Peace
Aristophanes421 BCEAristophanes wrote a comedy celebrating the end of war between Athens and Sparta, and its central image, a farmer flying to heaven on a dung beetle to demand peace, is pure comic genius.
Read this if you…
- like the idea of flying to heaven on a giant dung beetle
- are trying to read every single play of Aristophanes, because this one is pretty weak
Skip this if you…
- haven't read every other greek play already
Why It Matters
Aristophanes wrote a comedy celebrating the end of war between Athens and Sparta, and its central image, a farmer flying to heaven on a dung beetle to demand peace, is pure comic genius. It is one of the most direct anti-war statements in ancient literature. Its point, that ordinary people suffer most from wars started by politicians, still lands.
The 
Take
This one was pretty meh, and a little too on the nose. The only good part was flying on the dung beetle. I guess it’s interesting to see even then hating war and the military industrial complex basically, but not that funny compared to some other Aristophanes I have read
Where to go next
- The Iliad by Homer. Peace built on it. - Aristophanes assumes you know your Homer — *Peace* names him twice and quotes the *Iliad* outright - Trygaeus wields a line of Homer's against the warmongers, while a soldier's son recites the epic's militaristic verses to show war still owns the young imagination - The *Iliad* behind you, the comedy's tug-of-war over Homer's legacy — peace vs. war, both claiming the poet — lands as the joke Aristophanes meant
Depicted in Art
Greek title page reading 'Aristophanous komodiai ennea' — the first printed edition of Aristophanes' nine comedies, with Peace listed among them, in Venetian Greek type.
Aldus Manutius (printer); Markos Mousouros (editor), 1498
A double-headed marble herm: Aristophanes facing one direction, Menander the other — the masters of Old and New Comedy joined back-to-back as a single sculptural object.
The stone semicircle of seats and orchestra of the Theatre of Dionysus on the south slope of the Acropolis, the actual ancient venue where Peace took second prize at the Dionysia of 421 BC.
A bearded marble head of Aristophanes mounted on a herm, mouth slightly open as if mid-speech; inscribed in Greek 'Aristophanes, son of Philippides, the Athenian'.
Recommended Editions
Jeffrey Henderson
Harvard University Press · 1998
Henderson's Loeb edition, facing-page Greek. For a comedy this dense with Athenian politics, having the leading Aristophanes scholar of the generation walking you through it is the difference between getting the jokes and not.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Gently, gently, go easy, beetle; don't start off so proudly, or trust at first too greatly to your powers; wait till you have sweated, till the beating of your wings shall make your limb joints supple. Above all things, don't let off some foul smell. I adjure you; else I would rather have you stay right in the stable.”
“Allegiance to the cause of Peace — that is my politics!”
More by Aristophanes
- The Acharnians
425 BCE · Comedy
- The Clouds
423 BCE · Comedy
- Wasps
422 BCE · Comedy
- The Birds
414 BCE · Comedy
- Lysistrata
411 BCE · Comedy
- The Frogs
405 BCE · Comedy