The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Acharnians, by Aristophanes

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Acharnians

Author: Aristophanes

Posting Date: January 15, 2009 [EBook #3012]
Release Date: January, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ACHARNIANS ***

Produced by Derek Davis

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 estat