Tragedy and politics in aristophanes' Acharnians

Abstract

Aristophanes’ second play, Babylonians, included an attack on state offices and politicians and, probably, the city's treatment of its allies. According to the scholia of Acharnians, the play provoked Cleon to indict Aristophanes (or the play's producer Callistratus) for άδικία and ύβρις towards the δῆμος and the βοuλη on the grounds that he treasonably embarrassed the city before strangers at the City Dionysia. Cleon may also have questioned Aristophanes’ citizenship, suggesting that the poet (or Callistratus) was really a native Aiginetan, not a true Athenian. Aristophanes returned fire at the Lenaia of 425 with Acharnians, a play that renews Babylonians’ attack on Athens’ misguided politics and politicians. Even more important, by making a separate peace with Sparta and by offering in his speech of self-defense before the chorus to defend the enemy, the comic hero Dikaiopolis commits ‘crimes’ equivalent to those for which Aristophanes was indicted.