An Introduction to Aristophanes

Aristophanes Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristophanes in Print

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Order, as thus rearranged, approximate date, and motif (in brief) of each of the eleven Comedies are given below:

'The Knights': 424 B.C.--eighth year of the War. Attacks Cleon, the Progressives, and the War policy generally.


Comedies of the War:--

'The Acharnians': 426 B.C.--sixth year of the War. Insists on the miseries consequent on the War, especially affecting the rural population, as represented by the Acharnian Dicaeopolis and his fellow demesmen. Incidentally makes fun of the tragedian Euripides.

'Peace': 422 B.C.--tenth year of the War. Further insists on the same theme, and enlarges on the blessings of Peace. The hero Trygaeus flies to Olympus, mounted on a beetle, to bring back the goddess Peace to earth.

'Lysistrata': 411 B.C.--twenty-first year of the War. A burlesque conspiracy entered into by the confederated women of Hellas, led by Lysistrata the Athenian, to compel the men to conclude peace.


'The Clouds': 423 B.C.--satirizes Socrates, the 'Sophists,' and the 'New Education.'

'The Wasps': 422 B.C. Makes fun of the Athenian passion for litigation, and the unsatisfactory organization of the Courts. Contains the incident of the mock trial of the thievish house-dog.

'The Birds': 414 B.C. Euelpides and Pisthetaerus, disgusted with the state of things at Athens, build a new and improved city, Cloud-cuckoo-town, in the kingdom of the birds. Some see an allusion to the Sicilian expedition, and Alcibiades' Utopian schemes.

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