The Acharnians

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The Acharnians

Sketch of Aristophanes
Written by Aristophanes
Chorus Acharnian charcoal burners
Characters Dicaeopolis
herald
Amphitheus
ambassadors
Pseudartabas
Theorus
daughter of Dicaeopolis
slave of Euripides
Euripides
Lamachus
a Megarian
daughters of the Megarian
informer
a Boeotian
Nicarachus
slave of Lamachus
husbandman
wedding guest
Setting Pnyx at Athens
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The Acharnians (Ancient Greek: Ἀχαρνεῖς / Akharneĩs) is an Old Comedy by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. Written and performed during the first phase of the Peloponnesian War, it is famous for its nominally anti-war stance. Produced in 425 BC by Callistratus, it won Aristophanes first place at the Lenaea festival.

The play is set in contemporary Athens and is a hard-hitting attack on the politicians of the time, with some satire against the tragedian Euripides thrown in for good measure. Athens is at war with Sparta, and has declared a trade embargo on neighboring Megara. Dicaeopolis (Greek: Δικαιόπολις, "Just City" - sometimes rendered Dikaiopolis), a war veteran himself and representative of an average Athenian, is tired of war. Having failed to persuade the city Assembly to put an end to the conflict, which is patently being run for the benefit of political insiders, he declares an independent truce with the enemy, and opens up his home as a sort of free-trade zone.

Throughout the play, Aristophanes takes every opportunity to make fun of the Athenian establishment; Euripides; the Prytanes; the Generals. Cleon, the leading politician in Athens at the time, who may well have been a personal enemy of Aristophanes, is singled out for particular criticism. Cleon is also lampooned at length in Aristophanes' Knights, and again in Wasps and even after his death in Peace.


[edit] Plot

The play opens on the Pnyx, where the Athenian Assembly met. Dicaeopolis ("Just City") attempts to have the subject of peace with Sparta addressed by the Assembly, but is ignored. Indignant, Dicaeopolis decides to form a private truce with the enemy for himself and his family alone. A chorus of Acharnian farmers who support themselves by bring charcoal into the city enter, and threaten to stone Dicaeopolis to death because of this; as residents of Acharnae, they had suffered tremendously in the Peloponnesian War and were famous for their bellicose nature. Dicaeopolis holds them off by holding a basket of charcoal hostage, threatening to butcher it if they attack. They allow him to make a public speech of self-defense, but before doing so, he unexpectedly goes to the poet Euripides for tragic props in order to make himself seem more pitiable. Dicaeopolis eloquently denounces the war and the false pretenses under which it was started, using a modified version of a speech by the mythological Telephus in an early Euripidean tragedy. Half of the chorus are convinced by this speech, but the other half appeal to the Athenian general Lamachus. He and Dicaeopolis exchange insults, and in the end the entire chorus is convinced by Dicaeopolis and declares itself in favor of his peace.

After the parabasis, Dicaeopolis opens his market, and a typical series of exemplary scenes follows. A Megarean peasant brings his two young daughters on, disguises them as piglets (a pun on the Greek word for cunt), puts them in a sack, and sells them to Dicaeopolis. Next, a Boeotian merchant trades his entire stock of birds, game animals and eels to Dicaeopolis. The visits of both the Megarean and the Boeotian are interrupted by troublemakers, first an anonymous sycophant (political informer), and then Nicarchus, who denounces the Boeotian merchant for selling wicks that could be used to set fire the dockyard. Dicaeopolis drives the troublemakers off, and in the end is invited to a huge feast. Lamachus, on the other hand, returns from battle bloodied, defeated and shamed. The play ends in a grand celebratory procession, as Dicaeopolis (clearly standing in at this point for the poet himself) is carried off by the chorus.

[edit] Standard Edition

The standard scholarly edition of the play is S. Douglas Olson (ed.), Aristophanes: Acharnians (Oxford University Press, 2002).

[edit] Translations

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Surviving plays by Aristophanes