) and strutting about (sesalakvnism°nhn).”
138
Heracleia
was a city founded by Sparta in 426 BCE on the northern slopes of Mt. Oeta as an added
defense against the Athenians, but, as Thucydides explains, it failed because of the
attacks of the neighboring Thessalians and because of the harshness of the Spartan
leaders there.
139
The appearance of this word, which is a combination of salãkvn,
“pretentious person,” and lakvn¤zv, “to make like a Spartan,” in both Hermippus and
Aristophanes suggests that it was a timely and topical neologism, which mocked social
climbers by affiliating them with the enemy. This is clearly a jibe against pro-Spartan
aristocratic sentiment at Athens, but, given the context in which it appears (i.e. in a scene
of adornment and beautification), it may be the case that Aristophanes employed this
particular word in order to ridicule Philocleon even further, by assimilating him to the
feminized, sexualized and enslaved colony similarly described by Hermippus. The fact
that, like Heracleia, Philocleon will fail in his conversion also lends some credence to
this claim.
Bdelycleon goes on to instruct his father how to behave in the company of
symposiasts, and encourages him to tell certain kinds of stories like the ones “we tell at
home” (l. 1180). He offers the examples of notable embassies and wrestling matches,
and also advises him on how to present himself in the most noble and manly light by
recounting his most daring exploits. From lines 1197 to 1205, adjectival forms of the
138
These are Frgs. 4 and 5 of Hermippus in Gerber (1999, 515-7; Frg. 4 = Athenaeus 461e). My
translation is a combination of that of Gerber and that of Rosen (1988, 10-11).
139
Thuc 3.92-93.
132
words énÆr, or “man,” and nean¤skow, or “youth,” appear seven times, mostly as
superlatives. This didactic scene again conveys the degree of preoccupation there was
with properly defining and performing masculinity, and it thus echoes the overly
compensatory songs that were sung recently by the chorus. Unsurprisingly, Philocleon
turns out to be a poor student, and he antagonizes his son by disregarding his
instructions, particularly when it comes to how to speak and sing. As with the debate of
the logoi in Clouds (ll. 889-1104), what we have here are embodiments of the competing
forms of Athenian masculinity, galvanized along the lines of class and age, just as at the
beginning of the play.
It finally comes time for the pair to attend the real symposium, and Bdelycleon
expresses his eagerness to get drunk (l. 1252). Philocleon responds to this with prophetic
clarity and basically summarizes the end of the play, saying, “Oh no! Drinking’s bad.
Wine gets you doors broken in, assault and battery, then paying money for the damage
while you’re hungover” (ll. 1252-5). Given the previous assimilation of the maid to the
door, Philocleon’s reference to door-breaking here takes on a sexual overtone, which
will be made explicit in the upcoming scene with Dardanis. Bdelycleon dismisses these
claims, believing that he has been effective in transforming his father. He remains
convinced that just by putting his father into spatial proximity with “gentlemen” (l.
1256), Philocleon will be able to avoid taking responsibility for his wayward actions.
Just “turn the whole thing into a joke,” he advises his father (ll. 1260-1); however, as
Aristophanes himself makes clear in the next parabasis, a joke often functions like a
double-edged sword, with the power to do equal damage to both its target and its author.
133
The chorus comes back on with a bit of personal invective that is highly
reminiscent of Knights. In fact, Aristophanes even makes the same joke about the
brothers Arignotus and Ariphrades at lines 1275-84, wherein he accuses Ariphrades of
having an excessive proclivity for cunnilingus.
140
This leads into a discussion of the
continuing rivalry between Cleon and Aristophanes, which serves as yet another
microcosmic reproduction of the larger cycles of competitive violence that are currently
being experienced in the social and political realms of Athens. Aristophanes points out
that whatever actions Cleon took against him after the production of Knights, they made
no difference, either to him or to the audience who witnessed the event and who
ridiculed both men equally.
141
It seems that it was precisely their similarity in the eyes of
this audience that determined Aristophanes’ response: to continue the conflict and
differentiate himself from his adversary yet again by the same means, with the
production of Wasps.
142
The predictable results of Aristophanes’ transgressive approach
to the problem of Cleon, i.e., continued anger and discord, are mirrored perfectly in the
violent denouement of this play, which likewise serves to reinforce the fact that there is
no change and no end in sight.
Xanthias appears at this point in order to inform the chorus and audience of the
backfiring of Bdelycleon’s plan, and of the catastrophe that has occurred at the
symposium thanks to Philocleon’s reckless behavior. As predicted, once drunk, he
140
I discuss this passage in more detail in the Knights section of this chapter.
141
Sommerstein hypothesizes that an énãkrisiw, or preliminary hearing, rather than a trial, took place
publicly, wherein Cleon “consented to drop the prosecution in exchange for a promise by
Aristophanes to moderate his treatment of [him] in the future, a promise which Aristophanes has now
decisively broken” (1983, 234 vv. 184-91). On this topic, see also Storey 1995.
142
The chorus leader says as much at line 1290: “I saw all this (i.e. the audience laughing) and played
a bit of a trick, and today the stake’s played the vine for a fool.”
134
completely loses control. Xanthias describes how he not only insulted and “mocked the
guests one after the other” (l. 1319), but also how his rampaging turned physical and
then spilled out onto the street. Through his outburst, Philocleon succeeds in dispelling
the fantasy of the private and apolitical setting of the symposium. Although it takes place
in a domestic context, in contrast with the familial oikos, it operates an arena for male
competition, virtually devoid of women.
143
Under normal circumstances, the competitive
climate of the symposium would not have been perceived as problematic or destructive,
quite the opposite. But because the home is no longer a site of peace and protection in
this play, and rather functions as another venue in which the larger conflicts facing the
city may be reproduced and reenacted, it is no longer able to contain this jovial form of
competition and differentiate it from its more malevolent counterparts. It is my
contention that this co-optation of the space of the oikos by the male protagonists, and
the negative consequences which derive from it, are the main thematic features which
link the beginning and the ending of the play together.
As we might expect, Philocleon’s antisocial violence rapidly focuses itself on
female victims. It turns out he has stolen a flute girl from the party, and he enters with
her in one hand and a torch in the other, rejuvenated, as is pointed out by one of his
victims, and belligerent. He threatens his pursuers, and transfers his formerly displaced
erotic energy to its “proper” target at line 1339: “This is what I like! Screw voting
143
See Pellizer 1983, 29-41 on the agonistic violence that is characteristic of the traditional
symposium. This includes sexual violence; on this, see Keuls 1995, 176, 182. Bowie 1997 argues that
“sympotic codes” are employed in Aristophanes in order to measure the degree of normalcy at play in
the comic world (3), and that in Wasps the symposium takes on a “negative aspect” because of
Philocleon’s antisocial “solo komos.” However, it also functions as an ambiguous “locus of justice”
where certain people evade sanction, in contrast with the harsh lawcourts (8-11). The question seems
to be: which one is worse for the polis, or are they equally corrupt?
135
urns!”
144
Through his appropriation of the girl, he comes closest to achieving complete
youthfulness; only “his limp and withered phallus…betrays the bitter reality” of his
situation, which he himself points out.
145
He tells her to “grab hold of this rope” (i.e., his
phallus), presumably for use as a handrail on the step(s) leading up to his house, but then
he warns her that it is “worn out” ( l. 1343, saprÚn).
146
Philocleon and the girl’s emplacement on the threshold of the door reiterates in
spatial terms what has already been alluded to verbally – that women, like the maid and
the daughter, function as social, economic and sexual passageways that can and should
be utilized and exploited by men. Before this moment, Philocleon only wanted to get out
of the house (both his own and that of the symposium), and he has now managed to do
so; but now, with the appearance of the girl, all he wants is to get back in and have sex
with her. It appears that he has given up on recovering the political authority he thought
he had as a jurist, and has set about restoring himself to power within his home literally
by way of the girl. Perhaps this is why, in his attempts to persuade her, he does
something quite strange for an Aristophanic hero: he offers to buy her freedom and make
her his concubine (pallakÆ, l. 1353), once he regains control of his property from his
son.
147
His youthful state conveys the sense that he is unmarried, while the fact that he
actually is married is irrelevant, as it has been throughout the play and as it was in many
144
I take the neuter plural article tãde, translated as “this,” to be referring to the breasts of Dardanis.
145
Henderson 1975, 82.
146
He says “énãbaine deËro” (l. 1342), which may be taken as an indication that the actor playing
the girl is to step up onto the stage platform from the orchestra and move towards the door of the
skene.
147
This is the only appearance of the word pallakÆ in the extant Aristophanic corpus. Note also
that, with the money recuperated from his dead son, Philocleon would be able to acquire the property
of another man, the pimp who owns the girl, and thereby use her to add to his own economic status as
well. See line 1354: “As it is, I don’t control my own property.”
136
real concubinal arrangements. Whatever the case, the union he does propose is a legally
recognized, though ambiguously defined one – in other words, a liminal one, which is
similar and therefore suitable to the place where he proposes it.
It should be noted that this somewhat more considerate offer of Philocleon’s was
preceded by his assertion that she was obliged to him. By stealing her away, he claims,
he rescued her from the symposiasts. He then goes on to demand that she perform the
same service for him that she was hired for – fellatio – as a reward (l. 1346). However,
before she can do or say anything in response to this, he undercuts her by ventriloquizing
her, saying, “But no, you won’t pay up, you won’t come through, I know it. You’ll trick
me and laugh open-mouthed at it” (ll. 1348-9). The circularity of his argument is
consistent with the circular dynamic of the play, and the frustration that results from this
impasse is here directed toward the woman and her body. Philocleon imparts to her his
own qualities of defiance, deception and destructiveness, and thereby makes her the “bad
girl” (l. 1351, kakØ nun‹ gunÆ) who has “done the same to lots of other men,” which
justifies his claims all the more. This textbook example of scapegoating not only serves
to unite men against this maligned female, but, by reversing the relationship between the
prostitute and her client so it is she who owes him, it also prefigures Philocleon and
Bdelycleon’s imminent reversal of roles as father and son.
Bdelycleon arrives in time to prevent the pair’s entry into the house, but not
before Philocleon contrives to disguise the girl as a torch, telling her to stand still and to
hold the torch he has given her (ll. 1360-1). Bdelycleon easily sees through the silly
charade, and identifies the girl as Dardanis, whose name signifies her slave status, and
means “girl from Dardania” in the Troad. While it recalls the word dñw, or “torch,” and
137
its reduplicative forms, and thus facilitates her assimilation to this object, it is significant
that she does not function merely as a personification, contrary to what Lauren Taaffe
argues.
148
She is, in fact, the most human-identified of all the young women who are
presented in erotic terms at the end of Aristophanes’ plays, and this contributes to both
father and son’s perception of her as an “easy conquest,” not unlike the overpowered
bread-woman mentioned at the outset of the play. Her subjugation is supposed to restore
Philocleon’s sense of accomplishment and superiority, and therefore his sense of self;
however, her reaction, which is also unusual for an Aristophanic heroine, indicates that
even the playwright had doubts about whether such a quick fix would truly resolve the
dramatic conflict and set Philocleon aright. This may be read on another interpretive
level as an admission that the continued acquisition of enslaved women, usually as a
result of the wholesale extermination of enemy male populations, would not suffice as a
remedy for the city, as it would neither restore the security of the oikos, nor that of the
state.
Dardanis eventually manages to run away, and she thus succeeds in withstanding
father and son’s joint effort to at once objectify her and reduce her to a set of erogenous
zones.
149
Their actions seem inspired by the practices and attitudes that govern the
Athenian imperial program, and it is only through her escape that Dardanis is able to
take back her confiscated body and “redefine its territories in an open-ended
manner…which does not adhere to the masculinist imperative of regionalization.”
150
148
Taaffe 1993, 37.
149
At lines 1373-8, attention is drawn to her “cleavage” (§sxism°nhn), her pubis (“this dark patch in
the middle”), as well as her “ass” (prvktÒw).
150
Cixous 1976, 316.
138
With this, Philocleon’s feeble attempt to convince Bdelycleon that she is a torch ends in
failure. He thereupon redirects his aggressive impulses back toward his son, just as he
did previously when he knocked Bdelycleon down for trying to take Dardanis away.
151
Since there has been no change in the attitude or behavior of either of these men, the
appropriately fiery figure of Dardanis can do nothing except return them to the
interminable cycle of violence in which they found themselves at the beginning of the
play. Philocleon basically affirms as much when, after punching Bdelycleon, he repeats
the story of the wrestling match which he was told to recite at the party as a means of
avoiding responsibility for his actions (ll. 1382-6).
Just after this struggle, Dardanis is immediately replaced by her ideological
antithesis and stock comic rival, the breadwoman Myrtia, an old hag who enters with a
chaperone and insists on being compensated for the beating and damages she has
suffered at the hands of Philocleon. He attempts to sidetrack her with storytelling, just as
he was told to, but only succeeds in insulting her further by calling her a “bitch” (ll.
1402-3). She indicates her citizen status, and threatens to summon him before the
marketplace commissioners.
152
In so doing, she recalls the triremes of Knights, and her
exercise of agency is both noteworthy – it is the only evidence for a woman’s ability to
serve a summons – and ironic, insofar as she intends to utilize the very legal system
151
Bdelycleon does this not because he wants to protect her, but because he is convinced of his
father’s impotence (l. 1380). Previous to this, Philocleon tells his son she is “a torch in the
marketplace burning for the gods” (l. 1372). Sommerstein believes there has been a momentary
change in venue (1983, 239 v. 1372); however, I would argue that this is more of a hastily crafted
falsehood, put into the mouth of Philocleon in order to exaggerate his desperation and undermine his
plans.
152
Both Taaffe (1993, 37) and Sommerstein (1983, 240 v. 1397) point out that the man she identifies
as her father, Ancylion, was a comic figure known for beating or mistreating his mother. While this
may undercut her credibility, it does not completely overshadow the scene as a whole; there is still
some merit to her claims, which are also supported by those of the accuser who appears after her.
139
which Philocleon had previously depended upon for his well-being, but now refuses to
acknowledge. Her indignation is short-lived, however, as she and her chaperone are
made to walk off and leave it at that, while Philocleon yells after them, impugning the
masculinity of her chaperone by comparing his pale complexion to that of Ino, and
therefore casting doubt on his ability to testify on Myrtia’s behalf (ll. 1412-4).
The misogyny of this scene is blatant and unmistakable; it derives from the ever-
increasing anger that accompanies Philocleon’s realization of his lack of power and his
thwarted efforts to deny it. There is also a further element of scapegoating, which spills
over from his previous failed interaction with Dardanis, and for which it seems Myrtia is
an appropriate receptacle. In the transference from pretty young girl to ugly old woman,
we are able to see the relative social value of each group from the dominant male
perspective, but there is more: because these women are set in contrast to one another,
they end up being understood according to the same coercive masculine paradigms of
rivalry and conflict that govern the relationship between father and son, and men more
generally, both in the play and in reality.
153
This portrayal of women as divided
designates them as nothing more than male impersonators, and this serves to legitimize
and reinstantiate the masculinist status quo.
After another accuser arrives and charges Philocleon with hubris, Bdelycleon
finally involves himself and offers to pay the man off; he is then finally compelled to
carry his father back into the house (l. 1443). The chorus members appear and sing
preposterously of envying Philocleon’s fortune and of Bdelycleon’s gentle nature (l.
153
This pitting of old woman against young woman will occur again in an extended form at the end of
Ecclesiazusae (c. 392 BCE).
140
1467, égan“) and his convincing arguments, which they appear to have accepted
without critique. Nearly all modern commentators remark on the extreme lack of
development that characterizes this play. Niall Slater notes, “at this point the play seems
to have gotten precisely nowhere,” while Bowie observes, “all in all, it is striking how
little…Bdelycleon’s efforts actually achieve in the end.”
154
While the sense of
disappointment expressed here is well-founded, it is my contention that the reasons for it
have not been given as complete a consideration as they deserve. No one has yet gone
far enough in emphasizing that the circularity of Wasps is predicated upon a crisis of
dysfunctional masculinity, which is intimately tied to the military and political situation
in which Athens finds itself, and which is reflected dramatically in the breakdown of
discrete social spaces. As was the case in Knights, so here again: the concept of the
political must be altered so that the social order may become intelligible once again. In
Wasps, this seems to mean that men must find a way to incorporate the oikos and its
excluded inhabitants usefully, rather then ignore them or make of them as yet another set
of enemies in hostile territory. Otherwise the polis begins to take on the characteristics of
a battlefield rather than a city, outside and inside are unable to be distinguished, and the
treatment of all women accords more with the dictates of war and enslavement rather
than those of citizenship and familial obligation.
The play closes with Philocleon’s transgressive emergence from the house,
which can no longer contain him (l. 1484, “Let these gates be unbolted!”), and with a
unique scene featuring him dancing in a frenzied and aggressive manner that does not
accord well with his aged body. Xanthias compares his opening moves (l. 1485,
154
Slater 2002, 105; Bowie 1993, 101.
141
sxÆmatow érxØ) to the onset of madness (l. 1486, man¤aw érxØ), which returns us
yet again to the beginning of the play. The dancing rapidly turns competitive, as
Philocleon offers an open challenge to all audience members, especially tragic
performers (l. 1498). At this point the “sons of Carcinus” appear dressed as crabs and
they perform some kind of vigorous spiraling dance while the chorus sings its final
ode.
155
All exeunt in this way, which, as the chorus points out in the final lines, is a
novelty for the comic stage: “Now lead us out of here dancing, if you please, and
quickly; for no one has ever done this before, to take a comic chorus off in dance” (ll.
1535-8).
What is to be made of this boastful and spirited conclusion? It certainly connotes
celebration, triumph and freedom, as the ending of a comedy tends to do. Some scholars
have interpreted it positively on this basis, as a confirmation of the primitive power of
Dionysus, or as an enactment of ephebic renewal.
156
I do not doubt that these were the
sentiments that the end of Wasps was meant to convey, but I also believe it is important
to consider some of the features which make this a less than desirable outcome.
Philocleon’s dancing, as he describes it (ll. 1487-9, 1490-5), is a pyrrhic or a military-
inspired form of movement, which operates as a substitute for the fighting that has gone
on throughout the play.
157
His challenge to the audience expands the competitive
circularity of the play so that it includes the audience, in particular, the boys and young
men, who are represented on stage by the crab brothers. This is not simply an instructive
155
As Henderson notes (1998, 410 n. 114), it is unclear whether these performers were the real sons
of Carcinus, the tragic dramatist, whose name means “crab,” though Sommerstein (1983, 246 v. 1501)
argues that it was unlikely, given that Aristophanes had ridiculed their father in Clouds (ll. 1260-1)
the previous year.
156
These are the interpretations of Slater (2002, 111); Reckford (1987, 278); and Bowie (1993, 97).
157
For an in-depth analysis of the dance and the dancers, see Borthwick 1968.
142
example of male cultural reproduction in action at Athens, or a momentary fantasy of
male unity dramatically enacted; it is also an affirmation of the city’s traditional martial
values, and an acquiescence in the city’s decision to stay the course, both in the war and
“at home.” When Philocleon joins the chorus on their way out (presumably to go back to
the courts?), he physically performs what cannot be admitted openly: that fundamental
change, either of person or social institution, is not achievable, especially at this time.
Slater follows Bernhard Zimmermann in believing that this was probably not the
first time a play had ended in this way, and that Philocleon’s joining the chorus was the
true innovation.
158
This may explain his mention of it, but Aristophanes’ decision to play
up this innovation last of all betokens a desire on his part to resist and undermine the
vicious circle of sameness that has paralyzed the city. This final attempt to educate his
audience and reform their nature by example comes too late, and in the end even a
fantastical comic solution is not put forward by the playwright, as it is in other plays (cf.
the creation of a new city in Birds, the burning of the school in Clouds). The only
alternative proposed here to the common man is madness and continued belligerence.
Reckford sums up the situation succinctly: “The old man is mad, and Athens is mad, and
nothing can be done about it.”
159
Aristophanes succeeds in depicting this breakdown of
the political apparatus of the state and of the identities of its male citizens in spatial
terms, particularly in his presentation of the oikos as a combat zone, and, in so doing, he
paints a vivid picture of the historical moment. However, it is my contention that he is
precluded from envisioning a more viable, even if outlandish, way out of this civic crisis
158
Slater (2002, 277 n. 100) cites Zimmerman 1985, 83.
159
Reckford 1987, 277.
143
because he, like his fellow citizens, has yet to acknowledge the importance of women in
regulating difference and preventing stasis among men. He has not yet found a way to
incorporate their voices effectively in the arena of comic discourse, and he has not yet
exploited their rich potential as comic agents in their own right, as he will in later plays.
The defiant figures of Dardanis and Myrtia look forward to this change, and their
characterization suggests that dominant Athenian perceptions of femininity were
beginning to lack coherence and lose their relevance at this time. But by and large, the
feminine in Wasps remains a space of contestation in the male characters’ ever-
expanding power struggles, and women’s bodies continue to be understood according to
the patriarchal paradigm, which posits them as property or territory to be conquered and
occupied.
The events which occurred after this play’s production testify to comedy’s
limited ability to generate social change in general, and to the failure of this play in
particular to offer any kind of alternate path. The summer of 422 BCE sees Athens
expelling the citizens of Delos again, in order to perform a second purification of the
island, as it was thought that the pollution of “some old offence” still remained there.
160
Perhaps even more telling, the revolt of Scione after the one-year truce prompted the
Athenians to send Cleon out again, as they had at Pylos, in the guise of a military
commander, in order to halt the frightening progress that Brasidas had been making in
160
On this “redo” purification, see Thuc. 5.1. This was undertaken even though the island had been
purified and the Delian Games reinstated only four years earlier (in 426/5 BCE; see Thuc. 3.104).
Note that the Delians were only restored to the island once Athens was “moved by its misfortunes in
the field and by the commands of the god at Delphi” (Thuc. 5.32).
144
the north for the previous two years, since his capture of Amphipolis.
161
Only the
unexpected and cataclysmic deaths of Brasidas and Cleon at Amphipolis that summer
cut short the seemingly incessant cycle of violence, and peace negotiations were finally
able to be undertaken in earnest by new leaders that winter. This momentary pause also
occasioned the production of the play Peace by Aristophanes in 421, but, as we will see,
despite its celebratory tone, and despite the relaxed atmosphere at Athens at this time,
the citizens were not actually done with the war: even after the peace, they enacted the
resolution brought by Cleon two years earlier to destroy the city of Scione, killing the
men and enslaving the women and children there.
162
Needless to say, this did not bode
well for a lasting reconciliation, and there were several other factors on the Spartan side
which would eventually reduce this fifty-year truce to one that lasted barely seven.
However, before we consider the play Peace and its historical contexts in more detail,
we must take a detour and examine the curiously influential role of female characters in
the play Clouds.
161
On the decision to send Cleon to the north, see Thuc. 5.2. On Brasidas’ accomplishments in the
north since the taking of Amphipolis, see Thuc. 4.107-16; 4.120-33.
162
On the destruction of Scione, see Thuc. 5.32. On the terms of the peace treaty of 421 BCE, see
Thuc. 5.18-26. On the deaths of Cleon and Brasidas, see Thuc. 5.10.
145
CHAPTER FOUR
NO MAN’S LAND
The Curious Case of Clouds
Men have conceived of themselves as self-made, and in disavowing this maternal debt,
have left themselves, and women, in dereliction, homelessness.
-- Elizabeth Grosz, Space, Time and Perversion (1995)
Though this play was originally performed in 423 BCE at the City Dionysia, and
was produced previous to Wasps, I have chosen to delay in considering it until now
because of its special status as a play that has undergone revision after its original
performance. As is well known, Clouds received third prize at the festival, and was
considered something of a failure by its audience.
1
At some point after this, most
probably between 420 and 417, Aristophanes altered the play, though both the manner
and extent of his revision, as well as its state of completeness and performability, are all
topics that continue to be debated today.
2
It is not my intention to weigh in at length on
1
It lost to Cratinus’ Wineflask and Ameipsias’ Konnos, which dealt with similar subject matter as
Clouds, even featuring Socrates as a character. See the fragments in Edmonds (pp. 481-2), and
Dover’s discussion of their overlap (1968, 1-2).
2
A bibliography of the scholarship concerned with the two versions of Clouds is provided in The
Rivals of Aristophanes (2000, 542-3). The argument for two versions is set out by Dover (1968, lxxx-
xcviii) and again by Hubbard 1986. O’Regan (1992, 135) summarizes the fragments of the first
version (cf. PCG 3.2, pp. 214-9), while Tarrant 1991 attempts to reconstruct it. The dating of the
revision is a more contentious topic. Dover posits 420-417 BCE, while Hubbard argues for 419 as the
terminus post quem. Bianchetti 1979 argues for 417 BCE because of the references to Hyperbolus.
More recently, Kopff 1990 has argued that it was revised “no earlier than the second half of the 410s”
(322), probably 414. He views it as a response of “I-told-you-so” to the desecration of the Herms
(327). This has been rebutted by both Storey 1993 and Henderson 1993b, who seek to restore the
traditional dates. Regarding the extent of revision, there seems to be a consensus that accords with the
fourth hypothesis of the play, which states that changes were made to the parabasis, the agon and the
exodos; it is difficult, however, to say how much they differ from their original state. It should be
noted that other minor changes may also appear throughout. Finally, there is the debate over whether
or not the revisions are complete or incomplete. Most scholars view them as unfinished (e.g., Dover
1968, lxxiv, xcii-xcviii; Whitman 1964, 123, 137; Russo 1994, 150-60; Storey 1993, 81; Hubbard
1986, 196; and MacDowell 1995, 135, 148) and therefore believe that the play was not re-performed,
or that it was not meant to be (cf. Rosen (1997, 401), who concludes it was a text explicitly for
reading). Contra, see Fisher 1984 and Fabrini 1975-6. In a slightly different vein, Reckford (1987,
146
these debates here; I have considered the range of hypotheses adduced by previous
scholars and I am satisfied with the rough outline they are able to offer regarding the
circumstances of this process. I do tend to agree that, whatever the extent and aim of
Aristophanes’ revision, it was probably not performed. However, given the evidentiary
limits, I acknowledge that the exact truth of the situation will most likely never be
known.
This view does not prevent us from reading and interpreting the play as we have
it. In fact, its uniqueness as a textual artifact that preserves distinct moments of hope,
loss and self-reflection as they were experienced by the characters, author and, indirectly
perhaps, by the audience, makes it all the more alluring to the academic gaze. In recent
years, this gaze has taken on a more postmodern cast, and accordingly, Clouds has been
understood as a mosaic or hybrid, and as exhibiting all of the slippages, ruptures and
gaps that typically mark a palimpsestic text.
3
Perhaps more to the point, it has been
viewed as “a narrative in which the history of its performance intersects with its thematic
preoccupations.”
4
While approaching the play from a standpoint informed by
postmodernism may be perceived as anachronistic, it turns out that these thematic
preoccupations to which Peter Euben refers – with democratic education, moral
393-4) believes that the play is mostly identical with the first version and that a second performance
was “not granted.”
3
This point of view is expressed by Euben (1996, 887), whose concern is with democratic education
in Clouds, though he does not invoke postmodernism. The work of O’Regan (1992, esp. Chapter 5),
which investigates the relationship between language and violence (and their interchangeability) in
the play, and Marianetti (1992, 1-2, with table), which examines the play from a mytho-religious
perspective, both provide structuralist interpretations of Clouds, but at times they go beyond their
frameworks and undertake critical literary analyses that are informed by postmodern theory. In this
chapter, I will be engaging with and developing some of the lines of inquiry that are pursued in these
works, especially as they pertain to the conflicted spatial representation of gender difference in the
play.
4
Euben 1996, 887
147
relativism, and the relationship between representation and reality, knowledge and
power, language and violence – are the fifth-century version of the postmodern concerns
of our time. Theodor Adorno’s reflections on the cultural legacy of fascism, for example,
echo the sentiments expressed by Aristophanes in Clouds 2,500 years earlier:
Only the absolute lie still has the freedom to say anything of the truth. The
confusion of truth with lies, which makes it nearly impossible to maintain
the difference between the two, and which makes holding on to the
simplest cognition a labor of Sisyphus, announces the victory of the
[fascist] principle in logical organization, even though its military basis has
been crushed. Lies have long legs: they are ahead of their time.
5
It is because of these precedents and preoccupations that I am encouraged to take
this analytical mode a step further and submit the play to a specifically feminist and
socio-spatial analysis. When considered from this critical perspective, Clouds is revealed
to have much to say with respect to the ideas with which this study is concerned – the
impossible place of femininity within the Athenian civic sphere, the comic use of
women as scapegoats and sexual objects, and the violence and misogyny that both
inform and result from these circumstances, and reify hegemonic masculinity. But, what
is more, as something of a dramatic failure itself, Clouds helps us to better understand
the concomitant political and cultural failures that were occurring in Athenian society at
this time. Much of the scholarly interest that this play has generated over the years seems
to be motivated by this very question – why was Aristophanes’ failure and revision
necessary at this historical moment? It is my aim in what follows to contribute to this
discussion, and to introduce some new considerations that may illuminate and
reinvigorate the debate. I intend to argue that the play’s representations of female
5
1984, 108. On relativism in fifth-century Athens, see Guthrie 1971, 164-75.
148
characters, which were unlike any previously portrayed on the Aristophanic stage,
figured decisively into its lack of success. In order to answer the questions “why?” and
“how?” that this claim inevitably provokes, it will be necessary to survey the dramatic
path of Clouds (along with its revisional detours), and the gendered spatial dynamics that
inform it.
Before turning to the play itself, however, we must take into account the larger
historical milieu in which the first version of the play was conceived, produced and
received. The play’s performance at the City Dionysia coincided almost exactly with the
signing of a one-year treaty by Sparta and Athens.
6
This armistice subsequently failed
because of Scione’s revolt from Athens, which happened only a few weeks, if not days,
after the signing, before the Scionaeans had received news of the truce.
7
The year
previous to this had not been a good one for the Athenian military, at least not according
to Thucydides, who chronicles the many successful rebellions that the Spartan general
Brasidas had brought about among cities subject to Athenian rule, including Scione.
These included Megara, Acanthus, Amphipolis and Torone, along with several smaller
cities, mostly in Chalcidice and Thrace.
8
Also, during this time Athens experienced other
losses, at Pontus, and especially at Delium, where the hoplites suffered heavy casualties
at the hands of the Boeotians, and where Socrates was said to have shown heroic bravery
6
See Thuc. 4.118, where he sets out the terms of the treaty. Note especially point number 12, which
states that the armistice was to begin on the 14
th
day of the month of Elaphebolion, according to the
Athenian calendar. Although it is not known exactly what day the comedies were performed, we do
know that the festival typically took place on the 10
th
through the 14
th
of this month. See Seaford
1996, s.v. “Dionysia,” as well as Bruit-Zaidman and Schmitt-Pantel (1992, 103).
7
Thuc. 4.120-2.
8
Megara = Thuc. 4.71-4; Acanthus = Thuc. 4.84-8; Amphipolis = Thuc. 4.102-8; Torone = Thuc.
4.110-6.
149
in the retreat.
9
Even if Thucydides’ narrative is not accurate on every point, the general
picture it presents is not a positive one for Athens, and the explanation he offers for why
an armistice was desired at this point seems plausible.
10
In fact, he goes so far as to
conjecture that both sides were disposed to sue for a general peace. Now in the ninth
year of war, it seems that nearly all the hostile parties were growing weary of fighting,
and Athens in particular had lost some of its aggressive momentum.
It was in this climate of fatigue and disenchantment that Aristophanes conceived
of his “self-aware” and “pessimistic” Clouds, which seems, on first glance, to have
nothing to do with the war.
11
In the play as we have it, a rustic father, Strepsiades, seeks
to avoid paying the debts his urbane son has racked up by fast-talking his way out of
them. Actually, he wants his son, Pheidippides, to learn this skill for him at the
“Thinkery,” a school that is run by Socrates. When he refuses to go, Strepsiades enrolls
himself. After becoming acquainted with the ways of the school and its patron deities,
the clouds, he reveals himself to be too dim-witted to achieve his goal. An argument is
then staged between the personified Better and Worse Arguments, which the Worse ends
up winning.
12
Pheidippides then becomes the student of this victor, and while his father
does manage to temporarily outwit and defraud his creditors, it turns out that his son is
also a quick study, who is able to justify all sorts of bad behavior, including physically
9
See Plato, Laches 181b and Symposium 221a on Socrates’ exploits. Thucydides discusses Pontus at
4.75 and Delium at 4.90-101.
10
Thuc. 4.117.
11
See Nussbaum (1980, 78-9, 95) on the play’s negative tenor. O’Regan (1993, 6-7) makes an
argument for the play’s lack of engagement with the war that I find too dismissive. In contrast,
Marianetti (1993, 4-5) argues for a more politicized reading that explains the play’s preoccupation
with social change in the religious and educational spheres by taking into account the broader state of
affairs both without and within the city at this time.
12
The appearance of the Arguments is from the second version; but regardless, there was some kind
of agon featured at this point in the original.
150
assaulting his parents, with the skills in sophistic argumentation that he has acquired.
When Strepsiades realizes the harmful consequences that such an education has had for
his son, he grows enraged and ends the play by setting the “Thinkery” on fire.
13
This play is focused and oriented inwards; its plot is driven by the self-serving
concerns of one man, and his devil-may-care (or “think nothing shameful”) attitude
toward getting what he wants and preserving his property (i.e., his oikos).
14
His attitude
is matched by Socrates and those affiliated with the Thinkery, who are unconcerned with
outward appearances and with the external social world in general (cf. lines 103, 186).
They live and work in the school (ll. 198-9), which is likened to a tomb or cave, and is
affiliated with the underworld at line 508. The students also direct their attention toward
earthly minutiae. In their first appearance, they peer intently at the ground, “scrutinizing
the murkiness below Tartarus” (l. 192). This isolation from and insensitivity to the cares
of the outside world, even those of the city, pervades the narrative, and is reflected in the
specific spatial arrangements which both the imaginary action and the necessities of
staging require.
With respect to the first of these, it appears that the only locales existing in the
nebulous conceptual space of the play are Strepsiades’ house and the Thinkery. In
contrast with Knights and Wasps, there are no direct representations of or references to
13
This is the revised ending; what happened in the original is unclear, though it is widely assumed
that Strepsiades somehow triumphed over both his creditors and Socrates. Kopff 1977 goes as far as
to argue that Strepsiades murders Socrates and his pupils in the revised ending. This is countered,
however, by Davies 1990.
14
Both MacDowell (1995, 117) and Dover (1972, 112) comment on Strepsiades’ selfish and
antiheroic pursuit of wrong in comparison with other Aristophanic protagonists. This trait appears to
be hereditary, as it is also exhibited by Strepsiades’ son, who has created the situation upon which the
plot depends by living lavishly and beyond his means. The phrase “think nothing shameful” is spoken
by Worse Argument at line 1078, and sums up the argument presented by him successfully in the
agon.
151
other Athenian civic spaces, and furthermore, the previous concern there was for
distinguishing between urban and rural space is not as prevalent here. Strepsiades is thus
able to say, “I live way out in the country,” when he knocks on the door of the school at
line 138, even though he can see the school, which is presumably somewhere in the city,
from his house. A. M. Bowie considers this a “contradiction” and concludes from it,
“Town and country are juxtaposed not only in the text but also in the theatrical space.”
15
I would argue that this is a halfhearted juxtaposition at best; the point seems to be that
the distance, and by extension, the difference between the two locales is not that
important.
16
In fact, the only time that the rural and urban divide is strongly and
decisively articulated is when Strepsiades is discussing his wife – a point I will return to
momentarily. Bowie himself seems to acknowledge this lack of distinction when he
describes Strepsiades as an ambiguous figure, not easily categorized, who exhibits both
urban and rural characteristics.
17
The high degree of openness and fluidity in Clouds’ presentation of comic space
has created problems for scholars attempting to reconstruct how the play might have
actually been staged. Kenneth Dover reviews the problem in detail in his commentary,
and sums up his conclusions in his monograph on Aristophanes.
18
The issue is present at
the outset of the play, when Strepsiades and Pheidippides are portrayed as asleep in their
15
1993, 108.
16
Sommerstein (1982, 167 v. 138) considers the various possibilities at play here and concludes, “We
must suppose that for the purposes of the play the physical distance between Athens and Cicynna is
simply ignored.”
17
1993, 104.
18
1968, lxxiii-lxxvi; 1972, 106-8.
152
beds inside the house, even though they are situated in front of the skene.
19
This much
may be easy to overlook, given that the organization of ancient theatrical space relied
upon the transposition of inside and outside space, which not only complemented
drama’s Dionysiac qualities of reversal, paradox and replication, but also addressed the
practical issues involved in viewing interior scenes by bringing them outside.
20
But
Aristophanes takes this spatial shuffling a step further in the next scene, in which the
pupils come out of the Thinkery so that they may be seen at work by both Strepsiades
and the audience for a mere eleven lines (ll. 184-99).
Dover proposed that a moveable screen may have been used here to represent the
façade of the school, at which Strepsiades first knocks and through which the Student
first comes onto the stage. It was to be removed when the rest of the students come out
for their short pantomime, and they would finally exit the stage through the real door of
the skene. He sums up the dramaturgic convolutions that are occurring here, stating,
“Somehow what was presented to us at 184 as an interior scene has become an exterior
scene eleven lines later, and the door which was opened to admit Strepsiades at 183f. is a
door which he has still to enter at 509.”
21
Whether one agrees with his somewhat novel
reconstruction, or with Jeffrey Henderson, who believes that the ekkyklema was used
here, what is significant is that the scene requires a double distortion of the typical
composition of the Athenian stage, which allows the imagined space to evade any clear
19
Sommerstein (1982, 163 v. 91) suggests alternatively that father and son were asleep on the
ekkyklema, which would have been rolled in by the slaves that were present once the men had awoken
and gotten out of bed.
20
On the spatial dynamics informing the dramatic transposition of inside and outside, and the
gendered implications thereof, see Padel 1990 and 1992 (on Athenian drama in particular), and more
generally, Scolnicov 1994 (esp. Chapter Two). See also Dale 1969.
21
1972, 107.
153
designation.
22
It is my intent to illuminate, by examining more closely the
(non)appearance, emplacement and treatment of female characters in the play, how this
slippage between interior and exterior space, and how spatial indistinguishability in
general, is central to Clouds. I also hope to show that this fictional state of affairs finds
its cultural referent in the precarious military and political position occupied by Athens
at this time.
It may seem that the spatial imprecision and ambiguity that characterize Clouds
correspond to a more general lack of concern with the political and military issues facing
the city, since so often these issues centered on the policing and preservation of
boundaries, both the physical ones of city and empire, and the conceptual ones which
constituted Athenian identity. And yet, the disintegration of spatial difference presented
herein may also be read as symptomatic of, or resulting from, the worsening military
situation and continued political upheaval in the city. Aristophanes decided to put
something different on the stage than he had in previous years, and while we may only
speculate on his reasons for doing so (e.g. novelty, boredom, frustration – the citizenry
had, after all, voted Cleon general again after Knights), it is clear that he sought (and
found) a new comic target in Socrates and the sophists which seemed distant and
unrelated to the ever-present theme of the war. But his retreat to the hazy and ill-defined
realm of ideas proved unsuccessful, as the volatility and anxiety engendered by the war
continued to shape and inform this play.
It rapidly becomes evident in Clouds that, in spite of their portrayal as the new
enemies within, the sophists and their rhetorical trickery pose less of a threat to Athenian
22
Henderson 1998, 31. Dover (1972, 25; 107) argues explicitly against the use of the ekkyklema.
154
social order than they are given credit for. Instead, what is revealed is that the comic
everyman, in the figure of Strepsiades, has become his own worst enemy: he has
internalized the military and political conflicts of the city to the point that he is at war
with himself.
23
His public identity as a citizen male has been compromised by his
rusticity and lack of political ability or clout, while his private authority as a father and
head of household has waned in the face of his family’s urbanization. In other words, he
has been rendered powerless and placeless, and in response, he naturally grows fearful
and angry. In order to regain his foothold, Strepsiades takes up a strategy at first that is
similar to that of Dicaeopolis in Acharnians, and tries to reinstate the traditional
dichotomies that structure and regulate society: urban/rural, culture/nature, man/woman,
rich/poor, and young/old. But, in this case, the war’s destabilizing influence has grown
too pervasive, and only too late does Strepsiades realize that this influence has
confounded these once distinct categories to the point that they have become largely
meaningless.
The socio-spatial collapse that has been charted throughout the previous chapters
is here finally complete, and it is reflected clearly in the contradictory role played by
both the rural oikos and the Thinkery in the play. Strepsiades tries to claim each of these
spaces as his independent and rightful domain, but his efforts on both counts fail,
23
The idea is well-expressed by the name of the protagonist, Strepsiades, which derives from the verb
str°fein, meaning “to twist or turn.” This is what the audience first encounters him doing in his bed,
and although his agitation is related to the debts he owes, it seems that its significance can be
construed in more general terms as the play progresses. Euben suggests as much when he
characterizes Strepsiades as a product of Athens’ restless imperial attitude and policy, which
eschewed the agricultural traditions in which it was “grounded,” and made every land and sea the
highway of its daring (so Pericles at Thuc. 1.70-2). He concludes, “The restlessness that the
Corinthians [in Thucydides] define as a[n Athenian] cultural trait we see played out on the smaller
stage of everyday life in the twitching bodily movements of Strepsiades” (1996, 889).
155
because neither of these places truly stands outside of the polis. The home has already
been subsumed into the public realm; it has been divested of its former status as a site of
peace or refuge, and is now just another conflict-ridden problem area. It is Strepsiades’
desire to restore his home to its former status and to regain control of it that, ironically,
compels him to take up a new residence in the ambiguous, in-between place that is
Socrates’ school, the Thinkery. Like the oikos, the Thinkery also has the appearance of
being a natural sanctuary, but its detachment from the war-torn world outside is nothing
but an illusion. It turns out to be yet another politicized venue where, through the
practice of rhetorical warfare, men like Strepsiades and his son may participate in, and
thereby perpetuate, the conflicts consuming Athens at this time. And this is precisely
what each of them does at the end of the play: Pheidippides directs his hostility back
toward the oikos, while Strepsiades takes out his aggression on the Thinkery itself.
As might be expected, Aristophanes articulates the shifting and contradictory
position of both the oikos and the Thinkery in strongly gendered terms, which emphasize
the negative impact their instability has on Athenian society, and on Athenian men in
particular. Right away we are presented with the image of Strepsiades’ wife, who favors
life in the city and who comes and goes from the home as she pleases, in contrast with
her husband. Her alienation from the domestic sphere and his relegation to it signal the
extent of his powerlessness, as well as the extent to which the oikos had itself been
urbanized and stripped of its feminine associations. Strepsiades encounters a similar
situation at the Thinkery, which is populated with male inhabitants, including Socrates,
but which is nonetheless affiliated with the female cloud chorus. The clouds have the
power to change shape and, like Strepsiades’ wife, they also have the freedom to come
156
and go. Their ephemeral quality reflects their changing position as natural entities who
have taken on a cultural role (i.e. promoting education in rhetoric). Both the chorus and
Strepsiades’ wife are thus depicted as having a large, and ultimately negative, influence
on the lives of men in their charge, despite their limited and/or non-appearance.
In Clouds, the clouds embody the indeterminate place of woman in Athenian
society, which, under the circumstances, had become a problem that could no longer be
ignored. They are imagined by the male characters as sources of aid and salvation, as
providing a way out of the chaos that had engulfed the city. But without their full
incorporation into the city, they remain unable to exert any real influence. Fear of their
enfranchisement ultimately wins out, and the clouds are not only unable to be admitted,
they are disdained as scare figures and blamed for the problems they were originally
invoked to resolve. In the end, their power proves to be no match for the disastrous fates
that the male characters have wrought for themselves. The destruction these men allude
to and engage in at the play’s end confirms their unwillingness or incapacity to change
their ways, despite the obvious and irreversible damage they have caused to their own
community and their own homes. It also demonstrates clearly that the frustration and
anger produced by this untenable state of affairs, in which men’s reliance upon and
rejection of the feminine are occurring simultaneously, only serves to perpetuate and
renew the cyclical violence which informed the play from its outset.
My reading of Clouds posits the play as sort of shattered mirror which reflected
back to Athens a distasteful image of itself, one that was hard to look at, distorted as it
was by the ugliness of the historical moment. It is a critical turning-point in both the city
and the poet’s confrontation with change – a simultaneous acknowledgement and denial
157
that change may have finally gotten the upper hand. For this reason, I refrain from
viewing the Aristophanes of Clouds as a sympathizer with conservative values and
traditions, or as a beleaguered but optimistic democratic educator, or as a festive derider
of a notable public figure, only eager to raise a laugh. My understanding in fact depends
upon my own inability and reluctance to position him at all. He is conflicted and in flux,
constantly shifting his point of view, like the cloud chorus itself; but he is also at times,
like Strepsiades, pursuing his own pleasure in humor, and sometimes, also like Socrates,
looking down on the ignorant.
24
To perceive him solely along any one line would be to
misunderstand and oversimplify – errors which all the main characters make repeatedly
throughout the play, and which, as it turns out, the audience and even the poet himself
could not accept.
As mentioned previously, the play begins with father and son asleep in bed in an
as-yet ambiguous space: they are outside their front door but conceptually inside the
house.
25
The father, Strepsiades, awakens and begins to lament his untenable position,
not on the stage but in his “real” life. He immediately, though somewhat unexpectedly,
curses the war (l. 6), because it has made him unable to punish his snoring slaves, for
fear that they might run away and take refuge in enemy territory.
26
This brief remark
24
Euben (1996, 905) comments on Aristophanes’ similarity to Socrates, while Bowie (1993, 132)
notes his affinity with both Socrates and Strepsiades.
25
Griffith (1993, 136) is keen to point out that husbands and wives regularly slept in separate quarters
(“this arrangement is normal for Athenians of his [i.e. Strepsiades’] bourgeois social-class”). He
presents the literary evidence for this, though I think he overstates his case somewhat, as one has only
to look at lines 44-9 for an example to the contrary. Strepsiades there remarks, “When I married her I
climbed into bed with her (sugkateklinÒmhn) smelling of new wine, figs, fleeces, and abundance;
and she of perfume…”
26
So Sommerstein 1982, 159 v. 7.
158
clearly signals Strepsiades’ impotence within his own house from the start, and this
corresponds to an analogous lack of political power in the city, as is so often the case in
Aristophanes. And indeed, his lack of power remains the most prominent theme of this
scene; he describes at length his fraught relationship with his son, the main source of his
troubles, who has gotten him into debt with his horse-racing habits (ll. 12-35). He gets
out of bed and begins to reckon his accounts, explaining to his half-sleeping son how he
stands in jeopardy of losing his property to his creditors. This rapidly turns into a violent
diatribe against the matchmaker who set him up with his wife. He curses her, stating, “I
wish she’d died a terrible death” (ll. 41-55), then offers an explanation of how his
marriage has changed his life for the worse.
27
His complaint is dichotomized according
to the polarities of city and country: he ascribes the negative qualities of urban life to his
unnamed wife, while in contrast, he says, “mine was a very pleasant country life, moldy,
unswept, aimlessly leisured, abounding in honey bees, sheep, and olive cakes. Then I
married the niece of Megacles son of Megacles; I a rustic, she from town, haughty,
spoiled, thoroughly Coesyrized” (ll. 43-8).
28
His motives for characterizing his wife in
these terms will receive more attention in a moment; however, for now what is
significant is that by maligning both her and the matchmaker, Strepsiades succeeds at the
outset in assigning to them the blame for his own fate, while his son is conveniently
absolved of any responsibility since he is merely an extension of his mother. As we will
27
All translations are from Henderson (1998) with my occasional alterations, unless otherwise noted.
O’Regan (1992, 22-4) reads the matchmaker as a “proto-Sophist” who prefigures those whom
Strepsiades is about to encounter at the Thinkery. She points out how both she and Strepsiades’ wife
are skilled at manipulating language and at verbal persuasion, in particular for erotic ends, which
lends them the power to seduce him.
28
Coisyra was the foreign mother of Megacles. According to Sommerstein (1982, 161 v. 48), her
wealth and aristocratic arrogance were “proverbial.”
159
see, this incorrect identification of the source of his problems will lead to his adoption of
an equally inappropriate and ultimately ineffective solution to them.
It is perhaps no surprise that these women are nowhere to be seen in the play
(and are thus unable to defend themselves against Strepsiades’ accusations), but to
assume, as Robert Griffith does, that Strepsiades’ wife “is apparently at home” is, to my
mind, problematic since she has just been so strongly affiliated with the city.
29
As
Strepsiades himself goes on to say in describing her, she smells of “perfume, saffron,
tongue kisses, extravagance, gluttony,” and finally, “Colias and Genetyllis” (ll. 51-2).
Colias was a promontory just outside the city near Phalerum, where women went to
celebrate Aphrodite and the goddesses of childbirth known as the Genetyllides.
Aristophanes’ negative invocation of it here and elsewhere designate it as an Athenian
man’s erotic dystopia, where women’s behavior could not be policed or controlled.
30
It
also punningly recalls a slang term for the penis, kvl, or “meatbone.”
31
Rather than
conjure up an image of the good wife at home, then, Strepsiades’ geographic reference
places her far away from the house, busy with quasi-religious observances and, from his
perspective, engaged in some sort of illicit sexual activity. Alan Sommerstein contends
that this remark does not signify that she was actually “fond of travelling to attend
women’s festivals,” but that she was “oversexed,” though he doesn’t explain why.
32
I
would argue that the joke relies on the activation of both these meanings for its humor,
29
1993, 135.
30
The area is also mentioned at Lys. 2 and Thesm. 130.
31
See Henderson 1975, 20. Meineck (2000, 102 v. 52) also points out the pun.
32
1982, 162 v. 52
160
since a man who cannot control his wife’s movements cannot control her sexuality.
33
This will prove to be a recurring theme in Clouds.
Although Strepsiades appears to lament this state of affairs, it turns out that
things are equally bad when his wife is at home engaged in more traditional pursuits, as
their relationship remains unequal, and he remains unable to control her: “Still, I won’t
say she was lazy; she did used to weave, packing the threads close. I used to show her
my cloak as proof and say, ‘Woman, you weave too close!’” (ll. 53-5, trans.
Sommerstein and Henderson).
34
Henderson was the first to point out that this pun
implies not just wasteful extravagance on the part of his wife but also an exhaustive
sexual appetite.
35
This second joke reveals that Strepsiades’ wife is operating as a cipher
in his rhetorical ploy to garner sympathy from the audience, with all the importance to
his personal mathematics that a cipher has. Regardless of where she is, her overbearing
nature negatively influences his life. Paradoxically, then, it is through her absence that
she affects the dramatic action and paves the way for Strepsiades to hatch and execute
his plan.
Through his vivid characterization of his mismatched marriage, Strepsiades is
able to establish a pitiful identity for himself as a poor rural man. This is somewhat
disingenuous, however, because as it turns out, he is neither rural (the Spartan incursions
33
According to Strepsiades’ logic, his wife’s mobility is a threatening source of power. This notion,
that mobility is necessarily “transgressive, agency-driven and potentially empowering,” was as
common to ancient Athenian men as it is to the politicians and businessmen of today. See Worman
1997 on Helen, who was perhaps the most infamous embodiment of this principle in antiquity.
Feminist geographers have worked hard to redefine mobility in a manner that questions and contests
this masculinist understanding of it. See, for example, Silvey 2004 (just quoted), especially 5ff. and
the bibliography provided there.
34
The translation of Meineke (2000, 6), while less literal, is also worth citing: “I can’t say that she’s
lazy, not at all, she knew how to weave, if you know what I mean. In-out, in-out, she loved to poke
the thread!”
35
1975, 171-2.
161
had disallowed that possibility sometime ago), nor poverty-stricken (or at least not yet).
Sommerstein calls him a “prosperous mixed farmer” – one who can afford to own slaves
and horses, and who presumably had enough wealth to make him an attractive match in
the eyes of his wife’s aristocratic family.
36
The false economic disparity which
Strepsiades creates between himself and his wife endows her with an inordinate amount
of power over him, and renders him, conveniently, a victim of her influence. Yet, at the
same time, this is an intensely humiliating position for him precisely because she is a
woman. He therefore has “no choice” but to assert his dominance along specifically
gendered lines, which, in this instance, takes the only form it can when its intended
object is absent – that of misogynistic insult and sexual invective. Even though the entire
premise upon which Strepsiades’ reasoning lies is flawed, it does not keep him from
blaming her for his problems, rather than the larger social and political circumstances
that determine his own.
In this scene, Strepsiades is not simply expressing nostalgia for the good old
days of rustic bachelorhood, when one could still live freely outside the city walls. He is
attempting to restore order and regain power by invoking the traditional oppositions that
structure Athenian society and figure so prominently in its comedy: man/woman,
urban/rural, wealth/poverty. But, in his application of these dichotomies to his own life,
there is a strange and important twist – every expected value is reversed. Strepsiades is
the one at home in the country, while his wife is out and about town; she is the rich one,
while he is poor; and what is most unexpected of all, he aligns himself with nature and
36
1982, 161 v. 45. Interestingly, Ambrosino (1986-87, 99-104) interprets their union as a political
allegory of the marriage between the demos and the aristocracy, and sees echoes of Alcibiades in the
figure of Pheidippides. She views this depiction as yet another example of Aristophanes’ inclination
to “‘personificare’ situazioni e realtà complesse in figure in carne ed ossa” (105).
162
the countryside, and his wife with culture and the polis. Even though in “reality” both of
them embody a mixture of these traits, Strepsiades identifies himself with those elements
that were typically categorized as feminine in order to explain his position of
powerlessness. This strategy in turn requires him to impart to his wife traits traditionally
associated with masculinity, and he is able to do this most effectively by ascribing to her
qualities of the polis. Once woman and city have merged in Strepsiades’ imagination, he
substitutes her for it in his assessment of who/what is to blame for his own situation.
Strepsiades resumes his monologue and explains how he and his wife disagreed
about what to name their son: “She was for adding hippos to the name…while I was for
calling him Pheidonides after his grandfather” (ll. 63-5). O’Regan rightly describes this
as the first agon of the play, and to her observation I would add that it is a highly
territorial conflict, as those involving naming usually tend to be.
37
The outcome of it
appears to be a compromise – they decide on “Pheidippides” – but this is actually a
contradiction, as it incorporates the antithetical notions of luxury and thrift.
38
It should
already be clear from the character displayed by Pheidippides who really won this
contest; still, the vignette serves to reinforce the gendered and economic oppositions
already drawn out by Strepsiades. He presents his wife as asserting herself and her
economic position, as well as her superior verbal skill, and thereby renders her a figure
worthy of his contempt and ridicule.
As before, Strepsiades further substantiates these oppositions by referring to
geographic locales, including the body of his son, in order to situate the debate in the
37
1992, 26.
38
The name is translated as “Son of Cheap-horse” or “Thrifty Knightson” by Olson (1992, 308).
163
minds of his listeners and lend it some vividness. He recalls his wife’s hope that
Pheidippides would “drive a chariot through the city…wearing a saffron robe” (l. 69,
trans. Meineke), then counters with his own fantasy that his son will “drive goats from
the Rocklands…and wear a leather jacket” (l. 71, trans. Sommerstein and Henderson).
The numerous ways in which Strepsiades attempts simultaneously to set himself apart
from his wife invest him with an air of desperation. His repeated assimilation of her to
the city in particular calls attention to the loss of civic power and influence he has
suffered, and reveals the extent to which the construction of masculine identity depends
upon control or ownership of women as private property, and on their designation as part
and parcel of the domestic sphere. Through his reversal of the expected terms of this
opposition, Strepsiades provides the audience with a brief but nonetheless frightful
glimpse of the specter of the politicized woman in the form of his wife. But she remains
only that – a rhetorical specter, an absent enemy over and against which her husband
may assert himself and all that he supposedly stands for.
In many ways, this opening scene has much in common with the end of Wasps as
regards its treatment of female characters. Although human “women” actually appear on
stage in that play, they remain virtually powerless, and as is the case here, they are
blamed for every problem encountered by the male protagonists. Indeed, it is precisely
because of their absence or inaccessibility that they function so successfully as both the
source and target of male, usually sexual, aggression. According to Sigmund Freud, it is
this same inaccessibility which enables the production of tendentious humor at women’s
expense. Regarding the purpose of dirty jokes, he concludes,
164
They make possible the satisfaction of an instinct (whether lustful or
hostile) in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way. They circumvent
this obstacle and in that way draw pleasure from a source which the
obstacle had made inaccessible. The obstacle standing in the way is in
reality nothing other than women’s incapacity to tolerate undisguised
sexuality…The woman who is thought of as having been present in the
initial situation is afterwards retained as though she were still present, or in
her absence her influence still has an intimidating effect on the men.
39
Strepsiades’ verbal exploitation of his absent wife offers us a striking example of this
process in action. And while his negative characterization of her is meant to be
humorous, she nevertheless represents the subversion of a shared male fantasy of the
home as a safe place that is still intact, uncorrupted and masterable, like its inhabitants.
She embodies the fear and discomfort that derive from the realization that the oikos had
come to share in the confusion brought on by the war and the political instability
resulting from it.
The spectral figure of Strepsiades’ wife sets the stage for the appearance of her
metaphorical counterpart – the female cloud chorus. Both have a high degree of
influence upon the lives of the male characters, but they themselves are not fully or
properly incorporated into their world. Their presence is perceptible and necessary, but
they retain an airy, mystifying quality that makes them difficult to place, and they are
therefore perceived as fickle, impulsive and generally threatening.
40
In sum, they are the
antithesis of the traditional ideal of the woman-as-field, who is exemplified by characters
like Dicaeopolis’ daughter in Acharnians and the divine attendant Opora in Peace, and
whose excessive materiality renders her passive, stable and easily able to be enclosed.
39
1960, 101.
40
Marianetti 1992, 84.
165
As a way of countering the influence of these airy creatures, Strepsiades enacts
what I term a rhetorical and performative strategy of “grounding,” which is virtually
identical to that undertaken by the Sausage-seller and Paphlagon in Knights, and is
informed by the same ideology of Bakhtinian degradation as it was laid out in the
previous chapter. O’Regan also comments on this phenomenon of “downward motion,”
and she notes the strong correspondence between the concepts high/low (or, we might
say, “sky/land”) and mind/body in the play, though she does not engage with the gender
opposition that corresponds to them.
41
Strepsiades has already used this strategy –
affiliating himself with places and objects chthonic or terrestrial – in his monologue,
when he assimilated himself to the rural farmlands and the domestic space of the home
in an effort to reclaim the conceptual space that had originally been aligned with the
space of the female body within traditional masculinist ideology. His use of this strategy
allows him to 1) vilify women by ascribing to them undesirable characteristics, like
those displayed by his wife, which in turn legitimize all efforts to designate females as
the source of all unrest and disruption, 2) fulfill his goal of property preservation without
recourse to any of the pesky realities, like warfare and sexual reproduction, that are
typically necessary to the realization of this goal, and 3) thereby reduce ownership and
everything else to a simple relation in language (“because I say so”). However, as the
play progresses, it becomes clear that this grounding strategy is highly problematic and
ultimately unreliable, because it requires Strepsiades’ emasculation and ultimately
renders him more powerless than ever. Before I turn to discussing this issue at length, it
41
1992, 39-40.
166
is necessary first to consider Strepsiades’ introduction to the school and the lessons he
learns there.
After explaining his aspirations to his son, Strepsiades unsuccessfully tries to
persuade Pheidippides to attend school at the Thinkery for him.
42
He finally decides he
must go himself, and thereupon knocks on the other skene door. A student answers, to
whom he introduces himself as “Strepsiades…from Cicynna” (l. 134), which was a
small rural deme, possibly near Sphettus in central Attica, about eight miles southeast of
Athens.
43
The Student yells at him for disturbing his mental processes, which has caused
him to “abort a newfound idea” (l. 137).
44
Strepsiades apologizes for his rudeness and
explains that he lives out in the country. As noted previously, this is a statement fraught
with spatial inconsistency; nonetheless, its utterance here does serve as a justification of
sorts for his boorish behavior.
Strepsiades is curious about what goes on inside the school, but the Student
explains to him that only the pupils are privy to that knowledge. Many scholars have
pointed out how similar the Thinkery is to a mystery cult that observes rites of initiation,
42
“Thinkery” is a translation of the Greek frontistÆrion, a word fabricated by Aristophanes to
describe the school. Its etymology assimilates it to other public spaces like the
dikastÆrion (lawcourt) or the bouleutÆrion (Council chamber), and to a limited extent it does
serve a purpose similar to that served by those places in Aristophanes’ previous plays; however, as
rapidly becomes evident, it is very different from them.
43
Sommerstein 1982, 167 v. 134.
44
There is some debate surrounding Aristophanes’ use of the birth metaphor to describe the process of
producing philosophic knowledge. It centers on whether this was his own innovation, or something
that the historical Socrates actually developed in his teachings. Plato makes Socrates elaborate the
metaphor much later, in Theaetetus, so there is a connection between the two texts, but it requires
reading backwards. See discussions in Tarrant 1988 and Dover 1968, xlii. As we will see, the
appropriation of female reproductive capacity for masculine ends is a technique that Aristophanes
himself will employ in the parabasis.
167
and Bowie has similarly explored its affinities with the rituals of ephebeia.
45
Most
important to our discussion is the practice of incubation or descent into a subterranean
area, which these mystery cults often required. At line 254, Socrates bids Strepsiades to
sit down on a sacred couch, garland in hand, and, at 506, when he is finally about to
enter the school, Strepsiades exclaims, “Put a honey cake into my hands first, because
I’m scared to go down inside there, as if into the cave of Trophonius.” Bowie envisions
this as an experience of transformation for Strepsiades (to which he is somewhat
resistant), a faux death that facilitates his rebirth into (cultural) manhood by means of his
indoctrination into the school. Furthermore, he posits that Strepsiades’ son Pheidippides
is metaphorically “sacrificed” to the school as a surrogate so that Strepsiades may
succeed in his goals.
46
Whether one accepts this reading or not, what is remarkable is the
continued application of the “grounding” strategy by the male characters, in opposition
to their airy female counterparts.
The other students come out and provide further evidence of this association at
line 184 when they peer at the ground, supposedly in order to examine “the murkiness
below Tartarus.” This is not only a sign of their isolation and lack of concern with the
external world; it is also a spatial signifier that helps to identify and position these
characters unequivocally. What does it tell us about them? As with Strepsiades, that they
are powerless and emasculated, and have consequently taken on the traditional earthly
qualities of the feminine and/or lowly qualities of the eromenos or kinaidos. Strepsiades
45
1993, 106. Marianetti (1992, 41-75) deals exclusively with the issue of the Thinkery as mystery
cult. She provides the relevant bibliographic references on p. 41.
46
Bowie 1993, 107-8. As we will see in the next chapter on Peace, entry into a cave is also a
transformative experience for the protagonist Trygaeus, who rescues the statue of Peace from it with
the aid of the chorus. But because the cave there is associated with the continuation of life and not
death, feelings of joy rather than fear attend upon its entry.
168
makes these associations clear when he insults them doubly: first, by comparing their
pale complexions to those of the humiliated Spartan prisoners from Pylos – a trait which
was commonly ascribed to women (l. 186); then, by asking why their “assholes” are
“peering at the sky” (l. 193). Also, like the ideal Greek woman, they are not supposed to
be outside. The Student warns them at line 195, “Inside with you; he mustn’t find you
out here,” and he explains to Strepsiades, “They’re not at liberty to spend very much
time outside in the open air” (ll. 198-9). The students even operate as the objects of
Strepsiades’ rape fantasy/threat at line 197, where he insists, “Let them stay awhile; I
want to share with them a small problem of my own.” As Henderson explains, there is a
double entendre at work here in the euphemistic phrase ti pragmãtion, or, “a small
problem,” which refers to the penis.
47
In a vain attempt to differentiate himself from these others and thereby affirm his
masculine identity, Strepsiades turns to threats of physical violence, in particular of the
sexual variety.
48
This fails, however, for two reasons: first, he relies upon the same
ineffective rhetorical strategy of feminization through “grounding,” which he used
previously in his monologue to describe himself, to establish a relation of domination
and opposition with the pupils; second, he does this in the midst of a desperate bid to
enroll in the school and become one of them. Rather than display his virility and
mastery, then, this episode succeeds in revealing the narrow limits of Strepsiades’
power, and suggests more generally the extent to which the constructs that traditionally
47
1975, 116.
48
Strepsiades has already displayed a tendency toward quickness to anger and violence. At line 57, he
interrupted his monologue in order to scold a slave for using too much oil in the lamp, and threatened
him with a beating. While the slave’s treatment may not have been perceived as extraordinary in any
way to the audience, the inclusion of this interruption seems to provide a rubric for understanding
Strepsiades’ character and for anticipating how he will react in other similarly displeasing scenarios.
169
determined difference in Athenian society had deteriorated at this point in time. And,
here again, as we have seen in previous plays, this deterioriation seems to be articulated
most vividly along the fault lines of gender and sexuality.
After the pupils briefly demonstrate their skills for Strepsiades, the Student
recounts some of Socrates’ more notable experiments and their outcomes. These also
sustain the theme of “grounding,” although in these cases Socrates appears to be
somewhat more resistant to the process than others around him. However, it turns out
that even he is not immune to the force of gravity, as he rapidly becomes the butt of the
Student’s jokes. The comic experiments the Student describes all involve Socrates’
observation of lowly animals like fleas, gnats and geckos, and are marked by the interest
they take in matters anal and scatological. In the final example, the Student tells how a
gecko defecated on Socrates from the roof as he was looking upwards, “investigating the
moon’s paths and revolutions” (ll. 171-3). O’Regan reads this episode as a classic case
of the “revenge of the real,” which is meant to remind the audience of Socrates’ ordinary
human origins and to stand in contrast with the godlike entrance he makes on the crane
at line 218, where he explains to Strepsiades that his mind is “suspended to create only
elevated notions,” and that if he had tried to scrutinize the heights from the ground, he
would have discovered nothing, since “the earth forces the creative juices to be drawn to
its core” (ll. 229-34, trans. Meineke).
49
The Student’s jokes thus have the effect of taking
49
1992, 38. The gecko’s defecation is also a preemptive act of revenge for the disdain Socrates will
display towards Strepsiades’ traditional gods at lines 367-411. Aristophanes’ caricature of Socrates as
an atheist and corrupter has garnered an extensive amount of scholarly interest ever since Plato wrote
the Apology. Debate has centered mostly on the degree to which the caricature negatively influenced
the Athenian populace’s view of Socrates and the role it played in his trial and execution in 399 BCE.
There is also debate among modern scholars as to how accurate a portrayal of the man it really was.
The view expressed by Strauss (1966, 9-54) that this was a personal attack, and the counter-view of
170
Socrates down a peg and rendering him Strepsiades’ equal, since they transform him into
a comic target, just as worthy of scorn and mockery.
Before Socrates’ high-flying entrance, however, the clueless Strepsiades asks the
Student about the scientific instruments the pupils have left behind on stage. There is one
unspecified tool for astronomy, one for geometry, and, interestingly, a map of the world
(l. 206, gw per¤odow pãshw). Upon being told that the second instrument is used to
measure land, he asks, “You mean land for settlers (cleruchs)?”, to which the student
replies, “No, just land in general.” He responds, “Talk about sophisticated! That device
is democratic, and useful too” (ll. 203-4). Although Strepsiades is unfamiliar with the
tool, his question displays the extent of his imperial indoctrination, as well as the degree
to which imperial aims had generally become conflated with the democratic mode of
governance at Athens. As Dover notes, “Strepsiades thinks that ‘geometry’ is some
(magical?) device for distributing all the land in the world gratis to Athenian citizens like
himself.”
50
Although he has portrayed himself as poor, uneducated and divested of his
property, Strepsiades, in expressing this entitled point of view, reveals that his identity as
a citizen male depends upon his dominating and territorial relation to annexed lands.
However, this ingrained response no longer corresponds to the realities of Strepsiades’
life, and generally runs counter to the recent military and political experiences of
Athens.
51
Dover (1968, xlv), that Aristophanes simply ascribed various bad or ridiculous qualities common to
sophists and natural philosophers to the most infamous Athenian public figure at the time, has been
the catalyst for much of this debate. See also Nussbaum 1980; Kleve 1983; Edmunds 1986; Fisher
1988; and Bowie 1998.
50
1968, 90 v. 205.
51
The last time Athens had established a cleruchy was four years earlier (427 BCE) on Lesbos after
suppressing a revolt there. See Thuc. 3.50.2.
171
This perspective is enlarged upon when the Student shows Strepsiades the world
map and points out Athens first. Strepsiades disbelieves the Student because, as he says,
he is unable to see any juries in session (l. 208). This comment speaks to a geographic
way of thinking that was common in antiquity – namely, that a place is defined by the
people in it, and since the only fully fledged people in Athens were adult citizen men, it
stands to reason that this is what Strepsiades would look for and deem characteristic of
his home. In this context, it also makes sense that his next question is, “Where are the
Cicynnians, my fellow demesmen?” (l. 210). Through this cartographic exercise,
Strepsiades is able to further affiliate himself with the land, and regain his rightful place,
even if only in a figurative manner. We see him learning another strategic maneuver in
the battle to determine who may ultimately control property or territory, and who/what
may be associated with it in metaphor. The map becomes a means by which to take back
the city, and the scene works to suggest that citizen male presence is what truly defines
bounded space.
The point is driven home with one more unambiguous example. The Student
next points out the island of Euboea on the map, which he describes to Strepsiades as
“laid out here, over a very long stretch,” and to which Strepsiades wittily replies, “I
know, we laid it out ourselves with Pericles” (ll. 211-2). This joke refers to the
suppression of a revolt there in 446, and relies upon two distinct meanings of
parate¤nv for its humor.
52
In the passive voice, the verb can mean “to be stretched or
extend along,” as it does in its first instance. But it can also mean “to be tortured,”
technically “to be stretched on the rack,” which is what Strepsiades implies in his
52
On this revolt, see Thuc. 1.114.
172
response. The pun thus replicates verbally the violent process of appropriation required
to maintain Athens’ imperialist system, and in particular it alludes to the practice of
enslavement, to which Greeks were subjecting other Greeks regularly at this time. It thus
reminds the audience of the ease with which one’s identity as a citizen-soldier could be
lost and that of slave adopted in its place. Given the larger discursive pattern under
discussion in this study – the feminization of the land – it is likely that this usage had a
sexual connotation as well.
Finally, Strepsiades asks, “Where is Sparta?” and when he realizes how close it
is, he urges the Student to “move it very far away from us,” threatening that if he
doesn’t, he will make the Student howl (ll. 214-6). Despite the threat of force (again),
this is one willful imperialist act that is impossible, and it serves to bring the reality of
the war, which was also unable to be ignored or resolved by means of magic, back to the
forefront of the play’s action. Sparta’s fixed position signals the limits of men’s power
even in the realm of representation, and its presence here is a warning of just how close
the enemy really was, even to the seemingly detached comic space of the Thinkery. But,
of course, this warning is rapidly passed over, and the entire scene functions largely as
Thinkery Lesson Number One – a refresher course in how to colonize, how to use the
representational tools of empire as an alternate form of weaponry, in order to regain
mastery of the land and the people in it.
53
To put it simply, once Strepsiades learns how
to situate and thereby control his properties (i.e. his land, wife and son), he will be able
to reestablish a definitive relationship with the city and he will know where he stands
53
On the use of ideological tools like maps in reifying imperial power, see Anderson 1991, 163-86.
On their application in the Roman Empire, see Nicolet 1991.
173
both as a citizen and as a man. This is also a lesson for the entire city, which was in need
of a new and more effective means of retaining its empire and succeeding in the war
than brute force could offer.
Once Socrates has alighted, Strepsiades tells him of his financial plight and his
plans for remedying the situation. Socrates promises that he will become the finest of
orators if he “converts” to the religion of the clouds, and he sets about performing the
initiatory rituals. At line 264, Socrates begins an elaborate prayer addressed to Air,
Aether and the clouds, commanding the latter to appear to “the thinker.” He refers not to
their capacities as the deities of speech and rhetoric, but identifies them as “awesome
goddesses of thunder and lightning” (l. 265), and, accordingly, Strepsiades begins to fear
that he will become soaked with rain (i.e. urine) on their arrival.
54
Socrates’ appeal to them as natural spirits is reflected in the traditional
supplicatory language he employs in order to beckon them from distinct geographic
locations, some of them mythological. He mentions four moist or snowy locations that
correspond to the cardinal points: Mt. Olympus (north), Ocean’s gardens (i.e. the
Hesperides, in the west), the mouth of the Nile (south), and finally Lake Maeotis and Mt.
Mimas (in the east). In effect, he conjures up another larger map, though it exists only in
the minds of his listeners, and with it he attempts not only to situate the clouds, who,
54
MacDowell (1995, 123 n. 18) points to these lines (along with 316, 329, 365 and 423-4) to refute
the view put forth by O’Regan (1992, 44) that Socrates does not regard the clouds as goddesses, but
merely as arguments. I agree with his view, though I do not believe that their incongruous celebration
of traditional gods and religious activity in the parodos is “not closely integrated with the action of the
play”, as he does (123). Rather I think, like O’Regan, that this incongruity is deliberate and reflects
their ambiguous nature, the function of which is to thwart all expectations, and thus elude simple
external definitions.
174
according to Sommerstein, “have no traditional abodes,” but also to control their
movements through his utterance, without allowing them to influence him.
55
The clouds respond to his request, though not immediately. In a novel
dramaturgic twist, they instead sing out from the wings of the theater and delay their
appearance on stage. Their reply also makes use of the traditional poetic language of
prayer, but its function seems to be more to correct Socrates and to clarify what their
origins and their duties actually consist of. They state that they arise from the ocean and
travel to mountain peaks in order to “behold heights (skopiåw) of distant vantage, and
holy earth (xyÒna), whose crops we water, and divine rivers’ rushing, and the sea” (ll.
280-4). In other words, it falls within their provenance not just to rule the skies and
nourish the land with moisture (as Socrates has it), but to literally supervise all the
world’s landscapes, to “survey the land with telescopic eye,” as they put it (ll. 289-90,
§pidmeya thleskÒpƒ ˆmmati ga›an). Their song celebrates the vantage point they
occupy and their freedom of movement, which affords them a good deal of control over
the land, in contrast with humans like Socrates and Strepsiades, who require maps.
Characteristically, Socrates ignores the details of their speech and only acknowledges his
own influence, noting that they have come in response to his summons (l. 291), while
Strepsiades threatens to fart and defecate out of fear, and thereby keeps the action
moving in a distinctly downward direction, in keeping with his character (ll. 296-7).
55
1982, 175 vv. 270-3. Kirby 1996 comments directly on this cartographic inclination as it arose
during the Enlightenment; however, her argument is also applicable to ancient practice, and to the
passage under examination. As she explains, “Part of the function of mapping, it would seem, is to
ensure that the relationship between the knower and the known remains unidirectional. The mapper
should be able to ‘master’ his environment, occupy a secure and superior position in relation to it,
without it affecting him in return” (48).
175
As the cloud chorus moves closer, its song mimics its movement, invoking the
land of Pallas and pointing out a number of famous sites of the region. The chorus
members refer to themselves as maidens (l. 299, pary°noi), but it is they who look
upon the Attic landscape in an eroticizing fashion, eager to see the “well-manned” (l.
300, eÎandron) and “much-loved” (l. 301, poluÆraton) land of Cecrops. They then
go on to describe Eleusis and its mysteries, temples and processions, and conclude with
a reference to the City Dionysia – the very place where they now find themselves. This
geographic imagery enables the audience to follow the “telescopic eye” of the chorus as
it zooms in on Athens, and induces them to share not just its gaze but its viewpoint as
well.
Strepsiades is in awe of their song, and, despite the description of themselves
which they have just presented, he asks if they are some sort of lady heroes (l. 315,
Sr“nai).
56
Socrates denies this and goes on to completely contradict not only his own
description of them at line 263f., but also the contents of the song they have just finished
singing about themselves. He describes them as goddesses “for idle gentlemen, who
provide us with judgment and dialectic and intelligence, fantasy and circumlocution and
verbal thrust and parry” (ll. 316-8). Why does he do this?
Given what has come before in the play, the answer to this question should not
be so startling. The aims of Socrates differ little from those of his new pupil – in their
own ways, they each wish to occupy an ever-expanding position of mastery and retain as
56
This is a rare word, and the first extant instance of it in the Greek literary corpus. Its appearance
here is intriguing insofar as it speaks to the possible existence of a new category of deity or being, a
kind of comic culture-heroine, whom Aristophanes will flesh out more fully on stage in the future,
both in the form of mythological characters and “real” Greek women.
176
much power and influence as possible. For Strepsiades this desire begins at home and
goes on to encompass the city and its fertile hinterlands, while for Socrates it begins at
the Thinkery and extends not just to the whole earth but to the cosmos. It is only their
approaches to achieving this goal that differ somewhat. Strepsiades focuses downward,
on reclaiming and stabilizing the terrestrial human realm by attempting to reestablish
traditional boundaries and polarities (even if sometimes he has to reverse their charges).
In contrast, Socrates directs his energies upward, and thereby attempts to circumvent
altogether the muddled situation on the ground. He seeks to ascend to an uncharted no-
man’s-land, where he may enact his cartographic and rhetorical fantasies freely and
create a new world, and in this regard he prefigures the hero of Birds, Peisetaerus.
Unlike Strepsiades, Socrates seems to have realized that there is little to be gained by
engaging in the inconclusive and unending territorial struggles which have necessitated
Strepsiades’ employment of the grounding strategy. And although he never ackowledges
it openly, he seems to know that, as a result of the present circumstances, Athenian men
will never truly go home again. He even seems unsympathetic to the reasons why they
would want to. What is ironic about Socrates’ strategy, however, is that he has chosen to
put the female cloud chorus into his service as a means of solidifying his affiliation with
this as-yet boundless space.
These figures do share in those commonly ascribed feminine qualities of
malleability and acquiescence, but they are notoriously evasive and ominous, and as
such they are an unreliable basis upon which to lay claim to anything. In addition,
because Socrates musters them in order to sanction another act of appropriation and
colonization, as was the case with Strepsiades and his contrived assimilation to the land,
177
the outcome is the same: he becomes indelibly inscribed with the mark of effeminacy
through these efforts, and actually compromises his claims to power and authority as a
result. Based on the examples of both Strepsiades and Socrates, then, it seems safe to say
that in Clouds, for men to attempt to demarcate and acquire any kind of space, whether it
is on land or in the air, whether rural or urban, a metaphorical female referent is
necessary; and yet, as we will see, it is this very requirement that impedes the process
and often ensures its failure.
At this point, the clouds finally make their entrance, and Socrates instructs
Strepsiades to watch them descend from Mount Parnes. But, because Parnes is not
visible from the Theater of Dionysus, Strepsiades is naturally unable to see them and
requires Socrates to point them out to him repeatedly, until finally he breaks the
theatrical illusion, exclaiming that they are “in the wings!” (l. 326).
57
Strepsiades is
amazed by their appearance, and, upon seeing them, he is finally able to accept Socrates’
assertion of them as goddesses. But he goes on to ask what is perhaps his most
intelligent question of the play, and of the most importance to this study: “How is it that
they look like mortal women?” in contrast with the actual clouds in the sky (l. 341).
Socrates responds casually that the clouds “become whatever they want” (l. 348), but
this is disingenuous, as he ascribes to them a transformative agency that they do not
actually possess. In fact, it is men with reputations for excess who influence the shape
that the clouds take, and accordingly, it is these men’s infamy within the Athenian
57
As Lalonde 1982 points out, Parnes is not visible from the Theater of Dionysus because the
Acropolis stands in the way. He suggests Aristophanes made this reference because of Parnes’
affiliation with stormy weather among the Athenians. I would add that this oversight also serves as
another example of geographic ambiguity and lack of care on the part of Socrates, in contrast with the
spatial acuity of the cloud chorus.
178
community which makes the clouds’ shapes discernible to other men, as Socrates
inadvertently confirms in the examples he presents to Strepsiades. A famous pederast –
one Hieronymus according to the scholia – inspires the figure of a centaur, an embezzler
named Simon, that of a wolf, and Cleonymus, the shield-thrower, becomes a deer (ll.
348-55). It is even the case that a man is responsible for the clouds’ current incarnation
as women: Cleisthenes, the often-ridiculed effeminate, he explains, is the one to blame
for this: “And today, because they’ve seen Clesthenes—see him?—that’s why they’ve
turned into women!” (l. 335).
The convoluted logic that informs Socrates’ explanation makes sense when it is
considered against the backdrop of the sex/gender system that was in operation in
ancient Athens, wherein women were differentiated as other, their powers were
appropriated and their existence denied, even as literal and figurative imitations of “her”
were continually being erected, upon which male desire could be reflected and against
which masculinity could be defined. The cloud chorus serves this final function, and as
such provides us with another example of “mimetic transvestitism,” which David
Halperin describes in reference to Plato’s Diotima.
58
As if to confirm this, Strepsiades
takes care to point out that these figures look “not like women, no surely not in any way.
And they have noses!” (l. 344).
O’Regan briefly summarizes some of the hypotheses given for why noses might
be mentioned at this moment, and finds Christopher Brown’s suggestion, that it is a lewd
reference to the phalloi worn by the chorus members under their costumes, to be most
58
1990, 290-2. On ancient dramatic transvestitism, see also Case 1985 and Bassi 1998, esp. Chapter
Three.
179
persuasive, as do I.
59
The purpose of the joke would then be transgressive; it would
reveal explicitly the underlying logic of sexual difference and the mimetic strategy at
work, and provide us with the real explanation as to why they don’t look like women:
behind these “female clouds” are real human men impersonating one another. Halperin
elucidates the broader function of this kind of revelation, which, it turns out, is
indispensable to the project that has preoccupied all the characters in this play from the
start – the formation and maintenance of a hegemonic masculine identity:
The ‘feminine’ identity acquired by men…must be an incomplete identity,
and its status as a fiction—as an impersonation rather than a total
appropriation of ‘the feminine’—must be exposed by a selective
puncturing of the illusion, either by a dropping of the mask or by a
thematizing of its status as mask. In this context, however, exposure is not
demystification…Rather, the very act of self-exposure contributes an
essential element to the successful operation of the symbolic procedures
whereby ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ identities circulate within a
continuous system of male self-representation.
60
Those who witness and enjoy this spectacle are also complicit in this process, since they
continue to interpret the clouds as feminized, and therefore sexualized, objects,
irrespective of their previous comic exposure or their divine visual powers. Ultimately,
then, the form of these “female clouds” is doubly determined, as they are constituted
from without by the male gaze, and from within by the comic male body.
Paradoxically, this makes the clouds the ideal imitation women because, unlike
their fictional counterparts (e.g., Strepsiades’ wife, Diotima, Helen), they are not women
at all. In fact, it is not even clear that they are female (despite the grammatical gender of
the word nef°lai); it appears they are merely puffs of warm air. Their very existence
59
1992, 169 n. 22. She cites Brown 1983.
60
1990, 27-8.
180
thus encourages the notion that even the illusion of Woman is no longer needed for male
cultural reproduction to occur, and that the flimsiest of materials, just “mist and dew and
smoke” (l. 330), can suffice as an ego projection screen. In this way, they contribute to
the masculine fantasy of a world without women. And yet, this is too good to be true,
because, as Aristophanes reminds us at various points, the clouds remain unstable and
disruptive forces of nature which can negatively influence men’s lives. This much
should be obvious, given their basic and longstanding role as portents of stormy weather,
but it seems to have gotten lost momentarily in the deluge of other attributes being
assigned to them.
61
If their role as stormy harbingers did not provide enough evidence of their
autonomy and intractability, one need only look at the communicative function of clouds
within the Greek mythological imaginary. They are typically feminized “agents of divine
retribution” who “mock excessive desires through their paradoxical fulfillment.”
62
Bowie summarizes the most notable stories featuring clouds, including that of Athamas
61
Bowie (1993, 124-6) discusses this and other weather portents that appear in the play. Segal 1996
(originally published in 1969), in his structuralist reading of the chorus, attempts to restore the clouds
to their traditional position as nature goddesses, identifying them ultimately as “the essence of out-of-
doors” (170). Though he does acknowledge them to be “embodiments of change and fluidity,” and in
possession of a “multivalent significance” (177), I believe he makes too much of their role as natural
deities and aligns them overmuch with one side of the dichotomy inside/outside. From there, he goes
on to equate “outside” with “rustic,” passing uncritically over the distinctions that exist within outside
space, and then goes on to render all of it “natural.” This in turn facilitates an oversimplified
alignment of the category “female” with that of “nature” within the sets of antitheses at work in the
play, which, as we saw in the case of Strepsiades’ wife, is highly problematic. Because he does not
consider how unstable and dysfunctional gender identity had become in the wake of so much social
and political turmoil, Segal ends up accepting and reproducing the idealizing logic of the Athenians in
order to make sense of these characters, and underestimates their cultural significance and multiplicity
of meaning. His desire to define the clouds unambiguously is understandable, but these figures in their
essence do not and cannot conform to any one interpretation, even the most fundamental. Marianetti
(1992, 78) recognizes this, and provides a updated list of antitheses which, while still problematic in
form, does at least place the cloud chorus on both sides of it, so that it appears simultaneously in its
distinct guises (as nature goddesses vs. as sophistic deities).
62
Bowie 1993, 127; O’Regan 1992, 54.
181
(to whom Strepsiades compared himself at l. 257), Nephele and Ino; that of Helen in
Stesichorus and Euripides; and that of Hera and Ixion. All of these stories revolve
around deception and inappropriate sexual desire, and they either result from or produce
failed marriages.
63
Clouds are thus highly volatile, and therefore ambivalent, entities,
with the power to disrupt normative relations, especially those between the sexes, though
neither Strepsiades nor Socrates seem at all aware of this association; they both simply
wish to appropriate this power in order to augment and secure their own, with no regard
for the consequences. As we will see, the reaction of Aristophanes’ clouds is in keeping
with the character of their mythological predecessors: they mock both men’s
megalomaniacal desires by indulging them momentarily and then punish them for their
impulsivity and heedlessness. In this way they demonstrate that the aims of both men,
despite their ostensible differences in approach, are equally corrupt and misguided. This
issue will recur both in the parabasis and in the agon of the Arguments.
Upon their appearance, the clouds address both Strepsiades and Socrates in terms
that belittle the men: they call Strepsiades “old man” (presbËta) and Socrates “priest
of subtlest hogwash” (leptotãtvn lÆrvn UereË), though they immediately go on to
ask the men what they desire (ll. 358-9). They defer especially to Socrates even as they
mock his gait and appearance. Strepsiades is as amazed by their voices as he is at
63
Scholars have noted how the story of Ixion in particular shares many parallels with that of
Strepsiades. Reckford 1991 calls Strepsiades a “comic Ixion,” and Bowie (1993, 127) shares in this
view. See also Reckford 1967, 234 on the clouds as comic Sirens. It should be noted that the union of
the cloud and Ixion produced the race of the Centaurs (also mentioned at line 350), who grew up to be
the most famous wedding crashers of antiquity. Also, on a related note, Ormand 2004 discusses the
cloudy figure of Mestra, who features in the Hesiodic Catalog of Women as a daughter who supports
her father’s insatiable hunger through “serial marriages.” He sees in her story “a typical mythic
pattern, in which female shape-shifting is both a method of avoiding marriage and emblematic of an
unmarried woman's unstable social position” (303).
182
Socrates’ declaration that only they are true deities, and he swears by the earth twice in
his wonder (l. 364, Œ G; l. 366, prÚw tw Gw). Sommerstein notes that this oath is a
“rare phenomenon, and suggests that Strepsiades is deeply moved.”
64
While I do not
dispute this, it seems that there is another possible, though perhaps latent, reason for his
invocation. His appeal to Earth as a protective patron goddess counters and resists the
power of these new arrivals, and reaffirms his commitment to the strategy of grounding
he has undertaken. He begins to question Socrates about their powers again (l. 368,
“Who makes it rain?”), and Socrates responds by reverting to a naturalizing description
of them that is similar to the one he originally presented at line 265. The meteorological
phenomena of rain, thunder and lightning are compared by Socrates to the bodily
processes of urination, flatulence, and defecation, respectively (ll. 368-411). In this way,
they appeal to Strepsiades’ ideology of downward motion and his corporeal
temperament, while also serving as persuasive evidence of the clouds’ divine power and
the benefits he stands to receive as a member of their cult.
As if to confuse Strepsiades and contradict Socrates yet again, the chorus leader
ignores their lengthy conversation and returns to discussing the rhetorical powers the
clouds have to bestow. “She” cleverly shrouds rhetorical skill in the guise of traditional
Homeric manly excellence by characterizing it as requiring the strength, stamina and
abstinence that regular warfare requires:
How blessed you will become among the Athenians and all Greeks, if
you’re retentive and a cogitator, if endurance abides in your soul, if you
don’t tire out either standing or walking, if you’re not too annoyed by the
cold or too keen on having breakfast, if you stay away from wine and
gymnasiums and all other follies, and if, as befits a clever man, you
64
1982, 181 v. 364.
183
consider absolute excellence to be victory in action [and] in counsel (ll.
413-19).
In the end, however, she reveals that she is referring to “tongue warfare” (l. 419,
tª gltth++ polem¤zvn). Strepsiades’ propensity for resolving disputes with violence,
as well as his territorial nature, make him all the more amenable to this quasi-military
conscription, though it also has the neutralizing effect of turning him into an object. He
sees himself as an ideal candidate for “hammering into shape” (l. 422, §pixalkeÊein, lit.
“to use as an anvil”), and, as several references to his old age attest (ll. 263, 476, 493,
398, 514), he is in desperate need of some means by which to restore his old virile self.
At this point, Socrates requires Strepsiades to pledge religious allegiance to the
clouds, as well as to “Tongue” and “Hole” (l. 424, tÚ Xãow...ka‹ tØn Gl«ttan). The
first two are fairly obvious requests, the third a bit more obscure. Sommerstein explains
that in Aristophanes, “Hole,” or xãow, seems to mean “empty space,” and indeed, it
would seem that, in addition to its traditional Hesiodic role as the first of all beings and
the begetter of Night and Darkness, it also coincides here with the spatial plane inhabited
by the clouds and the disorder that seems to attend on them.
65
Richard Caldwell, who
also understands “the primary meaning of the Greek word chaos” to be “opening or
gap,” acknowledges, somewhat begrudgingly, the term’s understated feminine quality:
“The etymology may suggest a womb which opens to bring forth life, but there are much
stronger connotations of an impenetrable and immeasurable darkness.”
66
This “hole” is
65
1982, 184 v. 424.
66
1987, 33 v. 116. See Hesiod, Theog. 116. It should also be noted that the noun xãow derives from
the verb xãskv, “to gape” or “yawn,” which is used standardly in comedy to describe “the widened
state of the pathics’ prokto¤ [anus]” (Henderson 1975, 211). It is thus a sexually-charged term
184
thus is the liminal and female-identified space between heaven and earth, which Socrates
is so eager to colonize and fill with ideas, and which Strepsiades has up to this point
avoided and resisted, but now finally embraces: “I wouldn’t speak a word to the other
gods even if I met them in the street” (l. 425).
At line 427, the chorus leader entreats Strepsiades yet again to “tell us frankly
what we can do for you,” and assures him that “you shall get what you crave, for it is
nothing grand” (l. 435). He then entrusts his body to them “to do with as they please, for
beating, starving, parching, soiling, freezing, flaying into a wineskin” (ll. 440-2), for, as
he says, “necessity bears down on me on account of those branded horses and the
marriage that’s screwed me” (ll. 437-8, §p°tricen). It is strange that his desire to
restore his masculinity through the acquistion of oratorical skill should require not just
his objectification, but also his physical abuse, at the hands of these female deities. This
treatment is even more emasculating than that which he received at the hands of his
wife, but his desperation does not allow him to perceive fully the similarity of the two
situations. And again, as with the matchmaker, he is lured in by the clouds’ assurances
that he will have “the most enviable life in the world in perpetuity” (ll. 463-5), and that
glory awaits if he simply follows their lead: “Multitudes will constantly be camped at
your door wanting to meet with you and discuss legal problems and claims involving
vast sums” (ll. 468-71). And with that, Strepsiades’ instruction begins. He is made to
undress – as is the custom, according to Socrates (l. 498) – his vulnerability thereby
(especially when paired with “tongue”), but, like the clouds it is affiliated with, it remains sexually
ambiguous.
185
clearly exposed, and then he finally enters the Thinkery, still fearful, at the insistence of
his teacher.
67
The chorus leader now turns to speak the parabasis proper, and, as is also the
custom, “she” delivers the speech in the first person, representing the poet. This is the
section of the play where evidence of revision is the most obvious, as reference is made
explicitly to its former version; however, it continues the theme with which the original
parts of the parabasis were concerned: failure, in particular the failure of words to affect
action. The epirrhema that follows the parabasis proper provides us with the best
evidence of the original content of Aristophanes’ concerns, as it derives from the first
version. There the chorus leader speaks directly to the audience in her guise as a cloud,
and reproaches them for ignoring her signs and voting Cleon general in 424 BCE.
68
She
goes on to exhort them to convict Cleon of bribery and theft, so that “your situation will
be as it was before, and everything will turn out better for the city, in spite of your
mistake” (ll. 591-4). Of course, this is not what happened, and despite the truce, the fog
of war remained as thick as ever at Athens. Cleon was voted another term as general the
following year, once the botched truce had ended, and he subsequently set off for
Thrace, where he was killed in battle.
In the revised section preceding this epirrhema, the chorus leader, in the voice
of the poet, continues her commentary on this troubling trend toward failure, but “she”
turns her attention instead to the failed reception of the original Clouds. “She” complains
67
Before going inside, Socrates also suggests that physical abuse will be a part of Strepsiades’
indoctrination: “Old man, I fear you’ll need a whipping. Let’s see, what would you do if someone hit
you?” (ll. 493-4).
68
As Henderson notes (1998, 89 v. 52), these “signs” consisted of storms as well as two eclipses: one
of the moon in October of 425, and one of the sun in March of 424, just after the elections, which was
followed by an earthquake a few days later. See Thuc. 4.52.1.
186
that only sex, violence and slapstick humor resonate with the audience, even with the
sophoi among them (“she” thought they were all sophoi at first, l. 520), whom “she”
ultimately blames for this failure: “I lost the contest, defeated by vulgar men, though I
didn’t deserve to. For that I blame you sophisticated ones, for whose sake I was doing all
that work” (ll. 524-6). Here again, as with Strepsiades and Socrates, there appear to be
two distinct types of men – the boor and the intellectual. Ironically, however, the
difference between them is undercut and exposed as purely nominal by the fact that a
female entity, played by a male actor, is the one articulating this difference on behalf of
the poet. In the final analysis, the men’s desires are exposed as all the same and as
equally worthy of contempt.
Thus, as it turns out, even Aristophanes himself has become a casualty of the
crisis of masculine sameness, but he goes on to use the remainder of the parabasis to
counter this trend. He begins by enumerating the many ways that he differs from other
comic poets. He claims that he is a trendsetter who presents “novel forms of comedy
every time out” (l. 547), in contrast with his cohorts, who present the same crude
material over and over and who plagiarize his work. This tirade is similar in many ways
to what is found in other parabases, but it is how Aristophanes chose to characterize
himself that is truly intriguing, given what has preceded it. At the time of his first
production, he says, he was “a young girl,” a pary°now, who was “still unmarried and
not yet allowed to be a mother” (l. 530). He therefore had to expose his “child” (pa›w)
and let “another girl” (§t°ra tiw) raise it. In other words, he had to allow another man,
Callistratus, to produce his first play, Banqueters. He continues to draw upon this
feminine imagery as he describes his offspring, the current play, as another maiden, an
187
“Electra” (l. 534), who is “modest in nature” (l. 537, trans. Sommerstein). He explains
how “she” does not engage in any of the typical vulgar antics that predominate on the
comic stage. There are no grotesque phalloi, no sexy dances, no slapstick beatings or
hysterics (ll. 538-43). This is patently untrue, however, as the play features all of these
comic clichés throughout. Both Wilfred Major and Douglas Olson argue that
Aristophanes makes this assertion purely for the sake of humorous incongruity, and
while this may be the case in part, it is definitely not the whole story.
69
Ralph Rosen puts forward a more persuasive reason for Aristophanes’ comic
tactics in the revised parabasis. He maintains that Aristophanes portrays himself, like his
characters, as fixated on mastery, in particular, on mastery of the comic genre. He thus
depicts the genre, as Cratinus did in that same year, as a self-determining female that has
acquired a “will of its own.” He points out how, like a protective parent, Aristophanes
“wants to retain control over his creation, both its abstract physis and the details of its
words, and he wants ultimately to control its reception by the audience.”
70
The intent of
this gendered representation would thus seem to be to accentuate his distinction and
authority to his audience and to restore his pride and reputation; yet, this aim is undercut
by his own characterization of himself as a young girl and by its articulation through the
figure of the feminized chorus leader. Though this revised parabatic speech was never
actually delivered on stage, its contents confirm that the employment of mimetic
transvestitism continued to be seen by Aristophanes as a viable means of differentiating
69
Major 2006, 132; Olson 1994.
70
Rosen 1997, 410. He also explores this issue with respect to Cratinus’ Pytine in Rosen 2000,
although there it is articulated through marital and not parental relations.
188
the male self from the female other, even in spite of the limited success he attained
through its employment in the original version of the play.
In sum, Aristophanes’ decision to insert this new passage in his revision speaks
to his frustration with the shifting power dynamics at play in his comedy, in his life, and
in his city. But his representations of femininity in Clouds do more than simply convey
feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty – they also look forward to the more elaborate
representations that he will develop and use to great success in his future plays. It
appears that femininity no longer operates as a safe and stable ground of representation
upon which competing versions of masculinity may battle it out, nor is it only a means
of bridging the extreme gaps (e.g. between rich/poor, old/young, urban/rural) that
punctuate and structure men’s opposition to one another, as it was in Aristophanes’
previous plays. Instead, the feminine has become a contentious force in its own right,
with the power to disrupt, contest and redefine dominant forms of masculinity.
The chorus’ direct admonishment of the audience concerning its treatment of
Cleon lends credence to this view, as does their invocation of traditional gods in the ode
and antode. Here again they survey and partition both the cosmos and that Greek
landscape, focusing in on Attica with their telescopic eye, just as they did upon their
entrance, and give pride of place to female worshippers:
Join me as well, Phoebus, Lord of Delos, who dwells on Cynthus’ sheer
escarpment of rock; and you Blest Maiden, who dwell at Ephesus in the
golden house, where Lydian maidens greatly revere you; and our own
native goddess, wielder of the aegis, guardian of the city; and he who
haunts Parnassus’ rock and glows in the light of pine torches, eminent
among Delphic bacchants, the reveller Dionysus (ll. 595-606).
189
Aristophanes’ decision to depict the clouds twice in this supervisory role
bespeaks a desire to convey something important. It clearly emphasizes their
responsibility as females to regulate difference and to promote or restore some kind of
order. But this characterization merely consigns them to the traditional female role of the
middle ground, and explains only one aspect of their persona. It must also be taken into
consideration that, by summoning these gods from their respective locales and
choreographing their movements, the clouds assert their position of mastery and
autonomy through both their gaze and their speech. As before, this performative tactic is
meant to align the audience’s point of view with their own, or at least put forth an
alternative to the outlandish viewpoints espoused by Strepsiades and Socrates.
71
By
representing both these aspects of their persona, Aristophanes ends up presenting the
clouds as, in Teresa de Lauretis’ definition of female identity, “neither fixed, powerless
essence nor endlessly dissolving and invisible, but multiple and changing within a social,
linguistic, and political context,” and as having “agency because of reflective, self-
analyzing power.”
72
Nonetheless, this power continues to take on a negative cast:
Aristophanes represents it as a threat, with devastating consequences for his male
characters. It will still be some time before he realizes the comic potential inherent in the
multiplicitous identity of the female and puts it into service as a force for civic good in
his plays.
71
Scodel (1987, 335) argues that “the chorus of the ode sees the gods from a perspective appropriate
to clouds, as cosmic forces, whereas that of the antode sees them from the point of view of human
worshippers…as Athenian singers, creating a clear distinction between the two choral personalities.”
This distinction suggests that, at least in the antode, the view of the chorus and that of the audience
overlap.
72
Ritchie 1990, summarizing de Lauretis on female identity (1986, 8-9).
190
At the end of the parabasis, Aristophanes introduces one final example of a
female figure who shares the same qualities as the clouds and inhabits a similar position,
but who does so in a way that is more obvious and understandable to humans – the
moon, Selene. The chorus leader invokes her as an ally who has an ambivalent
relationship with men like the clouds’ own, explaining,
When we were ready to set forth on our trip here, the Moon happened to
run into us and told us first to say hello to the Athenians and their allies,
but then she expressed her annoyance at the awful way she has been
treated, after helping you all not with mere talk but with plain action (ll.
607-11).
The chorus leader goes on to describe how no one pays attention to the important role
the moon plays in regulating the days of the calendar, and how men in positions of
power have taken over her job, inserting intercalary days whenever it suits them (ll. 615-
19). Her paraphrased complaint recalls those of the triremes in Knights, and it bolsters
the complaints of disregard and maltreatment already made by the clouds. In fact, it is
my contention that her case is made to seem even more compelling by her cloudy
advocate precisely because the moon is a substantial and regulatory body, whose power
directly affects human life, even as “she” displays those features of intangibility (she is
far away), transience (she moves through the sky), changeability and mimesis (she
reflects the light of the sun and appears in different guises), which characterize the
chorus. In point of fact, she declares that Hyperbolus has already been punished for his
disregard by being divested of his garland in his guise as Holy Recorder: “That way he
will better understand that the days of his life should be reckoned by the Moon” (ll. 625-
6). As with the clouds before her, however, her power is underestimated and her warning
falls on deaf ears.
191
At line 627, Socrates emerges from the Thinkery and expresses his exasperation
at Strepsiades’ inability to learn anything new, swearing by his gods, Respiration
('AnapnoÆ), Hole (Xãow) and Air (ÉAÆr). All the same, he asks Strepsiades to come
out and demonstrate the extent of his ignorance for the sake of a few cheap laughs (l.
632). This scene implicitly validates the claims just made by the Moon concerning the
Athenians’ wayward and inattentive minds, and it continues the play’s theme of failure
by extending the sequence of deferrals which began before Socrates and Strepsiades
entered the Thinkery, and which will persist throughout the agon and the scene with the
creditors.
Socrates asks Strepsiades what he would prefer to learn about of the subjects he
was never taught, and proposes three different but related areas of knowledge: measures,
rhythms, and words (ll. 636-8). The first two of these are dispensed with hastily after
Strepsiades makes a mockery of them, but the subject of words gets a lengthy treatment.
Interestingly, the issue focuses on the grammatical gender of various words and their
corresponding forms. Socrates informs Strepsiades that he must learn “which of the
quadrupeds are strictly speaking masculine” (l. 659), and after Strepsiades offers a list of
“male” animals, Socrates scolds him for using “the same word to refer to both the female
fowl and the male” (l. 662-3). He goes on to correct him, instructing him to refer to them
as “fowless” (élektrÊainan) and “fowl” (él°ktora), respectively. This is followed
by a few other examples, in which masculine names, and their differentiation from
feminine names, are the focus. The name Cleonymus, which belongs to the shield-
thrower mentioned at line 353, is rendered in a feminine form, Cleonymé, as a mark of
192
cowardice.
73
Likewise, when Strepsiades offers the name Amynias as an example of a
masculine name, Socrates rebukes him, and instructs him to call Amynias by the
feminine form of “Amynia” instead. When Socrates points out that Strepsiades is thus
“calling Amynias a woman,” he responds, “Isn’t that appropriate, since she doesn’t go
out to battle?” (ll. 691-2).
Many scholars have understood this scene to be a parody of sophistic education,
and its particular concern with grammar and linguistics recalls the teaching of the
philosophers Prodicus and Protagoras.
74
My interest in this scene lies less with its
historical precedents, however, and more with its content, which recalls yet again a
number of the issues with which this play is concerned: gender difference, verbal
signification, and the relation of both of these to violence.
These jokes take us back to Socrates’ explanation of how the clouds obtained
their female shape – they saw an effeminate man and accordingly assumed “her” form.
As I noted previously, Socrates’ explanation does not describe accurately what is
occurring on stage, where male actors are, at the direction of the male playwright, acting
as female entities, in female dress though perhaps wearing girded phalloi, in order to
impersonate and thereby lampoon other men.
75
73
The joke continues with Socrates’ comparison of this name to the word for “mortar,” kãrdopow,
which has a masculine form but is a feminine noun. Strepsiades responds to this, “But…Cleonymus
never had a mortar; a round can (yue¤a stroggÊlh) was where his kneading was done” (l. 675-6).
Henderson rejected Dover’s claim (1968, 132 v. 676) that this is a reference to masturbation, and
proposes that it refers instead to anal intercourse, and thus emphasizes Cleonymus’ feminization
(1975, 200). Cf. Meineke 2000, 109 v. 676: “This is closer to the sense of the scene, which lampoons
the sophist’s concerns with the correct use of gender in grammar.”
74
See Plato, Euthydemus 277e; Cratylus 391c; and Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.5-1407b.
75
Stone (1981, 311-13) concludes that the chorus appear as “normal women,” and “the fact that they
symbolize clouds is only subtly implied by their clothing.” She does not discuss the possibility of the
costume phallus in this context.
193
A similar process is at work in these jokes, but it supersedes previous attempts at
mimesis by dispensing with visual appearances altogether, relying solely upon words to
make its point. The ease with which men may become women (and vice versa) is thus
reflected in these simple semiotic changes, as only a different letter is needed to
fundamentally alter one’s identity. It seems that words had become all that was
necessary to make (or unmake) the man – the body was, so to speak, immaterial. These
jokes are not all that humorous and they do nothing to move the plot forward; they
conclude as quickly as they were taken up and demonstrate only how little has been
accomplished in the past few hundred lines. Nonetheless, they indicate the extremes to
which the “because-I-say-so” mentality in Athenian society at that time. They therefore
serve as an appropriate preview to the appearance of Worse Argument, who is basically
the embodiment of this “because I say so” mentality.
Just before this appearance, however, Socrates insists that Strepsiades lie down
in bed and “think out one of [his] own problems” (l. 695). The chorus also appears to
encourage him in these efforts. In characteristic fashion, Strepsiades begs to lie on the
ground instead of the bed (ll. 696-7), but he is not allowed to do so, and he is promptly
consumed by bedbugs: “They’re chomping my flanks, draining my lifeblood, yanking
my balls, poking my asshole, and altogether killing me!” (ll. 711-15). This is the first
time that he begins to despair of his situation, and it is the occasion of the first of many
references to death that he will make before the end of the play. He fearfully anticipates
vanishing into thin air, and he laments paratragically his lost connection with life-
affirming objects: “Gone away is my money, gone my suntan, gone my lifeblood, gone
my shoes; and to top off these misfortunes, I whistle in the dark, and I’m all but gone
194
myself!” (ll. 718-22).
76
Still, he resists this end by reaffirming his commitment to the
material world, asserting both his corporeality and his masculinity with one decisive
action.
Strepsiades first imagines himself as cavorting with a gnmh, or an
“idea,” which has taken on the qualities of a flute-girl through his own substitution of
letters. (Apparently he has managed to learn at least one lesson in the Thinkery.) He
changes the adjectival suffix of the word used at line 728 by Socrates, éposterhtikÚw,
or “fraudacious,” from -tikÚw to that of -triw, which designates a female in an
occupational role. He then responds to Socrates’ question, “Have you come up with
anything?”, with a lewd gesture that reveals his phallus and with the defiant remark,
“Not a thing, except my cock in my hand” (ll. 733-4). Unfortunately for Strepsiades, this
willful declaration makes no difference to Socrates and the chorus, who ignore it and
insist that he find another solution to his money problems.
Strepsiades comes up with various solutions of increasing absurdity, which
further illuminate not just his ground or downward-oriented personality, but also his
tendency toward manipulative and mercenary relationships with women. First, he
suggests that he purchase a Thessalian witch, who can “pull down the moon” for him so
that he would never have to pay interest on his debt (ll. 749-54). This solution directly
contradicts the message from the moon in the parabasis, and signals Strepsiades’
complete disregard for both her and the witch, whom he presumes to be a slave available
76
Both Sommerstein (1982, 198 vv. 718-9) and Dover (1968, 136 v. 718) note that these lines are
probably a parody of Eurpides’ Hecuba. Strepsiades’ utterance of them accentuates his position of
powerlessness and his feminization. The word translated as “gone” is froËdow, an adjective that
derives from the contraction of prÚ ,doË, or “forward,” but which commonly signifies not just
departure but death.
195
for purchase. He is rewarded with encouragement for this by Socrates, who pushes him
to “unreel his mind into the air” (l. 762). Strepsiades then conspires to use glass and the
sun’s rays in order to melt a fictional court docket against him. Finally, he suggests
suicide by hanging as a way to escape an impending conviction, a suggestion which will
come up again in the near future.
This is an anticlimactic and unfunny reply to Socrates’ inquiry, and it exposes
the futility of his attempt to indoctrinate Strepsiades. And yet, as O’Regan points out,
ironically, this is Strepsiades at his most philosophic, since, in this ascendant position, he
would move to a higher plane: “Dangling above the ground, his body would…reproduce
the position of thought, which…must be elevated to escape the traps of aporia and
contamination with dull earthly processes.”
77
Socrates, however, does not view the
suggestion in these terms and, with that, he dismisses his student from the Thinkery. At
this point, with the prospect of death now looming over him, Strepsiades returns to his
original plan and to the beginning of the play, as the chorus advises him to send his
grown-up son to school in his place (ll. 795-6).
It is at this point that the clouds first mention that things are going to “take an
unexpected turn” (ll. 812-3), but this is too vague a statement and it is too soon to know
what this might mean. Meanwhile, Pheidippides reappears with Strepsiades, who insists
that his son attend school at the Thinkery or be thrown out of the house. As Strepsiades
divulges some of the ridiculous knowledge he has acquired at the school – most notably,
that Zeus does not exist – Pheidippides accuses him again and again of being mentally ill
(ll. 816, 832, 844-6), and even considers taking legal action to certify him as insane and
77
1992, 87.
196
deprive him of control of his property. This is a short step away from death, as both
Strepsiades and Pheidippies admit in their own ways: at line 838, Strepsiades claims that
Pheidippides has been acting as if his father were already dead, and, at line 846,
Pheidippides wonders aloud whether he should skip the court action to declare his father
mentally ill and just “report his madness to the coffin makers.” As we have seen, the
related themes of insanity and death receive extended treatment in Wasps, but, in this
instance, they are passed over, as Pheidippides finally submits to the demands of his
father, though not without the warning, “I swear the time will come when you’ll be sorry
for this” (l. 865, trans. Sommerstein).
Socrates comes out to meet his new student and doubts his ability to become an
orator. Nonetheless, Strepsiades insists that he be taught the Better and Worse
Arguments, to which Socrates responds, “He’ll be taught by the Arguments themselves;
I’ll be elsewhere” (l. 886-7).
78
Better Argument emerges and calls out his counterpart,
and they immediately begin to threaten each other with destruction; the latter intends to
achieve this by “inventing novel ideas,” the former by “pleading a just case” (ll. 896,
900). The threats rapidly descend into the trading of insults and name-calling, and when
Worse Argument attempts to leave with Pheidippides, Better Argument warns him,
“You’ll be sorry if you lay a hand on him!” (l. 933).
78
A choral ode appears to be missing here, the casualty of Aristophanes’ incomplete revision, and
indeed the entire agon, which begins immediately, also seems to have undergone serious reworking.
MacDowell (1995, 142) believes it to be a “complete insertion” with little relevance to the other parts
of the play; contra see Pucci 1960, 5-12. Hubbard (1986, 187) and Dover (1968, xc-xciii) agree that
though it was revised, the original version probably did feature some kind of dueling discourses.
Hubbard also summarizes the many other hypotheses that have been put forth regarding the original.
There is some speculation, based on a scholium, that the Arguments may have been represented as
“fighting like cocks,” though this may have only been a metaphorical means of describing them. Even
if this were the case in the original, it does not appear to be the case here; rather, they appear simply
as young citizen male vs. old citizen male.
197
At this point, the chorus leader intervenes and orders them to stop their clashing
and verbal abuse (l. 934, mãxhw kai loidor¤aw). “She” then enjoins each of the
Arguments to make a rhetorical presentation on the subject of which style of education,
the old or the new, is better, so that Pheidippides may then choose which school to
attend (ll. 934-8). In so doing, “she” inhabits that middle ground referred to previously:
she takes on the traditional female roles of mediator and peacekeeper, and forestalls the
descent into violence. However, in keeping with her indeterminate persona, “she” also
incites them to compete verbally. It is in this episode that the deployment of words as
weapons is best demonstrated, although, as we know from previous plays, this
transference from one form of fighting to another is destined to produce inconclusive
results, which will only beget further violence.
79
Because of this, it is not really necessary to examine every detail of the debate
between Better and Worse Argument. Their debate can be (and has been) summarized
simply as a conflict between old and new, between a nostalgic and overly idealizing
view of the past that is dictated by custom (nÒmow) and backed up by brute force, and a
view that deliberately contradicts and undermines this archaic attitude, and holds all
claims to justice as relative.
80
This view seeks only what it terms the natural (fÊsiw)
fulfillment of its own desire through the manipulative power of the word. And yet we
know, based on what has preceded this debate, that oppositions in this play are never
79
Their unwavering devotion to the martial ideal is further evidenced by the language that both
Arguments employ hereafter. For example, at line 944, Worse Argument claims he will “shoot down”
his rival (katatojeÊsv). See O’Regan (1992, 186 n. 11) for other examples.
80
Reckford 1987, 388-402; Dover 1972, 111-14; Marianetti 1992, 102-4.
198
clearly defined. For this reason, it will be worthwhile to analyze the similarities which
emerge as the debate progresses between the two antagonists.
Right away what is noteworthy is the great amount of attention paid by both
Better and Worse Argument to the subject of sex, of both the male/female and male/male
variety, and their shared affinity for the latter of the two. However, the way that each
positions himself in relation to sex is, of course, expressed differently. Better Argument
takes a proscriptive stance toward it at first, then reveals his longing for intercourse with
boys by making constant obsessive references to it. He vacillates between a desire for
young men to spread their thighs and thus avoid self-stimulation (l. 966), and a desire for
them to keep their legs crossed so as not to “torment the onlookers” (l. 973). He dwells
at length upon the beauty of male genitals, even as he enjoins boys not to “liquefy [their]
voice to a simper for a lover and walk around pimping [themselves] with [their] eyes”
(ll. 979-80). Finally, he insists that they not “sit with legs crossed” (l. 983), and gets
angry at the prospect of a young man dancing the pyrrhic dance without showing off his
“meatbone” (l. 989, kvlw). His only unambiguous warning concerning sex is against
“bursting into a dancing girl’s house, lest while you’re gaping (kexhn]w) after that sort
of thing, you’re struck by the little whore’s apple (mÆlƒ, also a comic term for the
female breast) and your fair name gets fractured” (ll. 996-97).
It is clear from the remarks of Better Argument that his idealized world of the
past depends in part upon the systematic avoidance and denial of women as sexual
beings. Sexuality is to remain strictly in the domain of men, which, in his fantasy,
corresponds to the space of the gymnasium. He invokes this space repeatedly during his
oration (ll. 973, 1002-5, with specific reference to the Academy; l. 1054), and contrasts it
199
with the spaces of the agora and the bathhouse (ll. 991, 1044, 1054-5). He even goes so
far as to assimilate the gymnasium to a Golden Age-inspired natural world, which is
“fragrant with woodbine and carefree content, and the catkins flung by the poplar tree,
luxuriating in spring’s hour, when the plane tree whispers to the elm” (ll. 1007-8). This
exaggerated attempt to naturalize and thereby justify the cultural practices of sport and
male body cultivation passes over the fact that warfare and violence originally informed
these habits and made possible the space for their practice, which, it should be noted, is
inside the city. The version of masculinity which Better Argument presents is an
enervated derivation from the warrior ideal; he therefore takes it upon himself to
differentiate it from the other culturally determined forms that masculinity now takes at
Athens, such as the one embodied by the likes of Worse Argument.
Better Argument’s attempt to distinguish his jeopardized masculine identity from
other types is encapsulated in the detailed encomium he sings at the end of his speech
about the ideal male body aesthetic and its opposite:
If you follow my recommendations, and keep them ever in mind, you will
always have a rippling chest, radiant skin, broad shoulders, a small tongue,
a full ass and a petite dick. But if you adopt current practices you’ll start by
having a puny chest, pasty skin, narrow shoulders, a large tongue, a little
ass, and a lengthy ‘edict’ (cÆfisma, ll. 1009-19).
This attempt to rehabilitate the body as a signifier of difference among men fails as a
result of the absence of any “significant other” – that is, any female – in Better
Argument’s imagined ideal world, even in spite of his jabs at the new Athenian man’s
feminizing (in his view) preoccupation with democratic politics. Evidence of this failure
lies in the fact that, like the democratic politician, Better Argument also attempts to win
this agon by relying on words in order to pass his “edict.” In the end, Better Argument’s
200
celebration of and insistence upon masculine sameness paradoxically necessitates his
own disavowal of it by means of differentiation. This paradox compels him to end his
sexually repressive speech with a hypocritical accusation of “faggotry” on the part of
these politicized, and therefore emasculated, neophytes (l. 1023, katapugosÊnhw). As
we will see, it is precisely this weak point which Worse Argument will exploit to his
advantage in his upcoming speech.
Before he begins, however, the chorus praises the words of Better Argument,
and informs Worse Argument that he will need some “impressive schemes” to counter
and overthrow his rival (ll. 1034-5). He responds with a few brief examples of his logic-
bending techniques, eager, as he puts it, to “trash all his [rival’s] arguments” (l. 1037).
Finally, Worse Argument asks, “Have you ever seen anyone get anything good by being
decent?” (ll. 1062-3). Better Argument brings up the hero Peleus as an affirmative
example, because he received a knife from the gods with which to defend himself from
wild animals. With this response, Better Argument plays into the hands of his rival: “A
knife? What a civilized reward that poor sucker got!” (l. 1064). As was well known,
Peleus’ exile to the forests of Mt. Pelion was what made this gift necessary; he was
falsely accused of rape by the wife of his host, Acastus, who subsequently banished
him.
81
Better Argument counters that, in addition to the knife, Peleus received the
reward of marriage to the sea-goddess Thetis for his decency (l. 1067). Yet for this same
reason she deserted him, Worse Argument is quick to retort, as he was not enough of a
“roughneck” in bed (ÍbristØw, l. 1068), and because, more importantly, “a woman
enjoys being ravaged wantonly” (l. 1070, gunØ d¢ sinamvroum°nh xa¤rei).
81
The story is recounted in Pindar, Nemean 4.
201
This statement, which has the ring of an aphorism, connotes not just sexual
degradation but sadistic violence, as Henderson notes.
82
It works here as a reminder of
what distinctions among all men and the foundations of society ultimately rest upon –
the subjugation of women, which is achieved primarily by means of marriage, but which
must always be backed up by the threat of sexual force. By ventriloquizing “woman”
and defining her desire for her, Worse Argument is able to exploit her liminal position as
simultaneous object and subject, and assert his superiority and distinction in comparison
with his rival.
83
This insidious objectification is an updated and improved form of Better
Argument’s strategic denial of the existence of women. Worse Argument deals with the
problem of female subjectivity not by avoiding it, but by controlling and minimizing it
through verbalized violence. It seems, then, that the only real difference between the
viewpoints of Better and Worse Argument is that the latter is willing to acknowledge all
of this openly, if only for the sake of winning the debate, while the former is not.
Once Worse Argument has acknowledged the utility of both rape and marriage
to male social relations, he moves on to recognize the necessity (l. 1076, énãgkaw) of
adultery: “Say you slip up, fall in love, cheat a little, and then get caught. You’re done
for because you’re unable to argue. But…if you happen to get caught in flagrante, tell
him this: that you’ve done nothing wrong” (ll. 1075-80). It appears that, on the topic of
male sexuality, Worse Argument has all his rhetorical bases covered. His “you-can-
have-it-both-ways” attitude is the ideal moral position from which to vaunt the inherent
superiority of men – it is the same one which sustains the sexual double standard
82
1975, 158-9.
83
Note that Worse Argument immediately goes on to number “boys, women, dice, fine food and
drink, and laughs” as the pleasures which Better Argument is missing out on by pursuing decency (l.
1073).
202
underlying his argument. Yet, it is also a slippery slope, because engaging in adultery
undercuts the gender identity and status of other men, and thereby contributes to the
weakening of the fundamental bonds of patriarchal society. In addition, as Better
Argument points out, it puts the adulterer himself at risk of being feminized by other
men as a punishment: “But say he listens to you and then gets violated with a radish and
depilated with hot ash? What argument will he have on hand to avoid becoming wide-
assed?” (ll. 1083-4).
Outrageously, Worse Argument does not see any harm in becoming wide-assed,
and the reason for this is simple – the majority of Athenian men, he claims, already are
wide-assed. The indisputable evidence of this fact is to be found among the different
groups of spectators in the theater. He asks, “What group do prosecutors come from?”
Better Argument responds, “from the wide-assed.” He has the same response when
asked about tragedians and politicians (ll. 1095-8). By pointing out each group’s shared
affinity for anal intercourse, he confirms the statements made by Better Argument in his
earlier tirade against weakness and indolence. And yet, the same community of wide-
assed men comprised by the audience could also be the grown-up counterparts of those
boys imagined by Better Argument at the outset of this dispute.
84
In Better Argument’s
city pederasty was an idealized norm and women were virtually nonexistent. In Worse
Argument’s enhanced version of this ideal city, the situation turns out to be nearly the
same – women’s existence is negated through their objectification and men are all
grouped together, free to do their own thing. The only difference seems to be that, like
84
In fact, given the pederastic norms in place at the time, a fair number of men in the audience could
have actually been the objects of affection to men of the generation represented by Better Argument.
203
the cloud chorus before them, these new men have appropriated and incorporated into
their identities what were perceived as advantageous feminine qualities, and, with the
help of Worse Argument, they have rendered top and bottom indistinguishable.
In making this point, Worse Argument effectively wins the rhetorical battle.
Better Argument cries out, unable to refute his opponent, “We are beaten! You faggots,
for heaven’s sake take my cloak, I’m deserting to your side!” (ll. 1101-4). He then runs
somewhere, possibly back into the Thinkery or perhaps into the audience. This stripping
away of his cloak signifies his newfound support for the school and for Socrates, who
was been portrayed as a clothing thief from the first (ll. 177-9, lvpodÊthw; cf ll. 497-8,
856, 1492), and who previously required that Strepsiades strip before entering the
school. But it also has a deeper significance, for it denotes the inescapable similarity of
all men, which is most apparent on the primary level of the body, once social convention
is done away with. It exposes the fact that the entire agon was an exercise in futility, a
humorous enactment of the old comic adage “it takes one to know one,” which promotes
hostility and opposition, but at the same time denies any truly meaningful difference.
The real problem is thus not which logoi are better or worse, but the antagonistic and
dead-end “nature” of logos itself. O’Regan similarly concludes that while they may
“differ on the fine points,” both Arguments end up tacitly conceding that the fulfillment
of male pleasure, which generally takes the form of a desire to dominate others, is “the
proper goal of human life.”
85
The remainder of the play will bear out the truth of this
claim.
85
1992, 98.
204
The next few scenes demonstrate the lack of effect the debate of the agon has
had in the “real world” of the play. Strepsiades insists that Pheidippides still be taught by
Worse Argument, while Pheidippides himself retains the same attitude he had had
previous to the agon and acts as if he has heard nothing. The chorus, who appeared more
sympathetic to Better Argument during the agon, reiterates its view that Strepsiades will
come to regret this (l. 1113), but they display no inclination to change the course of
events. Instead, they turn their attention upon the spectators and the judges in particular,
promising favorable weather and harvest to them if they are supportive of the play, and
threatening them with inclement weather and blight if they are not (ll. 1115-30).
86
This
appeal restores the clouds to their role as nature goddesses and again conveys a sense of
both their mastery of the land and their ability to influence human life. But it is also a
distancing move, as it places responsibility for the outcome, not just of the dramatic
competition, but of the play itself, squarely on the audience’s shoulders.
Interestingly, the chorus leader ends “her” pronouncement with a threat to break
up a wedding party:
Any mortal who would slight our honor as goddesses should bear in mind
what punishments he’ll suffer from us:…when he or any of his relatives or
friends has a wedding, we’ll rain all night long, so that maybe he’ll wish
he’d wound up in Egypt instead of miscasting his vote (ll. 1128-30).
This threat of a failed marriage brings to mind Strepsiades’ relations with his wife, as
well as those of Peleus with Thetis, and recalls again how fragile and susceptible to
damage the foundational social institution of marriage can be. The clouds seem still to be
acting as intermediaries here, except that the conflict they are arbitrating has shifted
86
This section is referred to as the second parabasis, and both Hubbard (1986, 187 n. 21) and
Sommerstein (1982, 215 vv. 1113-30) suggest that it was part of the original. Sommerstein also cites a
scholium which says five lines of lyric before line 1115 are missing, ostensibly as a result of revision.
205
from the one within the play, as embodied by the Arguments, to the one between
playwright and audience. However, it appears that they are also perfectly capable of
stirring up conflict and tumult on their own – they turn quickly to physical violence in
order to obtain desirable results.
87
The clouds’ simultaneous roles as peacekeepers and
aggressors indicate that their status remains doubled and indeterminate. Their continued
indeterminacy, coupled with their distancing stance, suggests that, unlike female figures
in previous Aristophanic comedies, they will not be part of the play’s resolution. On the
one hand, they occupy too great a position to function merely as objects of sexual
exchange and enjoyment, but, on the other, their power has been largely disregarded and
undervalued, and they have not been properly incorporated into the all-male world of
either the Thinkery or the city. All they can do, therefore, is contribute to further
confusion and turmoil: cloudiness.
After this song, Strepsiades returns to collect Pheidippides from the Thinkery,
dreading his imminent meeting with his creditors. He pays Socrates for his services (ll.
1146-7), and instantly begins rejoicing at the successful transformation his son has
undergone. He sings a celebratory song in which he refers to his son as “my barricade,
savior of my home” (l. 1161), despite all evidence to the contrary. When Pheidippides
emerges, Strepsiades is already convinced, persuaded by superficial indicators like his
pallor and “Athenian expression” (i.e., that “what are you talking about?” look), that his
son can save him (ll. 1172-6). Pheidippides embarks upon a brief demonstration of his
newly-acquired rhetorical ability, to which his father responds with admiration and
ecstasy at the prospect of outwitting his creditors. He sings another premature
87
O’Regan (1992, 107; 192 n. 6) recounts the various martial allusions they make in this speech.
206
celebratory song in praise of himself and Pheidippides, and openly abuses the spectators
for being dupes, while identifying himself and his son as intellectuals (sof«n, l. 1202).
He insults them by referring to them as “stones, placeholders, mere sheep, a bunch of
empty jars,” who are “sitting there, brainless” (ll. 1201-3).
All these epithets partake of the earthly and corporeal qualities which previously
characterized Strepsiades, and substantiate how complete a conversion he has made from
his former self. He has become completely untethered, progressing far beyond the beetle
that was “leashed by its leg with a thread,” to which Socrates compared him when he
exhorted Strepsiades to unreel his mind into the air (l. 763). His enlightened, and
therefore heightened, position presages a fall of some kind, but for now he hastily
departs with his son in order to prepare a feast and continue his celebration (l. 1213).
Douglas MacDowell contends that this is evidence of a happy ending for Strepsiades in
the original version, since feasting is a common way of signifying imminent success in
Aristophanic plays; however, in this case, it contrasts with what is expected, because of
the previous warnings of the clouds.
88
MacDowell concludes from this that the ending
was revised because the audience did not approve of Strepsiades’ eventual triumph, and
mistook Aristophanes’ satire for approval of sophistry and atheism.
89
Whether this was the case of not, one outcome was certain, and in fact
inevitable: the continuation of the cycle of violence, which began with the agon and
which proceeds through the following scenes involving Strepsiades and his creditors.
90
The first of these visitors enters at line 1214, indignant at finding himself in such
88
1995, 144. See, for example, Acharnians, Wasps, and Peace.
89
1995, 146.
90
The overthrow of these unwelcome visitors is another means by which to indicate the victory of the
hero in Aristophanes; they were therefore most likely part of the original version.
207
unfavorable circumstances. As it turns out, he is not a professional moneylender, but a
friend and neighbor who has come to Strepsiades’ aid, and who is troubled by the
likelihood that his fellow demesman will become his enemy with the calling in of his
debt (ll. 1216-8). Nonetheless, his allegiance to the Athenian way of life, which, he says,
consists in never throwing away “a piece of one’s own estate” (l. 1214), propels him to
summon Strepsiades to court. In this regard, he is very similar to his neighbor: both are
motivated into action by their self-interested financial concerns. Yet, as he points out, it
is the polis that sanctions and encourages his behavior: “As long as I live I’ll never
disgrace my country!” (ll. 1220-1). This remark refers not only to his propensity for
litigiousness, but also to his ardent desire to retain his property no matter what the cost.
Strepsiades emerges when summoned by the visitor, and meets him head-on with
the various bits of sophistic nonsense he took away from the Thinkery, most notably that
regarding the fallacy of the gods’ existence. He manages to successfully confound the
creditor, condescend to him and send him on his way as he issues threats of revenge (l.
1236, 1241).
91
Before all of this happens, however, Strepsiades performs the obligatory
insult via objectification by suggesting that his belly might be turned into a wineskin (ll.
1237-8). This insult not only recalls the similar scene in Acharnians, where an informer
was turned into a pot; it resumes that style of abuse which Strepsiades employed to
describe the audience a moment before, by disparaging the the material and corporeal
realm.
91
Strangely, Pheidippides is nowhere to be seen during both this and the following exchanges, despite
his father’s stated dependence on him to talk his way out of these lawsuits; cf. lines 1228-9.
208
The second creditor appears immediately after this, and engages in a single-
minded question and answer session with Strepsiades regarding his money. Strepsiades
throws various casuistic curveballs at him, including demanding that he describe the
origin of rain and the definition of interest. The creditor answers the questions
satisfactorily, but because he is “indifferent to logos,” it makes no difference – he
remains fixed on retrieving his funds.
92
When Strepsiades is unable to fluster him, he
turns to violence, just as he did in the first scene with the slave, and thereby reveals the
inadequacy and insubstantiality of his own rhetorical indoctrination. He commands his
slave to fetch him his goad (l. 1297, k°ntron), and, referring to the creditor as a
“branded nag” (l. 1298), he threatens to shove the goad in his rectum. This act is sadistic
and sexually demeaning – it functions simultaneously as the abuse of an animal and as
the rape of either a passive homosexual or woman. The creditor can only exclaim, “Is
this not sheer hubris?” (l. 1299) and then run away, reduced to yet another exploitable
object by Strepsiades.
93
This scene confirms that once words and violence have become
completely interchangeable, it is a short step to doing away altogether with the less
effective of the two.
Strepsiades returns home while the chorus sings of his excessive lust for
mischief (ll. 1303-4, §rçn…§rasye‹w), and disdains him as a “sophist,” warning again
that he will “lay hold of some business that will make him suddenly pay dearly for all
the wrongful activities he undertook” (ll. 1308-10). They warn he will also “soon find
what he’s long been asking for” – a son who can defeat anyone with the most wicked
92
O’Regan 1992, 112.
93
Interestingly, this is the first appearance of the word hubris in the extant corpus of Aristophanes.
209
arguments (ll. 1311-2). Like the clouds of myth before them, they have enabled the
fulfillment of Strepsiades’ misguided desire, and they have done so in a manner that
accords well with their wishy-washy character: they have allowed the male characters to
invoke them as authority figures and to employ them as instruments in the acquisition of
power without doing anything to endorse these actions themselves. It is this
unsubstantiated sense of acquired power and authority that leads to both Socrates’ and
Strepsiades’ punishment and downfall.
Suddenly, Strepsiades comes running out of the house, screaming for help and
claiming he is being beaten by his son: “Help! Help! Neighbors, kinsmen, fellow
demesmen, rescue me any way you can! I’m being beaten!” (l. 1321). These appeals
seem to locate him back in Cicynna, and it is the first time in the play that he occupies a
relatively unambiguous place, with some connection to the real world. It is as if the
visceral experience that the beating has occasioned has brought Strepsiades back down
to the terrestrial level. The truth about the unarguable power of force and its contagious
effect has been made manifest in the space of one ode. And thus, like father, like son:
Pheidippides chases Strepsiades off the property, just as Strepsiades did to his creditor,
not one hundred lines before.
Pheidippides admits openly to beating his father, and revels in the names he is
called by his father in response: “Call me those very names again, and worse. Do you
know that I enjoy being called lots of bad names?” (ll. 1328-9). Strepsiades responds by
calling him lakkÒprvkte, or “tank-assed” (l. 1329). This designation marks him, and
ironically distinguishes him, as the most depraved of all the “wide-assed” men present.
Unfazed by this, Pheidippides insists that he can prove “it is good and right for a father
210
to be beaten by his sons” (ll. 1340-1). At this point, the agon is re-enacted by father and
son, with the chorus members again intervening as mediators. They ask how it is that the
two came to blows, and Strepsiades explains how he asked his son to sing over dinner, to
which he objected, saying it was “old fashioned to play the lyre and sing at a drinking
party, like a woman hulling barley” (ll. 1357-8). When Pheidippides finally does sing, he
rejects the songs of Aeschylus and insists upon reciting “some speech by Euripides
about how a brother, god save me, was screwing his sister by the same mother!” (ll.
1371-2). From that point on, Strepsiades says, “as you might expect, we laid into each
other” (ll. 1374-5, ±reidÒmesy').
It is with his Euripidean song of incest that Pheidippides brazenly reveals the
“worst-case scenario” at the heart of men’s fear and confusion – that the kinship
structures which organize and regulate society have been damaged to the point of
permanent dysfunction. Not only have men become impossible to differentiate from one
another, as confirmed by the agon of the Arguments and by Pheidippides’ statement that
“old men have become children again” (l. 1417); they have also become largely
indistinguishable from women, who have themselves become frustratingly indefinable.
94
In this world devoid of meaningful sexual and spatial boundaries, the threat of incest
becomes a clear and present danger. The once distinct oikos and its inhabitants are now
94
Strepsiades corroborates his son’s point when he compares how he is now being treated by
Pheidippides to how he treated his son in his youth: “I’m the one who raised you…the one who
listened to all your baby talk and knew what you meant. If you said “dwik,” I would know to get you a
drink. When you asked for “babba,” I’d be there with bread. And before you even finished saying
“poopie,” I’d pick you up, take you outside, and hold you at arm’s length. But when you were choking
me just now, and I was bellowing and screaming that I had to shit, you balked at taking me
outside…but you kept choking me until I made poopie right there!” (ll. 1380-90). Strepsiades’
references to defecation put him back on clear footing in the realm of the lower bodily stratum, while
the general image he conjures up, of himself as caretaker or nanny, implies his feminization.
211
completely consumed by the conflict and confusion which has resulted from men’s
unchecked, indiscriminate desire to dominate. Stark evidence of this fact comes as
Pheidippides ignores his father’s surprisingly plausible counter-arguments and passes
right on to “yet another proposition” – “I’ll beat mother as I beat you” (ll. 1440-3).
This proposition, which, as Dana Sutton points out, consists of a crudely
sublimated form of rape, is too much for Strepsiades.
95
“What’s that? What did you say?
That’s different, a far greater crime!” (l. 1444). Pheidippides goes on, firm in his resolve,
claiming he can rationalize this heinous act as well. To this Strepsiades can only
respond, “If you do, nothing will save you from jumping into the Pit (tÚ bãrayron)
along with Socrates and Worse Argument” (ll. 1447-51). Strepsiades’ reference to the
Pit, “the official destination of those convicted of crimes against the city,” is his first and
only reference to an actual civic space in the play.
96
O’Regan argues that “the suggestion
of mother-beating hastens [Strepsiades’] (re)conversion to the conventional world of the
city, the laws and the gods who will protect him,” but I would counter that what
constitutes the “conventional world” in Clouds has been and remains a lost fantasy.
97
By
invoking the Pit, Strepsiades may reaffirm his link to the land and the city, but it is a
degraded and criminal link, forged by death rather than life. The Pit, like the Thinkery, is
a tomb; it is the antithesis of the longed-for fertile field so prominent in Aristophanes,
95
1993, 34. He comments on the ambiguously sexual connotations of the word tÊptv, “to beat,”
and its repetition, and concludes that only this understanding can explain Strepsiades’ outraged
response.
96
O’Regan 1992, 120. This makes sense, given that Strepsiades’ primary aim was to avoid going to
court. He also explicitly tells the chorus that he has no interest in carrying motions in the assembly
(line 433).
97
Ibid.
212
and its appearance here signals a markedly changed relationship between the male
Athenian citizen and his homeland.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Strepsiades turns immediately to the chorus and blames
it for this tragic outcome: “Clouds, it’s your fault this happened to me! I trusted you with
all my affairs” (ll. 1452-3).
98
They reply unsympathetically that he has only himself to
blame, since he “twisted” (str°caw) himself into evildoing. They explain that they
have treated him the same way as they treat “anyone…lusting after shady dealings: by
plunging him into calamity until he learns respect for the gods” (ll. 1454-5). In the end, it
seems that these deities have reverted to their traditional role: they have intervened in a
situation of inappropriate sexual desire (i.e., Pheidippides’ intentions toward his mother),
exposed the disintegration of one man’s relationships with both oikos and polis through
his own antisocial behavior, and created a similar monster out of his son as punishment.
Moreover, the fact that the ending of the play has been revised means that their role
remains appropriately indeterminate to the last.
99
It is their successful exploitation of
their paradoxical female position – as both present and absent, both subject and object –
which ironically leaves them the “last men standing” in the play. In this guise, they
present a frightful prospect to a city facing both internal turmoil and the losing side of a
war; they represent the undermining of the entire ideological system by which the
Athenian male differentiated self from other. Yet this is not what the original audience
(or any audience) saw. Instead, they saw Strepsiades, triumphing most likely with the aid
98
The tragic overtones of the play’s ending have been well explored; see Hughes 1985 for a summary.
99
The play ends on a similarly indeterminate note, with the only words the chorus speaks after this
point: “Lead the dancers on their way, we’ve done enough performing for today” (ll. 1510-1). Dover
(1968, 194 v. 1510) describes them as “colorless,” Sommerstein (1982, 232 vv. 1510-1) as
“perfunctory.”
213
of these manipulative, wishy-washy female figures, and, as it turned out, that end was
equally unacceptable.
Although Strepsiades readily admits he has learned his lesson, his impulse to
hold the clouds responsible for his affairs suggests otherwise. Just like his wife at the
beginning of the play, these nebulosities, in their transitory and partial presence, make
convenient targets of blame. And, as before, this quality also leaves him to solve his
problems on his own. The solution he comes up with only confirms the failure of the
play and the failure of Stresiades to evolve and adapt to his new circumstances of
existence. He instantly turns to violence and attempts to enlists the aid of his son: “What
say you come with me and help me destroy that scum Chaerephon and Socrates for
cheating you and me both?” (ll. 1464-6). Pheidippides refuses and retreats into the oikos
– his sophistic indoctrination is irreversible and he shows himself, and the home, to be a
hopeless case.
Meanwhile, Strepsiades conveniently receives pseudo-religious sanction from a
Herm standing in front of his house to burn the Thinkery. He immediately summons his
slave to demolish the roof, while another brings a torch and all three climb up and set it
on fire. The pupils run out, followed by Socrates, who exclaims, “What do you think
you’re doing?” (l. 1502) Strepsiades replies, “I tread the air and scrutinize the sun!” (l.
1503), in mockery of the words Socrates uttered on his first appearance. These
characters’ reversal of position signals unequivocally that true transcendence and
mastery can only be achieved through the prolongation of violence, although these ideals
are achieved only momentarily. In the end, all men must eventually return to the
chthonic earth, and that is what they do: Strepsiades and his slaves climb down,
214
unsatisfied with the conflagration, and they chase Socrates and his pupils off the stage,
pelting them with stones.
In conclusion, the intentions that determined Strepsiades’ words and actions
throughout Clouds were not all that distinct from those of the Athenian populace with
respect to the war at this time. They had started out in a secure position of power, with
many allies and sources of revenue. But because of internal dissension, corruption and
revolt, their position had become compromised. It was for this reason that Athens was
compelled to seek a truce in 423 BCE; however, even Thucydides points out that it was
viewed as nothing more than a breathing space, in which they might “gain time to take
precautions before Brasidas could procure the revolt of any more of their cities.”
100
Like
Strepsiades with his creditors, then, what Athens wanted was simply more time to
prepare and strategize. In both cases, despite all appearances to the contrary and despite
the previous losses that had been suffered, there was, as of yet, no true incentive or
inspiration to do anything differently. The results of such an approach turned out to be
similar for Athens and Strepsiades as well; each continued down the path of pursuing a
goal which was questionable and dishonest from the start – retaining property by
whatever means necessary, regardless of the consequences. Clouds offers a bleak picture
of where this pursuit eventually led for one man; the troubling events that would occur in
the north, at Scione and Amphipolis, during the following year would soon enough make
this clear to the city of Athens as well.
100
Thuc. 4.117.
215
CHAPTER FIVE
YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN
Peace and the Peace of 421 BCE
In theatrical space, music, choruses, masks, tiering – all such elements converge with
language and actors. A spatial action overcomes conflicts, at least momentarily, even
though it does not resolve them; it opens a way from everyday concerns to collective joy.
-- Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (1974)
The play Peace was performed at the City Dionysia in 421 BCE, just days before
the signing of the fifty-year peace treaty known as the Peace of Nikias, where it won
second place.
1
It has a cautiously optimistic tone that is at once celebratory and
admonitory, as Aristophanes developed its plot while these difficult and protracted peace
negotiations, which ran the risk of falling apart at anytime, were underway. (As we know
now, the peace was to last only seven years, but of course, no one knew this then.) As
noted in Chapter Four, these negotiations were initiated by the simultaneous deaths of
Cleon and Brasidas at Amphipolis, as they were “the two principal opponents of peace
on either side.”
2
Their deaths created a power vacuum which was filled by more
moderate politicians on both sides of the conflict (Nikias and Pleistoanax, respectively),
each of whom had his own reasons for desiring peace. At Athens, this stoppage and
transference of power put the focus back on the political situation at home.
3
It also seems
that a general sense of fatigue had taken over the Greek world in this tenth year of war,
rendering all parties more amenable to the peace process.
1
The play’s third hypothesis reports that Peace was beaten by Eupolis’ Flatterers, while Leucon’s
Phratry placed third.
2
Thuc. 5.16.1.
3
This also seems to have been the case at Sparta. Thucydides tells of how Pleistoanax’s resumption of
power caused much dissension among the Spartans, many of whom decried his restoration after a
nineteen year exile to Mt. Lycaeum as fraudulent and undeserved. See 5.16.
216
Nearly all commentators note how similar this play is in content and structure to
Acharnians, as it too is concerned with a farmer-hero’s desire to end the war and his
execution of a grandiose plan to achieve this end. In this instance, Trygaeus, whose
name means “Vintager,” flies to heaven on a dung-beetle, and with the help of Hermes,
he rescues Peace (in the form of a statue) from a cave where she has been entombed by
the personified figure of War. He then returns to earth with her and her attendants, and
after establishing a cult for her, he drives off some would-be spoilers of the peace, and
celebrates his triumph with a wedding to the attendant Opora.
It is clear from this summary that Peace resembles Acharnians in many ways;
however, its similarities to the intervening plays, Knights, Wasps and Clouds, should
also be pointed out, as it shares in many of their thematic concerns and dramaturgic
techniques. Peace, in fact, may be viewed as an illuminating synthesis of many of the
trends we have encountered in the previous plays, and this makes its analysis at this
point a fitting end to the broader diachronic inquiry undertaken in this study. As we will
see, Peace takes up the themes of madness and escape (Wasps), as well as those of
upward mobility and religious conversion (Clouds).
4
The interrelated imagery of food
and sex also features prominently again here (Knights). But what is of most interest is
the play’s continued employment of female characters and figures in a manner which
portrays them as objects of both discord and ridicule among men, even at the same time
as they function as agents of change, and, in this case, provide the key to salvation for all
Greek people.
4
Hubbard (1991, 151) asserts that “Trygaeus’ actions,” as well as those of the chorus, “pick up on the
end of Wasps” in particular.
217
Because Aristophanes’ concern is less with proposing comic solutions to the
problems of the city, and more with sharing in the enjoyment of a moment of respite that
is occurring in the “here and now” of Athens, he is able to place the broader issue of war
into the background of this play without contending with its devastating repercussions.
5
Whether or not the conflict will resume is not at issue. Ironically, though, it is in this
suspended moment of joy that the contradictory role of the female is most pronounced,
since she figures as both the means by which peace is achieved and as a traditional
reward received by men for its achievement. As the play progresses, it is the latter guise
which is emphasized and celebrated, and this preference for the female-as-status-object
provokes the emergence, yet again, of an ambivalent attitude on the part of male
characters toward their female counterparts. In Peace, this attitude consists mostly of
mocking irreverence, though even in the midst of the celebration, there are elements of
fear, hostility and even violence displayed by male characters. In fact, it is almost as if
the return to a peaceful state occasions the restoration of the female as the “traditional”
enemy within.
6
For, at the same time as she is honored for her integral role in creating
peace, prosperity and ultimately life, and at the same time as she is incorporated socially
by means of both cult and marriage, she is also, more than ever, a proper target for
ridicule and abuse.
As in previous plays, this conflicted portrayal of the feminine manifests itself in
spatial terms, which speak to the broader socio-political concerns of the Athenian
populace at this time. On the one hand, Peace displays a spirit of freedom and openness
5
Both Cassio (1985, 35-41) and Slater (2002, 131) emphasize the fact that Aristophanes’ focus is on
the present.
6
See Shaw 1975 and Foley 1982, on the concept of the “female intruder” in Greek drama.
218
in its Panhellenic zeal and in its presentation of a successful journey to heaven that
culminates in the liberation of the goddess-statue and the return to rustic simplicity.
However, at the same time as the play celebrates this reinstatement of male mobility, it is
characterized by a continued preoccupation with the concept of enclosure and the
enactment thereof; specifically, with the fantasy of demarcating distinct areas as a
protective measure through which order and stability may be re-established. The
situating of females as passive elements of the landscape or background is perhaps the
most prominent expression of this tendency, and while it is an endeavor that is met with
success in the play, because of the problematic status of the oikos it turns out to be more
complicated than anticipated.
To offer one example: while Opora is taken into the house by the slaves to be
bathed and readied for the wedding, Trygaeus undertakes to thwart his antagonists, so
that the wedding may finally be conducted. Only when this is done is he able to make
this request: “Let us speak auspiciously, and escort the bride outside here” (l. 1316,
eÈfhme›n xrØ ka‹ tØn nÊmfhn ¶jv tinå deËro kom¤zein).
7
This gesture appears to be
part of his larger plan to “move all our equipment back to the country right now” (l.
1318). He repeats the verb kom¤zein, which not only effectively incorporates the bride
into Trygaeus’ property, but also conveys the idea that his property is being restored to
its true and proper place, which is not the urban home from which Opora just emerged.
This wedding is the means by which the peace of the play is actualized, and
Trygaeus’ desire to situate Opora e8w tÚn égrÚn is a revival of the conventional
7
All translations are from Henderson (1998) with my occasional alterations, unless otherwise noted.
219
affiliation of women with land, especially the fields.
8
It is a reflection of the shared
desire to get back to an older, private way of life, uncorrupted by the war, in which each
man’s own well-being depended upon a clear demarcation of the extent of his property.
9
His move to the country also bespeaks a desire to either circumvent or reclaim the space
of the oikos, which, as we have seen, has become compromised (as have its inhabitants)
by its increased involvement in the cultural life of the polis. That the polis facilitates the
staged presentation of this desire, and finally realizes it in Peace, ironically guarantees
its status as an untenable civic fantasy. It also has the unfortunate but predictable effect
of minimizing the significance of female agency, despite its indispensability to the play’s
proper denouement and to the preservation of both the city and countryside.
It does seem normal and natural for Trygaeus and the Athenian people to want
the safety and security that come with domestic privacy and the practice of enclosure,
whether it be of land or of women, but the limitations of this approach are made evident
in two distinct ways in Peace. First of all, War also employs enclosure as a strategy
when he imprisons Peace in the cave, and in this he differs little from the hero, who
basically steals her back and establishes her elsewhere, while acquiring her attendant for
his own. Secondly, and more importantly, as the previous example shows, the role of the
home as a primary site of enclosure has been imperiled permanently by the war, and to a
lesser extent, so have the fields. The degeneration of the oikos has been charted
throughout the previous four plays, and at this point, in contrast to what happens in
8
This will occur again at the end of Lysistrata (ll. 1173-4; 1273-8).
9
This is most obviously the case in Acharnians as well, though Cassio (1985, 32-3) also calls
attention to its less obvious articulation at the end of Knights. Harriott (1986, 125) points out that
Trygaeus is especially concerned with resuming the practice of viticulture (as evidenced by his name).
She goes on to note that the cultivation of vines in particular, as well as olives and figs, often took
place in separate enclosures.
220
Acharnians, its status as another venue for conflict to be played out within the polis is
well-established. It is no longer able to operate simply as a space of refuge or
reconciliation, and its failure in this respect seems to be acknowledged and even
accepted by Aristophanes in this play, as evidenced by the ambivalent relationship the
male characters have with it.
In Peace, the hero is made to abandon the home early on and explore the
possibilities of heaven and madness as alternative spaces of refuge, though these quickly
turn out to be as unsound as the home. And while the play does conclude with an idyllic
exodos to the countryside, it seems that throughout Aristophanes suggests a new
possibility, one that embraces the “here and now” with which this play is so concerned,
and one that celebrates his own craft and contribution to the city. He claims the space of
the theater as the true sanctuary that remains to Athens and its citizens. What is more, in
his efforts to persuade his audience of the theater’s safety and security, he employs
female figures, most notably Opora and Theoria, who bring about the naturalization of
the space and its assimilation to the fields by participating in normative sexual activity
within its confines. He also acquires religious sanction for his ideological renovation of
the theater by establishing the cult of Peace on its stage.
The theater is thus the next best place, besides heaven or the pristine fields of
“before,” in which the delights of food and sex can again be freely enjoyed by men.
Aristophanes calls attention to the theater’s status as an updated substitute to these now
defunct spaces by making repeated metatheatrical references which remind the audience
of its new role. By “focus[ing] attention tightly within the theater space,” he is able to
successfully incorporate the spectators into the action and thereby make them part of the
221
solution.
10
This seems to be a newer, better enclosure in which men may celebrate their
similarity, rather than view it as a potential source of further conflict. However, as we
will see, because the comic theater’s efficient operation depends upon the same old
processes of appropriation, objectification and consumption, it remains an imperfect and
inadequate space in which to solve the city’s problems.
The play opens just as Knights and Wasps do, with two slaves outside the house;
however, in this instance they are not lazing about and boozing it up, but are working
frantically, rushing in and out of the house door.
11
It turns out they are busy feeding a
monstrous dung-beetle, which has taken up a place inside the house and which has an
appetite for finely-kneaded patties of dung. They are quick to implore the audience to
help them (l. 9, “You dung collectors, for god’s sake lend a hand”), and as they work,
they engage in dialogue intermittently with its members. The second slave points out
that the beetle displays finicky eating habits: “This conceited thing puts on airs and
won’t deign to eat anything that I don’t spend the whole day mashing and serve kneaded
into a ball, as if for a lady” (ll. 25-8).
This brief remark has two immediate effects: firstly, it feminizes the animal, and
recalls for the audience the commonly-held view that women were driven by their
10
Slater 2002, 115.
11
Nearly all commentators understand this play to feature three doors in the skene: one definitely
signifies the home of the gods, and another, the central door, is the cave from which Peace is rescued.
The third is the home of Trygaeus; however, Olson (1998, xliii-xlviii) makes a case for only two
doors being necessary to stage the play. While Olson’s argument is compelling, I follow Dover (1972,
135), who states, “Trygaios’s own house could conceivably be represented by the same door as
represents the gods’ house, for there is no point in the play at which both are in simultaneous use, but
the representation of his flight from earth to Olympos gains somewhat in clarity and symmetry if his
door is at one end of the skene and the gods’ door at the other.”
222
insatiable and aberrant appetites, which could simultaneously display qualities of
voracity and pickiness.
12
This comparison renders both the beetle and the female a
separate species, worthy of contempt, and it therefore allows the audience to become
unified as men over and against these grotesque creatures. Aristophanes further enhances
the monstrous quality of the beetle by attributing to it masculine characteristics as well.
He compares its manner of eating to that of a wrestler and its gestures to those of men
who weave ropes for barges (ll. 34-7), and thereby conveys the sense that this creature is
even more frightful than a mere female – it is a sexually ambiguous freak of nature. This
is the first in a series of steps that Aristophanes will take to create a sense of harmony
among the distinct groups of men within the city and the theater, and it offers us an early
clue as to how the larger goal of peace will be achieved, at least within the comic
confines of the play: through an idealizing celebration of masculine sameness, which
depends upon the debasement and exclusion of others.
The beetle’s occupancy of the oikos serves a dramaturgic function: it hides the
animal from the audience so that its airborne entrance may appear all the more
spectacular. However, it is worth noting that this positioning of the bug results in the
home being imbued with negative connotations, as it was in Wasps. This time there
really is a monster inside it, and not just a man who has gone crazy (although, as we will
see, there is that as well). What is more, the feminization of this monster not only
reminds the audience of the traditional affiliation of the feminine with domestic space; it
also suggests that the home is a source of trouble for its male occupants, as it, and by
12
Women’s monstrous appetites are first decried by Hesiod in his description of Pandora in Theogony
590-612. Taaffe (1993, 40-1) devotes a portion of her discussion of this play to the similarity between
Peace and Pandora as gifts of ambivalent value for men.
223
extension, the women, children, slaves and animals it houses, often impedes the
realization of men’s goals. This view is reinforced by the upcoming appearance of the
daughters from within the house, who are portrayed as naysayers and delayers of their
father’s plan.
Right away, the home is not represented as a place where change and resolution
will be able to occur; it is instead a problematic location, although it does, ironically,
hold the key, however repellent, to achieving change. As will be shown, this is the case
both in the houses on earth and in heaven, and in this regard, the beetle serves a function
parallel to that of the statue of Peace in the second half of the play, which is hidden away
near the abandoned house of the gods, but emerges as the object upon which any
favorable outcome depends.
This slave goes on to explain the plot to “the boys, the youths, the men, the high
and mighty gentlemen and above all to these ‘supermen’ here” (ll. 50-3). These
groupings may have been inspired by the actual seating arrangements in the theater, and
while their differentiation is emphasized in the slave’s address, he divides them only in
order to reunite them, and to introduce and connect them to their representative, the hero
Trygaeus, in his next remark: “My master’s mad in a novel way; not the way you all are,
but another, quite novel way” (ll. 54-5). It seems that Trygaeus laments to the heavens
all day, holding Zeus responsible for the dire state in which all of Greece finds itself on
account of the war. This is behavior that many Athenians probably would not have found
all that crazy at that point in time. At the least, they would have been sympathetic to it
and some may have even engaged in it themselves on occasion. At any rate, at this
224
moment, Trygaeus cries out from inside the house in the exact manner just described,
and thereby confirms the slave’s story.
In his madness, Trygaeus recalls Philocleon and his frantic efforts to escape from
the house. The slave explains how he had “light little ladders” made, with which he tried
unsuccessfully to climb to heaven (l. 69). Like Strepsiades in Clouds, he desires to
transcend the earthly realm and reach the gods; however, in Trygaeus’ case, his motives
are far more altruistic than those of Strepsiades – he wishes to question Zeus directly
about his intentions toward Greece (ll. 58-63; 105-6). Trygaeus’ Panhellenistic outlook
is distinctly his own, and it is perhaps his altruism that allows him to succeed, at least
with the first part of his plan. His intent is to ride the beetle to heaven, and this is
precisely what he is seen doing in his first appearance, when he soars into the air on the
crane from behind the façade of the stage.
It is well known that this scene is a parody of Euripides’ play, Bellerophon, in
which the hero flew to heaven astride Pegasus in order to complain to Zeus about the
death of his children.
13
His act was considered hubristic, and he therefore fell and was
lamed. In Peace, as A.M. Bowie notes, as well as in Birds, this act is acceptable and is,
in fact, a “prelude” to significant change, although it seems likely that it retained some of
its tragic, and therefore ominous, flavor.
14
In fact, even in comedy this type of action can
be highly troubling – recall the entrance of Socrates in Clouds and the fate that befell
him in that play. Flying anywhere is not the business of mankind in the Greek
13
See Olson’s discussion of this mytho-literary referent, and the bibliography he presents therein
(1998, xxxii-xxxiv).
14
1993, 135.
225
imagination, and its performance typically signaled escapism, desperation, and/or
madness.
15
The series of scatological jokes uttered by Trygaeus, both at this point and after
his encounter with his daughters, warns of the possibility of failure in this endeavor, by
drawing his and the audience’s attention inevitably downward, back toward earth and the
lower bodily stratum. This is, after all, the natural habitat of both man and the beetle,
which typically flies close to earth and buries its eggs in dung that it also eats.
16
Thus, at
lines 98-101, he commands the slave, “bid mankind be quiet, and wall off with fresh
bricks the toilets and alleyways, and lock up their assholes!” He repeats this command
directly to the spectators at lines 150-3, and aligns their interests with his own in the
process: “As for all of you, for whose sake I’m performing these labors, stop farting and
shitting for a period of three days; because if this thing picks up the scent while airborne,
he’ll toss me off head first, and go off to pasture.” Trygaeus’ fear of falling, and
therefore failing, are likewise expressed in scatological, as well as metatheatrical, terms:
“Uh oh, I’m really scared, and I’m not joking now! Stage mechanic, pay attention,
because some wind’s already churning around my navel, and if you aren’t careful I’ll be
feeding the beetle” (ll. 173-6).
17
These jokes make clear the dichotomous discursive logic at work in the play.
War makes the world a polluted place, filled with shit, stench and sterility, while peace
15
Once he is aloft, the second slave addresses him again as “deranged” (l. 90, parapa¤eiw) and as
“sick in the head” (l. 95, oÈx Ígia¤neiw).
16
Olson 1998, 68 v. 1.
17
See also ll. 165-72, where Trygaeus singles out a man defecating in the whores’ quarter of the
Piraeus, and demands that he “cover it up” with dirt, thyme and perfume so as not to thwart his flight.
In this instance, he aligns this non-procreative type of sexuality with the act of defecating, and
succeeds in portraying both as abnormal activities affiliated with the lower bodily stratum.
226
has the opposite effect.
18
But this is the world that Trygaeus, as a mortal, is supposed to
inhabit, even if it is disgusting and downtrodden. It is understandable that, in attempting
to extricate himself from the earthly realm and contribute nothing further to its filthiness
and disarray, he seeks to avoid defecating and insists that other men do the same. At the
same time, this denial is unnatural and impossible, and his repeated injunctions only
seem to call attention to this fact. As Thomas Hubbard explains, these instances, and the
beetle’s characterization as a perverted Pegasus, exemplify “the mutual dependence of
corporeal messiness and aesthetic sublimity within the world of comic drama.”
19
In Peace, Aristophanes articulates this interdependence in a manner that
depends upon the spatial distinction “high vs. low” more completely than any other play
so far encountered. We witnessed this idea taking shape in Knights and informing the
narrative in Clouds, but here it is integral to both the staging and the resolution of the
plot. Comic man ascends only to find he must descend in order to discover the “way out”
of his problems, and this “way out” is the elevation or ascendance of Woman and a
meeting of the two on earth’s middle ground.
20
Of course, Trygaeus’ dubious “rescue” of
the statue and his actions once back on earth will ultimately undermine the peace he
desires and the gendered and spatial equilibrium it bestows, but this eventuality remains
18
This is the argument of Henderson (1975, 63), which is repeated by both Bowie (1993, 135) and
Moulton (1981, 88). Cassio (1985, 30-1) also acknowledges the dichotomy, but he cautions against an
overly rigid structural reading.
19
1991, 141-4. He stresses the relevance of notions of ritual purity and defilement to this correlation.
It is the daughter who compares the beetle to Pegasus openly at line 135: “Well, you should have
harnessed the wings of Pegasus, to make a more tragic impression on the gods!” To this, her father
objects, again pointing out the utility of feces to his celestial voyage: “But then, girl, I’d have needed
feed for two; this way, whatever the food I eat myself, I’ll reuse to feed him.”
20
This succession momentarily recalls the Cixousian notion of sorties, or “ways out” of the binary
structures that define Woman through difference to Man (Cixous and Clément 1975, 63-130).
Unfortunately, its application here is limited, because Aristophanic comedy destabilizes these
structures only so that it may reify them again for the amusement of its male audience.
227
outside the scope of the play. Nonetheless, Aristophanes’ momentary use here of this
longitudinal dynamic and its spatialized enactment requires that female characters figure
more prominently, even if in traditional guises, than ever before.
While Trygaeus is explaining his plan, aloft (or perhaps while he is resting on
the roof), his slave laments his decision to fly to heaven and then calls the children out of
the house.
21
He explains that their father is leaving them all alone and that they must
plead with him not to do it (ll. 111-3). From this Douglas Olson concludes that Trygaeus
is “a single parent and…accordingly takes a new wife later in the play.”
22
I prefer the
view of Kenneth Dover: “whether or not the mother of his children is still alive, or what
is to be done with her, we are not told.”
23
The theme of the absent mother is carried on
from the previous plays, and it is necessary that she remain a non-entity. Her presence
would impede the plot and its symmetrical staging, and, what is more, the beetle already
seems to have taken up the only place available to her. But why does Trygaeus have only
daughters? Are they meant to heighten the pathetic intensity of the scene, as Olson also
concludes?
24
Perhaps, though not in the way that Olson imagines. It seems that
Trygaeus, and not his family, is the only one worthy of sympathy.
When Trygaeus’ daughter, who proves to be highly skilled at argumentative
speech, asks if he really is leaving, he responds resentfully towards her, “If truth be told,
you annoy me whenever you ask me for bread and call me dear daddy when in our house
there’s nary a droplet of silver at all.” His response recalls the rant of Philocleon in
21
His resting on the roof is the suggestion of Olson (1998, 88 vv. 102-13).
22
1998, 90 vv. 111-3.
23
1972, 133.
24
Cf. note 11.
228
Wasps, and betrays another, less noble, reason for his wanting to get out of the house.
25
His resentment rapidly turns into the threat of misogynistic violence: “But if I return
with success, you’ll very soon be enjoying a great big bun, topped off with a nice
knuckle sandwich” (ll. 119-23).
26
This characteristic reference to the hunger of the girls,
whether resulting from the war or not, recalls the insatiable appetite of the feminized
beetle, and their similar characterization further emphasizes the conflicted position that
the feminine inhabits in this play.
The daughter overlooks the threat and goes on to question her father about his
intentions. She plays the “straight man” in this joke routine, and displays a skeptical
attitude toward his endeavor.
27
She asks how he intends to get to heaven and why he has
decided to ride a beetle, to which he responds with the Aesopic fable about the beetle
that flew around Zeus’ head and caused him to break the eagle’s eggs nesting in his lap.
She warns him against falling off, and makes particular reference to the dangers of the
sea, or “the damp depths of the deep” (l. 140), and thereby turns the direction of the play
notionally downward yet again. She evokes an image of the lowest possible earthly
point, which, as a comic necessity, also connotes the female sexual organs.
28
Trygaeus
25
See Wasps, lines 605-12 and the discussion of them from the previous chapter. Sommerstein (1985,
140 v. 119) identifies this scene as a paratragic adaptation of a scene from Euripides’ Aeolus, which
dealt with the topic of incest. It should be recalled that Philocleon’s rant about his family also
included some incestuous overtones.
26
The pun here depends on the homophony of the words kÒndulon, or “a blow with a fist,” and
kãndulow, which was a “culinary delicacy of Lydian origin made of many ingredients.” See
Sommerstein 1985, 140 v. 123.
27
Taaffe 1993, 38.
28
Henderson includes neither bãyow (l. 140, “depth”) nor the upcoming limØn (l. 144, “harbor”) as
metaphorical terms for the female genitalia, though he does have a section on Sea Animals, and he
discusses related terms, like d°lta and 8symÒw. I should also note that he does not mention the
êntron (l. 223, “cave”) in which Peace is imprisoned, though he does explain the edict of death for
anyone caught “digging her up” as prohibiting “having intercourse with her” (1975, 64). Marine
229
explains how, if he does fall into the water, he will transform the beetle into a boat
through the use of an “oar” he has brought along (i.e. his phallus; l. 142, phdãlion).
Unaware or unconvinced of this, the daughter goes on to ask, “What harbor will receive
you when you’re adrift?” This seems to be another nautically-themed reference to the
vagina.
29
Trygaeus takes the opportunity to crack another joke in his reply: “There’s
Beetle Bay at Piraeus, of course!” (ll. 144-5). This was the largest of the three harbors of
the Piraeus, known as the “Harbor of Cantharus,” perhaps after a local hero.
30
It should
be noted that Trygaeus’ second allusion to the Piraeus (quoted in note 17) comes twenty
lines after this one. His association of it with the whores’ quarters there only strengthens
the sexual undertones of this exchange.
The inappropriate sexuality of the exchange between father and daughter is
another indication of the extent to which normative relations have been compromised in
Athenian society. In addition, their repeated references to the monstrous beetle, and to
the dangers that plague areas outside of, or peripheral to, the city, confirm the severity of
the situation. Their conflation of the sexual and the spatial conveys the sense that fraught
categories of gender, and femininity in particular, rather than the scourge of war, are the
actual source of deviance and disorder in this world, and that this is ultimately what is in
need of oversight and repair. This fallacious reversal of cause and effect will aid in
legitimating Trygaeus’ efforts to restore femininity to its “natural” state and proper
terminology in particular becomes very popular in later Latin invective and Greek epigram; see
Richlin 1992, 105-41.
29
Olson (1998, 96 v. 144) argues that “in tragedy, limØn is often used metaphorically of a place of
refuge, but here the word is used in its concrete sense.” I feel these distinctions are unnecessary:
comedy’s punning nature makes it especially capable of utilizing words in a simultaneously concrete
and metaphorical sense.
30
See Sommerstein 1985, 141 v. 145.
230
function, as will be evidenced by his treatment of both the statue of Peace and his new
wife, Opora.
But first, Trygaeus dismisses his daughter abruptly, predictably disregarding her
warnings. The daughter’s allusive banter does not just illustrate the extent of the
daughter’s tragic knowledge, as Slater argues; it also attests to the lack of validity that
female speech continues to have, despite the intelligence or ingenuity it displays.
31
These
are the most lines (seventeen) uttered by a female character in any of the plays we have
considered up to this point – Myrtia, the breadwoman in Wasps, speaks only eleven lines
– but they are more than sufficient. The daughter’s open mouth, her dirty talk, and her
placement outside the home mark her as the embodiment of men’s failure to properly
survey and enclose.
32
It is thus her very presence, as well as the contents of her
disbelieving speech, which appear to render necessary the flight of her father, and which
sanction his journey to heaven.
Trygaeus takes off at this point and arrives safely at the front door of the home of
Zeus (l. 178). He finds Hermes acting as doorman, and Hermes is immediately outraged
at the appearance of this mortal in heaven. He insults him, repeatedly calling him “most
foul” (ll. 183-5, miar¢...pamm¤are...miartate...miar«n miartate), to which
Trygaeus responds affirmatively, saying his name is indeed miartatow, as is that of
his father. As Hubbard explains, Trygaeus’ filthiness, like that of the Sausage-Seller of
31
2002, 118.
32
See Stallybrass (1986, 126-7): “The surveillance of women [in sixteenth-century England]
concentrated upon three specific areas: the mouth, chastity, and the threshold of the house. These
three areas were frequently collapsed into each other.” It is only when properly enclosed that
“woman” is successfully “produced as a property category.”
231
Knights, is bound up with his spirit of adventurousness and daring.
33
Moreover, his
status as a comic hero is reflected in his acceptance of this low and loathsome identity,
even as he stands within the high home of the gods. Naturally, Hermes grows enraged at
such insolence, and threatens him with death, swearing by Earth in the process (l. 188).
This oath recalls the mortal world below, and perhaps even the chthonic one
below that, to which Hermes is more than capable of conducting a lowly human soul. In
fact, it is fitting that Hermes asserts himself against Trygaeus in this way, since it is he
who is the primary mediator of boundaries and margins, as Bowie points out.
34
Of
course, he also happens to be the god in charge of the transgression of those boundaries,
as evidenced by his association with theft and trickery, and it is thus fitting that he
oversees and blesses the “release” of the statue-goddess by Trygaeus and the chorus.
35
His threat here has the effect of restoring Trygaeus to his original human
identity, and it is at this point Trygaeus first identifies himself by name and deme of
origin, Athmonum – a deme which identifies him as a man from the country.
36
Although
he claims he is no informer or lover of litigation, he does go on to win Hermes over
easily with an offer of meat (l. 192). Hermes then explains to him that the gods moved
away yesterday, and when Trygaeus replies, “Where on earth to?” he responds with an
indignant, “Earth indeed!” (l. 198, trans. Olson). Hermes’ second reference to earth
33
1991, 142-3
34
1993, 139. He cites the important work of Vernant (1983, 127-75), who explains how Hermes
governs the oikos’ external relations with the polis in particular. Is Aristophanes’ presentation of
Hermes a kind of theatrical borrowing of these powers?
35
See line 402, where Hermes himself identifies his worshippers as “bigger thieves than ever.” He
utters the prayer that oversees the unearthing of the statue, with help from Trygaeus, at lines 433-55.
Bowie (1993, 140) considers Hermes’ crafty associations within the context of the play, as well as his
affiliation with binding and loosing, which he claims makes him an appropriate deity to preside over
the imprisonment and release of Peace, but he does not argue that the rescue of the goddess is itself a
theft.
36
This deme was five to six miles northwest of Athens. See Olson 1998, 105 v. 190.
232
within the space of ten lines is as dismissive as the first was impassioned, and it has the
effect of further confusing further the boundary between heaven and earth, which has
already become blurred by Trygaeus’ arrival and by the departure of the gods. He
explains that the gods have withdrawn, right up under the “dome” of heaven (l. 199,
Íp' aÈtÚn...kÊttarow, trans. Olson), and have left him there to look over their
belongings.
As was the case on earth, the home, despite being the celestial home of the gods,
is not a happy place. War (PÒlemow) has taken over the house, as well as the
governance of mankind, in the gods’ absence. Hermes explains how the gods grew angry
with the Greeks because of their ceaseless fighting, and because of their refusal to accept
truces that were divinely ordained (ll. 211-19). They have therefore left their home to
this brute, whom it seems even they cannot control, and to his attendant, Hubbub, while
they themselves have gotten as far away as possible. This state of affairs is cause for
alarm in that it suggests that war’s influence is not only far-reaching in its extent, but
also indiscriminate in its choice of targets, with the power to infect even the heavenly
realm. It turns out that War has been busy since taking up his new residence, which
happened only yesterday (l. 260). He has not only entombed Peace in the cave
represented on stage by the central door; he has also procured a great mortar in which he
plans to “pound up” or “fuck up” the Greek cities (l. 230, tr¤bein).
War’s imminent return incites Hermes to retreat at this point, while Trygaeus
finds a hiding spot from which to observe the activities of this villain and his slave.
Slater points out that this is the “first preserved eavesdropping scene in the history of
comedy,” and from his spot (which, according to Sommerstein, is close to the side wall
233
of the skene), Trygaeus is able to engage with the audience members directly and guide
their response to the scene.
37
They share in his position, as both Athenians and
spectators, and are thus unified in opposition to the figure of War, who, since
Acharnians, has developed from an allegorical reference into a lively stage persona.
38
Trygaeus immediately derides his appearance, and asks, “Is this the actual god we flee,
the awful one, the tough as leather, the one that runs down our legs?” (ll. 240-1).
39
“We”
statements such as these govern Trygaeus’ discourse throughout this scene, and
contribute to his homogenizing efforts with respect to the audience, while his
scatological joke recalls once again the “world of shit” and the troubles down below.
War begins to throw various foodstuffs into his mortar, which signify various
places in Greece that he means to smash into a “tasty mishmash” (l. 247,
katamemuttvteum°na). The town of Prasiae represents leeks, Megara is garlic, Sicily
is cheese, and lastly, he adds Attic honey, to which Trygaeus objects, citing its high cost
(l. 254). War lacks only a pestle with which to finish the job, and he sends off his slave
to find one, though not before demonstrating his violent tendencies by giving him a
beating. These actions define War as an indiscriminate consumer, to whom all people
and all places have become objects with which he attempts to satisfy his insatiable
appetite. His objectification extends to slaves and ordinary citizens, but also to the most
important human actors in the war, the generals Brasidas and Cleon, and perhaps even to
divine beings as well. He is a ravenous creature, who delights as much in the process of
37
Slater 2002, 120. Sommerstein 1985, 143 vv. 235-6.
38
This point was argued persuasively by Newiger (1957, 111-9) and reiterated by Moulton (1981, 86).
39
This is one possible reading of the phrase katå to›n skelo›n; Sommerstein also cites examples
where this refers to a frightful quaking of the knees (1985, 144 v. 241).
234
making the mash as he would in eating it. In this regard, he recalls the beetle, with its
appetite for ever more finely-kneaded dung patties.
40
In this scene, the character War summarily enacts the broader process under
description in this study, wherein the desire to acquire by means of force becomes an
end in itself, and no longer operates as a means of survival or defense. Everything is
equally susceptible to the objectification, consumption, and finally, the destruction that
war necessitates. When Hubbub is unable to supply him with a literally “man-made”
pestle in the form of a general because both Cleon and Brasidas have died (ll. 270; 282),
he decides to go inside the house and make one of his own.
41
There is a certain irony in
that the fact that the human pestle is the instrument of its own and, in this case, the
cities’ undoing.
42
Because of this, it is not really necessary for War to fashion one of his
own, as they are easily replaceable and always forthcoming. Trygaeus seems to
acknowledge as much when he turns his attention to the rescue of the statue at line 292,
saying, “Now is a good time, men of Greece, to rid ourselves of troubles and battles by
excavating Peace, friend of us all, before some other pestle foils us again.”
This is the last we see or hear of the character War, and it is interesting that the
solution to his problems appears to lie in the home, in contrast with the other characters
in the play. His disappearance at this point is somewhat confusing, because it cuts short
his role as a villain, even though the threat he presents to the Greeks still looms large. As
MacDowell notes, “It is the achievement of Trygaios that he defeats War. Yet curiously
40
Moulton (1981, 87) argues that the feast prepared by War is linked to that of the beetle through their
shared perversity, which is encapsulated in the repetition of the word tr¤bv throughout both scenes.
41
Aristophanes referred to Cleon as a pestle as early as 424, in Knights (l. 984).
42
Again, although the words for pestle (do›duj; életr¤banow) are not used in an explicitly sexual
manner here, the idea of the mortar and pestle, and the grinding motion associated with it, does have
strong sexual connotations. A later example is found in Lucilius, 358-61 (Marx).
235
this is not shown in the play directly…It weakens the dramatic effect of the play that
War is not shown on-stage [sic] being defeated and humiliated.”
43
I would qualify this
statement by suggesting that Aristophanes’ decision to portray the resolution of the
play’s main conflict in this way seems to concede that this is not exactly a defeat, but
rather more of a deferral, which at this point is enough of a feat to be considered heroic.
It does, however, leave open the very real possibility that War might return. In the
meantime, Trygaeus focuses his energy on a goal that is more feasible than the eternal
banishment of war – the recovery of the goddess Peace.
War’s treatment of Peace is in keeping with the process of objectification,
consumption and destruction outlined above. Her objectification is actually facilitated by
her dramatic representation as a statue, and in this guise she may be understood to have
been effectively enclosed.
44
Her destruction, however, proves to be more difficult,
because she is a necessary principle to the continuation of human life, without which
there would be no war, among other things. This is precisely why her enclosure in the
cave is necessary: like all childbearing women, she must be guarded and regulated as a
valuable resource, a prize piece of property. Thus, when Trygaeus undertakes to rescue
her by means of stealth, he is contributing to the initiation of yet another cycle of
violence, no matter how legitimate his actions may be. But, because his theft occurs in
the comic world, the real life consequences of such an action (i.e. more fighting) are
suspended in a moment of freedom and joy.
43
1995, 183.
44
Olson notes that the possibility that Peace might escape her prison by herself is never given
consideration (1998, 114 v. 226). This is because, as a statue, she is an object whose status does not
allow for such a possibility.
236
Even the gods seem to be against Trygaeus’ actions; Zeus has decreed death for
whomever is caught digging her up (ll. 371-2), and Hermes, who appears again once the
excavation has begun, is reluctant to aid Trygaeus in any way, fearing punishment by
Zeus as well (ll. 380-1). But once again Trygaeus is able to avoid any negative
repercussions for his actions through the employment of appropriative strategies, which
are acceptable in the context of this comic moment. Thus, he and the chorus beseech and
eventually win over Hermes, by promising him lavish honors and perennial sacrifices,
and claiming that “in your honor we’ll celebrate the Great Panathenaea and all the other
rites of the gods – the Mysteries, the Dipolieia, the Adonia, all for Hermes” (ll. 418-20).
In stereotypical fashion, Hermes relents only when presented with a golden libation
bowl, which has appeared mysteriously in the hands of Trygaeus (l. 424).
Previous to this negotiation, Trygaeus summoned the chorus members to aid him
in his endeavor.
45
He called upon a variety of distinct groups of men – farmers, traders,
carpenters, craftsmen, immigrants, foreigners, and islanders – to come together and work
with ropes and shovels to clear out the cave (ll. 296-7). Sommerstein points out that this
is a “complete list of the categories of adult males that one would expect to find in the
theater at the City Dionysia,” but his statement should be emended to “free adult males,”
since slaves, i.e., those who will not be freed through the rescue of Peace, are predictably
excluded.
46
Ironically, though, it seems that Trygaeus addresses these lines directly to
the audience in a manner that resembles closely the slave’s unifying address at lines 50-
5. Nonetheless, he quickly transforms his summons into a toast through his invocation of
45
Dover (1971, 133) observes that how the chorus members arrive in heaven is not made clear, nor is
there any mention made of their return to the earthly level. I would suggest that this omission is tied to
the theme of “mobility as power” which will be discussed in more detail momentarily.
46
1985, 147 v. 296-8.
237
the Good Spirit (l. 300), and with this, he initiates a figurative symposium that celebrates
the joining together of these men in a common effort. This feast is unlike the meal of
War, as it is not of a martial character, though it does exhibit at least one similarity with
it in its tendency toward objectification. As Moulton points out, just as the Greek men
making up War’s mishmash were to be eaten, so peace is to be drunk, as a “prelude to a
real symposium,” while her handmaidens will come to function as “the ornaments and
substance” of this banquet.
47
Before this can transpire, however, the statue-goddess must be brought out of the
cave. The chorus members are eager to participate – in fact, as it turns out, they are
overly eager. When they appear, they are boisterous, dancing excitedly and celebrating
their success prematurely. Trygaeus admonishes them, and warns them against rousing
either War from the house (l. 310, ¶ndoyen) or Cleon, in the form of Cerberus, from hell
(l. 313, kãtvyen). These figures, and the spaces they are affiliated with, amount to
virtually the same thing, according to Trygaeus: “You’ll be my undoing, men, if you
don’t cease your shouting. He’ll rush out and trample everything underfoot” (ll. 318-9).
48
The chorus members pay him little mind, while the chorus leader explains that their legs
are “dancing on their own,” and even when he claims they have stopped, they
nonetheless continue (l. 325). This goes on for some time, much to the displeasure of
Trygaeus.
47
Moulton 1981, 90-1. My reading of this scene depends on his view that the entire play may be
understood as a series of literal and metaphorical meal courses.
48
According to Olson, the subject of the verbs in this sentence is not specified, but is usually taken to
be War, given his spatial proximity; however, the most natural reading of the Greek takes Cleon as the
subject. He concludes, “Most likely the ambiguity is intentional and two figures are deliberately
confounded for a moment” (1998, 135 vv. 319-20).
238
What does this lack of control signify? Hubbard views it as a carry-over of the
theme of madness found at the end of Wasps, when Philocleon and the chorus exit in a
similarly frenzied dance.
49
I see in it an additional manifestation on the corporeal level of
the freedom engendered by the acquisition of peace. For, as Trygaeus goes on to point
out: “When we’ve got her, then you may rejoice and yell and laugh, for then at last you
will be able to travel by sea, stay home, screw, sleep in, attend big festivals, feast, roll
dice, live it up and yell ‘hey hey’!” (ll. 338-45). It is significant that the first reward of
peace is mobility and freedom of movement, the second and third are sex and rest, and
the fourth is spectatorship. This list recalls the first provision of the actual treaty between
the Athenians and Spartans, as recorded by Thucydides: “Regarding the national
temples, there shall be a free passage by land and by sea to all who wish it, to sacrifice,
travel, consult, and attend the oracle or games, according to the customs of their
countries.”
50
In the upcoming scenes, the figure of Theoria will come to embody all four
of these freedoms, and the male characters will eagerly take advantage of her.
At line 426, the chorus gets the okay to start rescuing Peace. Hermes hastily
changes his position from hinderer to helper once he has acquired his golden bowl, and it
is he who pours a second libation on behalf of the success of the shared enterprise: “Let
us pray that today is the harbinger of rich blessings for all Greeks, and that every man
who heartily helps with the ropes need never again lift a shield” (ll. 435-8). Through his
divine authorization, he secures the homosocial symposiastic atmosphere that was
49
1991, 151.
50
Thuc. 5.18.2. Of course, Thucydides omits sexual enjoyment; by contrast, comedy renders it a
necessary part of history again.
239
previously initiated by Trygaeus.
51
And, with this endorsement of masculine sameness,
the focus immediately turns to heteronormative sex and the reinstatement of the object
status of the feminine. Trygaeus responds to the prayer, “God no, rather may he spend
his life in peace, holding a girl (ta¤ran) and poking her coals!” (ll. 439-40).
This double entendre recalls the sexualized imagery of the hearth encountered at
lines 1284-6 in Knights, and places the male characters back, momentarily, in the
domestic sphere, over which they desire to regain control.
52
This imagery will recur and
become more explicit as Trygaeus comes ever closer to succeeding in his mission of re-
enclosing the feminine and re-establishing its proper place. At lines 887-93, the genitals
of Theoria will be displayed to the audience, and referred to as both an Ùptãnion, or
“oven,” and as a scorched lãsana, or “pot-holder,” yet another vessel-shaped object
upon which the Council placed its “pots” (i.e. its phalloi) before the war.
53
Hermes’ prayer is followed by the swearing of an oath, which ironically calls for
the torture of any male who disobeys or rejects the norms established by peace. The men
then drink to Hermes, as well as to Aphrodite, Pothos (Desire), the Seasons and the
Graces – all the regulators of the life-cycle and reproductive sex. Everyone begins
pulling together at this point, but right away there is dissension in the ranks. Trygaeus
51
This act also accords well with Hermes’ role as a patron deity of the gymnasium and the palaestra,
in whose honor the Hermaia was celebrated yearly, as a part of boys’ and young men’s athletic and
cultural training. See Plato, Lysis 206D; and Aeschines, Against Timarchus 1.10.
52
Olson (1998, 166 vv. 439-40) explains that the image conveys the idea of “sitting by a fire at one’s
ease.” Again, see duBois (1988, 121-3) on ovens in Aristophanes.
53
Interestingly, just previous to this, Trygaeus calls out to the audience in search of a guardian for
Theoria. His slave replies that there is someone among the spectators willing to do the job. It is none
other than Ariphrades, the expert cunnilinctor who was ridiculed in both Knights and Wasps, and was
also associated there with ovens and the domestic sphere. Here, however, his penchant does not
receive such sustained negative attention, as it has become less of a threat. Instead, he is merely
passed over in favor of another because “he’ll kneel down and lap up her broth” (l. 885).
240
complains specifically of the Boeotians (who didn’t agree to the Peace of Nikias, only to
a truce with Athens), the Argives (who had been neutral throughout the war), and the
Megarians (who also rejected peace, and were blamed for the war in first place; cf. lines
500-1).
54
The Spartans, meanwhile, appear to be “pulling manfully” (l. 478,
ßlkous' éndrik«w), except for those “held in the stocks” (i.e. the prisoners from
Pylos). Aristophanes also takes this opportunity to put some words of warning into the
mouth of Hermes that are intended for his Athenian audience: “And to the Athenians I
say: stop hanging onto where you’re now pulling from; you’re accomplishing nothing
but litigation. If you really want to pull this goddess free, retreat a little seaward” (ll.
503-7). This exhortation, to give up their land-based imperial ambitions, and to stick to
the conventional Athenian military policy of relying on the fleet, requires a change in
attitude on the part of the citizenry. The upcoming transformation of the chorus into
farmers seems to satisfy this requirement in part, as the poorest citizens, that is, the rural
population, were the ones who would also typically serve as rowers in the fleet.
Despite all its efforts, it proves very difficult for the chorus to free the statue-
goddess. The geopolitical divisions are simply too great, and Trygaeus therefore calls
upon the men not as citizens of various city-states, but as farmers, to “exert ourselves
more manfully still” and accomplish the job (l. 514-5, §pente¤nvmen éndrikteron).
With this switch, the play’s characterization of manhood shifts from its dysfunctional
civic and military versions back to its rustic predecessor, which is portrayed as being
better suited to the task at hand. For, unlike the politician or soldier, who participates in
carving up and destroying the land in the pursuit of acquiring it (which has so far
54
On these groups of dissenters, see Thuc. 5.17 and 5.26.
241
resulted in loss and chaos for all), the farmer is able to render the land productive and
compliant. To put it simply, he is able get good things out of the ground, and that is
precisely what happens here: once transformed, the chorus unearths the statue-goddess,
and her attendants spring forth. But the farmer’s success also depends on a former
violent enclosure of property; in this case, it is the entombment of Peace by War himself.
In his transformation of the identity of the chorus, then, Aristophanes is able to
synthesize these masculine identities into one collective body that miraculously works
together. In doing so, however, he also exposes their mutual reliance on the cycle of
violent appropriation (i.e. war) for their intelligibility.
The fluid identity of the chorus has consumed a significant part of the scholarly
attention this play has received, and many recent scholars share in the view that
Aristophanes’ emphasis here is on social homogeneity, though the masculine angle is
not always explicitly referred to. Dover argued that the chorus changes here to a group
of Greek farmers, then gradually becomes specifically Athenian farmers, while Hubbard,
who devotes an appendix to the subject, rejects this view, stating, “A chorus consisting
of some Athenians and some non-Athenians facing a primarily Athenian audience can
speak collectively concerning experiences of its Athenian members without ceasing to
be a Panhellenic chorus.”
55
He goes on to note that “one of the principal aims of the
Peace is to demonstrate the possibility of diverse and heterogeneous groups coming
together.” James McGlew takes a similar view, understanding the stripping away of
individual and conflicting identities as the precursor to the emergence and triumph of the
55
Dover 1972, 138-9; Hubbard 1991, 241-2. Hubbard also summarizes the conjectures put forward by
previous scholars in his appendix.
242
comic citizen everyman.
56
He also makes the interesting observation that the chorus is,
in a sense, its own worst enemy, since it, and not Polemos or Hermes, is what most
impedes the restoration of Peace. It is because of the chorus members’ resistance that
Trygaeus is compelled to take on the paradoxical role of strategos of peace, and show
them how to embody both urban and rural masculine identities, in order to solve their
problem.
57
The statue finally makes its grand appearance, rolling out of the central door on
the ekkyklema at line 520.
58
This is the scene which was famously ridiculed by
Aristophanes’ contemporaries, Eupolis and Plato Comicus.
59
Dover hypothesizes that, as
the chorus is heaving Peace out of the cave, it is most likely divided between two or
more ropes and has its backs to the audience. He imagines it as “the spearhead of a great
host” that encompasses the audience and the world beyond it.
60
The distinction between
actor and spectator may have been blurred even further if the actors moved into the
orchestra, but, either way, it succeeds in aligning all men present in the common
undertaking.
61
The statue’s appearance causes Trygaeus to marvel; he then greets her
and her attendants, commenting on their lovely appearance and aroma, which consists of
a long list of delights including “the bosoms of women scampering to the fields” and “a
56
2001, 81-2.
57
McGlew 2001, 84-7.
58
Sommerstein (1985, xvii n. 5) provides bibliography on the scholarship surrounding the staging of
this scene. Like him, I ultimately follow Dover, as his reconstruction is the most plausible and
straightforward.
59
This is according to a scholium from Plato’s Apology (19c); see Eupolis, fr. 54 and Plato com., fr.
81 (Edmonds).
60
1972, 138. I wonder if there is not some kind of punning going on here that involves the costume
phalloi, which somehow equates the chorus’ rope-pulling with the act of masturbation. Philocleon
refers to his phallus as an old rope at Wasps 1343.
61
Russo (1994, 140) considers this possibility in his extended treatment of the staging of this scene.
243
drunken slave girl” (ll. 536-7).
62
Both of these images portend how female characters
will figure in the second half of the play.
With the rescue accomplished, Trygaeus and Hermes immediately obtain a god’s
eye view of the world “down below,” which until now was obscured or ignored. They
remark at how the reconciled cities “chat with one another and laugh happily,” despite
the black eyes they’ve recently received from each other (ll. 538-42). It seems that, with
the transformation of the chorus into an undifferentiated group of triumphant farmers,
the cities become independent female entities, and it is they, and not their citizens or
their politicians, who are responsible for their own ruin. This feminization of the cities
not only contributes to the re-valorization of farming and the fields; it also provides the
audience with an instantly negative image of female political agency, and allows men to
again employ females as scapegoats. In this regard, it prefigures the play Cities by the
middle comic poet Heniochus, in which the female personifications are imagined as
talkative troublemakers who gathered to celebrate their freedom from paying tribute to
Athens, but “indecision changed them and day after day has ruined them for a long time
now.”
63
Both examples also suggest that the peace that is wrought in a feminized polis is
fickle – it is neither stable nor lasting, though it still seems to be better than no peace at
all.
62
Olson (1998, 187 v. 536) accepts the alternate reading in which the women are running toward the
cook-house (e8w UpnÒn) rather than toward the fields (e8w égrÒn). I prefer the fields, since they
openly link the feminine with the direction in which the action of the play will tend from now on.
Moulton (1981, 93) refers to this phrase as the “watch-word of the comedy,” while Whitman (1964,
110-1) cites its appearance eleven times after this particular mention (at lines 552, 555, 569, 585, 707,
866, 1202, 1249, 1318, and 1329; see also e8w tå xvr¤a at line 563).
63
The passage (fr. 5 PCG) is cited and translated by O’Higgins (2003, 121). As it turns out, the cities’
in-fighting is also ascribable to wayward female entities, and not to the citizens or their
representatives: “Two women are always with them and set them in turmoil. One’s called Democratia,
the other Aristocratia. It’s been continual drunken brawling because of them.”
244
Hermes and Trygaeus also receive the opportunity to observe the spectators
directly, and they single out the arms makers for ridicule while dismissing the farmers
with this proclamation: “Attention, people: the farmers may take their farm tools and go
home to the country as soon as they like, without spear, sword and javelin” (ll. 551-3).
The chorus rejoices at this news, but rather than leave, its members line up in close array
holding farm implements, like troops drawn up for battle at the command of Trygaeus.
The odd observation of Sommerstein on this proves to be revealing:
The parade of the chorus with their “weapons” is described in notably
military language; it is as if the Greeks who have so long been waging war
destructively upon each other are now turning to wage war constructively
upon the devastation their countryside has suffered.
64
This agricultural conversion is certainly an improvement to the life and livelihood of the
chorus, but its militarized representation in this scene reminds us that farming and
fighting are two sides of the same masculine coin. Both activities depend upon a
relationship with the land that is aggressive and enclosing, and both naturalize and
legitimate themselves by eroticizing this relation. In keeping with this, Trygaeus,
seemingly turned on by the chorus’ martial appearance, draws on both amorous and
violent imagery, remarking, “So now I’m anxious to get back to the country myself, and
at long last to start hoeing my own little piece of earth” (ll. 569-70,
triainoËn tÚ gbdion).
Before this can happen, Hermes is asked by the coryphaeus to explain where the
goddess has been all this time (ll. 601-2). His response is an account of why the war
began, which differs somewhat from the one presented by Dicaeopolis in Acharnians,
64
1985, 159 vv. 564-7.
245
but which again ends up blaming Pericles and his establishment of the Megarian Decree
in 432. He tells how Pheidias, the famous sculptor “first had at her, when he’d gotten
into trouble” (ll. 604-5).
65
This is an allusion to the charges of embezzlement that were
brought against him while he was completing the chryselephantine statue of Athena for
the Parthenon sometime in the early 430s, charges from which he fled to escape
prosecution. According to this telling, it seems that Pericles, who was close friends with
Pheidias, did not wish to be found guilty by association in this incident, and he therefore
began the war as a distraction. Both Trygaeus and the coryphaeus respond that they have
never heard this story before (ll. 615-8), and its appearance here is a little baffling, as
these events occurred years prior to the outbreak of war. MacDowell hypothesizes that
this is just one more recent explanation that was circulating as to why the war began; in
other words, it is a glorified piece of gossip which Aristophanes decided to include.
66
For my part, I think that there is something more to this story than simply the reporting
of gossip.
In many ways, Pheidias’ illicit appropriation of the building materials for his cult
statue of Athena mimics the treatment that the statue of Peace is receiving in this play.
She was stolen and imprisoned by War, but she will be reinstated by Trygaeus as an
object worthy of worship in the next scene. As was the case in Acharnians, so here:
females are still understood to be the cause of conflict, only in this case they are not
65
Line 605 reads aÈtw crje, which is unclear and unmetrical. The line has been emended in a
variety of ways; I reprint the translation of Henderson. Olson observes that despite the lack of clarity,
what is wanted is clearly “a verb implying some sort of abuse” (1998, 196 v. 605). The phrase also
recalls the common mytho-literary motif of men copulating with statues; see, for example, Ovid, Met.
10.243f. (on Pygmalion), ps.-Lucian, Erotes 16-17 (on the Cnidian Aphrodite), and Athenaeus,
13.605f4-10 (on Cleiosophus of Selymbria).
66
MacDowell 1995, 187-9.
246
“real” women, like Aspasia and her whores, but rather figurative entities. These statues
are idealized epitomes of real women; they are immobile, enclosed in the materials from
which they are wrought, and they are silent. And yet, even they are still capable of
causing trouble for men.
By including this vignette, Aristophanes alludes again to the problematic status
of woman as simultaneous agent and object of exchange, just as he did in his portrayal of
the prostitute-trading that gave way to war in Acharnians. But rather than interrogate this
issue further, as he will in later plays, here he chooses to reproduce the problem and
disregard its broader implications in an effort to unify his masculine audience and restore
a sense of power to them. He depicts the goddess as incapable of rescuing herself, and as
a mute in need of Hermes’ ventriloquism. Regarding this artistic decision, Slater says,
It’s worth remarking on the irony that Peace, the only divinity on
Aristophanes’ stage meant to be taken seriously, can only be represented as
a representation…Only as an object, as stage property and not personality,
can Peace have the dignity that the plot requires.
67
Peace’s importance to the political stability of the city would require her literal
incorporation within it, and this is not something that Athens, or even Aristophanes’
comic representation of it, seems ready to admit. She is therefore only able to be
incorporated religiously by Trygaeus as a kind of consolation prize, and neither she nor
her attendants are given any say in the treatment they each receive.
68
67
2002, 123. For the most part I agree with this observation, and with his view that the statue is
transformed from work of art to cult statue over the course of the play (125), but I think that Peace’s
representation as a statue has more to do with avoiding placing an angry and assertive female
character on stage, rather than preserving Peace’s “dignity.”
68
In this regard, she resembles the Eumenides, who receive similar treatment at the end of the
Oresteia. She also prefigures Diallage in Lysistrata.
247
Hermes moves on from this topic to offer an in-depth account of how it is that
Athens has come to its current war-ravaged state. He explains that the hostile political
climate within the city induced its allies to bribe Sparta into starting the war, so that they
would not have to pay more tribute to Athens (ll. 619-24). The result was the initiation of
“a destructive cycle of fear and anticipatory aggression” in which the countrysides of
each side were raided and destroyed.
69
At Athens, this destruction led to the influx of
rural populations into the city who were easily manipulated on account of their poverty,
and who were, as a consequence, “sold out” by their avaricious political leaders (l. 633).
This treachery occurred despite the fact that Peace “appeared of her own accord out of
longing for this land” many times (l. 638). This is a reference to the failed attempts to
negotiate peace after the events at Pylos which were initiated by the Spartans, and it
presents us with another instance of the city’s unwillingness to admit the possibility of a
desiring female subject into its political consciousness.
70
What resulted from this failure, at least as Hermes describes it, was even more
troubling for all involved. The demagogues were able to maintain the destructive cycle
by falsely accusing the city’s rich allies of treason and by coercing bribes from them,
which prompted the city’s inhabitants to then “mangle” the accused “like a pack of
puppies” (ll. 639-41). Meanwhile, the city itself became simultaneously feminized and
animalized as a telltale sign of its loss of control: “Pale and crouching in fear, the city
was quite happy to swallow whatever slanders anyone tossed her way” (ll. 642-3). That
69
The phrase is Olson’s (1998, 196 vv. 605-14, 619-27, 632-48).
70
See also lines 664-7, where Hermes reports again that the statue-goddess is angry because “after the
events at Pylos she came here of her own accord, offering the city a basketful of treaties, and was
voted down three times in the Assembly.” Henderson (1975, 64) reads her/Hermes’ use of the term
k¤sth, or “basket,” as a pun on kÊsyow, or “cunt.” See Thuc. 4.41.3-4 on the historicity of these
offers.
248
Peace continues to be represented in the play as inert, as an entity that is still susceptible
to aggressive treatment at the hands of men, signifies that no significant change in
approach has been adopted by anyone, including the playwright, in response to these
events. His aesthetic decision both informs and is informed by the discomposed political
climate at Athens, and it looks forward to continued tumult in the future.
Despite its questionable historical accuracy, Hermes’ summation of the war’s
origins and its progression charts in unambiguous detail the cycle of competitive
violence that has been under analysis throughout this study. MacDowell points out that
this is no “string of jokes” for Aristophanes, it is more like a one-sided agon; it has a
serious and even bitter tone, and it reads like an indictment of all the involved parties.
71
Hermes spreads the blame fairly evenly, but because he is a god and because a moment
of peace has finally presented itself, he is able to direct special attention to the situation
at home and to the problems endemic to Athens. And while he never mentions
imperialism per se, he uses the story of Pheidias’ theft of the building materials as a
starting point for understanding how one person’s, or, by extension, one city’s, desire to
acquire without limit can cause great misfortune for all concerned.
By calling the Athenians to account publicly for their wrongdoings, then,
Aristophanes paves the way for his audience to receive the fruits of peace in the second
half of the play and enjoy them without guilt. But this remonstrance is, in a sense, no
more than a perfunctory slap on the wrist. It does not resolve Peace’s anger and she
remains silent (ll. 657-9), as she still does not occupy a position of authority from which
71
1995, 186; 192.
249
she might have given this speech herself.
72
What is more, there is no broader solution
proposed to the serious questions Peace asks via her interlocutor regarding the future
political and military plans of the city. Instead they provide the occasion for Trygaeus to
lampoon Cleonymus and Hyperbolus (l. 673-8; 681-92). That Hyperbolus is currently
the “master of the rock on Pnyx Hill” is especially vexing to her: she “turns her head
away” in annoyance at the people’s poor decision, which Trygaeus attempts to explain
away as a momentary necessity.
73
When Hermes presses him to explain how this choice
will benefit the city, he belittles the question by responding with a joke about
Hyperbolus’ “illuminating” background as a lamp maker (ll. 690-3). These humorous
deferrals reveal that even comic Athens has no strategy for extricating itself from the
cycle of competitive violence it has set into motion – it is enough merely to have a break.
But, without any kind of fundamental change, continuing hostilities both inside and
outside the city seem imminent. Unfortunately, the contents of the upcoming parabasis
only serve to strengthen this hypothesis.
Before departing, Hermes abruptly turns his attention to Peace’s attendants, and
he informs Trygaeus that he is to be betrothed to Opora and that they are to take up
residence in the countryside in order to produce “a brood of grapes” (ll. 706-8). His
language recalls the traditional marriage formula discussed previously, “for the plowing
of legitimate children” (pa¤dvn §p' érÒtƒ); however, as Nicole Loraux points out,
72
Ten years later, Lysistrata will give the speech that the statue is not able to give here. Cf. Lys. 506-
29.
73
Lines 680-7. There is much speculation as to whether the statue was actually made to move its head
in this scene; if it did so, it would enhance her expression of displeasure and afford her a slight degree
of agency. Trygaeus further domesticates the city by referring to Hyperbolus at line 686 as its
§p¤tropow, or “guardian” of the demos. Olson notes that this word refers specifically to the chief
household supervisor, who was “entrusted with control of his master’s day-to-day affairs” (1998, 209
vv. 685-7).
250
since Opora is the personification of the harvest, both the wedding and its offspring are
somewhat unnecessary. Trygaeus’ return to the country with Opora is really meant to
“réaliser pleinement sa virilité, en enracinant la femme qui est sienne dans la terre qui lui
appartient.”
74
His actions at this point seem to confirm this view – he immediately begins
to kiss Opora and to fantasize about having rough sex with her: “After such a long
abstinence do you think it would do me any harm to take down (katelãsaw) this
cornucopia?” (ll. 710-1). Thus their “wedding” begins.
Hermes also instructs Trygaeus to give her counterpart Theoria back to the
Council, to which he replies with a requisite reference to the unlimited oral sex they will
enjoy with her: “You’ll be slurping quite a lot of broth in the next three days, and
chowing down on quite a lot of hot links and tenderloin” (ll. 716-7).
75
Satisfied with this
state of affairs, Trygaeus calls for his beetle to take them home, but he discovers that the
beetle is gone. Hermes explains that it will remain in the perverse space of heaven,
feeding off “Ganymede’s ambrosia” (l. 724). This creature, the previously feminized
avatar of dysfunctional domesticity and sexuality, is no longer needed; it has been
replaced in this role by these apparently “normal” girls, who, conveniently, replace
Trygaeus’ family as well.
Finally, Hermes shows the group the way back to earth, where “a great many
horny men are waiting with hard-ons,” according to Trygaeus (ll. 727-8). He directs
them to depart “this way, right past the goddess,” which has been understood by most
74
1993, 210. See also Moulton 1981, 90. Loraux goes on to note that, as a result of the destruction of
the countryside, in Peace the journey to the country seems more difficult than Trygaeus’ journey to
heaven and back, and thus its completion is a testament to Trygaeus’ virility.
75
See note 49 of this chapter. I disagree with Olson (1998, 214 vv. 715-7), who says that “nothing
suggests that any of the vocab. [sic] here is to be taken in a sexual sense, especially given Ar.’s
general hostility toward cunnilingus.”
251
editors as an exit into the stage building by means of the central door that represents the
womblike cave where Peace was imprisoned (l. 726, thd‹ par' aÈtØn tØn yeÒn).
76
At
this point the parabasis begins, with the chorus safeguarding the farming implements
they took up at lines 552-63 from theft: “a great many thieves lurk around stage
buildings and make mischief” (ll. 729-32).
77
The mention of theft has been read as a
reference to the theft of dramatic material by Aristophanes’ rivals, which receives some
attention during this song, and as a metathetrical comment that works to return the
audience to earth and to the space of theater.
78
Might it also be understood as an overly-
defensive response to a perceived threat, which stems in part from their recent
participation in the “rescue,” or theft, of the statue-goddess?
Whether or not this is the case, the coryphaeus immediately moves on to some
high-blown praise of the poet, naming him “the world’s best and most renowned comic
producer” (ll. 736-7). He explains how Aristophanes is the one who “stopped his rivals”
from staging a variety of lowbrow antics; how he “outlawed,” “banished,” and “put an
end to” tawdry jokes about Heracles and beaten slaves, and instead made comedy great
by “building it up to towering size” (l. 749, képÊrgvs' o8kodomÆsaw). The language
conveys a sense not only of control and expertise, but also of creating a fortified,
enclosed, and therefore safe, place – like the oikos – in which all can enjoy the essentials
of life: food, sex, and shelter.
79
However, this idea is undercut instantly by the
76
So Dover 1972, 135 and Russo 1994, 140; contra Olson 1998, 216 vv. 727-8.
77
Stone (1981, 392 n. 16) suggests that the equipment referred to might also be the pickaxes and
ropes used to rescue Peace.
78
These are the views of Olson (1998, 216 v. 729-31) and Slater (2002, 127), respectively.
79
It is worth noting that this parabasis has a more inclusive tone than its precursor in Wasps. Hubbard
(1991, 148) relates how Aristophanes changed the wording at line 751 to say specifically that he
“didn’t satirize little people and women.” This is a change from “regular people” at Wasps 1029.
252
coryphaeus’ recollection of the many times the theatrical space has been host to
Aristophanes’ battles with Cleon.
The chorus leader (in the first person, cf. line 754, mãxomai) repeats verbatim
the description of Aristophanes’ enemy that is found at Wasps 1030-37, although he adds
“the islands” to the list of those for whom he undertook this fight as a means of tipping
his hat to the international audience at the City Dionysia (l. 760). Hubbard offers many
useful insights on why this passage recurs here. He concludes that it is meant to remind
us that “[Aristophanes] was always against Cleon, and that the course of history has now
vindicated him,” but, at the same time, he claims that, with the present tense verb
mãxomai, “Aristophanes emphasizes the continued relevance of his fight against Cleon
and everything Cleon represents, even with Cleon dead.”
80
This ambiguity is disquieting;
it suggests that, despite the peace acquired in this play and in reality, or perhaps because
of the spontaneous and arbitrary way in which peace came about in each, the cyclical
violence that necessitated it will persist. The appropriative and agonistic ideology that
informs both comedy and empire requires that a new demagogue or a different city-state
must inevitably come to serve as its target, and eventually as its trophy.
Nonetheless, Cleon’s death provides enough of a triumph to Aristophanes that he
feels justified in asking that “the men and boys alike” be on his side (ll. 765-6). He even
takes this request for male unity a step further, saying:
And we advise all bald men to join me in vying for victory, for if I win,
they’ll say, ‘Here’s to the baldy,’ ‘Give the baldy some dessert,’ and
80
1991, 149 (and note 29). I would also point out that Cleon’s irrepressibility has already made itself
known. At line 648, when Hermes turns his account of the war to laying blame on a “leather seller,”
Trygaeus responds by crying out, “Stop, stop…just let that man stay right where he is, down below.
That man’s no longer ours, he’s yours.” The contents of the parabasis suggest that this ardent desire of
the hero may be difficult to keep fulfilled.
253
‘Don’t hold out on a man with the brow of the noblest of poets’ (ll. 767-
74).
This exhortation encapsulates Aristophanes’ larger goal in Peace. He invokes his own
physical qualities in order to equate himself explicitly with other ordinary men in his
audience, and, in doing so, he facilitates a kind of shared recognition that allows the
fantasy of masculine sameness, which has been unobtainable in previous plays, to
flourish.
81
Of course, for this to be a truly successful achievement, the audience must
acknowledge his dramaturgic mastery, which has rendered the theater a civic sanctuary
in which this fantasy can become a reality, even if only momentarily.
The next step is to legitimate the special role that the theater has taken on under
Aristophanes’ stewardship, and indeed, the rest of the play is concerned with this task. It
seems that, just as in the many other instances of appropriation we have encountered in
this study, the best way in which to accomplish this is through the process of
naturalization, which almost always requires the participation of women (or, at the least,
of feminized embodiments). Accordingly, the chorus turns its attention at this point to
the Muse, whom they beckon to join them in their dance, rejecting the theme of war and
“celebrating the weddings of gods, the banquets of men, and the festivities of the blest”
(ll. 775-9). They insist that these are her “original themes,” and that she should therefore
reject the overtures of tragedians (specifically, Carcinus and his sons, as well as
Morsimus and Melanthius) by “hocking a big fat loogey on them” (ll. 780, 815). It is
through their reassignment of the Muse to her “proper” or “natural” poetic place that the
chorus appears to attain her sanction; whether or not she actually consents or participates
81
Hubbard (1991, 150) reads Aristophanes as eschewing aristocratic affectation here as well, and he
notes that this pnigos was probably sung by the whole chorus, who thereby “visibly enact solidarity
with the poet,” ending the parabasis on a note of “shared festivity and communal harmony.”
254
of her own volition is secondary. This episode is just a preliminary sample of the
naturalizing strategy that will be utilized on other fronts and on other females.
Trygaeus reappears with Opora and Theoria still in tow, and he converses with
both the spectators and his slave about his celestial travels. He then tells the slave to take
Opora inside in order to ready her for the wedding. When the slave asks him where he
got the girls, Trygaeus responds “from heaven.” The slave replies to this, “I wouldn’t
give two bits for the gods if they pimp girls as we mortals do!” (ll. 847-9). This
comment exposes a change in the status of these female characters, from divinities to
prostitutes. Their move to earth has made of them nothing more than mundane objects of
male exchange (which were obtained deceitfully no less), and has divested them of any
remaining divine agency. Sommerstein notes that this change allows Trygaeus to do
something that no one could do in real life: he is taking a wife who also has the qualities
of a mistress.
82
The implausibility of this situation is reflected in the irregular spatial progression
it requires. Contrary to typical ancient matrimonial practice, Opora is taken inside the
house before the wedding, and instead of being led to it afterward, she is conducted out
to the countryside.
83
Her resistance to this situation is hinted at when Trygaeus explains
that “she’ll not want to eat bread or cake, when up there with the gods her tongue’s been
used to ambrosia” (ll. 852-4). But, as it turns out, he only mentions this for the sake of
setting up a sexually degrading joke that takes her as its butt and thereby confirms her
82
1985, 173 v. 849.
83
See Cassio (1985, 121) on the strange role of the home in this scene. He concludes that it is “un
interno astratto in cittá che si materializza solo per essere immediatamente negato.”
255
new position of powerlessness: “Then we’ll have to get something ready for her to put
her tongue on down here too!” (l. 855).
The slave now departs with Opora, while the chorus sings of Trygaeus’ luck and
refers to his imminent rejuvenation, which will only be complete once the marriage is
consummated and he possesses “those tits in [his] hands” (l. 863). The slave reiterates
the restorative quality of heterosexual sex for men when he reemerges and informs
Trygaeus that everything is prepared for the wedding, and that “all we need is the prick”
(l. 870). As explained previously, Opora’s status as the harvest and her installment
already in Trygaeus’ home make this wedding seem less than essential. But, within the
comic logic of the play, it guarantees Trygaeus’ masculinity and smoothes the transition
to peace by assimilating fornicating, like farming, to fighting. All three are thus able to
be identified as activities that constitute proper male behavior. We would expect that the
wedding would take place now that these pursuits have been ideologically aligned, but
Trygaeus recalls that he must first restore Theoria to the Council.
The slave asks him, “Who is this girl anyway?” (l. 872). It is worth pausing for a
moment to answer his question. Theoria is a personification of the act of observing or
looking, and in ancient Athens, “she” has a particular association with spectatorship at
games and festivals, as well as with the oracular pilgrimages of ambassadors. Her name
has been translated in a variety of ways that seek both to convey its many meanings and
to contain them within one figure. These include “Holiday” (Henderson), “Showtime”
(Sommerstein), and “Festival” (O’Higgins), among others. I retain the original Greek
word in translation, although I believe there is another word that adequately sums up the
256
ideas that Theoria embodies: “gaze.” I will say more about this in a moment; for now, let
us review what happens to her in this scene.
The slave makes clear how this character is to be understood when he asks
Trygaeus, “Do you mean to say this is that Theoria, whom we would bang on the way to
Brauron when we were drunk?” (ll. 873-4). Brauron was an Attic sanctuary that hosted a
festival in honor of Artemis every four years, and featured sporting contests for young
girls. His question implies that before the war, they enjoyed the freedom to travel,
spectate, compete, have sex, and consume alcohol, and that all of these delights are
closely related to one another. Cedric Whitman explains that together these represent the
public or urban benefits of peace, and that Theoria embodies and institutionalizes them,
while Opora, her counterpart, stands for peace’s rural and private aspects.
84
By their very
nature, these public benefits are to be shared, and, accordingly, Trygaeus begins to look
for a representative in the audience who can safeguard her on behalf of the Council (ll.
877-8).
It seems that Theoria “belongs” to this body of legislators because they are
responsible for overseeing and maintaining the communal institutions of the city. These
include the yearly theatrical productions, at which the Council members had priority
seating (proedr¤a) in the first few rows. For this reason, Trygaeus takes it upon himself
to escort Theoria personally to this area of the theater in order to situate her in her proper
place, setting her down “in their midst” (ll. 881-2). He also has her disrobe for the men
in these seats so that he may show her off to them. He lifts her legs in the air and points
84
1964, 111.
257
out her vagina in particular: “Just look at this cooker of hers!” (l. 891). He then goes on
to explain,
Now that you have her, you’re free to hold a fine sporting competition first
thing tomorrow. You can wrestle her to the ground, stand her on all fours,
oil up for the pancration, and like young lads bang and gouge with fist and
prick alike! Then on the second day you’ll hold the equestrian events,
where jockey will outjockey jockey, and chariots will tumble over each
other and match thrusts, puffing and panting, and other drivers will lie with
cocks unfurled, collapsed at the goal line. Now, Councilmen, you’re
welcome to Theoria! (ll. 894-905).
With this, he appears to place her in the lap of one of these distinguished audience
members, where she ostensibly remains for the duration of the play.
The function of this scene in the larger context of the play should be clear
enough by now. Theoria is the comedy’s contribution to the peace, and by sharing her
with the audience, Trygaeus, in contrast with Dicaeopolis in Acharnians, demonstrates
how all free men (and even some slaves, it seems) can and will partake in the many
pleasures she provides. In other words, he uses her to facilitate a more substantial form
of homosocial bonding, which extends beyond the confines of the drama, and makes the
fantasy of male unity and harmony into more of a reality. Slater goes as far as to claim
that “nothing could more graphically demonstrate the benefits of peace” than the
physical integration of stage and audience that Trygaeus enacts through Theoria.
85
As
the muse did for Aristophanes before her, Theoria lends a great deal of cultural and
social legitimacy to the comic peace achieved by Trygaeus. The chorus praises him after
this scene as a man who is “good for all the citizenry” and as a “savior of all mankind”
(ll. 909-11; 914-5).
85
2002, 127.
258
But there is still the question of why Theoria’s treatment by the Council is
described in such brutally violent terms. Jeffrey Henderson notes that “neither Eirene
[Peace] nor Opora…is ever made the object of coarse sexual humor; the sexual humor
surrounding them is gentle and bound thematically to noble motifs. But we get a
different impression of Theoria’s future in the hands of the city.”
86
Despite this assertion,
he does not go on to offer any suggestions as to why this is the case. It is my belief that
her violent treatment stems from her oxymoronic role as a “public female” in Athens. As
I will explain, Theoria’s existence is inherently transgressive; it thus excites the men at
the same time as it rouses their ire.
In the first place, Theoria is the embodiment of the very gaze that is being used
against her in order to situate and subdue her, and to deprive her of her position as an
attendant of Peace, as one whose domain it is to watch over another. Her abuse is an
attempt to restore this gaze, and the power it contains, to its “rightful” owners – those
office-holding men who should be safeguarding peace themselves. In the second place,
she represents freedom of movement and travel, but these luxuries are not to be enjoyed
by her, or, by extension, by other women. In fact, men’s enjoyment of their own
mobility depends upon the enclosure and surveillance of women, and on their
designation as private property. This explains both Trygaeus’ comment at line 875, “It
was quite a job getting a hold of her!” and the slave’s subsequent “tracing of her
86
1975, 66.
259
outlines” (l. 879, perigrãfeiw), which he rationalizes as the necessary precursor to
“reserving a spot for his prick at the Isthmian games.”
87
Even though it is initiated by Trygaeus, Theoria’s actual movement from the
stage to the audience is a final transgression that requires her to be assigned a guardian
and placed among the men who will “take care” of her. Her placement among the
spectators suggests that her presence, and the female presence in general, is
indispensable to the theater. She encompasses all four principal elements – the body,
theatrical space, the plot, and mimesis – that define the theatrical experience, according
to Froma Zeitlin, in addition to the gaze.
88
Her body is given special attention, and its
movement in the theatrical space controls the plot and its proper conclusion, i.e.,
heteronormative sex for all. She cannot, therefore, simply be kicked out like a scapegoat,
or carried off like a prize. Instead, the men must find a way to incorporate her as a public
entity, especially now that the comic theater has been converted into a second home for
the city’s inhabitants, where safety and security are seemingly assured.
Of course, this requirement provokes anxiety about the female usurpation of
male powers and prerogatives, which in turn generates anger and resentment. This
resentment is encapsulated within the description of the abusive sex acts that Theoria
will be subjected to. Her hostile treatment allows the men in the theater to rally together
and refocus their aggression on its “proper” target, rather than on each other. The
traumatic reverberations of years of war appear to finally “come home” to the female
body, and to leave their mark on it in a frenzied explosion of sexual violence. Through
87
As Henderson notes (1998, 537 n. 71), the “isthmus” is a slang term for “the place connecting two
legs.” Again, the slave’s sexual mapping of Theoria’s body anticipates the treatment Diallage will
receive from the heralds at the end of Lysistrata (ll. 1159-73).
88
1985, 68-80.
260
the example (made) of Theoria, the cultural work of comedy – to test and transgress
socially constructed barriers only in order to reinstate them – is made manifest, perhaps
more vividly than in any other example encountered so far
With this task completed, the slave asks, “What’s next?” to which Trygaeus
responds, “To install this goddess with pots, what else?” (ll. 923-4). Although Hermes
did not explicitly mention it, it seems that before the wedding may take place, the cult of
Peace must be established through the performance of a sacrificial ritual. Bowie explains
that the installment of a cult statue within the city is known as a hidrusis, and this ritual
required that a first-fruit offering, typically of porridge, be presented to the statue in
small pots.
89
The slave remarks that this is an unworthy offering for so great a deity, and
he suggests that a blood sacrifice would be more reverential. They discuss different
animals that might be used (ll. 925-38), and decide finally on a lamb “so that we’ll be
like lambs in the way we treat one another, and much milder toward our allies” (ll. 935-
6). They then begin to carry out elaborate preparations around the altar that was a
permanent part of the stage, even bringing out a real lamb momentarily. Finally, the pair
utters a lengthy prayer to the goddess, asking that she accept their sacrifice, release them
from battles and tumults, and “blend us Greeks, starting afresh, with the juice of
friendship” (ll. 977, 991, 996-7).
In establishing the cult of Peace, Trygaeus succeeds in infusing his comic project
with yet another kind of legitimacy – religious legitimacy. Through his actions, the
theater literally becomes the sanctuary that Aristophanes has suggested it could be
89
1993, 146. The mention of these pots recalls those of the Council, which they placed upon
Theoria’s “pot-holder” before the war.
261
throughout the play, and he reminds the audience of drama’s traditional ritual origins.
90
He also exploits a variety of metatheatrical techniques that continue the process of
unifying the audience by including them in the action. This is best evidenced in his use
of the altar, in his throwing of barley-corns to the spectators (and his sharing of the
innards with them at line 1115), and in his prayer, which he begins by asking, “Who is
here?” (l. 968). Henderson notes that this was “a ritual question to which a sacrificial
congregation was expected to reply in unison, ‘good men aplenty’
[pollo‹ kégayo¤].”
91
Not coincidentally, it is at this moment that Trygaeus also comes closest to
successfully incorporating a significant and influential female presence into the city, but
this presence proves to be partial, as well as artificial. As a statue and not a living
woman (or man costumed as such), “she” lacks agency and freedom; as a divinity, she is
somewhat redundant, and can only provide an old-fashioned solution to the complex
political problems of the city.
92
Nonetheless, this solution works for Trygaeus and his
audience, even if only temporarily, because its application is contained within the
protected confines of the comedy and the theater. In the end it seems to me that what the
statue of Peace ironically brings to light is the reluctance, fear and uncertainty which
preclude men from altering their hegemonic understanding of gender difference, and
allow them to indulge in practices, like warfare, that exacerbate the deleterious effects of
this understanding.
90
A similar function may be ascribed to the phallic procession that occurs at the beginning of
Acharnians.
91
1998, 549 n. 76.
92
It seems that in reality the decision to establish an official public cult of Peace at Athens took
another forty-seven years, until 374 BCE. Both Sommerstein (1985, 181 v. 1020) and Olson (1998,
113 v. 221) summarize the ancient evidence.
262
In keeping with this, the male characters act out a kind of resistance to, or
sabotage of, their own imperfect installment of Peace by committing a blood sacrifice
after openly acknowledging its inappropriateness. At line 1017, Trygaeus enjoins the
slave to “Take the knife, and be sure to slaughter the lamb like a master chef.” The slave
replies, “But that’s not proper…Surely Peace takes no pleasure in slaughter, nor is her
altar bloodied.” Thereupon, Trygaeus, in a gesture which further corroborates the
compromised and contrary status of the oikos in this play, bids the slave to “take it inside
and sacrifice it, then remove the thigh pieces and bring them out here,” neither for Peace
nor for the wedding, but so that the play’s producer will not lose his costly asset (ll.
1020-1).
Trygaeus’ and the slave’s irresolution – their inability to reconcile the place of
the feminine in their world and their simultaneous fear and desire of her sexuality – are
also articulated in the contents of their prayer. But, as if scripted by Freud, these feelings
are projected onto the statue by them, and, in this way, she is able to be identified as the
cause of their problems. Here again, they draw upon spatial imagery that emphasizes the
increasingly negative role of the home in order to convey their point. The slave, or
perhaps the chorus leader, begins the prayer by asking Peace not to act as adulterous
wives do: “They open the house-door (tw aÈle¤aw) a crack and peep out, and if anyone
heeds them, they draw back inside, and when he’s gone, they peep out again…Don’t
treat us like that anymore!” (ll. 979-86). Trygaeus seconds this request, exclaiming,
“God no! Rather show all of yourself steadfastly to us your lovers, who have been pining
for you now these thirteen years” (ll. 987-90).
263
This request goes against everything that is to be expected: to leave home and
expose oneself indiscriminately to the male gaze hardly constitutes decorous behavior
for an Athenian woman, whether she is divine or not. Is this what Trygaeus truly
desires? Or will the fulfillment of his wish only produce more anxiety and resentment?
We have only to recall the abusive treatment Theoria was to receive at the hands of the
Council after she complied with a similar request. Conveniently, Peace’s status as a
statue negates the possibility that Trygaeus’ request might actually be honored. It allows
him to bypass the vexed issue of female sexual agency altogether, and instead turn his
attention back to Opora, his private prize. Her previous successful enclosure in the home
belies Trygaeus’ wish in this scene, and suggests, in my view, that despite his freedom
as a comic hero to eat his cake and have it too, he inhabits a position that is ultimately
contradictory and therefore untenable.
There is one more moment in this scene that deserves mention, as it encapsulates
the indeterminacy and tension governing relations between the sexes, not just within the
conceptual space of the play, but within the physical space of the theater, and, by
extension, the city, at this time. At line 962, in the midst of the sacrificial preparations,
Trygaeus tells his slave to “throw the spectators some of the barley-corns.” He does so
with relish, and informs his master that “there isn’t a one of these spectators who hasn’t
got a corn.” Trygaeus protests, saying “The women haven’t got any,” to which the slave
responds, “Well, their husbands will give it to them tonight!” (ll. 965-7).
This joke depends on the double meaning of kriyÆ as both “barley-corn” and
“penis,” and it has been understood by many commentators as one of the most
264
compelling pieces of evidence for women’s spectatorship at the dramatic festivals.
93
Henderson cites it as evidence of the fact that they most likely sat in a separate area
toward the back, and he asserts that “the shift in reference from the spectators as all male
to the spectators as including women represents a movement from notional to actual
audience.”
94
In other words, the comment reveals, in unambiguous terms, the gap
between reality and masculine fantasy; as was the case with Theoria, it begrudgingly
acknowledges the very real and necessary female presence in the theater at the same
time as it eschews it. Here again, the threat of force is supposed to return women to their
proper place both sexually and spatially, and undermine their autonomy. But the deferral
of the threat to the oikos, outside the theater, coupled with the women’s subliminal
incorporation in this scene, conveys the notion that it may be too late for this end to be
achieved. They are there, they are real, and men must find a way to get used to it.
After the goddess is installed and the sacrifice is complete, a stranger appears
who the slave thinks is drawn in by the aroma of the meat, but whom Trygaeus identifies
as Hierocles, a historical seer who was famous at Athens. Most notably, he was
appointed the head of a committee that oversaw certain sacrifices after the Euboean
revolt of 446/5 BCE.
95
Trygaeus predicts correctly that Hierocles has come in order to
“make some objection to the treaty” (ll. 1048-50), and his premonition in this regard,
93
Much has been written on the topic of women’s attendance at the theater. In recent times, the view
that they were present has gained increasing acceptance. See, for example, Podlecki 1990, Gero and
Johnsson 2001, and Henderson 1991, who offers the most comprehensive assessment of the state of
the question (as well as bibliography; cf. 133 n. 2). Contra see Goldhill 1994, who argues
(unconvincingly, in my view) that being an audience member was a political exercise exclusive to
male citizens, and that the theater was basically no different from the other democratic venues of the
city.
94
1991, 142.
95
Sommerstein 1985, 183 v. 1046.
265
along with a separate mention of him by Eupolis in the same year, has been read as an
indication that he had been a “vigorous supporter of the war.”
96
Trygaeus and the slave
agree to pretend they do not see him, and they go about their business, cutting up the
meat.
As was the case with the Megarian and the informer in Acharnians, the
appearance of Hierocles, along with the upcoming appearance of the arms dealer, serves
the purpose of delaying what is an inevitable outcome. Because they are male characters
who previously enjoyed power, or at least wealth, their ineffectuality as naysayers only
serves to shore up Trygaeus’ mastery and the legitimacy of his peace once and for all.
Hierocles speaks in a nonsensical manner that parodies prophetic language, and its
function here is the same as it was in Knights: to render all oracular speech equally
suspect and fraudulent, especially in contrast with Trygaeus’ newly-established cult. He
uses several distinct images drawn from the natural world in his effort to convince
Trygaeus that it is not yet time for peace. For example, he claims that “this is not yet
agreeable to the blessed gods, to leave off the din of battle ere the wolf beds down with
the lamb” (ll. 1075-6). Similarly, he informs him, “Never shall you manage to make the
crab walk straight” (l. 1083), nor “smooth the spines of the hedgehog” (l. 1086).
Despite the similarities of their approach, Hierocles’ attempts to validate war as
a natural phenomenon that will persist regardless of human intention prove to be
significantly less persuasive than Trygaeus’ efforts to restore peace and domesticate the
theater. It seems that what the seer is lacking are some normative female referents that
would substantiate his claims. Unfortunately for him, all he has is the vision of another
96
Olson 1998, 269 vv. 1045-7.
266
smelly beetle, which recalls the creature from the beginning of the play and which is
again feminized by metaphorical association: “So long as the bombardier beetle in flight
farts most foully, and the bitch too eager for labor brings forth blind pups, so long were
it not yet meet for peace to be sanctioned” (ll. 1077-9).
97
This prophecy recalls the world
of dung, and the sterility, or at least abnormality, which defines sex and procreation in
that world, and which Trygaeus has tried so hard to ban from the theater.
Hierocles’ comments prompt Trygaeus to respond with indignation: “What
should we have done instead? Ceaselessly wage war? Or draw lots for which side would
suffer more, when we could make a treaty and rule Greece together?” (ll. 1080-2). In his
anger, he admits that the war’s coercive and epidemical “nature” is anything but natural
– it depends ultimately on the volition of those who wage it. He goes on to invoke
Homer as the sanctioner of his sacrifice, and quotes the solemn words of Nestor from
Iliad 9.63-4: “Clanless, lawless, hearthless is that man who lusts (¶ratai) for the horror
of warfare among his own people (§pidhm¤ou)” (ll. 1097-8). I view Aristophanes’
placement of these words in the mouth of Trygaeus as a strong and serious statement
against war; it is, perhaps, the strongest encountered so far in his plays. Its language
explicitly acknowledges war’s epidemical structure and its ability to reduce all forms of
conflict, regardless of scale, to equally insidious and self-destructive forms of stasis. Yet,
it also recognizes that it is the boundless and indiscriminate desire of each man that
97
Line 1078 is a crux. I have reprinted Henderson’s translation, which passes over the problem
presented by the word ékalany‹w. This word means “goldfinch,” but Borthwick 1968 argued that, in
this instance, it is the proper name of a mythical slave girl who frustrated Hera’s plans to prolong the
birth of Heracles to Alcmena, and who was turned into a weasel as punishment. Henderson opts to
reproduce the proverb that gives the line its general sense, which can be found in both Archilochus (fr.
196a.39-41) and in Aesop (Fab. 223 Perry), that “the bitch in a hurry brings forth blind offspring”
(Sommerstein 1985, 185 v. 1078). Even if the reference to the girl Acalanthis is dubious, the feminine
subtexts of the line are clear.
267
produces this horrible state of affairs, in which those things that previously ordered
society and enabled men to distinguish themselves from one another (i.e., family, law
and home) are destroyed.
Of course, Hierocles ignores Trygaeus’ words, and continues to try to acquire a
portion of the sacrifice for himself. Trygaeus responds, using the same oracles uttered by
the seer against him in order to deny his requests. What happens next is a troubling
recapitulation of the cycle of violence and appropriation that was just decried by
Trygaeus. When the seer finally tries to grab the meat, Trygaeus strikes him and yells at
the slave to beat him as well (l. 1119). Together they beat him off the stage and, in
addition, they strip him of the sheepskins he is wearing, which they believe he acquired
deceitfully (l. 1123). They thus succeed in getting rid of him, but the quickness with
which they resort to blows acts to undermine the work they have done in order to obtain
peace. Their actions confirm the fragile and temporary quality of the peace they have
established, and do not bode well for its perpetuation far into the future.
The chorus now sings the second parabasis, which reiterates systematically the
dichotomy of war and peace in the predictable terms of sterility and fertility. The
achievement of peace provides them with the opportunity to construct an idyllic fantasy
of normalcy restored, which looks forward to life after the end of the play. The world
they imagine is one of rural autarky, in which the sexual and the agricultural merge, so
that woman and land become interchangeable sources of abundance for men. They sing
of sitting around the fire with friends, and of “kissing the Thracian maid [i.e., Thratta]
while the wife is in the bath” (ll. 1138-9). This comment naturally spurs the coryphaeus
to declare, “There is nothing more pleasant than for the sowing to be over and done, and
268
for the god to be sending down rain on the soil” (ll. 1140-1, trans. Sommerstein). He
then goes on to imagine a conversation between himself and a neighbor, in which they
decide to organize a party:
‘Say, Comarchides, how shall we pass the time?’ ‘I fancy heavy drinking,
since the god’s so well disposed. Wife, start parching three quarts of
kidney beans, and mix in some of the barley, and break out some of the
figs, and have Syra call Manes in from the vineyard. It’s no use trying to
prune vines today…’ (ll. 1142-7).
In this vignette, the image of a wife being ordered around is meant to signify that the
oikos, like the fields before it, has regained its former status as an enclosure over which
the male has mastery. Moreover, woman’s status as property is reinforced through her
close association with the slaves, in particular with the female house slave, Syra, or “girl
taken from Syria.”
The domestic imagery of this choral song and the mention of the slave girl
Thratta in particular recall Acharnians and Dicaeopolis’ private peace, which could only
be sustained by his adoption of those very practices (e.g., violence, appropriation and
objectification) that precipitate the resumption of hostilities in the future. Here too it is
revealed that, despite Trygaeus’ more altruistic accomplishments, this cycle is still very
much in effect, and that conflict is always lurking around the corner, threatening to
confound the socio-spatial order. The chorus leader contrasts his rural life of luxury with
the image of a Lamachus-type figure deserting his soldiers in the field and soiling
himself in terror, while, he goes on to explain, “when they [i.e. the Lamachus types] get
stationed at home (o‡koi), their behavior’s intolerable: they enter some of us on the
roster and strike others, haphazardly, two or three times” (ll. 1179-81). Olson notes that
the adverb used here, o‡koi, or “at home,” should be taken to mean “in the city.” This is
269
a sound observation, though the word choice also conveys the sense that in the chaotic
atmosphere produced by war, it has become difficult to differentiate between the two.
98
The unfair treatment experienced by the soldiers naturally provokes the chorus leader’s
anger, and he ends what began as a celebratory song with a threat that suggests he will
continue the intracommunal fighting: “For all this, god willing, they’ll settle accounts
with me yet, for they’ve done me much wrong” (ll. 1187-8).
At this point, Trygaeus and his slave come out and notice that “a lot of people”
have arrived for the wedding feast (l. 1192). This is yet another metatheatrical
incorporation of the audience into the state of peace, though it also includes the sickle-
maker and potter who presently appear. They offer Trygaeus gifts in thanks for restoring
peace, and in return he sends them inside to eat, despite the tables of food that are
present. This is a means by which to clear the stage for the appearance of the arms-
maker, but it is also a sign that the home, which now contains Opora, has been
rehabilitated and redeemed. Next, the arms dealer arrives with two other men to
complain that the peace has destroyed their livelihood (ll. 1210-3). At first, Trygaeus
seems sympathetic; he offers to buy some of their wares, but this turns out to be a farce.
He begins to “outrage” the dealer’s wares (l. 1229), suggesting that a cuirass be used as a
toilet and a helmet be used as a measuring cup for laxative, among other things. He
decides against buying the cuirass because it “irritates his bottom,” and with this, he
reaffirms the affiliation of war and feces one final time so that he may dismiss it once
and for all (l. 1239).
98
1998, 293 vv. 1179-81.
270
As these men are leaving, two young boys appear from inside the house.
Trygaeus explains that they have come out both to urinate and to rehearse the songs they
plan to sing in honor of the newly-married couple (ll. 1265-7). The first boy begins to
sing a song of war from the epic poem Epigoni, but he is stopped by Trygaeus, who gets
angry at its inappropriate subject matter. Trygaeus tells him to sing instead of feasting,
but he inevitably returns to the theme of war. This child turns out to be the son of
Lamachus (l. 1290), and is promptly sent away. The second boy, whom Trygaeus
identifies as the son of Cleonymus, sings the famous Archilochean couplets about
shield-throwing. He is also disparaged by Trygaeus as a “little weenie” (l. 1300,
pÒsyvn), and as one who disgraced his begetters (l. 1301). Nonetheless, he enters the
house with Trygaeus at this point, who enjoins those “staying outside here” (i.e., the
chorus and the audience) to eat all the food that is on the tables “in manly fashion” (ll.
1305-7, éndrik«w).
The appearance of the boys at the end of the play recalls and complements the
appearance of the daughters at the beginning.
99
In both instances, their youth compels us
to look forward to the future, and both groups act as naysayers or warning figures
through the display of their poetic knowledge. The boys’ performance is an enactment of
their acculturation as males and as the next generation of Athenian citizen-soldiers.
Through their songs, they articulate two competing forms of masculinity, both of which
are over-determined by the experience of war, and both of which are problematic in the
99
Olson (1998, 306 vv. 1265-7) notes that the parts of the boys and the daughters were played by the
same supernumerary actors. Harriott (1986, 137 n. 40) also remarks that “these young singers of
songs from ‘outside’ comedy…balance the children, imported from tragedy, whose pleas precede
Trygaeus’ flight.”
271
eyes of Trygaeus. The first boy’s inability to sing of anything but war is indicative of its
tenacious and compulsive influence. But, instead of informing the boy of his and all
men’s capacity to limit this influence, which Trygaeus himself has demonstrated through
his own actions, he makes of him a kind of temporary scapegoat, though he does not
completely expel him. He is not told to stop singing; rather he is sent off to sing for the
spearsmen (l. 1294). With this command, Trygaeus obliquely acknowledges that the
boy’s song and its message retain a social function, and that it is only a matter of time
before war returns.
The second boy’s song is not much better; it is emasculating and he is ridiculed
by Trygaeus for it in a predictable fashion, but he is also admitted into his home. (After
all, who would sing at the wedding party if Trygaeus dismissed them both?) It seems
that the second boy’s attempt to shift the paradigm of what constitutes honorable male
behavior is the best response that can be imagined in world where war itself is unable to
be eradicated. Nonetheless, the scene as a whole conveys the notion that all options for
performing masculinity at Athens have become equally vexed and constrained by so
many years of conflict at every level of society, and that even Trygaeus’ miraculous
peace cannot repair the damage. Aristophanes thus employs the boys as a final warning
of what the future may hold if no significant change in the minds and actions of men
occurs, but the impact of this message is limited. This is because comedy itself is part
and parcel of Athens’ belligerent patrimony, and it too is constrained by its own generic
limits. It can allude to change transitorily, but in the end, it reproduces the same patterns
and proclivities that shape Athenian society, even though they may simultaneously
contribute to its destabilization.
272
In the end, the peace of Peace is finally able to be “naturalized” by its alliance
with the practices of marriage and agriculture. This theatrical “naturalization” obscures
the fact that these are all social institutions; it is only the promise of fertility which
underlies them that is natural. What is really being celebrated here is the male
prerogative to enclose and regulate this fertility, to render it compliant and beneficial,
and to enjoy its produce. This is what has been enacted by Trygaeus, and what has been
regained by him for all Greek men. It is reflected in his final pronouncement: “may they
[i.e. the gods] help us produce lots of barley, all of us alike, and lots of wine, and figs to
nibble, and that our wives bear us children…” (ll. 1322-5). As the preceding list shows,
the wedding is the “highest” or best form of enclosure because its product is the most
valuable. But the spatial dynamics of the play reveal that the traditional place of
marriage, the once private sanctuary of the oikos, has become unnatural and
unmanageable. It has been compromised irrevocably by its own enclosure in the city and
by its entanglement in the political battles of wartime Athens. Trygaeus’ decision to
bypass the home and return directly to the fields therefore signals the restoration of his
freedom and mobility, but unfortunately it also guarantees the construction of better
enclosures. In this regard, he resembles the playwright who created him, and who has
undertaken a very similar project with respect to the theater in this play.
The chorus exits, escorting the bride and groom, and singing the traditional
hymeneal song. They celebrate and sanction Trygaeus’ recovery of his and all Greek
men’s power to enclose, including their own, when they sing, “What shall we do with
the bride? We’ll gather her fruit!” (ll. 1337-40). The word trugÆsomen puns on the
name of the hero. Its utterance effectively marks her as Trygaeus’ property at the same
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time as it allows the chorus to conjure up the fantasy of its own sexual appropriation of
her. Even within the contents of the chorus’ cheerful song, then, the seeds of conflict are
present, but, in his triumph, Trygaeus easily overlooks this and instead addresses the
audience with one final unifying exhortation: “If you follow me, you’ll all have cakes to
eat!” (ll. 1358-9).
It is difficult to overlook the recurrence and increasing prominence of female
referents in the play, which begins with the off-hand remark about the beetle’s eating
habits and ends with Trygaeus’ marriage to Opora. And yet, despite this prominence, the
integral role of the female in aiding the hero in his efforts to establish peace is
acknowledged (with cult and, some might argue, with marriage), only to be undercut by
the male characters’ treatment of the female figures, especially Theoria. The male
characters in the play continue to view the merits of peace as the satisfaction of their
desire for absolute mastery over woman and land alike, encouraging the men in the
audience to do the same. Their inability to admit the possibility of female agency or
autonomy, especially in a political sense, guarantees that the paradigmatic cycle of
appropriation, objectification and consumption will continue, and will inevitably
engender more war and conflict, which will in turn weaken those very social structures
which the cycle exists to maintain. Hélène Cixous explains that “subordination of the
feminine to the masculine order…gives the appearance of being the condition for the
machinery’s functioning.”
100
Aristophanes, by placing on his stage representations of the
feminine that can only be artificial or figurative, confirms that this is indeed only an
appearance, and that men themselves are ultimately responsible for their own destiny.
100
Cixous and Clément 1986, 65.
274
What occurs in this play is not an innovation; rather, it is a resetting of the stop-
clock – a momentary pause that is to be enjoyed before the cycle of violence starts over.
In this regard, it is similar to the Peace of Nikias itself, which lasted barely seven years
and during which fighting and skirmishes still continued. It was a peace in name only,
weak and ineffective, not unlike the statue that represents it on Aristophanes’ stage.
101
The problematic manner in which Trygaeus achieves his goals, and Aristophanes’
reluctance or inability to place a “real” female character on the stage without
immediately transforming her into a sexual commodity, point uncomfortably to the
inevitable resumption of hostilities that will take place in the near future. And it is only
the horrific events that will occur at both Melos and Syracuse, in 416 and 413 BCE,
respectively, that will finally put Athens, and its representative comic playwright, in a
position to recognize and to represent that most impossible creature: the politicized,
urban woman.
101
See Thuc. 5.26.2: “Looked at in light of the facts it cannot, it will be found, be rationally
considered a state of peace.”
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CONCLUSION
THE FEMINIZED POLIS
Looking Forward to the Women’s Plays
Let us pay attention now, we said, to women: let men and women make a conscious act
of attention when women speak; let us get back to earth – not as paradigm for
“women,” but as place of location.
-- Adrienne Rich, “Notes toward a Politics of Location” (1984)
It has been my goal since I first began studying Old Comedy to better understand
the reasons why Aristophanes came to put decisive, politicized female figures on the
stage in the later part of his career. My intention was to analyze only the gendered
representations found in the women’s plays in order to achieve this goal, but when I
started digging into the material, I began to realize that what was really necessary was to
go back and look at the plays that preceded these. This realization worried me, as I had
gotten the impression that there was precious little to examine in the early plays with
regard to femininity and its representation. I also assumed that what little there was must
have surely been discussed in detail by someone else already. As it turned out, however,
and as evidenced by the previous four chapters of this study, there was actually an
abundance of material to consider (and reconsider). This was both a positive and
negative development: it gave me the opportunity to do some illuminating work on plays
that had been largely neglected when it came to their engagement with issues of sex and
gender, but it also precluded me from ever reaching the women’s plays and analyzing
them properly. In this conclusion, therefore, rather then rehash the arguments I have
already presented, I want to look forward, if only briefly, to the first of these women’s
276
plays, Lysistrata, and contemplate its importance in the light of the historical
circumstances that led up to its production.
Before embarking down that path, however, I think it important to acknowledge
that my employment of spatiality in particular as a heuristic device is what enabled me to
read the feminine absence or scarcity in Aristophanes’ early plays as significant, and not
simply as a non-issue. As I worked my way from Acharnians to Peace, I discovered that
what was seemingly “not there” until the women’s plays had, in fact, been there all
along, only it had been ascribed a drastically limited form and function. But, as I hope I
have shown, female figures were increasingly breaking out of their comic constraints
and making their presence known throughout the course of the playwright’s oeuvre, and,
by the time Aristophanes produced Lysistrata in 411 BCE, the “return of the repressed,”
which he portrayed as the female occupation of male-identified civic space, was
undeniable. There was, as he presented it, seemingly no choice for the city but to
acknowledge the woman-as-subject and recognize the possibility that her sexuality could
be a “politically ameliorative force.”
1
The historical events that inspired Aristophanes to focus on femininity and to
represent it in new and different ways were not positive experiences for Athens. They
consisted in nothing less than the annihilation of Melos, the Desecration of the Herms,
the fortification of Decelea, and finally, the ill-fated Sicilian expedition.
2
Hostilities were
initiated in Melos during the winter of 416 BCE, after the Melians refused to give up
their position of political neutrality and pay tribute to Athens. Despite the treaty in place
1
Stroup 2004, 38.
2
Melos = Thuc. 5.184-116; Desecration of Herms = Thuc. 6.27-29 (see also Andocides 1 and Lysias
6); Decelea = Thuc. 6.91-93, 7.18-20; Syracuse = Thuc. 7.36-87.
277
at this time, the Athenians responded by besieging the island, and eventually killing all
its male inhabitants, while the women and children were sold into slavery. The
Desecration of the Herms and the Profanation of the Mysteries took place the following
summer, in 415, and brought factionalism to a new level of intensity within Athens, as
the city prepared to involve itself in yet another conflict for the sake of imperial gain –
this time in Sicily. Once Athens was invested in the arduous task of occupying Syracuse,
Sparta took the opportunity to invade Attica once again and fortify the northern deme of
Decelea. It thereby cut off a major Attic supply route from Euboea and established a
permanent military post in enemy territory. Only months after this, in the summer of
413, the Sicilian expedition came to its infamously tragic end. The Athenian military
was brought to the point of total destruction by this loss and the city was brought to the
point of total dread and despair, from which, it is often argued, it never fully recovered.
The years previous to these events are an obscure period in the life of
Aristophanes. Aside from revising Clouds sometime between 420 and 415, he perhaps
turned to producing plays of mythological burlesque or tragic parody, though this is not
certain. The next securely attested productions we know of took place in 414, when the
Sicilian expedition was in full swing, its goals still seemingly achievable to the majority
of the Athenian populace. In this year, Aristophanes produced the lost Amphiaraus for
the Lenaea and Birds for the Dionysia, which took second place.
In this play, two Athenians, Euelpides and Peisetaerus, leave Athens behind and
go in search of a new city, where they can avoid paying their debts and live in a carefree
manner. With the help of Tereus the hoopoe, Peisetaerus stumbles onto the idea of
establishing an avian polis in the sky, between heaven and earth, where they will be able
278
to control men and destroy the gods “by Melian famine” (l. 186), yet remain free as
birds. He convinces the rest of the birds of his plan and they appoint him the leader of
the new city, Nefelokokkug¤a, commonly translated as “Cloudcuckooland.” Right
away the fortified city is faced with the problem of a multitude of outsiders seeking
entry, but Peisetaerus refuses them all, including the gods’ messenger, Iris. Finally, an
embassy arrives from Olympus to negotiate with the hero, but he tricks them, with the
aid of Prometheus, into instead handing over Zeus’ powers, represented by his scepter,
his lightning bolt, and most importantly, the maiden Basileia, or sovereignty personified.
With his marriage to this maiden, Peisetaerus confirms his position as ruler of the world,
and all depart in festive triumph.
Birds has been characterized as an exceptional play that displays many special
features not encountered in other Aristophanic comedies. Most notably, it appears to
take “no topical issue, political or otherwise, as a theme, either expressly, or, like
Knights and Wasps, allegorically.”
3
This generally accepted view of Birds has prompted
many scholars to turn their attention to the play and subject it to a wider variety of
interpretations than perhaps any other in the corpus, with little consensus among them. I
agree with the point that this play was exceptional – it was, after all, produced at an
exceptional moment, during the transition back to warfare after a time of peace, in the
confident calm preceding the storm of brutal defeat. However, as a number of scholars
have also pointed out, Birds contains many elements which recall previous plays.
Henderson, for example, points out its similarity to Acharnians in structure and intent,
3
The quote is from Henderson’s introductory note on the play (1998, 2-4). He also summarizes the
other aspects considered unusual: its length (Birds is the longest surviving comedy from antiquity); its
numerous speaking roles; its spectacular chorus; and its parabasis, which the chorus leader speaks in
character.
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while both Hubbard and MacDowell note its affinity with Clouds and Peace in the aims
of its hero.
4
As we will see, it also reproduces many of the same patterns and
predilections, especially with regard to spatiality and gender difference, that have been
discussed in this study.
I view Birds as essentially a second version of Clouds, in which Peisetaerus,
unlike his predecessors Socrates and Strepsiades, is able to colonize the heavens and
create a safe, peaceful space by means of persuasion over the birds, who themselves
have much in common with their choral predecessors, the clouds (e.g., they are aerial,
volatile deities, associated with love and desire). It is thus a sequel that succeeded where
the revised Clouds ultimately could not. It succeeds by giving the impression that Athens
and its troubles are no longer relevant, having been left behind long before the comedy
begins, even though it remains their problems with the city – that is, what is happening
on the ground – that motivate the protagonists and guide their actions throughout.
In fact, I think it is safe to argue that Birds is a play that is completely defined
and determined by what is not there. The heroes have no real game plan beyond getting
away and establishing a vaguely defined “somewhere else” that is better than Athens,
and yet, Athens’ existence cannot be denied. It comes back in the form of the many
Athenian intruders who seek entry into the new polis and who represent the old city’s
problematic aspects: greed, fraud, sycophancy, and litigiousness. Also, there may be no
explicit mention or extended treatment of the broader political and military situation of
Athens at this time, but, as we know from previous plays, denial is a significant and
potent form of comic engagement for Aristophanes. Therefore, even if we read Birds as
4
Hubbard 1991, 158-82; MacDowell 1995, 201.
280
an idiosyncratic fantasy of escape or utopia, as many scholars do, it is still possible to
conclude that this play, like its forerunners, remained preoccupied with finding a way
out of the same issues that had vexed Athens’ male citizens since the beginning of the
conflict, and that were resurfacing with the resumption of hostilities. Even MacDowell,
who argues against any historicized reading, seems to recognize as much when he
writes,
Cloudcuckooland turns out to be much the same as Dikaiopolis’ peacetime
Athens; but whereas Dikaiopolis attains it by a method which the
Athenians could collectively have adopted, namely making a peace treaty,
Peisetairos attains it by acquiring wings and fortifying the air, which in
real life are impossible.
5
The aims of Peisetaerus are thus not so different from those of his predecessors,
and the plan he adopts – to create a safe and separate space of peace and pleasure – is
similar to what we have seen before. Ironically, it is the total impracticality of his plan,
which is free from the usual constraints found on earth, that makes it seem the most
successful of any so far undertaken by an Aristophanic hero. Nonetheless, the limitations
of Peisetaerus’ plan rapidly become evident, as Cloudcuckooland, which is built upon
the same appropriative and exclusionary principles and policies as imperial Athens,
comes to reproduce that city’s problems in the form of discord, deception and violence.
As might be expected, the only means of resolving these problems is through the
acquisition of Zeus’ “most beautiful maiden,” Basileia, who “looks after (tamieÊei)
everything for him,” including “good counsel, law and order, and decency,” as well as
“mudslinging, paymasters and three-obol fees” (ll. 1534-42). Prometheus explains
succinctly to Peisetaerus, “If you get her from him, you’ll have it all” (l. 1544). It is her
5
1995, 226-7.
281
presence, then, that finally distinguishes Cloudcuckooland as superior to Athens, even as
it confirms their similarity. In both places, females figure as eroticized objects of
exchange, but in the new polis, the female’s political influence is also openly
acknowledged and revered. Basileia is not simply some naked nameless girl like those
found at the end of Acharnians, nor is she a mere comic scapegoat, on whom the city’s
problems can be blamed. She is rather its divine salvation, like the statue of Peace, now
embodied and animate, though still without a voice.
6
The vital role Aristophanes assigns to Basileia in Birds conveys the notion that,
in an ideal city (which is, not coincidentally, also a peaceful city), the female is an entity
that cannot be denied or excluded: her political incorporation is necessary to its
continuation. But the enactment of this incorporation is predictably brief – it is relegated
to the end of the play – and it unfolds along conventional lines, in the form of a
matrimonial union, which not only emphasizes her role as a property object and
undercuts her sovereign influence; it also underscores the lack of distinction that exists
between the two seemingly opposite cities. Basileia is thus a product of both tradition
and innovation on the part of Aristophanes, and for this reason she comes to be
associated not just with the city of Cloudcuckooland, but with Athens as well. She is
clearly the guarantor and mascot of the new polis, but her representation as a partial
presence, as Peisetaerus’ silent and passive wife, also recalls the polis down below. Like
6
Newiger (1957, 92-102) and other scholars have grappled with the issue of whether Basileia is a
person or a personification, based on the short alpha at the end of her name. Because there is
sufficient evidence that Aristophanes considered the length of such alphas variable (see Birds 604, for
example), this debate seems to be the product not of a preoccupation with metrical inconsistency, but
rather of anxiety regarding the changing roles and identities of females in Aristophanic comedy.
282
her, it played a similarly decisive role in the development of Peisetaerus’ plan, even
though it was suppressed from the play’s action through its physical absence.
7
In Birds, female identity remains ambiguous and ever-changing, but, in contrast
with previous plays, it is not portrayed as a danger or a threat to male society. Instead,
Aristophanes presents femininity, albeit of an androgynous kind, as an unambiguously
positive force that benefits and sustains the polis. This change only appears to be
possible within the fantastic and imprecise confines of Cloudcuckooland, where
femininity only exists in a divine, and therefore sexually repressed, form, and where
there is no oikos, nor any other distinctly demarcated space aside from the city itself,
with which it may be associated. But, as it turned out, the idealized version of femininity
embodied by Basileia was not just limited to this exceptional place or this exceptional
play – she was also very relevant to the comic Athens that Aristophanes depicts in his
next extant play, Lysistrata. As we will see, she serves as a kind of basic prototype for
the “real” wives who act together in order to restore peace and prosperity to all of
Greece.
In Lysistrata, as is well known, the women of Greece achieve a state of peace by
uniting under the leadership of the eponymous heroine and agreeing to withhold sex
from their husbands until they cease their hostilities with one another. A group of older
women, constituting one half of the chorus, is also dispatched to occupy the Acropolis
and confiscate the money stored there, which was used to fund the war. They eventually
succeed in their efforts, though not without difficulty, as various men attempt to thwart
7
Basileia is only on stage for the last forty-seven lines of the play, during the hymeneal song of the
chorus, while the city of Athens is given its most direct attention in the first forty-eight lines of the
play, where the heroes explain why they have abandoned it and gone in search of a new polis.
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them, first by force, then by legal action, and finally by guile. At the same time, the
women’s own libidos also nearly get the best of them, but Lysistrata leads them down
the path of righteousness, speaking persuasively of their influence on and importance to
the city, especially as wives and mothers, and of the political skills they have acquired
through their management of the oikos. In the end, she concludes a peace treaty between
the Spartans and the Athenians using the body of Reconciliation, a nude mute female, as
a sexualized map of Greece, upon which the “terms of the future territorial status quo are
negotiated” through the parceling out of parts of her body.
8
Once this is done, Lysistrata
disappears, while the husbands and wives of the play are reunited for a final festive song
and dance.
As mentioned previously, Lysistrata was performed in 411 BCE at the Lenaea,
less than two years after Athens’ defeat in Sicily. The time between these two events had
been spent rebuilding the fleet and dealing with the revolts of several allies, including
Chios, Samos, Lesbos and Miletus. At the same time, Sparta was consolidating its power
by strengthening its ties to Persia.
9
Because of its weakened position, Athens was also
compelled, just after the performance of this play, to convert its form of government
from a democracy to an oligarchy, known thereafter as the rule of the Four Hundred. The
establishment of oligarchic rule was accompanied by even more social upheaval, terror
and bloodshed, as popular factions were destroyed, not just at Athens, but throughout the
territories of its empire as well. This coup was ultimately short-lived (democracy was
restored at Athens in 410) and counterproductive (it resulted in the loss of Euboea, not in
8
Henderson 1988, 99.
9
Book Eight of Thucydides recounts these revolts and both Sparta’s and Athens’ increased
negotiations with the Persians.
284
increased Spartan or Persian favor, as was intended), but it did succeed in bringing home
the cyclical violence of war far more efficiently than any enemy ever could have, as
citizen openly turned against citizen, and rule by force became law.
Needless to say, the moment of this play’s production was one of extreme fear
and uncertainty for Athens. Through its defeat and the loss of its allies, the city and its
citizens had been, in gendered terms, emasculated, and their attention had been brought
back down to earth, as it were. They had no choice but to focus on resolving the political
crisis in which they now found themselves, and to answer the question, “How would
Athens get out of this mess?” With the prospect of oligarchy looming on the horizon, it
seems that Aristophanes took an artistic risk, building upon the foundation of ever more
influential female characters that he had presented in his previous comedies, and
imagined an outlandish, even dangerous, possibility, but one that still retained humor in
comparison with those faced by the city, and one that, to this day, is still characterized as
so crazy (and so funny) that it just might work: What if women seized control of the
polis in its weakened state, and domesticated it? What would happen if the polis became
a feminized space?
Admittedly, we will never know exactly how it was that Aristophanes came to
create this plot or its famous heroine, nor what he felt about them, but I would argue
that, to him, Lysistrata was not simply a piece of pure satire. Both she and the play of
her name were the products of necessity and desperation; they were a direct response to
the disastrous historical events that had taken place in the years prior to their creation,
and an admission that drastic social change was not just essential but inevitable. With the
urbanized oikos in panic and disarray, the city itself in tatters and the male citizenry
285
riven by conflict, the viewpoint of the Athenian woman – who by this time outnumbered
her male counterparts – could no longer be ignored or suppressed.
10
For these reasons, it
seems that Aristophanes resolved to give his stage over to her, along with her
compatriots, for use as a soapbox. Granted, these “women” were far from real; they were
still comic projections made by men for men, but their message and their actions were
compelling. They were finally shown to be taking up a place, or perhaps two places, for
themselves in the polis – both the physical space of the theater and the conceptual space
of the Acropolis – rather than being put in their place by it.
In this dire historical moment, Aristophanic comedy evolved. The socio-spatial
incorporation of femininity was no longer represented as partial or delayed; instead, it
appeared full and fair (or at least as fair as comedy would allow). Nor were women’s
corporeal aspects overlooked, as occurred with Basileia in Birds; rather, their sexual
agency and reproductive capacity were acknowledged, not just in objectifying terms, as
they had been in previous comedies, but as the basis upon which Greek society as a
whole depended for its existence, continuance and well-being. Finally, the oikos, and the
female affiliation with it, were not downplayed or disdained, nor was the domestic space
usurped or subject to violence; instead, it was admitted into the civic landscape as an
important site of policy and decision making, and as a model for the management of the
city.
10
See Ogden 1996 on the short-lived “bigamy concession” at Athens in the late fifth century, which
allowed a citizen male to take two wives, and which he claims was probably occasioned by “the
disastrous loss of manpower in the final debacle of the Sicilian expedition” (75). This arrangement,
and the problems it creates for male citizens, will be represented on stage and dealt with more fully by
Aristophanes in Ecclesiazusae. Aristotle discusses the issue of women outnumbering, and therefore
economically dominating, men in Sparta, and he resolves that the property laws, which allowed
inheritances to be given to women and resulted in their disproportionate ownership of land, are what
ultimately led to that city’s ruin. See Politics, 2.1269b-1270a.
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These changes in representation, which occurred first in Lysistrata, continued to
be modified and elaborated by Aristophanes in at least two of his subsequent plays:
Thesmophoriazusae, the first version of which was performed just months after
Lysistrata, at the Dionysia of 411, and Ecclesiazusae, which was produced late in his
career, sometime around 392 BCE.
11
Female autonomy remains the main focus of these
plays, and the social and political concerns of women shape their plots. In particular, the
two related aims of establishing balanced relations among the sexes and obtaining access
to the civic and religious spaces of the polis continue to figure prominently. Taken
together, these productions stand as evidence not just of the enduring comic potential
embodied in the active and assertive woman, and of Aristophanes’ skill in exploiting it;
they are also a confirmation of the critical role that dramatic representations of
femininity played for the male citizens of Athens during this tumultuous period in its
history. They provided a means by which these men could continue to explore “the male
project of selfhood in the larger world,” as female demands for identity and self-esteem
came to impinge upon their exclusive claim to “knowledge, power, freedom, and self-
sufficiency.”
12
Though this may seem an appropriate place to conclude, it would be
inappropriate to do so without remarking on the manner in which Lysistrata ends, as it is
11
The extant second version of Wealth, from 388 BCE, also features some of these changes, though
females figure more tangentially. (The first version of Wealth is dated to 408 BCE, but it is impossible
to tell if the second version is a revision or a new play altogether). Frogs, which took first place at the
Lenaea of 405 BCE, is the true exception – it does not engage with femininity in any significant way,
though it remains intriguing from a spatial perspective, as it takes place entirely within the fantastical
confines of the Underworld, a subterranean place that contrasts sharply with the celestial realms that
were alluded to in Clouds, and elaborated by Aristophanes most fully in Peace and the
Cloudcuckooland of Birds.
12
Zeitlin 1985, 67.
287
certainly not without its problems, when considered from a feminist perspective. The
spectacular figure of Diallage recalls the personifications of Aristophanes’ earlier plays
and clearly retains an erotic function similar to theirs, but it is her body’s deployment as
a map which is of special significance. Through her cartographic territorialization, she
authorizes the state of peace achieved by the women; yet, at the same time, she
facilitates “a display of [male] mastery over the feminized landscape,” which conveys
the illusion of social and political order restored to its former state.
13
This vivid enactment of Diallage’s simultaneous sexual and geopolitical
appropriation, objectification, and commodification ultimately serves as an assertion that
the patriarchal ideological framework informing these activities is still firmly intact:
woman and land are still interchangeable property categories, deserving similar
treatment. This also explains why Lysistrata disappears at the end of the play, once she
has seen to the making of the treaty – it seems that if she does not belong to anyone, then
she does not belong anywhere. As I hope to have shown by now, however, it is this
flawed form of understanding, which equates women with territory, and the actions it
provokes (which were undertaken in Lysistrata, ironically, to achieve peace), that also
give rise to cyclical violence and ceaseless war. And, sadly, this is what the real-life
Athens of 411, unlike its comic counterpart, had to look forward to for another seven
years.
In the end, it was Aristophanes’ critical stance toward the Peloponnesian War
and his concern for the welfare of the Athenian polis – both of which increased as the
city’s position worsened – that eventually moved him to foreground the female subject
13
Keith 2000, 41.
288
and represent her political incorporation in his later comedies. In fact, the urbanized
woman and the comic stage turned out to be an exceptionally potent match in the hands
of the city’s representative comic poet: both operated in concert as spaces of conceptual
alterity and physical transgression, from which it was again possible for him to challenge
Athenian political and military policy, and the men who enacted it, in an incisive and
meaningful way. However, because ancient comedy itself relied upon the well-
established discursive nexus that linked female sexuality, property ownership, violence
and male dominance for its own structure and cultural intelligibility, its ability to inspire
any substantial changes to this social system was limited. For this reason, Aristophanes’
comic employment of the female as a ground of representation, while innovative and
daring, inevitably served to reproduce and reaffirm the patriarchal status quo that
governed Athenian society. Nonetheless, in the momentary disruptions to the status quo
brought about in his comedies, Aristophanes presented his audience with a prospect – of
women’s political empowerment – which still retains its ability to disrupt, allure and
amuse audiences in the modern day.
289
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation examines how Aristophanes articulated and staged gender difference in his five earliest extant comedies, which were produced in succession during the initial period of the Peloponnesian War. These plays present a diachronic picture of the war's destabilizing effect on the Athenian political system and its sex/gender system, which underpinned the democratic state through its regulation of marriage and reproduction. By submitting these plays to a historicized and socio-spatial analysis, I explain why the comic stage became such a potent venue for the conflation of the political and sexual conflicts occurring in Athens during the 420s BCE. I also consider the ideological developments that prompted Aristophanes to foreground the feminine in his later work.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Sulprizio, Chiara (author)

Core Title Gender, space and warfare in the early plays of Aristophanes

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Classics

Publication Date 08/03/2007

Defense Date 05/08/2007

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Aristophanes,Athens,comedy,gender,OAI-PMH Harvest,space,warfare

Place Name Athens (city or populated place), Greece (countries)

Language English

Advisor Richlin, Amy (committee chair), Lape, Susan (committee member), Lutkehaus, Nancy (committee member)

Creator Email sulprizi@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m747

Unique identifier UC1319225

Identifier etd-Sulprizio-20070803 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-548630 (legacy record id),usctheses-m747 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Sulprizio-20070803.pdf

Dmrecord 548630

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Sulprizio, Chiara

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu