² See schol. Ach. 378 for Babylonians’ attack on many unnamed persons, on state offices, whether filled by lot or by vote, and on Cleon. For the attack on the allies, see the ambiguous Ach. 642, which makes it unclear whether the play addressed Athens’ treatment of its allies or the implications of democratic rule within these states. The fragments of Babylonians suggest that the allies may have been represented as slaves of Athens.

³ Schol. Ach. 378. Aristophanes may, of course, have invented these charges, and the scholiast may have derived his evidence from the plays; on the other hand, the poet repeatedly attacks both Cleon and his purported charges against him (see esp. Ach. 376-82, Knights, Wasps 1284-91, and Clouds 581-94). One can hardly suppose that the topic would continue to amuse the audience if the threat of censorship were absolutely meaningless. Debate continues on whether Aristophanes or Callistratus (or both) was the object of Cleon's charges; since I am concerned only with the nature and content of the attack, the issue is largely irrelevant. For discussion of these and other aspects of Aristophanes’ early career, see esp. Starkie, W. J. M., The Acharnians of Aristophanes (London 1909, rep. Amsterdam 1968)Google Scholar Excursus v, MacDowell, D. M., ‘Aristoat phanes and Callistratus’, CQ n.s. xxxii (1982) 21–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Halliwell, S., ‘Aristophanes’ apprenticeship’, CQ n.s. xxx (1980) 33–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mastromarco, G., ‘L'esordio “segreto” di Aristofane’, Quaderni di Storia x (1979) 153–96Google Scholar.

⁴ See schol. Ach. 378 for Cleon's purported charge of γραφὴ ξενίας (it may also have occurred after Knights) and Prolegomena xxviii-xxxiib Koster for (probably comic) allegations, typical in the biographical tradition, of Aristophanes’ foreign or slave extraction. Whether or not Cleon made such an attack (now or later), some explanation must be found for Ach. 652-4 which deliberately links the poet (or Callistratus) with Aigina; the scholiast on 654 asserts that Callistratus (not as in schol. R on 653, Aristophanes) may recently have acquired property on Aigina. See Starkie (n. 3) 139 for further possible associations between Aristophanes and Aigina.

⁵ Cratinus, for example, was a character in his Pytine, and Aristophanes speaks for himself in fr. 471K.

⁶ For a discussion of these issues, provoked by schol. Ach. 377, see Bailey, C., ‘Who played Dicaeopolis?’ in Greek poetry and life, Essays presented to Gilbert Murray on his seventieth birthday (Oxford 1936) 231–40Google Scholar and Dover, K. J., ‘Portrait-masks in Aristophanes’, in KΩΜΩΙΔΟTPAΓHMATA, Studia Aristophanea viri Aristophanei W. J. W. Koster in honorem (Amsterdam 1967) 16–28Google Scholar. Bailey's thesis has not generally been accepted.

⁷ See the possibly untrustworthy assertion of schol. Ach. 67. The decree was passed after the Samian revolt in the archonship of Morychides and repealed in 437/36. Schol. Ach. 1150 offers a possible identification of the συγγραφεύς Antimachus mentioned there with the author of a ψήφισμα which forbade κωμωδεῖν έξ όνόματος in Acharnians the chorus accuses Antimachus of being a χορηγός who denied the expected feast to the chorus of a comedy presented at the Lenaia (1154-5). We also know of a law of Syracosius in 415 BC. On comic censorship, see also [Xen.] Ath. Pol. ii 18, which notes that attacks on the δῆμος were not tolerated, whereas attacks on powerful individuals were acceptable (see Ach. 515-16). The question of comic censorship in the fifth century is too complex to address fully here; the laws probably restricted satire of the state constitution, state policies, or named individuals, not all political comedy (see Starkie [n. 3] Excursus ii).

⁸ Banqueters and Babylonians apparently gave little any attention to tragedy. Dover, K. J., Aristophanic comedy (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1972) 215Google Scholar, suggests that earlier comedy, at least as represented by the fragments of Cratinus, may have parodied Homer and other archaic poets, but that Aristophanes’ generation was the first to exploit tragedy for comic purposes. When the Peloponnesian War led the city to reduce the number of comedies at the City Dionysia from five to three (as in the case of Acharnians; cf. the argument to the play) and, we think (see Ar. Birds 786-9), to produce them at the conclusion of each of three days following the production of a tragic poet, the changed structure of the festival may have sparked a new kind of confrontation confrontation and even rivalry between the genres. For the complex problem of the number and place of comedies at the City Dionysia, see Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The dramatic festivals of Athens, rev. by Gould, J. and Lewis, D. M. (Oxford 1968) 82–3Google Scholar.

⁹ For the Telephus myth, and its popularity in tragedy and art, see esp. Roscher, Lexikon v, 274-307, Brizi, G., ‘Il mito di Telefo nei tragici greci’, A & R n.s. ix (1928) 95–145Google Scholar, and Séchan, L., Études sur la tragédie grecque (Paris 1926) 121–7 and 503-18Google Scholar. For recent reconstructions of Euripides’ Telephus, see Handley, E. and Rea, J., The Telephus of Euripides, BICS Supp. v (London 1957)Google Scholar, and Webster, T. B. L., The tragedies of Euripides (London 1967) 43–8Google Scholar. In my view, Aristophanes’ audience would have needed to know little more than the major episodes of the plot of Euripides’ Telephus and, preferably, the major points made in Telephus’ speech before the Greeks in order to appreciate Aristophanes’ parody/paratragedy. Harriott, R. M.'s study, ‘Aristophanes’ audience and the plays of Euripides’, BICS ix (1962) 1–8Google Scholar, indicates that Aristophanes generally parodied tragic speeches, especially speeches of self-defense; it is likely, then, that Athenians were familiar with such speeches outside of their original context.

¹⁰ On τρυγῳδία (‘comic word [with parody on τραγῳδία] for κωμῳδία’, LSJ), see Ghiron-Bistagne, P., ‘Un calembour méconnu d'Aristophane, Acharniens 400, Oiseaux 787’; REG lxxxvi (1973) 285–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Taplin, O., ‘Tragedy and trugedy’, CQ n.s. xxxiii (1983) 331–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ On the language of the prologue and its complex mixture of poetic and colloquial diction, see esp. Rau, P., Paratragodia: Untersuchungen einer komischen Form des Aristophanes. Zetemata 45 (Munich 1967) 185Google Scholar, and Dover, K., ‘Lo stile di Aristofane’, QUCC ix (1970) 7–23Google Scholar. Rau 37-8 on lines 480-8 notes the rarity of monologues in old comedy and the frequency of paratragic diction in such passages. Hence, while this passage is by no means a parody of Euripidean prologues (as argued by Starkie [n. 3] 6 and 249), and its eclectic style evokes the comic far more than the tragic, the monologue form itself may have prepared the audience for allusions to tragedy. The last scene of Achamians includes lines adapted from adapother Euripidean plays as well.

¹² The scene appeared frequently on vase paintings. See Webster (n. 9) 302 and Simon, E., The ancient theatre, trans. Vafopoulou-Richardson, C. E. (New York 1982) pl. 15Google Scholar, for an Apulian Bell Crater by the Schiller painter, c. 370 BC, that parodies the scene.

¹³ Russo, C., Aristofane, autore di teatro (Florence 1962; 2nd ed. 1984 unavailable to me) 87Google Scholar suggests that Dikaiopolis throws off his rags at 595. See further Segal, C.'s review of Russo (AJP lxxxvi [1965] 308)Google Scholar and Harriott, R. M., ‘The function of the Euripides scene in Aristophanes’ Achamians’, G&R xxix [1982] 39–40Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Following Pucci, P., Aristofane ed Euripide: ricerche metriche e stilistiche (Rome 1961) 277–8Google Scholar, it is important to distinguish between parody, which deliberately mocks, deforms, or criticizes tragic style, and tragicomedy or paratragedy, which aims not to mock tragedy but to use high style to express comic ideas; τρυγῳδία, to use Aristophanes’ own term for his hero's comic adaptations of tragedy, has a mixed style which refers to the formal structure of tragedy (monody, stichomythia and so on).

¹⁵ Here Euripides points to a mask, costume, or manuscript. On the use of demonstratives for the costumes of Oineus and Bellerophon at 418 and 427, see Macleod, C., ‘Euripides’ rags’, ZPE xv (1974) 221–2Google Scholar and ‘Euripides’ rags again’, ZPE xxxix (1980) 6Google Scholar, rep. in Collected essays (Oxford 1983)Google Scholar. Macleod suggests that the rags are a source of words for Dikaiopolis (Ach. 447) because they may in fact be texts as well as costumes (see Ach. 415).

¹⁶ Μυσόν τήλεφον, see Telephus fr. 74 N². The original line also apparently referred to the recognition of Telephus.

¹⁷ Erbse, H., ‘Zu Aristophanes’, Eranos lii (1954) 8Google Scholar emphasizes that σπάργανα mean swaddling clothes or tokens of recognition as well as rags. Macleod 1974 (n. 15) 222 thinks that the term makes Telephus the exposed ‘brain child’ of the tragedian (perhaps Euripides has the original of his text here as well). Pucci (n. 14) 413-14 sees here a parody of Euripides’ plays of romantic intrigue, which often featured exposed children (such as the baby Telephus himself) who are finally recognized as royal. Euripides thus legitimizes Dikaiopolis as the father of Telephus/Telephus. Significantly, Dikaiopolis later uses the rags in his ‘recognition scene’ with Lamachus.

¹⁸ See notes 3 and 4.

¹⁹ On the parallels between Dikaiopolis’ stance in the early scenes and Aristophanes’ claims in the parabasis, see Bowie, A. M., ‘The parabasis in Aristophanes: prolegomena, Acharnians’, CQ n.s. xxxii (1982) 27–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In both the assembly scene and the scene with Lamachus, Dikaiopolis, like Aristophanes in the parabasis, sis, aims to expose those who wish to exploit the war for monetary gain. Acharnians 659-64, the pnigos of the parabasis, may be adapting Telephus 918N² to bolster comedy's claim to justice. Bowie (40) sees a possible parallel between Dikaiopolis’ separate peace and Aristophanes’ own avenue of escape from the war in Aigina, an island described as δικαιόπολις by Pindar (P. 8,22).

²⁰ The Babylonians may have won first prize (see the pride in the play indicated in the parabasis of Acharnians, Cleon's reaction, and IG ii² 2325, which indicates that Aristophanes may have won a first prize at the Dionysia as early as 426). Others have contested this view, however (see C. Russo [n. 13] ch. 2).

²¹ The third argument to Peace suggestively links Peace, Babylonians, and Acharnians. If Babylonians were ‘peace play’, then the connections between Dikaiopolis and Aristophanes would be even stronger here.

²² For the discrepancy between what Dikaiopolis claims he will say and what he actually delivers, see esp. Whitman, C., Aristophanes and the comic hero (Cambridge, Mass. 1964) 67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Dover (n. 8) 82 (on the distracting effect of the speech) and 86-7, Bowie (n. 19) 33, and Harriott (n. 13) 38. Dikaiopolis at first conducts his dialogue with the chorus on a flattering note, calling them sons of Acharneus (322) and thus attributing to them an invented heroic ancestor. He urges them to hear and judge why he made peace (294 and 306), leaving aside the Laconians (305). When this meets with no response, he offers to show in what respects the Spartans have been wronged (313-14), then to speak on their behalf (369). Hence his outrageous speech appears forced on him by the hostile chorus.

²³ Rau (n. 11) 40-2 denies that Lamachus plays the were a role of Euripides’ Achilles here. Nevertheless, the scene continues to borrow from Telephus (fr. 712N²/Ach. 577 and the repeated references to the beggar disguise) and prepares for Lamachus’ adoption of Telephus’ lameness and his pleas for help in the final scene (see Pucci [n. 14] 342).

²⁴ On the hints that Dikaiopolis’ victory in the Dionysiac drinking contest presages a comic victory for the poet in the Dionysiac theatrical festival as well, see conon 886 san 1224, Rennie, W., The Achamians of Aristophanes (London 1909)Google Scholar. The celebration of a comic success would have included wine and the original prize for a comic victory was said to be figs and wine (the Marmor Parium, IG xii 5.444). Starkie (n. 3) 63 and Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., Dithyramb, tragedy, and comedy, rev. Webster, T. B. L. (Oxford 1962) 145 ffGoogle Scholar. see in Dikaiopolis’ celebration of the Rural Dionysia a reference to the origins of drama in Dionysiac phallic processions (see Aristotle Poetics 1449a12). Edmunds, L., ‘Aristophanes’ Achamians’, YCS xxvi (1980) 6Google Scholar, while denying this view, nevertheless sees Dikaiopolis in this committ procession as a proto-poet. ‘Paradoxically, the political function of comedy rests on its association with wine’, Edmunds argues, for Dikaiopolis’ peace is wine, and ‘wine is the occasion of festivals in honor of Dionysus’ (11). Dikaiopolis also drinks down Euripides (484) to give himself the courage to make his speech.

²⁵ Ach. 1190-7 and Hipp. 1347-52 and Ach. 1183 and Hipp. 1239. See Leeuwen, J. van, Aristophanis Acharnenses (Leiden 1901, rep. 1968) on 1178 ffGoogle Scholar. (conon tested by Rau [n. 11] 139 n. 5). Schol. R on Ach. 1190 sees here a comic adaptation of tragic θρῆνοι. In the final scene of Hippolytus, Theseus gloats (in ignorance of the truth) over the body of the dying Hippolytus just as Dikaiopolis gloats over the wounded Lamachus. On the messenger speech generally, see Rau (n. 11) 137-44.

²⁶ See Rau (n. 9) 144. See also his comments (142) on Lamachus’ unheroic rise from the ditch to pursue soldiers already in flight. Lamachus and Telephus are also linked in the messenger speech by Ach. 1188 (Telephus fr. 705aSn.) Both are further linked by ‘crimes’ against Dionysus and their ultimate committment to war rather than peace. For Telephus ends Euripides’ play by departing for Troy and a betrayal of his father-in-law Priam.

²⁷ Recently MacDowell, D. M., ‘The nature of Aristophanes’ Akharnians’, G&R xxx (1983) 151Google Scholar, has renewed the argument that Pericles’ wrath over the theft of Aspasia's courtesans—the event that began the war—is not a parody of Herodotus. He cites the problem of the date of publication of the Histories and of the audience's familiarity with its text, as well as the lack play of any Herodotean turns of phrase in the passage. Others have speculated that Telephus was Aristophanes’ source here (see Fornara, C. W., ‘Evidence for the date of Herodotus’ publication’, JHS xci [1971] 25–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Cratinus’ recent Dionysalexandros may also have offered a similar parody. If the audience knew any of Herodotus’ text, however, they would be likely to be familiar with the opening, and the ῥῆσις does not mark all of its borrowings from Telephus with tragic language.

²⁸ See Telephus fr. 706N² and 918N² for the tragic hero's own claims to speak justice to the Greeks. Edmunds (n. 24), arguing that comedy can only claim justice in disguise (12), asserts that the ‘paratragic play-within-the-play insulates the justification of peace with Sparta, which might otherwise be offensive, no matter how laughably presented.… The question of peace is transposed into a new sphere.… Once again Dicaeopolis, or Aristophanes, has left the hostile political milieu behind in order to make a political statement’ (10-11). I would qualify these remarks by arguing that the playof within-the-play works differently for its internal and external audiences, and that tragedy as well as comedy may adopt disguise to make political statements (as in the case of Telephus himself). Mythologizing politics (associating Pericles with Zeus and Aspasia's courtesans with Helen) can remind the spectators that politics operate as well in terms of myths of another sort.

²⁹ On the translation, see Taplin (n. 10) 333.

³⁰ Holding up the middle finger implies that the objects of the insulting gesture are pathics (schol. Peace 549). The word can also describe feeling inside a chicken to detect the presence of an egg (schol. Ach. 444), a gesture that might have similar sexual connotations.

³¹ The scholiast knows of contemporary actors who did not wear the πιλίδιον. While some vase paintings of the hostage scene show Telephus bare-headed (as would fit the dramatic context, since his disguise has already been penetrated), the two vases with pilos (a Campanian bell krater in Naples, 350-25 BC, and an Attic pelike, 350-25 BC, A.R.V.² 1473; see Webster [n. 9] 302) confirm the strong association of the cap with the role. The cap serves to keep the issue of Telephus’ identity (and thus also the citizenship of Aristophanes or Callistratus) visually before the audience. On the irony of' Mysian Telephus’, see Olympiodorus on Plato Gorg. 521b. I wish to thank Eric Handley for drawing my attention to this issue.

³² See Rau (n. 11) 19-42, Webster (n. 9) 43-8, Handley and Rea (n. 9) esp. 25 and Miller, H. W., ‘Euripides’ Telephus and the Thesmophoriazusae of Aristophanes’, CP xliii (1948) 174–83Google Scholar. On έπύλλια as small erotic poems as well as light verses, see C. del Grande, ‘Eπύλλια in Aristofane’, in KΩMΩΙΔΟTPAΓHMATA, Studia Aristophanca viri Aristophanei Koster, W. J. W. in honorem (Amsterdam 1967) 47–50Google Scholar. The text also paraphrases lines or important ideas from the speech. No one seems to have noticed, however, that Aristophanes gives his audience precise information about how the paratragic speech will work (its borrowing of little phrases) in the scene with Euripides.

³³ Many of the Telephean fragments are too short (or too distorted by Aristophanes’ adaptation of them) to allow for an interpretation of how Aristophanes is reworking them. My two examples come from sections where we have enough of the original to be able to speculate (at least two lines, if the scholia give fully correct versions of Frr. 698 and 703, as they very probably do not).

³⁴ Aristophanes goes on to stress (502-7) that he is no longer, as in Babylonians, addressing strangers as well, since the play is being presented at the Lenaia (a festival that occurred too early in the year for outsiders to attend). Telephus fr. 703N² runs as follows: μή μοι φθονήσητ’, ἄνδρες ‘Eλλήνων ἄκροι,/ εί πτωχòς ὤν τέτληκ' έν έσθλοῖσιν λέγειν.

³⁵ As the scholiast on line 441 says, he changes not his nature (φύσις), but his shape (μορφή). Rau (n. 11) 33 argues that Aristophanes turns this typically Euripidean philosophizing on being and seeming into a play on theatrical illusion.

³⁶ MacDowell (n. 27) 151-5 makes a strong case that Aristophanes’ remarks concerning the role of Pericles and the Megarian decree in causing the war have a good deal of substance beneath the absurd comic detail.

³⁷ See Edmunds (n. 24) 10-11 on this point.

³⁸ Here I follow Handley and Rea (n. 9). In his reconstruction of Telephus, Rau (n. 11) 22 puts the speech after a quarrel between Agamemnon and Menelaus about whether to attack Mysia; Telephus responds to the threat to Mysia with a speech that is exclusively one of self-defense. If Rau is correct, Aristophanes has further distorted the plot of the original. Yet Aristophanes expects his audience to recognize a speech ‘on behalf of the enemy’ as Telephean. If the enemy is Mysia rather than Troy, the richness of the allusion for the war against Sparta is considerably diminished.

³⁹ See the parody of this same motif at Peace 528 with its pun on τέκος/πλέκος and Telephus fr. 727N²; άπέπτυσ' έχθροῦ φωτός ἔχθιστον πλέκος (τέκος in fr. 727N²).

⁴⁰ See Miller (n. 32) and my note 38. Erbse (n. 17) 95-8 surprisingly thinks that Aristophanes has improved on Euripides’ plot.

⁴¹ Rau (n. n ) 24-5 doubts that the original contained a comparable scene. Yet Telephus’ disguise must have been penetrated in some fashion.

⁴² Recent critics have refuted the claim of Sifakis, G. M., Parabasis and animal choruses (London 1971)Google Scholar that dramatic illusion does not exist in comedy. Especially useful are the discussions of Bain, D., Actors and audience (Oxford 1977), esp. 4-7 and 87–99Google Scholar, and Muecke, F., ‘Playing with the play: theatrical self-consciousness in Aristophanes’, Antichthon xi (1977) 52–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘“I know you—by your rags”—costume and disguise in fifth-century drama’, Antichthon xvi (1982) 17–34Google Scholar. Both help to distinguish precisely where in comedy the author can maintain or violate dramatic illusion. Muecke (1977) 59 suggests that the humor of breaking illusion in comedy nevertheless depends on tragedy. Bain prefers the term ‘pretence’ to ‘dramatic illusion’, since no audience fails to know that it is watching a play; comedy thus disrupts the actor's pretence to be the person he plays (6-7). See also Dover (n. 8) 56.

⁴³ Harriott (n. 13) 36. The same effect occurs with props. Dikaiopolis staggers off from Euripides’ house loaded with more props than the tragic poet could have imagined or Aristophanes’ comedy can use. He even tries to borrow the herbs belonging to Euripides’ mother that are in fact the product of the comic tradition itself. For comedy's illusion-breaking literalization of tragic metaphors (the axe metaphorically poised at Telephus’ throat [fr. 706N²], an image he invents to insist that nothing will silence him, becomes prop on stage, the chopping block on which Dikaiopolis promises to place his head while speaking) see esp. Newiger, H.J., Metaphor und allegorie, Zetemata 16 (Munich 1957)Google Scholar. Rau (n. 11) 3 and Edmunds (n. 24).

⁴⁴ For a perceptive treatment of the conventions governing comic and tragic costume, see F. Muecke (n. 42). See Rau (n. 11) 36 on the contrast between comic and tragic costume in this passage. Distinguishing the conventions governing tragic and comic use of disguise is complex—such disguise has its origins in the Odyssey and divine disguise in epic. Aristophanes’ texts do tend to associate tragedy, as here in the case of Telephus, with disguise with deliberate intent to deceive. In Acharnians Dikaiopolis first tells the chorus that he will get a pitiable costume in which to make his defense (383-4), and then announces that his tragic costume will deceive the chorus (443-4. See Rau [n. 11] 33, n. 38). For another interpretation of this inconsistency, see Muecke (1977) 63, n. 59.

⁴⁵ On this last point, see Harriott (n. 13) 36-41.

⁴⁶ Dale, A. M., Collected papers (Cambridge 1969) 288Google Scholar comments that the έκκύκλημα allows Euripides to come out while remaining technically within. This is where as a tragic poet he belongs, since poets cannot speak for themselves in tragedy.

⁴⁷ This paragraph summarizes arguments made in Brecht's Schriften zum theater (Frankfurt 1957)Google Scholar. See also Bain (n. 42) 3-7.

⁴⁸ See note 38 above. Whitman (n. 22) 67 emphasizes this point.

⁴⁹ I cannot agree with MacDowell (n. 27) 158 that all gradually join in Dikaiopolis’ peace, despite the choral passage at 971-99; the chorus can be converted to peace without sharing it, the scene with the bridegroom emphasizes the exclusion of all men from the peace, and the Anthesteria could be celebrated within the walls of a city at war. In addition, the audience knows that the chorus have been duped by Dikaiopolis (the chorus of Birds is similarly duped). Nevertheless, choral exclusion and misperception is certainly not emphasized in the festive final scene, and, given the inconsistencies of comic dramaturgy, I would not want to put too much weight on this point. See Whitman (n. 22) 79 for a subtle treatment of this problem.

⁵⁰ Several critics have recently argued that Derketes fully deserves his rejection; Edmunds (n. 24) 21 argues that Dikaiopolis in 1019 aims to remove the misfortune brought by the unlucky Derketes, and MacDowell (n. 27) 159-60 thinks the joke has not been understood because Aristophanes is here satirizing a real person for some unknown offense.

⁵¹ He still gets all things αύτόματα, as in the traditional Golden Age (976), and enjoys all the delicacies provided by peace and festival, and one could argue that the market involves barter rather than buying and selling. Yet he does not in fact, as Edmunds suggests (n. 24 esp. 27 ff.), return to the simple pleasures of the country. In the Golden Age men collectively enjoyed a peaceful life; here Dikaiopolis’ οῖκος alone gets the benefits. The Golden Age won by Dikaiopolis is a corrupt and perverted version of the original.

⁵² On the name, see Russo (n. 13) 59-60, de Ste. Croix, , The origins of the Peloponnesian War (London 1972) 365Google Scholar, Edmunds (n. 24) 1, n. 2, and MacDowell (n. 27) 160. The play also shows Athens to be a city that has been persuaded to act unjustly. Critics are divided on how to interpret Dikaiopolis’ peace. For Dover (n. 8) 88 Acharnians is a ‘fantasy of total selfishness’. Whitman (n. 22) esp. 76-8 and Bowie (n. 19) 39-40 see the peace as an expression of the Aristophanic hero's typical πονηρία or άλαʒονεία. Edmunds (n. 24; see also Macdowell [n. 27] 158-60) has recently made the strongest case for viewing the peace as ‘just’. But his argument depends on assuming that Dikaiopolis wins with his peace an ideal rural self-sufficiency; I cannot interpret as such a peace that brings festival through markets, rather than agricultural labor and close contact with the land, as in Peace. As in Plato's Republic, a ‘city of pigs’ has in Acharnians become a ‘fevered city’.

⁵³ For the pros and cons of interpreting Acharnians as a serious plea for peace, see, among recent views, Forrest, W. G., ‘Aristophanes’ Acharnians’, Phoenix xvii (1963) 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Newiger, H.-J., ‘War and peace in the comedy of Aristophanes’, YCS 26 (1980) 219–37Google Scholar, Dover (n. 8) esp. 84-8 and the (in my view) largely convincing argument of MacDowell (n. 27). The dimensions of the problem were earlier well stated by Gomme, A. W., ‘Aristophanes and politics’, More essays in Greek history and literature (Oxford 1962) ch. 5.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Fr. 471 K/schol. Areth. (B) Plat. Apology 19c: χρῶμαι γάρ αύτοῦ τοῦ στόματος τῷ στρoγγύλῳ,/τοùς νοῦς δ' άγοραιοuς ἧττον ῆ 'κεῖνος ποίω.

⁵⁵ Most recent critics of Aristophanic parody, such as Pucci (n. 14) or Rau (n. 11) esp. 182-4, are well aware that Aristophanes borrows tragedy for many purposes; yet their primary focus is either on comic mockery of Euripides or on the philological details of the paratragedy. See Muecke 1977 (n. 42) 67 for a helpful emphasis on the metatheatrical aspects of Aristophanes’ use of Euripides.