Pericles: A Sourcebook and Reader

Aristophanes and Old Comedy: Caricature and Personal Attack

Aristophanes and Old Comedy Caricature and Personal Attack 96 Political leaders the world over are routinely subject to criticism . It is apparently human nature to attack those in positions of power. Democracies in particular foster climates of free speech, and leaders in democracies, therefore, are often subject to public ridicule. Never has that been more true than in the Athens of Pericles’ time. One of the major forms of entertainment was the presentation at state expense of comedies that bristled with explicit attacks on public figures, who were often present in the audience. These plays are what we call Old Comedy . The only extant complete examples of Old Comedy are the wickedly inventive plays of Aristophanes, who was born about 455 b.c. and was very active throughout the years of the Peloponnesian War. Old Comedy flourished for the greater part of Pericles’ public career, and he was naturally very often the butt of attacks. Such attacks were an expected part of the genre, meant to keep the great and powerful in their place by evoking laughter at their expense.1 We may imagine too that these plays afforded considerable amusement even to some of those they attacked . Politicians often have thick skins, even if they do not always possess a good sense of humor. As a determined leader who was at the helm when the Peloponnesian War broke out, Pericles is naturally blamed for starting the war. In very large measure, in fact, the war defined Pericles. This is particularly the case in Old Comedy, since the war dominated the lives of many of the comic poets for more than a quarter century, and consequently their plays often dealt with themes related to it. They naturally give us a less idealized picture of Pericles than the portraits provided by Herodotus, Protagoras, Sophocles, and especially Thucydides. They often paint Pericles as a tyrannical demagogue; their judgment, in fact, is similar to that of Plato (below, pp. 138–42). Characters in comedies call Pericles a tyrant, describe him as Zeus-like in his aloofness, and attack him for his womanizing (a common criticism of powerful men in every age). Aspasia, his Milesian common-law wife,2 was treated very harshly. In Greek the name Aspasia means “gladly welcomed” (the proper name 97 / Aristophanes and Old Comedy 1. Old Comedy may be biased toward aristocrats, for in our evidence it is democratic leaders who are attacked. 2. This is a modern term but clearly represents what Aspasia was to Pericles . See the discussion of Aspasia’s status in M. Henry, Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition (Oxford, 1995) 13–15. Henry concludes that in legal terms in ancient Athens she was most probably a pallake (concubine). C. Fornara and L. Samons II, Athens from Cleisthenes to Pericles (Berkeley, 1991) 163–64 in app. 4 (“Pericles’ Marriages”), more correctly argue that she was his wife. Joy in modern English is a close equivalent); it no doubt provided the comedians with useful added fodder, at the very least for puns and wordplay. In several fragments, as we shall presently see, Aspasia is called a whore and a madam. The comic poets also took great delight in making jokes about Pericles’ head. Perhaps his head was rather large. In any case, it seems very likely that he had a prominent bald pate about which he was self-conscious and so tried to cover up. In the Acharnians of Aristophanes, performed in 425, the lowly Athenian citizen Dicaeopolis—the Everyman and hero of the play—gives a mock-epic account of the origin of the war. The whole thing, he claims, started over a theft by Megarians of some of Aspasia’s girls! Going to Megara, some youngbloods in their cups stole Simaetha, the whore. 525 The Megarians, bummed and all garlicked3 up, in retaliation grabbed two of Aspasia’s whores. Thenceforth, the start of the war burst forth on all the Greeks on account of three whores. Thereupon, pissed, his almightiness Pericles 530 lightninged, thundered, and screwed up Greece. What I have translated as “his almightiness” is the epithet “the Olympian.” Aristophanes here explicitly represents Pericles thundering and lightning like Olympian Zeus. Naturally, the ancient audience would immediately think of the cause of the Trojan War. That war, at least as the poets and myth tell it, came about as a result of the theft/rape of Helen...