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Multiple Personalities and Dionysiac Festivals: Dicaeopolis in Aristophanes' Acharnians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

N. R. E. Fisher
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Extract

A great deal has been written recently on Aristophanes, and the Achamians in particular; inevitably, this has not produced agreement on how to interpret the plays. Among the questions to which different answers are still being given, and probably always will be, are the following: How far did Aristophanes seek to persuade the Athenians of his own political views, whatever they may have been? If there was a conflict between the presentation of his political views and the development of comic inventions or the desire to win the prize, which took precedence? Did the Athenians expect serious political persuasion in their comedies, and was Aristophanes innovative or traditional in these respects? More particularly, what were Aristophanes' attitudes to the Peloponnesian War? Did they change? How far did he seek to push a particular view in favour of making peace in any of the surviving three so-called peace plays?

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 31 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

Notes

1. Gomme, A. W., ‘Aristophanes and Politics’ in More Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford, 1962), pp. 70–109Google Scholar (first published in CR 52 [1938], 97–109); Forrest, W. G., Phoenix 17 (1963), 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Dover, K. J., Aristophanic Comedy (London, 1972)Google Scholar and cf. also his edition of the Clouds and articles on Aristophanes collected in Greek and the Greeks: Collected Papers I (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar; Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972)Google Scholar, Appendix 29.

3. Cf.esp.J.-CCarriere, Le CamavaletlaPolitique (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar; Bowie, A. M., CQ 32 (1982), 27–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Halliwell, S., ‘Aristophanic Satire’ in Rawson, C. (ed.), English Satire and the Satiric Tradition (Oxford, 1984), pp. 6–20Google Scholar; Heath, M., Political Comedy in Aristophanes (Göttingen, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Redfield, J. M., ‘Drama and Community: Aristophanes and some of his Rivals’ in Winkler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F.I. (edd.), Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (Princeton, 1990), pp. 314–35Google Scholar; Hubbard, T. M., The Mask of Comedy: Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis (Ithaca, 1991)Google Scholar.

4. Cf. esp. A. H. Sommerstein, in his editions of the plays (Aris & Phillips); L. Edmunds on the Acharnians and Henderson, J. on the Lysistrata in YCS 26 (1980), 1–41 and 153–218Google Scholar (and cf. also, rather more nuanced, Henderson, , ‘The Demos and Comic Competition’ in Nothing to Do with Dionysos?, pp. 271–313)Google Scholar; MacDowell, D. M., G&R 30 (1983), 143–62Google Scholar; Cartledge, P., Aristophanes and his Theatre of the Absurd (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar (the quotation is from p. 57).

5. Cf. most recently Goldhill, S., The Poet's Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Ch. 3, who brings out well the complexities, varied purposes, and multiple ‘voices’ of the plays.

6. On the importance of identifying the different ‘rules’ and practices observed in the different ‘settings’ in which Athenians met together (political, ritual, dramatic), and hence of observing the subtlety with which Old Comedy could play parodically with all of them, cf. Redfield, , op. cit., pp. 322 ff.Google Scholar; on Aristophanes' use of myths and rituals in the making of his plots, cf. also Bowie, Angus, Omnibus 1 (1984), 17–19Google Scholar and his forthcoming book on Aristophanes; I am grateful to him for allowing me to see, after my article was completed, a copy of his chapter on the Acharnians.

7 Cf. on the incompatibility of assembly or council days and festival days, Mikalson, J. D., The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton, 1975)Google Scholar.

8. The Rural Dionysia were celebrated on different dates in different denies throughout Posideon (cf. Deubner, L., Attische Feste1 [Berlin, 1932], pp. 134–8)Google Scholar. Since this is an ad hoc, private celebration, it does not have to be supposed to take place in this month, but given the instant time changes in the play, nothing prevents the assumption (cf. Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy, p. 81)Google Scholar.

9. Texts and discussion in Deubner, , op. cit., pp. 93–123Google Scholar; Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., Dramatic Festivals of Athens2 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 1–25Google Scholar.

10. Especially at Ach. 497–508. Thiercy, P., Aristophane: Fiction el Dramaturgic (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar seems to think that the play consistently is set at the Lenaia, while Dicaeopolis celebrates, and forces the Athenians to celebrate, other festivals as he likes.

11. Ach. 1–16. The debatable case is the ‘five talents which Cleon coughed up’ (6–8, and the scholia). No doubt there was serious political conflict between Cleon and some or all of the Knights (cf., e.g., Bugh, G. R., The Horsemen of Attica [Princeton, 1988], pp. 107 ff.)Google Scholar, but the disgorging of talents may well have occurred in a comedy rather than in life (cf. MacDowell, , op. cit., 145Google Scholar, Sommerstein, ad loc).

12. Cf. Goldhill, , op. cit., p. 186Google Scholar.

13. Name and deme are first identified at 1. 406.

14. op. cit., 146–7.

15. Cf. Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy, pp. 34–5Google Scholar; MacDowell, , op. cit., 146Google Scholar; Bowie, A. M., CQ 32 (1982), 35 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Alternative views, e.g., in Dover, , Greek and the Greeks, pp. 290–3Google Scholar and A. M. Bowie, 32 and 38.

17. For a real Amphitheos, who belonged to a religious association in Aristophanes' deme, to which others of his acquaintance may have belonged, cf. Dow, S., AJA 73 (1969), 234 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. (another view in Griffith, J. G., Hermes 102 [1974], 367–9Google Scholar). Edmunds, (op. cit., 4)Google Scholar and Thiercy, (op. cit., pp. 320 f.)Google Scholar suggest that Dicaeopolis takes his divine origin seriously, but the effect might rather be to make him, like Dicaeopolis later, into a Euripidean poseur; cf. also Bowie, A. M., op. cit., 39Google Scholar.

18. Some Spartan suggestions for peace-talks may have been made recently, after the return of Pleistoanax (Ach. 652–4); even if Sparta had not made a move, they and others may have begun to anticipate talks. Cf. Thuc. 4. 21, and Gomme, , Historical Commentary on Thucydides II. 390–2Google Scholar, Ste Croix, op. cit., p. 366 and n. 20.

19. Cf. Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy, p. 79Google Scholar; against, e.g., Thiercy, , op. cit., p. 125Google Scholar and Sommerstein in his Penguin Classics volume, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Achamians, Clouds (Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 44Google Scholar, who maintain the idea that Dicaeopolis might still be in the city, clearly missing the central point (in his edition, p. 167, Sommerstein seems to have changed his mind).

20. Cf. Pickard-Cambridge, , op. cit., p. 42–56Google Scholar and Whitehead, D., The Demes of Attica (Princeton, 1985), pp. 212–22Google Scholar.

21. Edmunds, (op. cit., 26 f.)Google Scholar, who takes festival settings seriously in his analysis, sees that the festival has narrowed to one family unit, but suggests that other demesmen are present as the ‘crowd’ (257) – but ex hypolhesi there cannot be a crowd, since no one else is at peace, and the references to it are presumably jokes (cf. Sommerstein on 253).

22. Esp. Ach. 266–70. One might well question whether in fact celebrations of the Rural Dionysia in December were disrupted in these years; the play as a whole presents (naturally) an exaggerated picture of the extent of damage done by the invasions, and of the separation of the Athenians from their countryside and villages; contrast Thuc. 7.27, with the analyses of Hanson, V. D., Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Pisa, 1983)Google Scholar, and Spence, I. G., JHS 110 (1990), 91–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Celebrations of the Rural Dionysia may well have taken place, if more economically and gloomily.

23. The parallels are most fully elucidated and discussed by Foley, H. P., JHS 108 (1988), 33–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Olsen, S. D., JHS 111 (1991), 202Google Scholar sees too much of a serious point about impoverishment of the ordinary citizen in Dicaeopolis' scene with Lamachos.

24. Whitman, C. H., Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge, Mass., 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the disguises in the Achamians, cf. Muecke, Frances, CQ 32 (1982), 41 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar, Anlichlhon 16 (1982), 17 ffGoogle Scholar, and Goldhill, , op. cit., pp. 192–3Google Scholar. On the obscenely insulting gesture ‘giving them the long finger', cf. Foley, , op. cit., 40Google Scholar.

25. Cf. Goldhill, , op. cit., pp. 194–5Google Scholar; Heath, ‘Some Deceptions in Aristophanes', Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar, 1990, pp. 233 ff.

26. e.g., Ste Croix, , op. cit., pp. 365–6Google Scholar and Edmunds, , op. cit., 1Google Scholar. Some hold that Aristophanes actually played the character, most recently Sutton, D. F., LCM 13.7 (1988), 105–8Google Scholar; and for the history of the idea, ignored by Sutton, , Olsen, , LCH 15 (1990), 31–2Google Scholar.

27. Dover, , Greek and the Greeks, p. 296Google Scholar; Bowie, A. M., op. cit., 32 ffGoogle Scholar. Sensible discussion also in Chapman, G. A. H., Ada Classica 21 (1978), 60 ffGoogle Scholar.

28. JHS 108 (1988), 183–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Lysimache, , Lewis, D. M., BSA 50 (1955), 1 ff.Google Scholar; Henderson's, edition of Lysistrata, pp. xxxviii–xlGoogle Scholar. One might think also of the ancient suggestion that Eupolis and Aristophanes collaborated (Scholia to Clouds 554), probably based on the mutual recriminations that Eupolis had worked with ‘Baldy’ (i.e. Aristophanes) and given him ideas for his Knights (Eupolis fr. 78 Kock – 89 Kassel-Austin), and on the other hand that Eupolis had pinched Aristophanes’ ideas in the Knights for use in other plays (Clouds 553 ff.). Just possibly the two, exact contemporaries, had both been involved in attacks on Cleon, and in counter-attacks by him, and then, after these had failed (Ach. 381–2), had started a collaboration in a new attack on him, before going their separate ways; but there may well be no more behind this than mutual accusations of lifting each other's phrases; cf. Sommerstein, , CQ 30 (1980), 51–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For arguments against Bowie, , Parker, L. P. E., JHS 111 (1991), 203–8Google Scholar.

29. For Bowie the identification with Eupolis ‘relieves us of the embarrassing problems’ of seeing any connection with a ‘just city’ (op. cit, 184).

30. The Herodotus idea was opposed strongly, but not wholly convincingly, by Fornara, C. W., JHS 91 (1971), 25–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and followed by MacDowell, , op. cit., 151Google Scholar and Heath, , Political Comedy, p. 17Google Scholar; cf. also Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy, p. 87Google Scholar and Foley, , op. cit., 40Google Scholar.

31. Taplin, O., CQ 33 (1983), 331–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Sommerstein in Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Achamians, Clouds, p. 43; MacDowell, , op. cit., 150–1Google Scholar.

33. Cf. also Forrest, , op. cit., 8–9Google Scholar; Foley, , op. cit., 39 ff.Google Scholar, though I cannot follow her claim that while this is indeed an elaborate ‘tragic smokescreen', even so the theatre audience is likely to accept the arguments as applying to the war, and that the Euripidean echoes ‘add authority’ (against, cf. also Heath, ‘Some Deceptions in Aristophanes', 235 ff). I suspect rather they would either seem pretentious paratragedy, by those who failed to spot the exact parallels, or highly ingenious but not therefore any more convincing, by those who got the echoes right. On the variations in the audience's capacity to grasp the details of parody, Goldhill, , op. cit, pp 209–11Google Scholar.

34. Bowie, E. L., op. cit, 184Google Scholar.

35. MacDowell, , op. cit, 151–5Google Scholar.

36. Cf. Reckford, K. J., Aristophanes' Old and New Comedy (Chapel Hill and London, 1987), p. 179Google Scholar; Goldhill, , op. cit., pp. 194–6Google Scholar; Heath, , ‘Some Deceptions in Aristophanes’, 234Google Scholar for the impossibility of identifying a single, coherent argument in the speech.

37. Bowie, A. M., op. cit., 39–40Google Scholar; Bowie, E. L., op. cit., 184Google Scholar.

38. Edmunds, , op. cit., esp. 27–32Google Scholar has an interesting defence of Dicaeopolis' world of peace, pleasures, and Dionysiac festivals focused on the family as a more ‘primitive', but still in some sense a 'Just City’; but since Dicaeopolis pointedly constantly refuses to share these delights with other Athenians about him, this fails to convince.

39. MacDowell does find a sympathy for the Megarians, parallel to that for the Athenians (op. cit., 157), but does not observe that Dicaeopolis is exploiting the situation with a total ruthlessness that is highly offensive to us, if perhaps less so to the Megara-hating Athenians. Parker, (op. cit., 205–6)Google Scholar defends Dicaeopolis more effectively by pointing out that the pathetic and amoral Megarian and the idiotic Boeotian are both happy with the deals; it remains true, however, that they are exploited.

40. Cf. Chapman, , op. cit., 61Google Scholar.

41. Proper emphasis on his selfishness in Dover, , Greek and the Greeks, pp. 301Google Scholar f. and Aristophanic Comedy, pp. 87–8.

42. MacDowell, , op. cit., 158–60Google Scholar and Parker, , op. cit., 206Google Scholar; IG IP 75.7, 1698.5–6.

43. MacDowell's suggestion (op. cit., n. 35) that it is the ‘something pleasant’ that Dicaeopolis has found in his treaty, not the treaty itself, that he is refusing to share with anyone, and they could easily go and make peace if they wished, misses again the central point; it is because he has his peace that he can find all these pleasures, and by the comic logic he now is able to share out peace with its delights. Nor is Edmunds's idea (op. cit., 210) convincing, that Dicaeopolis has an unselfish reason to reject Derketes, to avoid the bad luck from associating with a loser on the festival day; this would mean no poor or unhappy people could go to festivals. Dicaeopolis’ response at 1019 does specifically mark him out as unsympathetic and selfish.

44. MacDowell, , op. cit., 158Google Scholar, Edmunds, , op. cit., 20 ffGoogle Scholar; also Thiercy, , op. cit., pp. 320 fGoogle Scholar. Against, cf. also Foley, , op. cit., 45 n. 49Google Scholar.

45. Cf. on the barter-economy, Olsen, , op. cit., 200–3Google Scholar; on sex, Henderson, , The Maculate Muse2 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 58–60Google Scholar, Bowie, A. M., op. cit., 35Google Scholar.

46. For these and other reversals, cf. above all, Bowie, A. M., op. cit., 34–8Google Scholar, Olsen, , op. cit, 202–3Google Scholar.

47. Burkert, W., Homo Necans (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), pp. 213–38, esp. 218–23Google Scholar.

48. Eur. I.T. 945 ff, Phanodemos FGH 325 F 11 (= Athen. 437c) andJacoby, ad loo; other texts are quoted and discussed in Burkert. Among other myths told at this festival are, first, that wine was brought from Aetolians, who were then killed; the Aetolian who had first planted a vine was Orestheus (often confused with Orestes); and second the story of Erigone's suicide by hanging. In one version she was the daughter of Aegisthus, angered at the acquittal of Orestes, her father's killer, and in another the daughter of Ikarios, who brought wine to Attica and was killed when its effects were misunderstood. In all these stories the associations of new wine, blood, death, and purification, and the prevalence of ‘Orestes’ are equally striking.

49. Edmunds, , op. cit., 23–4Google Scholar. Cf. also Burkert, , Greek Religion (Oxford, 1985), pp. 237–42Google Scholar, Gould, J. in Easterling, P. E. and Muir, J. V. (edd.), Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 19–21Google Scholar.

50. Cf. also Birds 712, 1482–93, Scholia on Birds 1487, Eupolis fr. 166 Kock = 177 Kassel-Austin. On this use of Orestes' name, cf. the full and sceptical discussion by Muller-Strübing, , Aristophanes und der hislorische Kritik (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 29–37Google Scholar, and briefly Sommerstein on Ach. 1167–8.

51. Isaeus 8 passim, esp. 3, 44.

52. Besides his matricide and the other myths associated with the Anthesteria (n. 48 above), cf. his organization of the murder of Neoptolemos at Delphi (Eur. Andr. 995 ff., 1090 ff, and Burkert, , Homo Necans, pp. 119–20Google Scholar).

53. Eranos 85 (1987), 25–34Google Scholar.

54. Cf. Foley, variously, op. cit, esp. 39 ffGoogle Scholar, Bowie, E. L., op. cit., 184Google Scholar, and Goldhill, , op. cit., p. 194–200Google Scholar, who sees the play playing with the individual and collective re-negotiation of the possibilities and limits of comic freedom, but without the emergence of any single answer from any single voice.

55. Versions of this paper have been presented to a JACT Ancient History conference in Oxford, to the Classical Association in Southampton and to an Open University Seminar in London, and I am grateful to participants at all those occasions for their criticisms.