|
|
|
|
The Acharnians
|
| |
|
| |
The Acharnians (Ancient Greek: / Akharneis) is the third play - and the earliest of the eleven surviving plays - by the great Athenian playwright Aristophanes. It was produced in 425 BCE on behalf of the young dramatist by an associate, Callistratus, and it won first place at the Lenaia festival. The play is notable for its absurd humour, its imaginative appeal for an end to the Peloponnesian War and for the author's spirited response to his prosecution the year before by Cleon - he had been charged with slandering the Athenian polis in his previous play, The Babylonians (now lost).
Discussion
Ask a question about 'The Acharnians' Start a new discussion about 'The Acharnians' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The Acharnians (Ancient Greek: / Akharneis) is the third play - and the earliest of the eleven surviving plays - by the great Athenian playwright Aristophanes. It was produced in 425 BCE on behalf of the young dramatist by an associate, Callistratus, and it won first place at the Lenaia festival. The play is notable for its absurd humour, its imaginative appeal for an end to the Peloponnesian War and for the author's spirited response to his prosecution the year before by Cleon - he had been charged with slandering the Athenian polis in his previous play, The Babylonians (now lost). In The Acharnians, Aristophanes reveals his resolve not to yield to the demogogue's attempts at intimidation. Along with the other surviving plays of Aristophanes, The Acharnians is one of the few examples we have of a highly satirical genre of drama known as Old Comedy.
Plot
The play begins with Dikaiopolis sitting all alone on the Pnyx (the hill where the Athenian Assembly or ecclesia regularly meets to discuss matters of state). He is middle-aged, he looks bored and frustrated and soon he begins to vent his thoughts and feelings to the audience. He reveals his weariness with the Peloponnesian War, his longing to go home to his village, his impatience with the ecclesia for its failure to start on time and his resolve to heckle speakers who won't debate an end to the war. Soon some citizens do arrive, all pushing and shoving to get the best seats, and then the day's business begins. A series of important speakers addresses the assembly but the subject is not peace and, true to his earlier promise, Dikaiopolis comments loudly on their appearance and probable motives. First of all there is the ambassador who has returned from the Persian court after many years, complaining of the lavish hospitality he has had to endure from his Persian hosts; then there is the Persian grandee, The Eye of the Great King, Pseudartabas, sporting a gigantic eye and mumbling jibberish, accompanied by some eunuchs who turn out to be a disreputable pair of effete Athenians in disguize; next is the ambassador recently returned from Thrace, blaming the icy conditions in the north for his long stay there at the public's expense; and lastly there is the rabble of Odomantians who are presented as elete mercenaries willing to fight for Athens but who hungrily steal the protagonist's lunch. Peace is not discussed. It is in the ecclesia however that Dikaiopolis meets Amphitheus, a man who claims he can obtain peace with the Spartans privately. He also claims to be the immortal great-great-grandson of Triptolemus and Demeter. Dikaiopolis accepts his claims and he pays him eight drachmas to bring him peace from Sparta privately - which in fact Amphitheus manages to do.
Dikaiopolis decides to celebrate his private peace with a private celebration of the Rural Dionysia, beginning with a parade outside his own town house. He and his household however are immediately set upon by a mob of aged farmers and charcoal burners from Acharnae - tough veterans of past wars who hate the Spartans for destroying their farms and who hate anyone who talks peace. They are not amenable to rational argument so Dikaiopolis grabs a hostage and a sword and demands the old men leave him alone. The hostage is a basket of charcoal but the old men have a sentimental spot for charcoal in their tough old hearts (or maybe they are simply caught up in the drama of the moment) and they agree to leave Dikaiopolis in peace if only he will spare the basket of charcoal. He surrenders the hostage but he still wants to convince them of the justice of his cause and he is willing to speak with his head on a chopping block if only they will hear him out. He reflects on the dangers in speaking about the war freely - he knows how volatile his fellow citizens can be and he says he remembers how Cleon dragged him into court over 'last year's play' - at which point the audience realizes that Dikaiopolis is somehow Aristophanes and maybe the author is the actor behind the mask! Dikaiopolis then goes next door to the house of Euripides for help with his anti-war speech and there he manages to borrow a costume from one of his plays, Telephus. Thus attired as a hero who has fallen on hard times, and with his head on the chopping block, Dikaiopolis (or is it Aristophanes?) explains to the Chorus his reasons for opposing the war. The war all started, he argues, because of the abduction of three courtesans (two of them associates of Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles) and it is continued by profiteers for personal gain. Half the Chorus is won over by this argument, the other half isn't. The old men then fight each other until the Athenian general Lamachus (who also happens to live next door) emerges from his house and imposes himself vaingloriously on the fray. Order is restored and the general is then questioned by Dikaiopolis about the reason why he personally supports the war against Sparta - is it out of his sense of duty or because he gets paid? - and this time the whole Chorus is won over by Dicaiopolis. Dicaiopolis and Lamachus retire to their separate houses and there then follows a parabasis in which the Chorus first lavishes exaggerated praise upon the author and next laments the ill treatment that old men like themselves suffer at the hands of slick lawyers in these fast times.
Dikaiopolis reappears and quickly sets up a private market where he and the enemies of Athens can trade peacefully. Various minor characters come and go in farcical circumstances. First there is a starving Megarian who trades his famished daughters, disguised as pigs, for garlic and salt (products in which Megara once abounded) and then an informer or sycophant tries to confiscate the pigs as enemy contraband before he is driven off by Dikaiopolis. Next a Boeotian arrives with birds and eels for sale. Dikaiopolis has nothing to trade that the Boeotian could want but he cleverly manages to interest him in a commodity that is rare in Boeotia - a sycophant. A sycophant arrives at that very moment and, before he can confiscate the birds and eels, he is packed in straw like a piece of pottery and carried off back home by the Boeotian. Some other visitors come and go before two heralds arrive, one calling Lamachus to war, the other calling Dikaiopolis to a dinner party. The two men go as summoned and return soon after, Lamachus in pain from a wound sustained in battle, Dikaiopolis in good spirits with a dancing girl on each arm, clamoring cheerfully for a wine skin - a prize awarded to him in a drinking competition. Exeunt omnes in general celebrations (excepting Lamachus, who exits in pain).
Historical background
Some significant events leading up to the play:
- 432 BCE: The Megarian decree began a trade embargo by Athens against the neighbouring polis of Megara. The Peloponnesian War commenced soon after.
- 430 BCE: The Plague of Athens resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Athenians, including leading citizens such as Pericles.
- 427 BCE: The Banqueters, the first play by Aristophanes, was produced. There was a recurrence of the plague at about the same time.
- 426 BCE: The Babylonians won first prize at the City Dionysia. Cleon subsequently prosecuted the young playwright for slandering the polis in the presence of foreigners.
- 425 BCE: The Acharnians was produced at the Lenaia.
Old Comedy was a highly topical form of drama and the audience was expected to be familiar with the various people named or alluded to in the play. These include:
- Pericles: The former populist leader of Athens, he is blamed here for starting the Peloponnesian War through his implementation of the Megarian Decree.
- Aspasia: The mistress of Pericles and (reputedly) a brothel owner, she is implicated in the blame for starting the war.
- Thucydides (politician): The leader of the opposition to Pericles, he is mentioned here as the victim of an unfair trial motivated by Cleon. The same trial is also mentioned later in The Wasps.
- Lamachus: A fervent advocate of the war against Sparta, he is mocked throughout this play as a rabid militarist. He is mentioned also in later plays.
- Cleon: The populist leader of the pro-war faction and a frequent target in later plays, he is mentioned here in connection with four issues - 1. some political or financial loss he had suffered as a result of opposition from the class of knights (hippeis); 2. his prosecution of Thucydides (in which context he is named only by his deme) 3. his imputed foreign lineage; 4. his prosecution of the author over the previous play.
- Euthymenes: The archon eponymus for the year 437/6 BCE, he is mentioned here as a means of dating the departure of the ambassador to Persia.
- Cleonymus: A supporter of Cleon, he is immortalized in later plays as the coward who threw away his shield at the Battle of Delium in 424 BCE (soon after The Acharnians was produced). He is mentioned here only in relation to his gluttony.
- Hyperbolus: Another populist, he is mentioned here by The Chorus as a litigious individual best avoided but often encountered in the agora. He is frequently mentioned in later plays:
- Theorus: A supporter of Cleon, he appears here as the unreliable ambassador to Thrace. He is mentioned again in later plays.
- Euathlos: A supporter of Cleon, he was involved in the prosecution of Thucydides. He is mentioned later in The Wasps.
- Pittalus: A prominent doctor in Athens, he is twice mentioned in this play in relation to medical treatment for injuries. He receives another mention in the later play The Wasps.
- Aeschylus: The famous tragic poet, he is briefly represented here as someone whose work is generally understood to be admirable. He is mentioned also in later plays.
- Euripides: The famous tragic poet, whose mythical heroes often appear on stage in shabby dress, he is a frequent target in later plays and he appears here as a magniloquent hoarder of disreputable costumes.
- Herodotus: The historian, who had been a recent visitor to Athens (where he gave readings of his history), he is not named but his work is satirized in the play (see the next section).
- Cephisophon: A leading actor of his time, rumoured to have cuckolded Euripides and to have helped in the writing of some of his plays, he appears here as the tragedian's servant. He is mentioned again in Frogs (play).
- Theognis: A minor tragic poet, he receives two brief, unfavourable mentions here. He is mentioned again later in another play.
- Antimachus: A choregus, he is the subject of an elaborate curse by the Chorus as punishment for niggardly behaviour.
- Cleisthenes: A notoriously effete homosexual, often mentioned in later plays, he appears here disguised as a eunuch and represented as the son of Sibyrtius, a famous athletic trainer - an unlikely association!
- Straton: Another effete individual, he appears here alongside Cleisthenes another eunuch.
- Morychus: A notorious gourmand and possibly a tragic poet, he is mentioned here as a lover of eels. He is mentioned again in two later plays.
- Ctesiphon: A notoriously fat Athenian, he provides a convenient gauge for measuring large volumes.
- Lysistratus: A masochist, a member of high society and a practical joker, he is one of the people best avoided in the agora. He is mentioned again in later plays.
- Pauson: A starving painter, he is yet another person to avoid in the agora. He receives other mentions in later plays.
- Hieronymus: A poet, he is best known for his long hair.
- Cratinus(not the comic dramatist): An obscure lyric poet, he is twice mentioned here - as another body best avoided in the agora and as the subject of a humorous curse.
- Coesyra: A rich woman, she is mentioned with Lamachus as the sort of person who manages to get out of Athens when times are awkward. She is mentioned later in The Clouds.
- Phaullus: The famous athlete of an earlier generation, he is casually mentioned here as the yardstick for youthful athleticism (the base of a monument to him can still be found on the Acropolis). He is mentioned later in The Wasps.
- Chairis: A Theban piper, twice mentioned here as a source of shrill noise. He is mentioned also in two other plays.
- Moschus and Dechitheus: Musicians.
- Sitalces: A Thracian king and an ally of Athens, he is here said to record his love for Athens in graffiti.
- Diocles: A Megarian hero, he is mentioned here casually in an oath.
- Simaetha: A Megarian prostitute, her abduction by some Athenian revellers is said in this play to be one of the causes of the Peloponnesian War.
Discussion
The Peloponnesian War and Aristophanes' personal battle with the pro-war populist, Cleon, are the two most important issues that underlie the play. They may be summarized as follows.
Athens at war
The Spartans were the dominant military power on the Greek mainland and consequently Athenians were reluctant to venture on foot far from the safety of their own city walls. Athens however was the dominant maritime power in the Mediterranean and its citizens could travel by sea with relative ease. The ambassadors who return from Persia and Thrace are resented by Dikaiopolis because, while they have been enjoying themselves abroad, he has been a sentry on the battlements, reclining amid piles of rubbish. Privileged individuals such as Lamachas and Coesura are able to get out of Athens when times become difficult and in this they are likened to slops that are emptied from an urban household. Athenians were not urban dwellers by choice - most Athenians had lived in rural settlements up until the commencement of the war. The Acharnians reflects this reluctant transition from rural to urban life. While sitting on the Pnyx, Dikaiopolis gazes longingly at the countryside and expresses his wish to return to his deme, where the self-sufficiency of farming families precluded the need to buy anything. He celebrates his private peace with his own Rural Dionysia. Similarly, the old Acharnians sing lovingly of their farms, they express hatred of the enemy for destroying their vines and they regard the Athenian agora as a place crowded with people that are best avoided. Thus the real enemies are not the Megarian and Boetian farmers, with whom Dikaiopolis is happy to trade, nor even the Spartans, who were simply acting to protect their Megarean allies - the real enemies are the "wicked little men of a counterfeit kind" that Dikaiopolis finds himself sharing the city with.
The causes of the war are explained by Dikaiopolis in a manner that is partly comic and partly serious. His criticisms of Pericles and The Megarian Decree appear to be genuine but he seems to be satirizing the historian Herodotus when he blames the war on the kidnapping of three prostitutes (Herodotus cites the kdnappings of Io, Europa, Medea and Helen as the cause of hostilities between Greeks and Asiatics). The Acharnians in fact features two passages that allude to the work of Herodotus: Dikaiopolis' account of the kidnapping of three women, and the Athenian ambassador's account of his travels in Persia.
Aristophanes versus Cleon
Aristophanes was prosecuted by Cleon for slandering the polis with his previous play, The Babylonians. That play had been produced for the City Dionysia, a festival held early in Spring when the seas were navigable and the city was crowded with foreigners. The audience of the The Acharnians however is reminded that this particular play has been produced for the Lenaia, a winter festival which few foreigners attend. As if this scruple wasn't enough, the author goes on to assure us that the real target of this play is not the polis but rather "wicked little men of a counterfeit kind". All these scruples are enunciated by Dikaiopolis as if he were the author - the only instance in an Aristophanic play in which a character speaks out of character, acting simply as the author's mouthpiece or like a one man parabasis. Dikaiopolis subsequently presents the anti-war argument with his head on a chopping block, a humorous reference to the danger that the author puts himself in when he impugnes the motives of powerful men like Cleon.
The Acharnians and Old Comedy
Like other plays by Aristophanes, The Acharnians is a satirical farce whose high-spirited action defies logic and probability. The Dramatic conventions of Old Comedy however provide the plot with a predictable structure including the following elements.
- The prologue: The play begins according to convention with a solliloquy and dialogue in iambic trimeter, during which Dikaiopolis reveals the main issues of the play.
- The parodos (entry of the Chorus): The Chorus of old men from Acharnae enters according to convention, singing and dancing and preparing themselves to get involved in the action. The Chorus's skirmish with the protagonist is quite typical - it is found, for instance, in The Knights and The Wasps.
- The agon (battle of words): Agons have a predictable poetic structure, with speeches in long lines of anapests framed within a pair of symmetrical songs (strophe and antistrophe). There is no such easily identified agon in this play. There is however a heated argument between the protagonist and the Chorus in couplets of long trochaic verses., framed by a strophe and antistrophe. The main arguements for and against war are subsequently conducted in ordinary dialogue of iambic trimeter and include input from Lamachus as the antagonist.
- The parabasis (speech addressed by the Chorus to the audience): Here it follows a conventional form with a parabasis proper in long verses of anapests, ending in a pnigos and leading then into an epirrhematic syzygy or symmetrical scene (strophe-epirrhema-antistrophe-antepirrhema) with the declaimed parts in long trochaic verses. As in most of Aristophanes' plays, there is a second parabasis towards the end of the play but here there are two passages late in the play that seem to meet that role. One passage can be interpreted as a conventional symmetrical scene. However the strophe and antistrophe in that case comprise only three lines each and the Chorus comments on action that occurs on stage during its address to the audience. A later passage begins with a valediction to the actors and this typically clears the stage for a parabasis. This passage only comprises a kommation and a strophe-antistrophe pair of songs.
- Denouement: The final stages of an Aristophanic play typically feature the farcical comings and goings of minor characters, ending with an exodos or festive song and dance, often with a marriage theme. This play is no different. The dancing girls who return with Dikaiopolis from the dinner party are a token symbol of the marriage theme.
The above structural elements typically have their own poetic forms and these also provide the play with a sense of predictable order. The denouement for example typically comprises episodes in iambic dialogue, marked off from each other by choral lyrics, usually in symmetrical pairs of songs (strophe-antistrophe). A section of the denouement in The Acharnians can be summarized as follows.
- lines 929-51, strophe-antistrophe: Dikaiopolis and the Chorus provide a lyrical commentary during an absurd scene in which the sycophant Nicarchus is tied with straw for safe transport to Boeotia.
- lines 952-970, episode of iambic dialogue between Dikaiopolis and a servant of Lamachus.
- line 971-99, strophe-antistrophe: the Chorus semi-humourously decries War (Polemos) and imagines a sexual romp with Reconciliation (Diallage), a divine figure who mysteriously appears in a silent role at this moment in the play. Note: This passage has also been interpreted as a second parabasis in the conventional form strophe-epirrhema-antistrophe-antepirrhema
- lines 1000-1007, episode in iambic dialogue: an announcement by a Crier and instructions shouted by Dikaiopolis to his household.
- lines 1008-17, strophe: a song by Dikaiopolis and the Chorus about the fragrances coming from his kitchen.
- lines 1018-1036, episode in iambic dialogue: Dikaiopolis refuses to share his peace treaty with a distressed farmer.
- lines 1037-46, antistrophe: Dikaiopolis and the Chorus resume their song about the kitchen fragrances.
The above episodes are difficult to reconcile with each other as scenes of a coherent plot yet they are woven together with comic poetry, which originally included not only lyrics but music and choreography.
Old Comedy is a highly topical form of drama and its humour is directed at people known to the original audience. The author is not outside the target-range and he pokes more fun at himself in this play than in any other. He explicitly identifies himself with the protagonist Dikaiopolis, a victim of persecution by a pro-war faction, and thus he also identifies himself with Telephus, a wounded hero who seeks help disguized as a beggar. In the parabasis proper, the Chorus exaggerates the author's significance as a poet, bestowing on him a mock-heroic status as the saviour of Athens. These jokes at his own expense are motivated by his real-life quarrel with Cleon, to whom he remains defiant in spite of his self-mockery.
Lamachus is another victim of the play's humour but one of the jokes appears not to be by the author. There are eight lines that some editors omit from their translations of the play in which Lamachus is described dying in a ditch yet springing back to life to continue his battle with the enemy. The passage seems to be an ironic comment on the the death of the real Lamachus many years after the play was produced - he died in the Sicilian Expedition when caught by the enemy on the wrong side of a ditch. If the passage is a later interpolation, it is not the only instance. The plays were circulated in written form after their performances and Aristophanes himself appears to have revised The Clouds for a reading public.
Standard Edition
The standard scholarly edition of the play is S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Aristophanes: Acharnians (Oxford University Press, 2002).
Translations
- John Hookham Frere, 1839 - verse
- William James Hickie, 1853 - prose,
- Charles James Billson, 1882 - verse:
- Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, 1883 - verse:
- Benjamin B. Rogers, 1924 - verse
- Arthur S. Way, 1927 - verse
- Lionel Casson, 1960 - prose and verse
- Douglass Parker, 1962 - verse
- Alan H. Sommerstein, 1973 - prose and verse
- George Theodoridis, 2002 - prose:
- Paul Roche, 2005 - verse
- unknown translator - prose:
|
| |
|
|
