Lysistrata

Lysistrata (411 BCE) was written by the best-known Greek comic poet, the Athenian playwright Aristophanes. We know little of Aristophanes’ life outside of his work. His birth and death cannot be firmly dated, but he was believed to have been born around 460 BCE and died sometime in the mid-380s BCE. His active period, though, is more certain— around 425 to 388 BCE—making him a contemporary of other fifth-century Athenian luminaries like Socrates, Euripides, and Sophocles.

Of around forty plays Aristophanes wrote, we have eleven in complete form. They are our only surviving examples of what later commentators would call “Old Comedy,” a sub-genre of Greek comedy (followed by Middle and New). Greek tragedy largely limited its subject matter to myths, but Old Comedy reflected the contemporary sphere. Its plays usually took place in the present and lambasted social and political figures and situations. Even when they starred mythological gods and heroes, they were concerned with topics that were relevant to a contemporary audience. This made their humor cutting-edge in their day, but sometimes difficult to contextualize now.

Lysistrata is one of the more accessible of Aristophanes’ works for the modern reader. Twenty years into the Peloponnesian War, a long and destructive conflict between the city-states of Athens and Sparta, its heroine is sick of domestic affairs falling by the wayside. She devises a fantastical solution to heal the divide not only between men and women, but between the combatants themselves: deny men sex until peace is made. While the Peloponnesian War is a favorite topic for Aristophanes (e.g. Acharnians and Peace), Lysistrata was probably the first of his plays to focus on the lives of women, a theme he will revisit in Women at the Thesmophoria and Assemblywomen. It is likely that Lysistrata, in fact, introduced the first true comic heroine of western literature.

Lysistrata also showcases many elements of Old Comedy which modern audiences find entertaining still. Sometimes called “the Father of Comedy,” Aristophanes loves physical humor, dirty jokes, and silly premises. He disregards the physical and logical constraints of the everyday world for plot requirements (or even a quick joke). His characters, unlike the somber heroes of the Greek tragedians, are vulgar and cartoonish, and the language they speak is not the elite, affected register of tragedy, but that of the common person. Yet despite the slapstick and sex jokes, Lysistrata is, at its core, a play about peace. It is an exercise in wish fulfilment for a city embroiled in combat for two decades, a fantasy in which the girl-next-door can fight the power, love can conquer war, peace can prevail. These themes have made it a popular choice for modern stage and film adaptation including Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq and the 2011 Broadway musical adaptation Lysistrata Jones), though the play’s highly sexual content sometimes renders it distasteful to the modern crowd.

This guide refers to Sarah Ruden’s 2003 translation of Lysistrata, published by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

Plot Summary

Twenty years into the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian woman named Lysistrata calls a meeting of her fellow Greeks (Athenian and otherwise) at the gates of the Acropolis. There she reveals her plan: all Greek women will unite to deny men sex until they agree to peace. Most of her peers are flabbergasted, but with the support of the Spartan Lampito, Lysistrata convinces them. The women take a solemn oath to remain celibate, and Lampito and other non-Athenians leave to spread the word.

This will be a two-pronged attack. While the younger women withhold sex, the elders will seize the treasury in the Acropolis, crippling the war financially. A male group of old veterans treks up the hill to take it back, but the old women repel them, throwing cold water on their torches.

The Councilor, an important Athenian official, arrives to withdraw funds from the treasury. He disparages female addictions to wine, sex, and orgiastic cults and attempts to put down the rebellion, but Lysistrata bests him in a debate. While the Councilor argues that this outrageous behavior is enabled by men being too lenient with their wives, Lysistrata contends that women have sat by long enough while men make poor civic decisions. Women, she argues, can apply domestic skills like household management and even weaving to governance and matters of state. When the Councilor attempts to arrest her, she and the others subdue him and his guards and drive them off.

Lysistrata is discouraged, though, by defectors from the cause. She catches women going AWOL left and right, hungry for sex with their husbands. One of the young wives, Myrrhine, is visited by her husband Cinesias. He is comically desperate for sex, but also for his wife to return home to look after their child and the house. Under Lysistrata’s advisement, Myrrhine teases him at length before leaving him high and dry.

A Spartan herald arrives with news that Sparta wants to meet for peace; Lampito has successfully implemented Lysistrata’s plan abroad. The herald and Cinesias agree to bring ambassadors from their respective states together, representatives who can arrange a treaty. Lysistrata is invited to preside. She brings out a woman dressed as a personification of peace, the Goddess of Deals; the sex-addled men are distracted by her voluptuous body, using it to define the terms of the agreement. With peace finally established and men and women reunited, Athenians and Spartans promise to remain friends forever and throw a party on the Acropolis.