Excrement, Sacrifice, Commensality: The Osphresiology of Aristophanes' Peace

This paper argues that in Peace, Aristophanes deploys the language of foul and fragrant smells to appeal to the reflexes of disgust and desire. The olfactory language does not simply accompany a narrative that moves from war to peace, with foul smells yielding to fragrant, but rather constructs a symbolic system separating pure and impure. Sacrificial ritual plays a key role in the reorganization of the world achieved by Trygaeus's quest. The important function of olfaction in stimulating memory suggests a reason for Aristophanes' choice of an osphresiological poetics in a play performed when Athens was on the brink of returning to war.