Pericles on Stage: Political Comedy in Aristophanes' Early Plays

372 Pages·1997·4.03 MB·English

by  Michael J. Vickers

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title : Pericles On Stage : Political Comedy in Aristophanes' Early
Plays
author : Vickers, Michael J.
publisher : University of Texas Press
isbn10 | asin : 0292787278
print isbn13 : 9780292787278
ebook isbn13 : 9780585236230
language : English
subject Aristophanes--Political and social views, Political plays,
Greek--History and criticism, Greek drama (Comedy)--
History and criticism, Athens (Greece)--Politics and
government, Politics and literature--Greece--Athens,
Pericles,--499-429 B.C.--In literature
publication date : 1997
lcc : PA3879.V53 1997eb
ddc : 882/.01
subject : Aristophanes--Political and social views, Political plays,
Greek--History and criticism, Greek drama (Comedy)--
History and criticism, Athens (Greece)--Politics and
government, Politics and literature--Greece--Athens,
Pericles,--499-429 B.C.--In literature
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Pericles on Stage
Political Comedy in Aristophanes' Early Plays
Michael Vickers

University of Texas Press, Austin

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Copyright © 1997 by Michael Vickers
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 1997
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press,
Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information
SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vickers, Michael J.
Pericles on stage : political comedy in Aristophanes' early plays / Michael Vickers.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-292-78727-8 (alk. paper)
1. AristophanesPolitical and social views.
2. Political plays, GreekHistory and criticism.
3. Greek drama (Comedy)History and criticism.
4. Athens (Greece)Politics and government.
5. Politics and literatureGreeceAthens. 6. Pericles,
499429 B.C.in literature. I. Title.
PA3879.v53 1997
882'.01dc20 96-16242

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FOR SUSAN

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Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction xv
Nicias, Lamachus, and Alcibiades: Political Allegory in Aristophanes
Chapter 1 1
Pericles and Alcibiades on Stage
Chapter 2 22
Pericles and Alcibiades at the Phrontistery: Aristophanes' Clouds 1
Chapter 3 42
Pericles, Alcibiades, and the Generation Gap: Aristophanes' Clouds 11
Chapter 4 59
Pericles on the Pnyx: Aristophanes' Acharnians I
Chapter 5 77
Pericles in the Agora: Aristophanes' Acharnians II
Chapter 6 97
Pericles, the Typhoon, and the Hurricane: Aristophanes' Knights
Chapter 7 121
Pericles, Alcibiades, the Law Courts, and the Symposium: Aristophanes' Wasps
Chapter 8 139
Alcibiades and Pericles on Olympus: Aristophanes' Peace
Chapter 9 154
Alcibiades at Sparta: Aristophanes' Birds I

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Chapter 10 171
Pericles at Sparta: Aristophanes' Birds II
Conclusion 190
Appendix A: Posthumous Parody in Cratinus' Dionysalexandros 193
Appendix B: The Athenian Plague of 430428 B.C. 196
Bibliography 199
General Index 221
Index Locorum 231

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Preface
According to an anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse wanted to know about the
government of Athens, Plato sent him a copy of Aristophanes' Clouds. That we do not know whether Dionysius I or II
was in question does not alter the apparent fact that Plato considered Clouds to be a play with political content. The
story is rarely if ever discussed today, not least because it runs counter to the widespread view that even if Aristophanes
did write "political" plays, Clouds is not one of them. The story is, moreover, "late," and since "the ancient lives of the
poets contain an uncomfortably high proportion of fiction and guesswork" (Lloyd-Jones and Wilson 1990, xiv), it will
be said that it can be safely disregarded.
But what if it can be shown that Clouds is politicaland not only Clouds, but other plays in the Aristophanic corpus? The
purpose of this book is to present the case that in his earlier plays, Aristophanes provided a commentary on the day-to-
day political concerns of Athenians, and that he did so by exploiting the public images of the two most prominent
Athenian politicians of the second half of the fifth century, namely, Pericles and his ward Alcibiades. In Clouds and
elsewhere, Aristophanes examines in considerable detail the public and private morality of these two individuals. He
achieves this by playing on elements that rarely figure in conventional histories, for many historians today prefer to
establish what actually happenedas though one could ever really telland tend to be impatient with anything that smacks
of gossip. The usual procedure is to weigh up the evidence for and against the historicity of tales that occur in the
substantial anecdotal tradition, and to dismiss as "inventions of comic writers" those which seem to be altogether

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far-fetched, or for which the evidence appears to be conflicting. In a work such as this, one can be content merely to
record the fact that a particular tale was told about Pericles or Alcibiades in antiquity, and if it seems to have an echo
ormore accuratelya prefiguration in Aristophanes, then one can be reasonably sure of the historicity of the gossip, even
if the question of whether the incident, allegation, imputation, or slur was actually true remains open.
What is attempted here is in effect a kind of political biography using in a completely new way one of our principal
contemporary witnesses, Aristophanes. The picture will be exaggerated, but nonetheless real. Through Aristophanes'
eyes, it is possible to gauge the reaction of the Athenian public to the events that occurred in the years following
Pericles' death in 429 B.C., to the struggle for the political succession, and to the problems presented by Alcibiades'
gradual emergence as one of the most powerful figures in the state. Aristophanes dramatizes the debate across the
generation gap by personalizing the issues in a way that has frequent echoes in the anecdotal tradition relating to both
Pericles and Alcibiades.
To argue for the omnipresence of Alcibiades in the plays that were written at the time of his political activity is difficult
enough, for although there is ancient testimony in support of this view, political allegory is today very much out of
favor with most students of the classical past. To include Pericles as well is doubly difficult, for the reader has to be
persuaded not only that Greek comedy was a rather more pointedly political business than most modern scholars have
thought, but also that Pericles, whose reputation is today that of a secular saint, was mercilessly lampooned even after
his death. There is, however, a sufficiently large overlap between the scurrilous tales told of Pericles and his extended
family and the twists and turns of Aristophanes' plots to justify the case made here, and antipathy to political allegory
can be shown to have rather more to do with the history of scholarship than with a respect for evidence. This is not a
commentary on Aristophanes, but is simply intended to put Pericles (and Alcibiades) firmly back in the picture. There
are thus many aspects of Aristophanes' sophisticated humor that are not touched upon. There is also a good deal of
repetitionon Aristophanes' partin his exploitation of Pericles and Alcibiades' peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. In
mitigation, it should be recalled that although this book will take but a few hours to read, the material to which it relates
was spread out over several years. The audiences will doubtless have looked forward to seeing how stock motifs, such
as the shape of Pericles' head or Alcibiades' speech defect, were exploited in each new play.

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It is hoped that this work will reach an audience beyond those who have a reading knowledge of Greek, and for this
reason most Greek words have been transliterated. I have used a system I first saw employed by John Scheid and Jesper
Svenbro. Greek names have usually been Latinized, since the book is written in English.
It will be clear from text and notes how much I owe to previous writers, but my frequent criticisms of Sir Kenneth
Dover require some qualification. To paraphrase Russell Meiggs on Jérôme Carcopino, I have come to disagree with all
the main hypotheses of his work on Aristophanes, and almost all of my references are critical. But the work of few
scholars has excited me more, and this would have been a more prosaic and superficial study if Dover had not
stimulated me to ask difficult questions and to risk bold answers.
This book was written during leave from my employment at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, some of it in the
incomparable surroundings of the Fondation Hardt in Geneva, where my visits were sponsored by the British Academy
and the Fonds national suisse de recherche, and some of it at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, where I had the honor of being a Visiting Scholar in 1993. Debts of gratitude are owed to the
Librarian of the Ashmolean Library and his staff for their unfailing courtesy. Many thanks are also due to Frederick
Ahl, Ernst Badian, Mary Beard, Peter Bicknell, Edmund Bloedow, Ewen Bowie, Roger Brock, Mortimer Chambers,
Michael Chase, Stephen Colvin, David Crystal, Peter Derow, Karl Galinsky, David Gill, Michael Flower, George
Forrest, Clive Foss, Don Fowler, David Gribble, Edith Hall, Eric Handley, William Heckscher, Jeffrey Henderson,
Gabriel Herman, Michael Inwood, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Peter Levi, the late David Lewis, François Lissarague,
Cyril Mango, Harold B. Mattingly, Roger Moorey, Oswyn Murray, William Murray, Robin Osborne, Martin Ostwald,
Douglass Parker, Maurice Pope, Roy Porter, Nancy Ramage, Walter Redfern, John Richmond, Ralph Rosen, Ingrid
Rowland, Igor evcenko, * Andrew and Susan Sherratt, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Philip Stadter, Barry Strauss,
Ronald S. Stroud, Daniel P. Tompkins, Robert Wallace, David Warrell, Nigel Wilson, Martin Winkler, and Norman
Yoffee for (in various measure) advice, encouragement, and fruitful skepticism. Brigadier G. O. Cowan, Director of
Army Medicine at the Royal Army Medical College, London, provided useful leads on scholarship relating to the
Athenian plague. Anonymous readers for the press made many valuable comments and suggestions for improvement.
My thanks also go to those members of the University of Texas Press, Joanna Hitchcock, Leslie Tingle, Tayron Cutter,
Ali Hossaini, and Nancy Bryan, who made a

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long and complicated taskat least for mealmost a pleasure. Special thanks are due to Sherry Wert for exemplary copy
editing. If there are any remaining shortcomings, they are to be laid at my door. I was greatly helped, too, by being able
to read prior to publication Barry Strauss's Fathers and Sons and the Crisis of Athenian Ideology and Robert Wallace's
"Private Lives and Public Enemies." I shall, moreover, be forever indebted to my late friend and colleague E. D. Francis
for having taught me to be aware of the underlying patterns of Greek discourse, and for giving me some valuable leads
in the early stages of this research. But these debts are as nothing compared to what I owe to my patient wife, Susan
Vickers, to whom this work is dedicated.

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