THE BURLESQUE COMEDIES OF ARISTOPHANES

ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY

Unlike our indirect, representative democracies, the Athenians possessed a direct, participatory Democracy. The government was not in the hands of representatives or delegates, but was managed by the People themselves. The People (Demos) sat in the Assembly (Ecclesia) on the Pnyx hill and legislated. The Demos executed decisions, and the Demos were judge-and-jury.

The beloved polis (city-state) of Athens therefore had a government of the People, by the People, for the People. The Athenians owned a genuine Democracy. [Demokratia: Demos = People; kratos = rule].

GOD

To begin with, Greek religion was very tolerant. The Greeks fought an awful lot of battles and wars, but not over religion. Diversity of opinion (short of sacrilege) only mirrored the diversity of gods and goddesses, their ideas and actions.

Also, the Greeks were comfortable with their gods, familiar with them, rather like companions, friends, or now-and-then, accomplices.

SLAVERY

"Slaves might buy their way out; the difficulty was how to come up with the money." – from the "Slavery" essay.

SEX and OBSCENITY

Athenian Tolerance

What about the Athenian society which gave rise to an Aristophanes? (There were many others, like Eupolis, but their plays have not survived.) It was a good deal more democratic, independent-minded, and tolerant of sexual preferences than our own. People who think we are too open and free today in sexual matters would have been habitually traumatized in ancient Athens, and maybe almost anywhere in the Greek world at that time. Modern Western anxiety, guilt-feelings, prudery, fear, closet-behavior, flaunting flagrancy, compulsive promiscuity – of both sexes – sniggering, embarrassment, shame, egotism, preoccupation and commercial exploitation, scandal, dishonesty -- the entire pattern of modern Western sexuality would have been laughed at as impossibly neurotic by the ancient Greeks. continue