The Acharnians | Page 3

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THE ACHARNIANS by Aristophanes

[Translator uncredited. Footnotes have been retained because they
provide the meanings of Greek names, terms and ceremonies and
explain puns and references otherwise lost in translation. Occasional
Greek words in the footnotes have not been included. Footnote
numbers, in brackets, start anew at [1] for each piece of dialogue, and
each footnote follows immediately the dialogue to which it refers,
labeled thus: f[1].

INTRODUCTION

This is the first of the series of three Comedies--'The Acharnians,'
'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'--produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth
and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the
Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the
scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the
consequent ruin of industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency
of asking Peace. In date it is the earliest play brought out by the author
in his own name and his first work of serious importance. It was acted
at the Lenaean Festival, in January, 426 B.C., and gained the first prize,
Cratinus being second.
Its diatribes against the War and fierce criticism of the general policy of
the War party so enraged Cleon that, as already mentioned, he
endeavoured to ruin the author, who in 'The Knights' retorted by a
direct and savage personal attack on the leader of the democracy.
The plot is of the simplest. Dicaeopolis, an Athenian citizen, but a
native of Acharnae, one of the agricultural demes and one which had
especially suffered in the Lacedaemonian invasions, sick and tired of
the ill-success and miseries of the War, makes up his mind, if he fails to
induce the people to adopt his policy of "peace at any price," to
conclude a private and particular peace of his own to cover himself, his
family, and his estate. The Athenians, momentarily elated by victory
and over-persuaded by the demagogues of the day--Cleon and his
henchmen, refuse to hear of such a thing as coming to terms.
Accordingly Dicaeopolis dispatches an envoy to Sparta on his own
account, who comes back presently with a selection of specimen
treaties in