The Acharnians

The Acharnians is the earliest surviving comedy of Aristophanes and the earliest Greek comedy preserved complete. Performed at the Lenaea during the war between Athens and Sparta, it tells how an Athenian farmer, Dicaeopolis (“just citizen”), fails to persuade the Assembly to make peace and sends an immortal envoy to Sparta to make a private treaty for himself alone. The elderly men of Acharnae, who want the war to go on, try to stone him; he wins them over with a speech, and in the second half of the play he enjoys the markets and feasts of peace while his rival, the general Lamachus, is wounded in battle (lines 1–1234).

Date and Historical Background

The play itself says that it was staged at the Lenaea: Dicaeopolis speaks of “the contest at the Lenaea” and says that no foreigners are yet in the city and no tribute has yet arrived from the allies (lines 504–508), so that he can speak freely of the city. According to the ancient introduction (hypothesis) to the play, it was produced in the archonship of Euthydemus (the Athenian year 426/5 BC) through Callistratus and won first prize, with Cratinus second with his Storm-Tossed and Eupolis third with his New Moons. Dicaeopolis and the chorus complain of the vineyards that have been cut down in the war (lines 183, 512).

The play belongs to Old Comedy and speaks of public affairs by name. Dicaeopolis says that Cleon dragged him before the Council and slandered him over “last year’s comedy” (lines 377–382); the ancient commentators name that comedy as Aristophanes’ Babylonians, which is lost.

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Dicaeopolis, an Athenian farmer, the hero
• Herald and a second herald
• Amphitheus, an immortal, descended from Demeter and Triptolemus, who makes the treaties (lines 46–54)
• Ambassador returned from the Persian king
• Pseudartabas, the supposed “King’s Eye”
• Theorus, ambassador to Sitalces of Thrace
• Dicaeopolis’ wife and daughter, and his slave Xanthias
• Cephisophon, slave of Euripides, and Euripides himself
• Lamachus, an Athenian general, and his servant
• A Megarian and his two daughters
• An informer (sycophant), and Nicarchus, another informer
• A Boeotian and his attendants
• A farmer (Dercetes’ man), a best man and a bridesmaid
• Messengers
• Chorus of old men of Acharnae

Setting

The play opens on the Pnyx, where the Athenian Assembly met. After the Assembly breaks up the scene is a street in the country, with the houses of Dicaeopolis, Euripides and Lamachus; Euripides’ door is entered at line 395 and Lamachus’ door is used from line 575 and again at 959. Later the street becomes Dicaeopolis’ private market (lines 719–728).

Summary of The Acharnians

Prologue

Dicaeopolis sits alone on the Pnyx early in the morning, waiting for the Assembly to meet. He lists the few things that have really pleased him in his life and the many that have hurt him, and complains that the seats are empty because the citizens are chattering in the market. He has come, he says, ready to shout, interrupt and abuse the speakers if they speak of anything but peace (lines 1–42). The Assembly opens and the prytaneis arrive. A herald calls for speakers, and a man called Amphitheus says that he is not a mortal but immortal, descended from Demeter and Triptolemus, and that the gods have entrusted him alone with making a treaty with the Spartans. But he has no travelling money, and the prytaneis will not give him any; the archers throw him out (lines 43–55).

Instead, the Assembly hears the ambassadors. The first says that he was sent to the Great King on a wage of two drachmas a day in the archonship of Euthymenes, and that he was carried in covered carriages across the plain of the Cayster and made to drink sweet unmixed wine from glass and gold cups; the Persians, he adds, think only those who can eat and drink most are men (lines 65–79). In the fourth year, he says, they reached the palace, but the king had gone off with his army and was away for eight months, and then entertained them with whole oxen baked in an oven and a bird three times the size of Cleonymus (lines 80–90). He brings with him Pseudartabas, the King’s Eye, who speaks a nonsense “Persian” that the ambassador translates as a promise of gold. Dicaeopolis, who hears this in disgust, sees through the show: the “eunuchs” who attend Pseudartabas are Athenians in disguise, and the Persian “message” is gibberish (lines 91–125). Next comes Theorus, back from Thrace, who explains that he stayed so long because of the snow, and presents the Odomantian Thracians, who will, he says, overrun all Boeotia for two drachmas a day (lines 134–160). The Odomantians plunder Dicaeopolis’ garlic, and he complains that he is being robbed in front of the prytaneis. He declares an omen, “a sign from Zeus, and a drop has hit me,” and the herald dismisses the Assembly (lines 161–173).

Dicaeopolis has already given Amphitheus eight drachmas and told him to make a treaty with the Spartans for himself, his children and his wife alone, leaving the others to carry on with their embassies (lines 129–133). Amphitheus now comes running back from Sparta, chased by the Acharnians, who nearly stoned him on the way (lines 175–185). He brings treaties in the form of three wines, a five-year, a ten-year and a thirty-year one. The Greek word for a treaty, spondai, is also the word for a libation, and Dicaeopolis tastes the three: the five-year one smells of pitch and the fitting out of ships, the ten-year one of embassies sent round the cities, but the thirty-year one smells of ambrosia and nectar and tells him not to bring three days’ provisions and to go where he likes. He takes it, and goes in to celebrate the Rural Dionysia (lines 175–202).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

The chorus of old men of Acharnae enter hunting for the man who made a private treaty (lines 204–236). They are tough old men of oak and maple, veterans of Marathon, and they are furious that treaties have been made while their vines have been cut down (lines 180–185). Dicaeopolis comes out of his house with his family and slave in a small procession of the Rural Dionysia: his daughter carries the sacred basket, Xanthias the phallus on a pole, and he prays to Dionysus that he may celebrate the country Dionysia free of the army and that the thirty-year treaty may serve him well, and then sings a hymn to Phales (lines 237–279). The chorus fall on him with stones, shouting that he is a villain, and he asks why. They refuse to listen to anything he says (lines 280–325).

Episodes

Dicaeopolis threatens to kill one of their dearest friends unless they listen: he seizes a basket of charcoal and holds a sword over it. The chorus cry that the basket is a fellow demesman and beg him not to kill it, and he makes them throw down their stones first (lines 326–346). Then he says that he will speak in defence of the Spartans with his head on a chopping-block, but first he must prepare himself. He is afraid of the country audience that praises anyone who flatters them and the city, and he remembers what Cleon did to him over last year’s comedy: he dragged him before the Council and slandered him (lines 347–384).

He goes to the house of Euripides, where the slave Cephisophon tells him that the poet is in and not in, “if you have sense” (lines 395–399); Euripides is brought out on the wheeled platform, as always, with his feet up (lines 395–409). Dicaeopolis asks him for the rags of one of his beggar-heroes, and after Euripides has tried Oeneus, Phoenix and Bellerophon, he names Telephus, the Mysian (lines 418–434). He explains that he must seem a beggar today, “to be what I am, but not to appear so”: the audience will know who he is, but the chorus must be left foolish, so that he can fool them with little phrases (lines 440–444). He then asks for the Mysian cap and a beggar’s staff and, one after another, for smaller props, until Euripides complains that he is taking his whole tragedy away from him (lines 437–479).

Dressed as Telephus, Dicaeopolis speaks (lines 496–556). He asks the audience not to take it ill that a beggar speaks about the city in a comedy, for comedy too knows what is right (lines 496–501). As there are no foreigners present at the Lenaea, he says, Cleon cannot accuse him of slandering the city before strangers (lines 502–508). He says that he hates the Spartans too, and wishes that Poseidon would shake down their houses, but he does not think they are to blame (lines 509–514). Some worthless Athenian men, he says, began to denounce the Megarians’ cloaks and goods, and drunken young men stole the prostitute Simaetha from Megara; the Megarians in revenge stole two of Aspasia’s women, and so, from three prostitutes, the war broke out for all of Greece (lines 524–529). Then Pericles in anger “lightened and thundered and threw Greece into confusion” and made laws, written like drinking-songs, that the Megarians should stay neither on land, nor in the market, nor on the sea, nor in the sky (lines 530–534). When the starving Megarians asked the Spartans to have the decree repealed, the Athenians refused, and so the clash of shields began (lines 535–539). He adds that the Athenians would have done the same if the Spartans had seized a Seriphian puppy, launching three hundred ships at once (lines 540–554).

The chorus is divided. One half calls him a villain and reproaches him for daring to speak this way, while the other half says that he speaks well and justly. They come to blows, and the first half run to fetch Lamachus (lines 557–571). Lamachus arrives, crested and terrifying, and Dicaeopolis in mock terror asks him to take away his Gorgon-shield and his plume, saying that he feels sick at the sight of feathers (lines 572–592). He describes himself as an honest citizen, a soldier since the war began, while Lamachus has been a paid official since the war began. Dicaeopolis says he made the treaty because he saw grey-haired men in the ranks and young men like Lamachus avoiding service and drawing pay in Thrace and elsewhere, and none of the old men is ever sent as an ambassador (lines 595–617). Lamachus swears that he will fight the Peloponnesians for ever; Dicaeopolis announces that the Peloponnesians, Megarians and Boeotians may trade with him, but Lamachus may not (lines 620–625).

Parabasis

The chorus declare that the man has won the argument and has changed the people’s mind about the treaty (lines 626–627). They then speak to the audience in the poet’s name. They say that he has been slandered by his enemies for ridiculing the city, and that he has taught the Athenians not to be deceived by foreign speeches or to enjoy flattery (lines 628–642). The allies, they say, will come bringing tribute, eager to see the poet who dared to tell the Athenians what is right, and his fame has spread so far that the Great King, questioning the Spartan envoys, asked which side had the stronger fleet and which side this poet was abusing, since the people he scolds would become much better and win the war (lines 643–658). They call on Cleon to plot against the poet as he likes, for justice will be on his side (lines 659–664). In the second half of the parabasis the old men complain that they who fought at sea and at Marathon are now dragged into court and mocked by young speakers, and they pity the aged Thucydides, trapped by the glib advocate Cephisodemus; they propose that old men should be prosecuted by old men and the young by the young (lines 676–718).

Episodes

Dicaeopolis now marks out the boundaries of his own market, and announces that no informer or Lamachus may trade there (lines 719–728). A Megarian arrives with his two small daughters, whom he calls his “little pigs” because he cannot feed them and wants to sell them. He has disguised them as piglets, and Dicaeopolis, after a long comedy of inspecting them as sacrificial pigs, which squeal on command, buys them for a string of garlic and a measure of salt (lines 729–817). An informer comes up and threatens to denounce the Megarian’s goods as enemy property, and Dicaeopolis beats him off (lines 818–835). The chorus call Dicaeopolis a happy man (lines 836–859).

A Boeotian arrives with a band of pipers and all the goods of his country: geese, hares, foxes and other game and, above all, Copaic eels (lines 860–880). Dicaeopolis falls in love with the eels. When the Boeotian asks what Athens has to send home that Boeotia lacks, Dicaeopolis offers an informer, packed like a piece of pottery, and the Boeotian agrees. At that moment Nicarchus arrives, threatening to inform against the Boeotian, and Dicaeopolis has him gagged, tied up and carried off as a pot (lines 884–958).

A servant of Lamachus now asks Dicaeopolis for some thrushes and a Copaic eel for his master’s Feast of Pitchers, at one and three drachmas, and is refused (lines 959–970). After a choral song, a herald proclaims the Feast of Pitchers (Choes): everyone is to drink to the sound of the trumpet, and the first to drain his cup will receive a wineskin (lines 1000–1002). Dicaeopolis calls to his household to roast the hares and thrushes. A farmer who lost two oxen to the Boeotians begs for a drop of peace and is refused (lines 1018–1036). A best man brings meat from a wedding and asks, on the bridegroom’s behalf, for a ladle of peace poured into his flask, so that the bridegroom can stay at home instead of going to war; Dicaeopolis tells him to take the meat away and refuses. But when the bridesmaid asks for the bride, he gives her some of the peace, because a woman is not to blame for the war, and tells her how the bride should use it when soldiers are being enlisted, so that her husband stays at home (lines 1048–1068).

Exodos (Exit Song)

A messenger arrives calling for Lamachus: the generals order him to take his companies and crests and to guard the passes in the snow, because it is reported that Boeotian raiders will invade at the time of the Pitchers and the Pots (lines 1069–1077). A second messenger summons Dicaeopolis to dinner, because the priest of Dionysus has sent for him, and lists the couches, tables, cakes and dancing girls that are ready (lines 1085–1094). In a famous scene the two men prepare in parallel, Lamachus calling for his helmet, his spear, his rations of salt and onions and his Gorgon shield, Dicaeopolis calling for his feast, his hares, his cake and his cloak (lines 1095–1142). The chorus wish them each a different journey: one will drink with a garland, the other will be cold on guard (lines 1143–1149).

A servant of Lamachus comes out and calls for hot water and bandages. His master was wounded when he jumped a ditch, caught on a stake, sprained his ankle, broke his head on a stone, and woke the Gorgon on his shield; the great plume fell on the rocks (lines 1174–1189). Lamachus is brought in supported by soldiers, lamenting; Dicaeopolis, led in by two courtesans, answers every cry of pain with a cry of pleasure (lines 1190–1226). Dicaeopolis has won the contest of the cups, and the chorus follow him out, singing in praise of the victor and his wineskin (lines 1227–1234).

A Brief Analysis

In The Acharnians, peace means a return to the pleasures the war has cut off: the vineyards and the country festival of Dionysus (lines 247–262), the markets, the food, and the wedding (lines 719–1068). The war is blamed on small, stupid causes (lines 524–539) and on the men who profit from it: the ambassadors paid for years of idleness (lines 65–93) and the young generals paid by the city (lines 595–617).

The poet also speaks of himself. Dicaeopolis, in Telephus’ rags, says that comedy too knows what is right (lines 499–501), and the chorus say in the parabasis that the poet has taught the city to resist flattery and deceit (lines 633–642). Cleon’s attack on the poet over the previous year’s play is mentioned in the play several times (lines 377–382, 502–503, 659–664). The scene with Euripides (lines 395–479) borrows the rags of the beggar-king Telephus from a tragedy of Euripides so that the hero can speak as a pitiable beggar.

From the parabasis onward the chorus take Dicaeopolis’ side, and at the end they follow him out as the winner of the drinking contest; the play does not say what will happen to the war. The last contrast, between Lamachus carried home wounded and Dicaeopolis carried off drunk, is made by the poet in two matching scenes (lines 1095–1234).

The play is built on pairs. The Assembly’s paid envoys, who spent years at the Persian court and in Thrace (lines 65–90, 136–150), are matched by the one envoy who is sent by a private citizen with eight drachmas and returns in a few lines (lines 130–175). The two heralds of the last scene are matched by the two dinners and the two sets of servants (lines 1069–1142). Dicaeopolis’ market, closed to informers and to Lamachus and open to Megarians and Boeotians, is the practical form of his treaty (lines 623–625, 719–728), and the swaps with the Megarian and the Boeotian show what each side lacks: food from Boeotia and Megara, informers and pots from Athens (lines 729–958). Lamachus appears throughout as a man of crests, plumes and a Gorgon shield (lines 566–592, 964–965, 1095–1142), and his wounding brings the same emblems back: the plume falls and the Gorgon on the shield is woken (lines 1178–1182).

The Acharnians Sources

Aristophanes, Acharnians, lines 1–1234, in particular lines 1–203, 237–346, 377–625, 626–718, 719–1068 and 1069–1234; the ancient hypothesis to the play for the production record; and the ancient commentators on lines 378 and 502 for the reference to the Babylonians.

See Also: Aristophanes, Athens, Sparta, Pericles, Euripides, Peace, Lysistrata