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Aristophanes And The Demon Poverty*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. H. Sommerstein
A. H. Sommerstein
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Extract

Aristophanes' last two surviving plays, Assemblywomen and Wealth, have long been regarded as something of an enigma. The changes in structure – the diminution in the role of the chorus, the disappearance of the parabasis, etc. –, as well as the shift of interest away from the immediacies of current politics towards broader social themes, can reasonably be interpreted as an early stage of the process that ultimately transformed Old Comedy into New, even if it is unlikely ever to be finally agreed whether Aristophanes was leading or following this trend. The decline in freshness, in verbal agility, in sparkle of wit, in theatrical inventiveness, which is perceptible in the earlier play and very marked in the later, may be put down to advancing years and diminishing inspiration. Such an explanation squares with the evidence of a marked decline in Aristophanes' productivity towards the end of his life. Whereas in the first seven years of his career (427–421) he seems to have produced, or had produced for him, not less than ten plays, and in the years 420–405 approximately another eighteen, the twenty years or so that followed Frogs yielded a further eleven at the very most unless some titles have been completely lost; and since it is not likely that after the outstanding success of Frogs, and the public recognition that followed it, Aristophanes would have experienced any difficulty in securing a chorus, the explanation can only be that he was writing less. But the truly puzzling feature of the two late plays we possess is the apparent sea-change in the author's social orientation. In his fifth-century plays, from Acharnians toFrogs, as has been shown (in my view conclusively) by de Ste Croix, Aristophanes reveals himself as one who instinctively speaks the language and thinks the thoughts of the well-to-do, even if at the same time he can laugh with the common man at ostentatious and useless wealth in the shape of Pyrilampes' peacocks, Leogoras' pheasants or the sultan-like garments of an Athenian imperial official – as one who was happy for the Demos to be sovereign so long as it was willing to be guided by the advice of its' betters', the καλоί тε κáγоθоί of (e.g.) Knights 738 or Frogs 727–9, and to leave them in the quiet enjoyment of their property. At first sight in Assemblywomen and Wealth this seems to have changed almost diametrically.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 314 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1 Certain are Daitalēs, Babylonians, Acharnians, Knights, the original version of Clouds, Proagon, Wasps and Peace. Almost certain are Holkades (cf. Hypothesis III 33–37 Platnauer to Peace and fr. 407, 411) and Georgoi (cf. fr. 100, 107, 109).

2 Certain are Assemblywomen, Wealth, the late Kokalos and Aiolosikon II, and also Storks (cf. fr. 431, 439); probable are Telemessians (cf. fr. 538) and also the first version of Aiolosikon in view of the ‘Middle Comedy’ nature of the plot (Platonios, Prolegomena de Comoedia i 22–31 Koster), which cannot have differed much from that of the later version. In addition a number of plays are not readily datable on the information we have, or at most can only be assigned a terminus post quern; of these Danaids, Lemniai, Phoinissai and Polyidos may be later than Frogs, though the only evidence is the absence of known references to persons and events of earlier date.

3 Attested by one of the Vitae (Prolegomena XXIII 40–43 Koster) and by Hypothesis I to Frogs citing Dikaiarchos. I have discussed the honours awarded to Aristophanes in my edition of Acharnians (Warminster, 1980), 24–25 n. 10; I would now date them fairly confidently to late 405 or early 404, since the advice of Frogs 718–37 would be unlikely to appeal much to Athenians who had experienced the rule of the Thirty.

4 Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), 355–76Google Scholar.

5 Ach.

6 Clouds 109.

7 Birds 1021 тίς ό ΣαρδανáΠαλλоς оúтоσί;

8 Ass. 353, 380–2,408–26,566, Wealth 219,253,263,283, 504, 535–46,562,594–7,763,842–7, 952–4.

9 Ass. 673–4 тό γàρ äσтυ μίαν о༲κησίν øημι Πоιήσειν συρρήξασ’ είς ν ລΠανтα’ ᾣσтεβαδίζειν ཡς áλλήλоυς. The abolition of individual housing reappears in Plato (Rep. 3. 416d, 5. 458 c); for its appearance in later collectivist Utopias and at least one actual collectivist society (pre-conquest Peru) see Shafarevich, I. R., The Socialist Phenomenon (New York, 1980), 198–9Google Scholar.

10 Wealth 30–1, 35–8, 45–50, 352–90, 502–3, 569, 754–6, 774–81.

11 Origins (n. 4) 358–9.

12 In addition to the passages from Wealth cited in n. 10, see Ass. 426 (implying that the wealthy Nausikydes has never done any good for the community), 603 (a man with much money must have acquired it by perjury), 608 (the rich are the biggest thieves). De Ste Croix, Origins (n. 4) 360, misses these passages, and explains those in Wealth by ‘the nature of the plot’, which begs the question why Ar. chose to make a plot of this nature (and twice!).

13 Der Realismus der aristophanischen Komödie (Frankfurt, 1978).

14 On this tradition and its reflection in Aristophanes (especially in Wealth) see Heberlein, F., Pluthygieia: Zur Gegenwelt bei Aristophanes (Frankfurt, 1980)Google Scholar.

15 For which see (among others) Ussher, R. G., Aristophanes (G&R New Surveys in the Classics 9 [1979]), 18–19 andGoogle ScholarSommerstein, A. H., Aristophanes: The Acharnians, The Clouds, Lysistrata (Harmondsworth, 1973), 14Google Scholar.

16 Dillon, D. Konstan and M., ‘The ideology of Aristophanes Wealth’', AJP 102 (1981), 371–94Google Scholar.

17 See the essay on Assemblywomen appended to his Lysistrata (Berlin, 1927), e.g. (p. 220Google Scholar) ‘Aus Andeutungen entnehmen wir, dass der Dichter die Sinnlosigkeit der Plane Praxagoras uns zu verstehen geben will’ – though Wilamowitz may not have been entirely content with this interpretation, for he added ‘Nicht viele Zuschauer werden ihn verstanden haben’. His successors have not been deterred from following him by this perceptive remark: see especially Süss, W., ‘Scheinbare und wirkliche Inkongruenzen in den Dramen des Aristophanes’, RhM 97 (1954), 289–313Google Scholar, and Flashar, H., ‘Zur Eigenart des aristophanischen Säpatwerkes’, Poetica 1 (1967), 154–75Google Scholar (reprinted in H. J. Newiger ed. Aristophanes und die alte Komoödie [Darmstadt, 1975], 405–34).

18 Heberlein, F., ‘Zur Ironie im ‘Plutus” des Aristophanes’, WJA 7 (1981), 27–49Google Scholar.

19 S. Saïd, ‘L’ Assemblée des Femmes: les femmes, l'économie et la politique', in Bonnamour, J. and Delavault, H. ed. Aristophane, les femmes et la cité (Fontenay-aux-Roses, 1979), 33–69Google Scholar.

20 Foley, H. P., ‘The “female intruder” reconsidered: women in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae', CP 77 (1982), 1–21Google Scholar.

21 He is never named in the text. His nota personae in the manuscripts is generally øειδωλός; the scholia (ΣR 853, 869) refer to him as ò μ ǹ καтαθείς.

22 1132–3, where Blepyros is told ‘Out of more than thirty thousand citizens, you alone have not dined’.

23 We are told in 934 (òδì γàρ αúтός έσтιν and in 951 áλλ оúтоσì γàρ αúтòς оũ*apos; μεμνήμεθς) that the young man who enters at 934 is the same person whom the old woman was talking about in 931 and 933 and whom she then named as Epigenes.

24 Saïd (n. 19) 55.

25 Flashar (n. 17) 159–60 (in the reprint: 412–3).

26 Amply illustrated by Wilamowitz on Eur. Herakles 1106.

27 As Chremylos himself explains (252), тί γρ ȁν тις оÚχì Πρòς σέ тáληθ⋯ λέγоι;

28 I use this expression, rather than agon, in order to exclude those scenes (Birds 451–638, Ass. 571–709) which possess all or most of the formal characteristics of an agon but are exercises in persuasion by a single speaker rather than debates between two speakers. Among genuine debates the only exception to the generalization in the text is Knights 303–460, where the first epirrhema (335 ff.) opens in noisy confusion with both antagonists demanding to be allowed to speak first.

29 This contrasts sharply with the existing state of society, which offers the virtuous so little hope of success that Chremylos himself, anxious for his son's well-being, had almost resolved to bring the boy up to be a criminal (35–8).

30 Cf. Siiss(n. 17) 311–2.

31 Clouds 1102.

32 Knights 943–59 (Demos takes his ring from Paphlagon and gives it to the Sausage-seller); Wasps 725–6;Frogs 1467–71.

33 Birds 627–8; Ass. 710.

34 Heberlein (n. 18)45–6.

35 The story of Midas’ ‘golden touch’ was known to Aristotle (Pol. 1257b 14–17), and it may safely be assumed that it was known to Aristophanes and his audience: see Roller, L. E., Classical Antiquity 2 (1983), 310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 For convenience I designate thus, with Rogers and Ussher, the character who in this scene is preparing his property for surrender to the state, but I doubt very much whether he is in fact intended to be the same person as the Chremes of 372–477; see my paper in BICS 31 (1984).

37 In Aristophanes, compare especially Clouds 365 (contradicted by 264–5, 423–4, etc.); Peace 130 (the same fable that says the beetle flew to heaven also says the eagle flew there first!), 739; Frogs 1453 (the second half of the line contradicts the first); Wealth 948.

38 The characterization in Ass. 730–876 has been well discussed by Maurach, G., Ada Classica (Cape Town) 11 (1968)Google Scholar, 3–7, although his term ‘Dummkopf’ is distinctly unfair to Chremes, who has quite enough sense to know when the Dissident is trying to take advantage of him (867–71).

39 We cannot hold it against him that he wishes to seduce an unmarried citizen girl. Under the old dispensation this would have made him a μоιχός, but Praxagora has established full sexual freedom for citizen women (except for certain rules prescribed in the interests of equality) and has indeed effectively prevented men from resorting instead to slaves and prostitutes (718–24) īνα тѿν νέων ἔχωσιν αὖтαι (the citizen women) тàς áκμáς. Epigenes therefore is acting as Praxagora expected and intended that men should act.

40 Konstan and Dillon (n. 16) 382.

41 Said (n. 19) 58–60.

42 Dikaiopolis(Ach. 1198–1221); Demos (Knights 1389–95); Philokleon (Wasps 1341 ft.); Trygaios (Peace); Peisetairos (Birds 1634–end); Blepyros (Ass. 1138). No young free male enjoys such a success in any surviving Aristophanic comedy; there is only the Scythian slave in Thesm. 1172–1225, and even he is being duped by the elderly Euripides and has to pay heavily for his few minutes with young Elaphion – he loses his quiver and his prisoner, and can probably expect severe punishment for neglecting his duty.

43 Dikaiopolis; Strepsiades (Clouds); Trygaios; Peisetairos; Euripides’ kinsman (‘Mnesilochos’) (Thesm.); Chremylos. Dionysos in Frogs, as a god, is of indeterminate age, but he is fat (Frogs 200) and physically unfit (128 and the rowing scene). In Wasps the young Bdelykleon is formally the hero, since it is he who conceives and implements the ‘Great Idea’ (on this concept see my edition of Acharnians [n. 3] pp. 11–13), but Philokleon is more comic, more ingenious and more lovable, and he triumphs in the end (see text above). Only the Sausage-seller in Knights is unequivocally a hero and unequivocally young.

44 Nussbaum, Martha, YCS 26 (1980), 78Google Scholar, suggests that Pheidippides goes into the øρоνтισтήριоν at 1475 and is thus caught up in the subsequent conflagration; but it is hard to believe that Strepsiades would thus endanger the life of his only son, whom at 1464—6 he regarded as øίλтαтоς and a fellow-victim of Socrates’; and Chairephon's villainy. More likely Pheidippides goes impudently into his father's house, or nonchalantly off by one of the side-passages, a Παтραλоίας and ༄θεоς who has got off scot-free.

45 Ass. 626–34, 702–9.

46 Ass. 848–50.

47 Ass. 994–6, 1030–6, 1073, 1101 (see Ussher's note), 1105–11.

48 The law provides only that a man wishing to have intercourse with a young woman must first, on demand, give the same satisfaction to an older woman (Ass. 617–8, 693–701, 939–40, 986, 990, 1013–20, 1049–51); there is no indication that the older woman has the right to detain him indefinitely. Epigenes at 947 does not say ‘If only I could have the pretty one!’, for he knows that eventually he will have her; he says ‘If only I could have the pretty one and her alone (μόνην)!’

49 Rep. 5. 460c–d.

50 Cf. Dom Deschamps, L. M., Le vrai systėme (Geneva, 1963), 170–1:Google Scholar ‘Les enfants n’ appartiendraient qu'a⋯ la sociétè… Les femmes, qui auraient du lait sans ētre enceintes, donneraient leur sein aux enfants indistinctement, et sans se soucier de savoir s'ils sont ou s'ils ne sont pas ⋯ elles’. This was written about 1770; for more recent examples of the same idea in theory and practice see Shafarevich (n. 9) 246, 270–1.

51 Plato avoided the problem by imposing so strict a control over sex and procreation that each man could easily identify (by their dates of birth) the relatively small subgroup of the younger generation which would contain his own biological offspring if he had any (cf. PI.Rep. 5. 461 b-e). In Praxagora's society, on the other hand, sex and procreation are completely unrestricted (Ass. 614–5) except for the two laws giving priority to the old or ugly (nn. 45, 48).

52 For which see e.g. Suss (n. 17) 291–7.

53 Lys. 1043–71, 1189–1215; cf. Fraenkel, E., in Greek Poetry and Life: Essays presented to Gilbert Murray (Oxford, 1936), 273–4Google Scholar. The idea of a pseudo-invitation to the audience to share the characters’ dinner reappears in Plautus, Rudens 1418–22 (‘you can all come to my party – in sixteen years’ time'), Pseudolus 1331–4, Stichus 775.

54 A small suggestion for the improvement of this word: for the obviously corrupt Παραо (1171) read –Παραλо– ‘lightly salted’ (cf. Ach. 1158 with my note): salt is in place here as a seasoning, between silphium and honey.

55 This is ignored by Suss (n. 17) 297.

58 Epigenes, when he enters at 938, is evidently coining from the meal; his situation is similar to that foreshadowed in 691–701.

57 Saïd (n. 19) 55.

58 Foley (n. 20) 16–18.

59 Shafarevich (n.9)passim; he summarizes his findings on pp. 258–69 (cf. also pp. 3–6, where he shows that Praxagora's programme as a whole is almost identical with ‘the classic statement of the Marxist program contained in the Communist Manifesto’).

60 Dover, K. J., Aristophanes: Clouds (Oxford, 1968), liiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Like the members of the chorus, he had often had to supplement his diet by gathering wild plants (253).

62 Sobolevsky, S. J., Eirene 1 (1960), 98–9Google Scholar. Earlier in the same article Sobolevsky makes out a convincing case for ‘oven’ as the meaning of ίΠνός here.

63 Wealth 219, 504, 536, 539, 543–1, 562, 594–7, 628, 762–3, 1005.

64 Dover, K. J., Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (London, 1974), 177–8Google Scholar cites ample evidence for the proposition that ‘a good man was expected to invite his friends to share his good fortune’.

65 e.g. Maurach (n. 38) 10.

66 The obligation to treat well a person who has treated him well (1029) and not to discard her merely because she is of no further use to him (cf. 1084–5).

67 e.g. Newiger, H. J., Metapher und Allegorie: Studien zu Aristophanes (Munich, 1957), 157Google Scholar, 174.

68 That this, as recently argued by Konstan and Dillon (n. 16) 383 (cf. earlier Rogers ad loc. and Willetts, R. F., Blind Wealth and Aristophanes [Inaugural Lecture, Birmingham, 1970], 4–5)Google Scholar, is the correct interpretation of Wealth 1189–901 have no doubt at all. The interpretation offered by the scholia, followed e.g. by Leeuwen, vanad he. and Newiger, (n. 67) 171Google Scholar, is that the Wealthgod is being spoken of as the new Zeus Soter; but this does not fit what is said: Xρ. ό Zεὺς ⋯ σωт⋯ρ γ⋯ρ πάρσтιν ⋯νθάδε, αὐтόμαтος ⋯κων. Ιε. πάνт' ⋯γαθ⋯ тοίνυν γέγεις. The Wealth-god did not come to Chremylos' house αὐтόμαтος he was brought there by Chremylos, and was decidedly reluctant to enter (230–44). Nor would the priest have replied with an expression of satisfaction (πάνт' ⋯γαθά) to the news that the very name of his own patron god had been usurped by another: rather he is saying in effect ‘I am glad to know that Zeus Soter has become a worshipper of Wealth, because it means that I, his currently starving (1174) priest, can safely do likewise’.

69 Saïd (n. 19) 52; Foley (n. 20) 14–21.

70 Wealth 517–8.

71 Arist.Pol. 1267b15 οἱ тεχνīтαι πάνтες δημόσιοι ἒσονтαι. We do not know whether Phaleas proposed, as Praxagora does, that agricultural labour also should not be personally performed by citizens.

72 Foley (n. 20) 18.

73 Ass. 193–203, 797–8, 812–29.

74 Cf. Wasps 435.

75 It duly reappears two millennia later, in 1652, in the ‘platform’ of the English Digger leader Gerrard Winstanley (see Winstanley, G., The Law of Freedom and Other Writings [Harmondsworth, 1973]Google Scholar). In the society he envisages, the final punishment for a wide variety of offences (from assault on a public officer and abduction of another man's wife to failure to work, persistent waste of food, and offering or accepting wages) is temporary or permanent enslavement under a task-master, and if enslaved persons ‘prove desperate, wanton or idle…the task-master is to feed them with short diet, and to whip them’ (p. 335; cf. pp. 379–89).

76 See the passages cited in n. 10.

77 Wealth 972 (alluding to jurors who sat to try cases on days when they had not been selected by lot to do so), 1166–7 (alleging that ‘all the jurymen’ contrive to get themselves registered in more than one of the ten standing panels of jurors so as to increase their chances in the daily allotment).

78 Heberlein (n. 18)44–5.

79 Krates, fr. 14–15 K = 16–17 Kassel-Austin, Pherekrates, fr. 108; cf. Pherekrates, fr. 130, Telekleides, fr. 1, Metagenes, fr. 6, Nikophon, fr. 13K = 20 Edm.

80 The passage might have served well as an epigraph for de Ste Croix' Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, which in fact never quotes it nor (so far as I can discover) refers to it.

81 Alluding to the practice of poor people frequenting the public baths in winter to warm themselves at the stoves (cf. 952–4).

82 It has often been noted that comedy makes no known reference to the great plague of 430–426.

83 I borrow this last expression from Ehrenberg, V., The People ofAristophanes 2 (Oxford, 1951), 172Google Scholar.

84 Schmid, W., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, iv (Munich, 1946), 380Google Scholar speaks of ‘prodikeische Synonymik’. On sophistic features of Poverty's arguments in general see Heberlein (n. 18) 40–2.

85 Cf. PI. Rep. 4. 422a-c, 8. 556b-e; for other references see Dover (n. 64) 111–2.

86 The editors all assign these words to the Dissident as a statement of his philosophy, but they are better taken as an indignant rhetorical question by Chremes, to which the Dissident disconcertingly answers ν⋯ Δία: see Lowe, J. C. B., Hermes 95 (1967), 66–71Google Scholar and Newiger, H. J., Hermes 96 (1968), 122–3Google Scholar. Ussher ad loc. does not satisfactorily defend the very late placing of ν⋯ Δία which the traditional text entails: he suggests it emphasizes δεῖ, but the key-word of the sentence is not δεῖ (which means little different from πάтριον… ⋯σтίν in the previous line) but γαμβάνειν (contrasted with οὂσειν 777), no matter who the speaker is.

87 On poverty and selfishness as the main evils against which Praxagora is struggling, see Saïd (n. 19) 49–51.

88 It has become difficult to continue describing Dikaiopolis' private peace-treaty as ‘an impossible fantasy…that by its very nature could never actually happen’ (de Ste Croix [n. 4], 365), when scores of British local authorities have espoused the yet more fantastic notion that the best way to secure immunity from nuclear attack is to undertake that you will do nothing to help deter such an attack or minimize its effects, and to do this (unlike Dikaiopolis) without gaining any reciprocal undertaking from the other side.

89 Those who find this statement naive should consult de Ste Croix (n. 4) 363–7, 369–70 and MacDowell, D. M., G&R 30 (1983), 143–62Google Scholar.

90 Giuseppe Mastromarco (in correspondence) has compared the possible effect on Aristophanes of the defeat of 404 and the rule of the Thirty with the way in which in Italy after the fall of Mussolini ‘molti che erano stati convinti fascisti si trovarono a combattere il fascismo in nome di una ideologia contraria’.

91 See especially Lys. 22; also Lys. 7. 27; 14. 41–2; 16. 18; 18. 16–19; 19. 45–52; 27. 10–11; Isokr. 20. 11 ff.

92 He was a member of the city deme of Kydathenaion, (Prolegomena de Comoedia xxvm 2Google Scholar, xxixa 3, xxxnb 2 Koster; cf. IG ii 2 1740. 24Google Scholar = Agora xv 12. 26), so presumably his family had lived in the city since before 508.

93 Especially Achamians, Peace, and Wealth; cf. also Knights 805–8, Birds 109–111, Ass. 300–10. In Wealth it is worth noting that Chremylos appears to loathe the urban xeiporexrai almost as much as he does Poverty (617–8).

94 It does not fall within the scope of this article to inquire to what extent and in what form ideas similar to those expressed in Wealth and especially Assemblywomen had already been put before the public by others. In addition to the discussion by Ussher (Ecclesiazusae xv–xx), the essentials of this question have been briefly and well presented by Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1981), 160–2Google Scholar, and I would agree with him that ‘while we are unable to make particular attributions it can be taken as virtually certain that revolutionary theories about the rights and the position of women [and, I would add, about the structure of society generally] were in the air throughout Aristophanes' lifetime’. On the question of a specific written source for the proposal for community of women and children, with its remarkable parallels to PI. Rep. 5, it should be noted that Aristotle's statement (Pol. 1266 a 34–5) that no one but Plato had recommended these innovations refers, as the context shows, exclusively to writers of πολιтεῖαι, i.e. systematic blueprints for improved forms of human society: he is not saying that similar ideas were not discussed before Plato in writings of other kinds.