Litigation in Ancient Athens

Housekeeping

• quiz
• 9/30 deadline for extra credit
• new extra credit opportunity - 3 points: Due 10/15:
  • Read Aristophanes Ecclesiazusae [Women of the Assembly]. Consider Hansen's description of the role and function of the Assembly. How does Aristophanes play parody the Assembly. What criticisms does it offer of the way the Assembly operated at the time the play was performed (around 392).

Aristophanes

• Biographical [see EB entry]
  • Born 450, died 388 bce.
  • He is the only writer of "old comedy" whose works survive. [Read Professor Porter's lecture on "Old Comedy."] His last works reflect the changes in the comic genre and are often consider examples of "middle comedy."
    • Old Comedy
      • chorus plays an important role in the action of the play
      • a great deal of burlesque, vulgarity, obscenity
      • half vaudeville, half fantasy
    • New Comedy
      • no role for chorus
      • much less obscene
      • plots, while funny, are much more realistic - comedy of manners
  • He was an Athenian citizen. His first play, The Banqueters in 427 bce.
  • His comedies usually look at the effects of the Peloponnesian wars on life within the city of Athens.
  • He was known for his devastating attacks/parodies on leading Athenian social and political figures - e.g. Socrates and Cleon

Athenian Comedy

• Like tradegy, comedy was performed as part of a theatrical festivasl in honor of Dionysius. The comic festivals (the City Dionysia and the Lennaia) were held in the winter and anthropologists tell us they were clearly associated with/part of fertility rituals [the phalloi the chorus members wore is a hint].
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• Our word "comedy" is derived from the Greek word "komos." The closest things we have to a komos is the parade in New Orleans on Mardi Gras - organized [think of the structure involved getting all those floats and bands off in order] but chaotic [the basic themes are live hard, love hard, drink hard, etc]. The original meaning of komoidia was a song sung during a komos.
  
  
• One feature of the komos which we do not associate with parades was ritualized abuse (aischrologia) [we associate such abuse more with comic monologues and skits - think of Jay Leno and David Letterman, Saturday Night Live]. The ways in which the parade, ritual abuse and song of the fertility ritual evolved into the genre of "comedy" is not obvious. Perhaps the choral songs evolved into plays in a way parallel to the development of tragedy.
  
  
• Aristophanes is the only example we have of "Old Comedy" so we're taking a bit of a risk in characterizing the genre solely from his plays. The Athenians, however, loved him and gave him many a first prize. His work accordingly must represent to some degree what they thought the best comedy was. Aristophanic comedy is characterized by several features.
  
  
  • An "everyman" hero - an ordinary, a bit unpolished, citizen with whom we can identify. The hero, however, delights in cutting corners, and getting away with what he can. He is appealing, in part, because he has let his "inner 10 year old boy brat" run wild in a way that we cannot.
    
    
  • A plot which is not in the least tightly constructed and which is constantly spinning out of logical control. Some folks think "plot" is too strong a word for comedy. The term "fantasic farse" might capture the narrative structure better. Indeed, there is no "logical" structure in most Aristophanic comedy. Rather there is anti-logical structure [a citizen makes a private peace with Sparta; wives go on a sex strike to force their husbands to make peace; etc]. Think of the classic "screwball" comedies of the 30s ["It Happened One Night," and "Bringing Up Baby"].
    
    
  • A verbal style which is simultaneously coarse and vulgar, and extraordinarily witty - involving many puns which simply cannot translate into English. When you learn Greek you will discover that Aristophanes is 100 times funnier than you think he is now.
    
    
  • A style of humor which on the one hand is very general (jokes about sex, wine, sex, wine and sex) and on the other, very particular (jokes about politicians, people in the audience).
    
    

The Wasps

• produced in 422. Aristophanes had won first prize in a number of previous festivals. In 423, however, his play The Clouds, a parody of sophistic education and Socrates, did very poorly. Aristophanes was clearly miffed (read the parabasis - the part where the chorus addresses the audience directly). We should consider why the Athenians would have disliked The Clouds [in which a father sends his son to Socrates to learn how to speak in court and through legal chicanery help the fathher avoid his debts], and loved the Wasps.
  
  
• The political target of the play's humor is the Athenian demos who tolerate Cleon's misuse of the courts.
  • Cleon [see EB entry] became the dominant figure in Athenian politics after the death of Pericles [see EB entry] (whom Cleon had opposed) in 429. Pericles had espoused a largely defensive strategy in the war with Sparta. Cleon wanted a more militarily agressive policy. He was the author of the Mytilene decree [proposing to slaughter all (including women and children) inhabitants of the city after it revolted from Athens] and a successful general. He died in battle the year the Wasps was produced.
  • Cleon was the first prominent politician whose family did not belong to the aristocratic elite of Athens. He was very rich, just not from an old family. The joke's about the smell of leather in the play are allusions to Cleon's reputed start in life as a tanner.
  • Thucydides objected to Cleon as a demogogic upstart and nothing in Aristophanes contradicts him. Modern scholars suspect that their accounts of Cleon are colored by a) class prejudice; b) inevitable comparison with Pericles and c) the growing desire for peace among the Athenian elite.