Aristophanes Frogs

The primary objective of this study is the historical value of the comedies by Aristophanes. It discusses the aspects of slavery in terms of social status and also seeks to examine master and mistress-slave relationships, where possible. The methodological approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on selective passages of these two plays, providing my translation where needed and an examination of slavish characters, either protagonists or not, and their existence in real-life Classical Athens of middle fifth and late fourth centuries BCE.

El fin del presente trabajo es doble: por un lado, una puesta al día y suscinta organización del material disponible acerca del culto mistérico de Eleusis en honor de Deméter, por otro, dar cuenta de la trascendencia de tales cultos y su funcionalidad dentro de la comedia de Aristófanes, en especial en Ranas, pieza escrita y representada en un difícil contexto social y político de la pólis ateniense como lo fue el momento final de la guerra del Peloponeso

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, an updated and concise organization of the available material about the mystery cult of Eleusis in honor to Demeter; secondly, to explain the significance of such cults and their functionality within the Aristophanes' comedy, especially in Frogs, a play that it was written and performed in a difficult social and political context of the Athenian polis, as it was the final moment of the Peloponnesian War.

Aristophanes’ oeuvre is inextricably tied to the life and the fate of his native city Athens. The history, the political issues, and the people of Athens have always provided the central themes of his comic fictions. Aristophanes opposed the Peloponnesian War from the beginning, partly because of his upper-class origins. At first glance, he adopted the viewpoint of the ordinary farmers and smallholders of Attica, who were severely afflicted by the war; his celebration of peace is closely connected with the pleasures of the countryside. In reality, Aristophanes himself probably belonged to an aristocratic family of rich landowners and shared the deep conservatism and the antipathy towards radical demagogy that were typical of his class. His description of rural life concentrates exclusively on the joyful and hedonistic aspects and omits the hard labours of agricultural work; this is the characteristic attitude of a man who enjoyed the countryside as a place of holiday.

Aristophanes is an enemy of extreme democracy and advocates a more moderate constitution, which should be ruled by well-educated aristocrats. He defends the conservative and oligarchic leaders of his time and mercilessly attacks the radical populist demagogues, such as Cleon and his collaborators. In the final years of the Peloponnesian War, he similarly criticized the disastrous Cleophon, who misled the people of Athens to fatally wrong decisions, resulting in the total defeat and humiliation of Athens.

Even the imaginary and utopian worlds, which Aristophanes constructs in his fantastic comedies, such as the aerial city of Nephelokokkygia in the Birds and the world of Hades in the Frogs, are created by analogy to the city and culture of Athens, as inverted or distorted mirror images of the Athenian polis. Nephelokokkygia, an autonomous creation of fantasy, also serves as a kind of open and holistic parable of the unquenchable imperialistic ambition of Athens at the time of the Sicilian expedition. The underworld of the Frogs replicates the pessimistic atmosphere of the besieged Athens, a city on the verge of disaster, in which death prevails. Only the rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries provide a source of joy and a hope of salvation in this brilliant and profoundly bitter play.

This essay discusses the ancient testimony claiming that the Athenians decreed a second performance of Aristophanes’ Frogs shortly after its original performance in 405 BC. These testimonia have suggested that the Athenians granted Aristophanes this honor because they especially admired the political message
of the play’s parabasis. Some scholars in the nineteenth century questioned this explanation, since the play as a whole itself is more focused on aesthetics than politics, though their skepticism was largely silenced in the twentieth century. This study revisits the question, arguing that skepticism about some details of the testimonia is justified, and suggesting other explanations for a second performance that rely more on contemporary performance culture and aesthetics than politics.

This thesis is an analysis of the performance reception of Aristophanes’ Frogs across the English-speaking world; in which I include Britain, North America, Africa and Australasia. It will draw on the growing trend of performance reception as a branch of Classical Reception, approaching the material from both a classical and dramatic outlook.

Following an introduction which outlines the methodology, models and background literature, Chapter One outlines the academic reception of the play in the 20th and 21st centuries, drawing out key themes that have been interpreted as being within the play. Chapter Two discusses transmission and translation of the play, following the manuscript’s journey from ancient Athens to modern day English translations. Chapter Three discusses reflections on the play, that is other plays that are not direct adaptations, but can be seen to have been influenced by it in some way. Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven focus on the theatrical reception of the play, divided geographically. Chapter three therefore focuses on Britain, chapter four North America and chapter six Africa and Australasia. Chapter five focuses solely on the most influential and high-profile adaptation, the 2004 Broadway version with music by Stephen Sondheim. These chapters draw patterns throughout the performance reception, both within individual geographical areas and across the thesis as a whole. Trends include politics, staging, music and the
pedagogical interest in performing Frogs.

The thesis will conclude with a short conclusion reiterating the general themes and trends seen throughout.

This paper aims to critically analyse the testimonies concerning Athenian impiety trials of the classical period. First, it reaffirms the arguments that some of them must have been an invention of Hellenistic and later authors. Second, it presents a likely political background behind the historical cases. Third, it discusses a number of legal issues, along with new arguments concerning the procedures employed. Finally, it examines some less well-known material from the fourth century BCE. Overall, it seeks to provide a possibly coherent and comprehensive framework of Athenian impiety trials based on their shared characteristics.

Antik Yunan komedyası kimi uyumsuzlukları, karşıtlıkları ve farklılıkları; başka bir ifadeyle bir araya gelmesi oldukça zor olan uç noktaları bir araya getirir. Antik Yunan komedyasına bu karakteristik özelliği veren Dionysos'tur. Tiyatronun, şarabın ve doğadaki doğurucu güçlerin tanrısı Dionysos; hem tanrı hem insan, insan/hayvan, erkek/kadın, genç/yaşlı, vatandaş/barbardır. Aynı anda yaşamın hazzını (yeme-içme-cinsellik) ve ölümün acısını (şiddet-vahşet-kan) deneyimlemiş bir tanrı olduğu için acıyı ve hazzı birlikte temsil eder. Dionysos dinine inananlar da sürekli olarak ölüp yeniden doğan tanrılarının acı-tatlı deneyimini ritüel ve dram yoluyla yaşantılamaya, bu şekilde O'na ulaşmaya, O olmaya çalışmaktadırlar. Antik Yunan komedya ve tragedyasının kökeni Dionysos kültü ve ritüellerine dayanır, dolayısıyla her iki uç noktada (kalıntısal da olsa) başlangıçtaki birlikteliği görmek mümkündür. Bu iki dramatik tür aynı ağaçtan doğup geliştikleri için kaçınılmaz olarak birbirlerinden izler taşırlar. Bu çalışma Dionysos kültü, ritüelleri ve bu kaynaktan doğan antik Yunan komedya/tragedyasının, bir araya gelmesi oldukça zor olan uç noktaları iç içe geçirdiği için grotesk ile açıklanabileceği iddiasını taşımaktadır. İlk kez Roma döneminden kalan duvar süslemelerini ifade etmek için kullanılan grotesk (grotta-tesca, mağara resmi) tıpkı Dionysos gibi uyumsuzlukları, farklılıkları ve karşıtlıkları bir araya getirir. Her ne kadar anakronik olsa da grotesk düşünce Dionizyak olanı anlamamızı kolaylaştırmaktadır.

Ancient Greek comedy brings together certain incompatible ends, contrasts and differences; in other words two separate ends that seems to be unable to come together. Dionysus is the source of this characteristic of Ancient Greek comedy. Dionysus is the god of theatre, wine and productive powers of nature, who is both a god and human, a human and an animal, a man and woman, young and old, a citizen and a barbarian. He is a god who has experienced the pleasures of living (eating-drinking-sex) and the pain of death (violence-massacre-blood), which makes him capable of representing both pain and pleasure. The ones who believe in the religion of Dionysus try to embody their god's experiences of dying and coming back to life through ritual and drama, in which they try to reach to him and become him. Ancient Greek comedy and tragedy has its sources in Dionysus cult and rituals, and because of that it is possible to see the unity (even if it is only reminiscences) in these two opposites. Because these two dramatic genres were brought to life from the same tree, they inevitably have traces of each other. This study proposes that Ancient Greek comedy and its source, the Dionysian cult and rituals, can be explained through grotesque since they bring two opposite ends together. The word grotesque, first used to describe the material reminiscences of Roman wall decorations (grotta-tesca, cave painting), brings together incompatible ends, contrasts and differences. Even though the term grotesque is anachronistic for the context of Ancient Greece, it makes the Dionysiac objects more graspable for us (contemporary).

Study of Kinesias, the Athenian "New Dithyrambist" often satirized by the Old Comic poets; in particular I examine the intersection of New Dithyramb and pre-Socratic philosophy, and the allegation that Kinesias "defecated on the Hekataia". Pre-print PDF, in proceedings of conference organized by A. Gostoli: Gli agoni poetico-musicali nella Grecia antica: Storia, religione, letteratura, Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Università degli Studi di Perugia Dipartimento di Lettere-Lingue, Letterature e Civiltà antiche e moderne October 27–29, 2015.

Aristophanic comedy combines the materials of popular fantasy with keen, well-targeted satire and criticism of the major political issues of the Athenian state. The Birds can be read as an open parable which illustrates caustically the imperialism of Athenian democracy. Nephelokokkygia, the fantastic city of the birds in mid-air, is in essence a projection of the radical and imperialistic Athens onto the heterotopia of the aerial realm. The comedy was performed while the Sicilian expedition was in full progress, and the Athenian dēmos expected to conquer the entire western Mediterranean. The phantasmagorical polis of the birds, which finally subdues the gods and the men and triumphantly dominates over the universe, looks like a magnificent and grotesque parody of the irrepressible ambitions of Athenian imperialism. As happens with all worthy works of fantastic literature (e.g. the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien), the mythopoeia of the literary creation is an autonomous construct of the imagination, a complete and self-existent secondary world, which does not need reference to external coordinates of meaning. However, behind this self-reliant fantastic creation, one may discern —if one wishes to, and on one’s own hermeneutical responsibility— a general connection with the historical circumstances of the author’s age and milieu.

In the Frogs, similarly, the Hades explored by Dionysus has many similarities with the city of Athens under the dire conditions at the end of the Peloponnesian War, shortly before the final defeat. The Frogs is the only known ancient comedy in which the action is mostly set in the realm of the underworld. The beleaguered Athens of 405/4 BCE, tantalized by the constant fear of defeat and destruction, had come to resemble a city of the dead; Hades seemed to have been transplanted in the agora and the streets of the city. With Aristophanes’ play, Hades also comes to occupy the orchestra of the theatre. Through this brilliant and bitter comedy, Aristophanes attempts to transmit a message of unity and patriotism to his audience: Athens, in order to survive, needs to find again the spirit of courage, self-sacrifice and concord that characterized the city at the time of the Persian Wars. Hence the choice of the warlike and patriotic Aeschylus over the subtle and intellectual Euripides: Dionysus may personally prefer the sophisticated drama of the latter, but has the duty to select a poet in accordance with the public needs and interests of the polis.

Aristophanes’ messages do not seem to have had much effect in practical terms. Athenian imperialism did not abate; the city was not saved. But his great works of dramatic art have lasted through time.

From the mythological burlesques of Epicharmus and the Athenian comic poets to the fairy-tale dramas of Crates and their political transmutation at Aristophanes' hands, the fight against a monster has frequently been exploited in comic theatre as a constituent of the plot. The battle against the monster is a fundamentally fantastic and fairy-tale theme, drawn from the rich repository of the folk narrative tradition. In comic drama it was turned into a source of hilarious action and entertainment thanks to a range of humorous techniques applied by the ancient comic dramatists with brio and skill.

The authors of mythological burlesques and parodies usually rationalized the marvellous motifs, transforming the legendary monsters into human types from everyday life or standard figures of the comic repertoire. Crates and the other writers of the Märchenkomödie retained the fantastic and magical character of the theme, the supernatural aspects of the monster, the fairy-tale structure of the struggle between the hero and the beast. They invested all these elements with the required ridiculous dimension by  mixing them with ingredients of broad farce and low-brow popular humour, such as obscenity and the humbler functions of the human body. The same method was employed by the great Aristophanes, who was a good pupil of Crates and followed his poetics in the field of fantastic plots. Aristophanes, however, moved further and also exploited the theme of the fight with the monster as a means for political satire and criticism of Athenian public life. In Aristophanes' satirical fictions the dreadful beast is a symbol of the poet's ideological enemy, the populist demagogue, who is plaguing the city like the monster of the fairy-tales. This is the opponent whom the comic poet (or the hero representing him in the intradramatic world) undertakes to fight, like the brave lad of the folk tradition.

Monsters of fairy-tale and monsters of the state, beasts of fantasy, myth, and everyday experience, all are finally vanquished by the comic protagonist, as also by the heroes of myths and folktales, so as to ensure the happy end and the victory of good over evil. This is what fiction means, as Oscar Wilde would pointedly remark. Our little life, infected by the dread and the horror of real monsters, cannot find any greater consolation.

The multiple similarities between the "Bacchae" and the "Frogs" have long intrigued scholars and inspired theories about the intertextual relationship of the two plays. In his book (based on his doctoral dissertation at Exeter University), L. Barzini views both plays as reactions to the grave socio-political crisis of civic division and constitutional tensions, which plagued Athenian public life at that time, on the eve of the defeat of Athens in the great war. As an initiate in Richard Seaford's school, Barzini lays emphasis on the interaction between mystic rituals and civic experience. His central thesis is that the "Bacchae" and the "Frogs" share a common political purpose: the poets propose that reconciliation of the opposed factions in the polis will be achieved through the ethical and social values of the Eleusinian and Dionysiac mystery rituals, which are endorsed by the citizen population. The choruses of the two plays, the Eleusinian mystai of the "Frogs" and Dionysus’ Maenads in the "Bacchae", represent on stage the thiasoi of the initiates of the mysteries, which constitute all-inclusive and egalitarian communities with shared religious and moral beliefs and, as such, provide an ideal model for the equality-centred democratic state.

Unfortunately, the book is a rather immature work and is marred by may flaws. The central thesis is overblown with multifarious materials concerning the Realien of ancient theatre and mystery cults, which might be easily found in standard handbooks. There is some repetitiveness in the exposition of the arguments. The author tries to trace mystic elements in every kind of poetic and historical discourse, even when a more straightforward interpretation is available and more suitable. The question of the ideological positions of Euripides and Aristophanes is treated in a simplified, if not naïve manner. The author displays a cavalier attitude towards the principles of historical Quellenkritik and philological/textual criticism. There are also serious factual mistakes (Aeschines is mixed up with Ctesiphon, the eponymous archon with the archon basileus, Nestor with Calchas), which are frankly surprising for an author who holds a PhD in Classics.

For more detailed and in-depth discussion of the problems of this book, see also the probing review by Dimitrios Kanellakis in the new volume of the Logeion (https://logeion.upatras.gr/node/281, https://www.academia.edu/79796879/Review_of_L_Barzini_2021_Mystery_Cults_Theatre_and_Athenian_Politics_London).

Attic comedy, in its folk beginnings, was a popular form of art which expressed the spirit of the common people of Attica and targeted the privileged elites and the mighty officials. The introduction of this form into the Great Dionysia was, parallel to the ostracism, a measure for the reinforcement of the demos in the context of the democracy. Soon, however, the Athenian upper class appropriated this form of art and upturned its ideological orientation, transforming comedy into a weapon against radical democracy. This was the agenda of full-scale and artistically elevated political comedy, as cultivated by Cratinus and his epigones (Aristophanes, Eupolis, Plato Comicus). For half a century, from the 450s to the end of the Peloponnesian War, this kind of drama served as a means of propaganda in the hands of the elite, transmitting messages against the enlarged power of the demos and the leaders who supported it. Ultimately, the brainwash of the people by the comic poets tended towards the same purpose as the other strategies of the Athenian conservatives: to facilitate the change of regime, the return to a more reserved form of constitution and the restriction of political power to the select few. The comic poets tried to influence the public opinion in this direction and persuade the people that this was the only means of salvation of Athens. In the end, the Athenian elite managed to bring about the desired constitutional change in the final years of the Peloponnesian War. However, the regime of the Thirty, though supported by some of the most talented conservatives of Athens, evolved into a nightmare of bloody persecutions, oppressive autocracy, and total corruption. Political comedy had been a means in the process of bringing about the oligarchic revolution. Therefore, after the restoration of democracy, there was no desire to revive the political variety of comic drama, which had borne a share of the responsibility for those awful adventures of the state. The Athenian audience was disillusioned with the genre, and no poet wished or dared to take it up again.

In the field of studies on the 'theatricality' of Plato’s dialogues, this article deals with Plato's 'Symposium', its references to theatre (real and metaphorical), and in particular its relationship with Aristophanes’ 'Frogs' and Euripides' 'Bacchae'.
In fact, in his dialogue Plato refers repeatedly to these classical plays, that share their Dionysiac nature with the 'Symposium' their Dionysiac nature: in the verbal competition of the philosophic symposium, the arbiter of which is called Dionysus, Socrates is seen as the comic Aeschylus of Aristophanes’ 'Frogs' (winner of the challenge with Euripides in the underworld, and crowned by Dionysus like Socrates by Alcibiades), and also as the tragic Dionysus of Euripides’ 'Bacchae' (the only tragedy with this god as a character). Thus Socrates appears the absolute king of theatre.
The message we receive from these echoes and allusions, is that the mysterious 'player who is able to write comedies as well as tragedies' (mentioned by Socrates in the final part of 'Symposium'), is precisely the philosopher: Platonic philosophy is proposed as a new form of theatre that puts together comedy and tragedy in a single search for truth.

(English below)
Resumen. El presente artículo examina las diversas referencias a fiestas dionisíacas atenienses que se encuentran diseminadas en las Ranas de Aristófanes, con el fin de establecer la función que realizan y cómo contribuyen a perfilar la personalidad de Dioniso, el protagonista de dicha obra. Las Leneas son aludidas por ser la fiesta en la que se estrenó la comedia, y las Antesterias porque abrían temporalmente el mundo de los muertos, lo que es apropiado en un viaje al Más Allá como el que se pone en escena. Se analizan también varias referencias a los Misterios de Eleusis en la párodo, ya que muchos autores han visto en Yaco una epiclesis de Dioniso. El estudio de los himnos a Yaco en la párodo y de varios paralelos de la época permite asegurar que no está identificado con Dioniso, sino que es un dios eleusinio. Se concluye que las menciones de las fiestas dionisíacas tratan de enfatizar la faceta cívica del dios y su patronazgo del teatro, una institución vital para enardecer a los atenienses en un momento de grave crisis como el final de la Guerra del Peloponeso.

Abstract. This article examines the various references to Athenian Dionysian festivals that are scattered throughout Aristophanes’ Frogs, in order to establish the function they perform and how they contribute to shaping the personality of Dionysus, the play’s protagonist. The Lenaia are alluded to as the festival on which the comedy premiered, and the Anthesteria because they temporarily opened the world of the dead, which is appropriate in a journey to the Afterlife such as the one staged. Several references to the Eleusinian Mysteries are also discussed in the parodos, as many authors have seen in Iacchus an epiclesis of Dionysus. The study of the hymns to Iacchus in the parodos and of several parallels of the period makes it possible to ascertain that he is not identified with Dionysus, but that he is an Eleusinian god. It is concluded that the mentions of the Dionysian festivals are intended to emphasize the civic aspect of the god and his patronage of the theatre, a vital institution for enlivening the Athenians at a time of serious crisis such as the end of the Peloponnesian War.

Intellectual puzzles have a tendency to intermix and accumulate in miscellaneous collections, as happens in present-day puzzle magazines. This phenomenon may already be observed in old compilations (cf. Palatine Anthology, book 14, which draws on earlier sources) and theoretical treatises of antiquity (Clearchus’ "On riddles", Athenaeus’ "Deipnosophistae" book 10). Long before such works, fictional and legendary narratives provided a framework for stringing together multifarious types of mental games. The Near-Eastern "Story of Ahiqar" and the Greek "Contest of Homer and Hesiod" use the old theme of the competition between two great sages as a plot structure to accommodate a veritable anthology of genres of riddles. The Greek legend of Homer and Hesiod may have influenced Aristophanic comedies such as the "Frogs" and the "Wasps". But while in the East the narrative form of the miscellaneous riddle contest was a fantastic outgrowth of the mixed compilations of wisdom literature, the corresponding Greek narratives were fictionalizations of the multifaceted entertainments of the symposion.

The narrative form of the miscellaneous riddle contest –that is, the earliest antecedent of the "puzzle magazine model" with its mixture of various puzzles– was invented in ancient Greece and West Asia more or less simultaneously and independently, on the basis of different local traditions. In the Near East the narrative anthology of Ahiqar’s griphoi was a fantastic offshoot of the miscellaneous collections of didactic literature; the bookish medley of wisdom genres was transplanted to the old legend of the confrontation between two masters of wisdom. The Greek stories, on the other hand, were fictionalizations of the multifaceted entertainments of the symposion. The Mesopotamian narrator pored over his learned written scrolls; the Greek one recounted, in the guise of a parable, the live delights of the convivial feast. The two cultures arrived at the same literary creation from different ways; but both of them are connected by the pure pleasure of intellectual play.

It is the same pleasure that also connects us with those remote ancestors, every time we pick up a rivista di enigmistica in order to fill in a crossword, answer a quiz, disentangle a labyrinth, or solve another one of its multifarious mental puzzles.

My presentation at the very interesting research seminar "Representations of repulsion in the ancient world", organized by my colleague Prof. Demos Spatharas at the University of Crete.

The comic poets of ancient Athens, most notably Cratinus, Crates and Aristophanes, employed a range of techniques in order to incorporate the repulsive and the disgusting into their comic fictions and utilize these emotions as elements of the comic plot and as basic instruments for the generation of laughter. Cratinus, following perhaps Epicharmus, tries to masquerade the elemental repulsion caused by the Cyclops' mythical cannibalism under the parody of gourmandism and contemporary culinary literature. Crates and Aristophanes use disgust as a powerful factor of the comic effect, when they dramatize archetypical dark themes of fairytale and horror, such as monsters and dragon-slaying. The elements of disgust, especially the disgust provoked by the filthy secretions of the human body and the by-products of digestion, are then employed in order to undermine the terror inspired by the monster and in order to turn the horrific spectacle into something despicable and laughable. Crates seems to have used this comic strategy purely for the purposes of entertainment, but Aristophanes invests it with political messages and subjugates it to the ideological polemics of his satirical oeuvre. In Aristophanic comedy the monster is almost always identified with the accursed populist demagogues, such as Cleon and his clique. The elements of disgust thus serve to dispel the fear for these formidable figures of Athenian politics and inspire repulsion and loathing for their corruption.

Given its topicality, it is tempting to suppose that one may find important insights into the politics of late 5th C. Athens in Aristophanes’ comedies. The problem, I contend, is when scholars think they can discern Aristophanes’ own political views simply by supposing that some character in the play (or the chorus leader in the parabasis) directly presents the author’s views. As tempting as such an inference sometimes is, it is one that should be made with extreme caution: For each example of what might seem to some scholars as serious political advice, one may find many other instances that cannot possibly be taken to represent Aristophanes’ real views in the lines he has written. In this discussion, I take up just one case of political speech in an Aristophanic play, Frogs, and argue (contrary to most existing scholarship) that it should not be interpreted as didacticism. Instead, I argue that Aristophanes gives samples of political advocacy from the most extreme poles of contemporary ideology, in such a way as to highlight how dangerous and foolish such policies would be.

Emesis, also known as nausea and vomiting, are common symptoms associated with ingestion of toxicants, drug side effects, advanced terminal diseases such as cancer and postoperative procedures. Emesis is mediated through the coordinated
action of central and peripheral regulatory centres that involve receptors including dopamine Type 2, serotonin, muscarinic cholinergic, histamine, cannabinoids and NK-1 receptors. Many anti-emetic drugs targeting these receptors are currently in
use but they also cause undesirable side effects such as excessive sedation, hypotension,dry mouth, dysphoria, hallucinations and extrapyramidal signs. This review highlights the pharmacological mechanism of emesis and current antiemtic drugs
together with detailed analysis of in vitro and in vivo anti-emetic bioassay models. The pharmacology of crude natural products extracts and purified anti-emeticcompounds (cannabinoids, chalcones, diarylheptanoids, flavonoids, hydroxycinnamic
acids, lignans, phenylpropanoids, polysaccharides, saponins, terpenes and glycosidic derivatives) are also systematically presented with their mechanism of action. The potential of natural products as sources of new clinically proven anti-emetic drugs are discussed.

This chapter examines the depiction of the fifth-century tragic poet Aeschylus in Aristophanes’ Frogs by paying particular attention to the play’s engagement with space, especially the space of the earth below from which the poet is welcomed back to Athens in the finale. It offers new arguments for connecting Frogs to the cult of Aeschylus’ tomb in Sicily, including the play’s engagement with the volcanic properties of the Sicilian landscape and with the knowledge that volcanic soil harbours both productive and beneficial, as well as destructive and deadly forces. It argues that understanding hero-worship in terms of fertility, prosperity, well-being, health and their opposites is particularly revealing in Aeschylus’ case, because these concepts played a key role in Aeschylean dramaturgy, especially in connection to the Aeschylean images of nature and the earth. This, in turn, leads to a new interpretation of the relationship between Aeschylus’ biography, his literary reception, and his cult.

Reassessment of schol. vet. Aristoph. Ran. 152 Chantry, containing the only reference in the body of
the extant scholia on dramatic poets to the critical signs sigma and antisigma invented by Aristophanes of
Byzantium to indicate tautologies.

William Blake's writing on Butlin 812.3 (titled "The Mission of Virgil" by William Michael Rossetti) is often erased or overwritten, and always hasty. It is apparent that the authorized variant readings ("Porch in"; "Paradise") of the last word in his inscription at the top right of this illustration to Dante's *Inferno* Canto 2 either do not fit the illustration itself, or do not fit Blake's handwriting. I contend that layer of writing once ended "Basileia"--a reading entirely conformable, as I published in May 2016, with Blake's annotations to this word in his marginalia to Thornton's 1827 translation of the Lord's Prayer, and, as I say now, exactly suiting a witty Blakean sally into Aristophanes' *Birds*, in which, for the climbing hustler ambitious for supreme spiritual power, success depends on obtaining Basileia--Jupiter's handmaid who does all the work. The figure of the woman at the spinning wheel at the top left of the picture is then "Basileia " to the aged, bearded, Jupiterian figure holding thunderbolts whose spiral, shaggy, shape is repeated in the spiral bunch of fiber at the end of the female's distaff. Touching perhaps more than one of Aristophanes' comedies in this picture, the old and dying Blake looks at Dante's poem and asks (as he did in his late illustrations to Milton's "L' Allegro" and "Il Penseroso") "Right: where's the comedy, then?"
This paper analyzes representations of various forms of Jupiter, showing that Blake was, among other issues, concerned with how the deities belonging to conquered nations were assimilated into forms of Jupiter by Imperial Rome.
Blake's picture represents Jehovah as one such victim: the forgiving, benevolent god who gives his rain to the Good and the Evil is iconographically turned into an avenging form of Jupiter who menaces the condemned with thunderbolts.
I also demonstrate that the wash-drawing now referred to as "A Destroying Deity"  is likely a representation of "Death" (not "Sin") and that it is probably intended to participatein a same-sized pair with "The Grave Personified," that together matches Blair's allusion, in lines 710-12 of *The Grave*, to *1 Corinthians* 15:55-57; Blair's allusion to these verses on the sting of Death and the victory of the Grave were noted by an 18th-century editor of the poem. Blake's Destroying Deity takes its appearance from Blair's lines 123-24 "Where are the mighty Thunderbolts of War?/The Roman Caesars and the Grecian Chiefs." Blake made this figure an imaginative conception of Jupiter Scotitas, Jupiter of the Dark, or of the Dark Woods. There is no iconography for this figure, but Blake seated it in a dark woods, and placed in each hand thunderbolts whose tips are reminiscent of acorns.
Based on the changes made to this Jupiterian figure in a pencil-sketch, I also prove that the pencil-sketch called a "study for 'A Destroying Deity'" is actually a study for Butlin 812.3, "The Mission of Virgil" and not for "A Destroying Deity." The figure in the pencil sketch, like the figure atop "The Mission of Virgil" has no wings, is set in clouds (not woods), has a supplicant figure before it, and its thunderbolts trail threads.
I also consider  the companion picture of "The Grave Personified" and its classical allusions to the cultus of certain goddess-and-god pairs. But Blake incorporated a Christian understanding of these classical deities when he aligned this pair of pictures with Blair's allusion to the celebration, in *1 Corinthians*, of Christ's victory over Death and the Grave.
Following Blake's artistic engagements with Jupiter throughout his career, I make numerous original identifications of deities and themes in Blake's illustrations (especially the Thomas set) for Milton's Nativity Ode. See Appendix III for my catalogue of figures in Butlin 538.3.
E.g., I identify Belus, Thamuz (in both his winter and his summer mode), Peor/Chemosh, Ashtaroth, and of course Dagon in this picture. I contribute especially identifications of devil-deities introduced from Paradise Lost--Belial, Derceto (from Callander's edition of Book 1) and Blake's illustration of the "architect" of Pandemonium as the Enochian metallurgical angel Azael (from Callander's note to PL 1:732). I differentiate Plutus and Mammon.
I show that Blake used John Callander's 1750 edition of Paradise Lost for his portrayal of the "architect" as Azael and his introduction of Derceto.
I establish that in Butlin 538.3 we have the first (1809)  solidly textually-grounded (Callander's note) of Blake illustrating the Apocryphal *1 Enoch*.
I identify the figure of Mammon in Blake's two paintings (Butlin 661 and 662) of "Satan Calling up His Legions."
I read a deep historical and textual background behind Blake's pictorial engagements with Jupiter, especially with regard to the religious polemics pertinent to the so-called "Antonine Column" and the "rain-miracle" in Marcus Aurelius' battle with the "Quadi."
I demonstrate Flaxman's use of Winckelmann in the *Iliad* illustrations.
Blake's mixing of Christian and classical material for history-painting extends, I show, to an engagement of traditions of representation of penitent hermits and of martyrs, which he uses as his vocabulary even when illustrating an explicitly pagan subject.

The main purpose of this paper is to shed light on the literary function of the recurring reference to flowery meadows in the parodos of Aristophanes’ Frogs sung by the chorus of blessed souls of the initiated into the mysteries of comedy. Through a close examination of the metaliterary aspects of the poetic rite represented in the parodos-song, this study attempts to show that the meadow the initiated refer to as a setting for their dancing and singing not only alludes to the happier part of Hades destined for the initiated into comic poetry, metatheatrically the orchestra where the chorus perform, but also serves as a symbolic space alluding to the poetic locus amoenus where literary tradition, from Hesiod onwards, places the encounter of the poets with the Muses.

De los cinco testimonios del campo léxico de la demagogía del siglo V a.C., tres pertenecen al corpus aristofánico (Eq. 191, 217; Ra. 419). Desde 1972 la crítica, desde una perspectiva histórico-sociológica, considera que demagogía y demagogós eran originalmente “neutros” (Connor, 1992; Lane, 2012). Si consideramos que las palabras se caracterizan por una polisemia constitutiva (Authier-Revuz, 1995) y que estas adquieren sentido en la formación discursiva desde la que son producidas (Pêcheux, 1988), el objetivo del presente trabajo será analizar el cotexto de dichos testimonios a la luz de las teorías del Análisis del Discurso y de los Estudios Retóricos.

Three of the five testimonies of the demagogía’s semantic field in Fifth-Century Athens’ texts belong to the aristophanic corpus (Eq.191, 217; Ra.419). Since 1972 scholars agree, from a historical and sociological perspective, that demagogía and demagogós were originally “neutral” (Connor, 1992; Lane, 2012). Considering that words are characterized by a constitutive polysemy (Authier-Revuz, 1995), and that they take their meaning from those discursive formations in which they are produced (Pêcheux,1988), the aim of this article will be the analysis of the aristophanic testimonies’ cotext in the light of the theories of Discourse Studies and Rhetorical Studies.

The paper focuses on the contexts and meanings of the terms ἄτοπος and ἀτοπία in 5th century Attic theatre (Euripides' Ion and Iphigenia in Tauris; Aristophanes' Acharnians, Birds, Frogs and Ecclesiazusae) and aims at an appreciation of the category of ἀτοπία, which is usually rhetorical and scientific, in dramatic texts. It is not, in fact, a simple notion of strangeness and/or stupidity or wickedness, but a complex concept of extraneousness to one's own time and space, to the universal order or one's own feelings: in this sense ἀτοπία becomes a technical term of deviance from the ordinary.

Il lavoro si concentra sui contesti e i significati dei termini ἄτοπος e ἀτοπία nel teatro attico del V secolo (Ione e Ifigenia in Tauride di Euripide; Acarnesi, Uccelli, Rane ed Ecclesiazuse di Aristofane) e mira a una valorizzazione della categoria usualmente retorica e scientifica di ἀτοπία in testi drammatici. Non si tratta, infatti, di una semplice nozione di stranezza e/o di stupidità o malvagità, ma di un concetto complesso di estraneità al proprio tempo e spazio, all'ordine universale o dei propri stessi sentimenti: in questo senso l'ἀτοπία diventa termine tecnico della devianza dall'ordinario.

La finalidad de nuestra investigación consiste principalmente en presentar y analizar aquellos pasajes de la comedia aristofánica relacionados con el tópico de las apariciones fantasmales. Comenzaremos ofreciendo una visión general de este motivo, tan recurrente entre los autores clásicos, para, a continuación, detenernos exclusivamente en el tratamiento que hizo el comediógrafo ateniense. Creemos que una detenida observación de las similitudes e innovaciones de estas cuestiones, nos llevará, en primer lugar, a delimitar una visión concreta del tópico dentro del género cómico y, en segundo lugar, a insertar una pieza clave en el puzle de la concepción de los fantasmas a lo largo de la literatura grecolatina.

Abstract: In Aristoph. Ran. 862 τἄπη, τὰ μέλη, τὰ νεῦρα τῆς τραγῳδίας, the term μέλη has a double sense (“tunes”/“limbs”) exploited also at other times both by Aristophanes and by other poets; the term νεῦρα (“sinews”), always interpreted as a metaphor, on the contrary refers to the sinews of the phallus as an erect penis (νεῦρα is technical term of ancient comedy, in this sense), and constitutes an aprosdoketon.

A rather popularized synopsis of my main views on Aristophanic comedy, which I have also expounded in other studies. Focusing mostly on the Birds and the Frogs, I try to highlight the combination of fantastic material and political engagement, which lies at the core of Aristophanes' comic poetics. The peculiar nature of Aristophanes' work  is hardly understandable in the East, while it is received only in a restrictive and very limited way by most Westerners. In this respect, Aristophanes may also serve as a parable for the fate of Greece and Greek culture in general.

Attic comedy may have begun as a simple satirical tool in the service of the common people, for the critique of the mighty elite. In its folk beginnings, it was a popular form of art, which expressed the spirit of the mass of the inhabitants of Attica and targeted the privileged elites and the mighty officials. The introduction of this form into the Great Dionysia, the most prestigious festival of the Athenian state, was, parallel to the ostracism, a measure for the reinforcement of the demos, a means to augment the role and strength of the common people in the context of the democracy. Authorized as a sanctioned part of the Dionysia, comedy would now function as an official expression of the voice of the demos. Bringing this popular art form into the Dionysia was an important step towards a stronger democracy and a more radical constitution of the Athenian state.

Soon, however, the Athenian upper class appropriated this form of art and upturned its ideological orientation, transforming comedy into a weapon against radical democracy, against the enlarged power of the demos and the leaders who supported it. This was the agenda of full-scale and artistically elevated political comedy, as cultivated by Cratinus and his epigones (Aristophanes, Eupolis, Plato Comicus). For half a century, from the 450s to the end of the Peloponnesian War, this variety of political comedy served as a means of propaganda at the hands of the elite, transmitting messages against the contemporary democratic state and undermining the reputation of the demagogues. A number of characteristic examples, from Cratinus' Dionysalexandros to Eupolis' Marikas and Kolakes, and Aristophanes' Babylonians, Knights, and Frogs are analyzed.

Ultimately, the brainwash of the people by the comic poets tended towards the same purpose as the other strategies of the Athenian conservatives: namely, to facilitate the change of regime, the return to a more reserved form of constitution and the restriction of political power to the select few. The comic poets tried to influence the public opinion in this direction and persuade the people that this was the only means of salvation of Athens. In the end, the Athenian elite managed to bring about the desired constitutional change in the final years of the Peloponnesian War. The regime of the Thirty, backed by the victorious Sparta after the defeat of Athens, seemed at first to bring the full realization of the upper-class dream: a reserved, traditionalist polity, supported by some of the most illustrious and talented conservatives of Athens, such as the philosopher and poet Critias and the skilful politician Theramenes. Yet, the dream soon evolved into a nightmare of bloody persecutions, oppressive autocracy, and total corruption. The elite of Athens, with some of its greatest luminaries, had at last the long-awaited chance to reform the polis and restore it to its pristine aristocratic merit. And, as often in their history, the Athenians screwed up.

Political comedy had been a means in the process of bringing about this oligarchic revolution. With its long-lasting and constant propaganda against radical democracy, for entire decades, it undermined the confidence of the people in the Periclean and post-Periclean polity and paved the way for the elitist reform. When the dream of the elite degenerated into a murderous tyranny, political comedy would have been considered perhaps as one of the factors that led to that terrible state of affairs. Therefore, after the fall of the Thirty and the restoration of democracy, there was no desire to revive the political variety of comic drama, which had borne a share of the responsibility for those awful adventures of the state. Because its ideological programme had ultimately contributed to a national catastrophe, political comedy lost its appeal, and its reputation was permanently harmed. The Athenian audience was disillusioned with the genre, and no poet wished or dared to take it up again.

This is my presentation in this year's celebrated seminar, which is held annually by Giuseppe Zanetto and his colleagues at the universities of Lombardy, for the benefit of teachers of the classics. This year, at Chania, on the eve of the funeral of one of the most celebrated figures of Neohellenic political life, we explored the ancient roots of modern political ideologies in Graeco-Roman antiquity.

Aristophanes’ oeuvre is inextricably tied to the life and the fate of his native city Athens. The history, the political issues, and the people of Athens have always provided the central themes of his comic fictions. Aristophanes opposes the Peloponnesian War from the beginning, partly because of his upper-class origins. At first glance, he adopts the viewpoint of the ordinary farmers and smallholders of Attica, who were severely afflicted by the war; his celebration of peace is closely connected with the pleasures of the countryside. In reality, Aristophanes himself probably belonged to an aristocratic family of rich landowners and shared the deep conservatism and the antipathy towards radical demagogy that were typical of his class. His description of rural life concentrates exclusively on the joyful and hedonistic aspects and omits the hard labours of agricultural work — the characteristic attitude of a man who enjoyed the countryside as a place of holiday. Aristophanes is an enemy of extreme democracy and advocates a more moderate constitution, which should be ruled by well-educated aristocrats. He defends the conservative and oligarchic leaders of his time and mercilessly attacks the radical populist demagogues, such as Cleon and his collaborators. In the final years of the Peloponnesian War, he similarly criticizes the disastrous Cleophon, who misled the people of Athens to fatally wrong decisions, resulting in the total defeat and humiliation of Athens. Even the imaginary and utopian worlds, which Aristophanes constructs in his fantastic comedies, such as the aerial city of Nephelokokkygia in the Birds and the world of Hades in the Frogs, are created by analogy to the city and culture of Athens, as inverted or distorted mirror images of the Athenian polis. The Nephelokokkygia, an autonomous creation of fantasy, also serves as a kind of open and holistic parable of the unquenchable imperialistic ambition of Athens at the time of the Sicilian expedition. The underworld of the Frogs replicates the pessimistic atmosphere of the besieged Athens, a city on the verge of disaster in which death prevails. Only the rituals of the Eleusinian Mysteries provide a source of joy and a hope of salvation in this brilliant and profoundly bitter play.