Abstract

summary:

The claim that Pericles in 440 sponsored a decree restraining comedy because of the genre’s offensiveness should be rejected. The claim depends on the scholium to Ar. Ach. 67; this paper argues that the alleged decree was the scholiast’s deduction from a victor list that showed three non-performance years in a festival. These are better explained as a suspension in only one of the two dramatic festivals, occasioned not by hostility to freedom of speech but perhaps by limited resources caused by the siege of Samos.

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