Loeb Classical Library Series

Book 178

The master of Old Comedy.

Aristophanes of Athens, one of the world’s greatest comic dramatists, has been admired since antiquity for his iridescent wit and beguiling fantasy, exuberant language, and brilliant satire of the social, intellectual, and political life of Athens at its height. The Loeb Classical Library edition of his plays is in four volumes.

The Introduction to the edition is in Volume I. Also in the first volume is Acharnians, in which a small landowner, tired of the Peloponnesian War, magically arranges a personal peace treaty; and Knights, perhaps the most biting satire of a political figure (Cleon) ever written.

Three plays are in Volume II. Socrates’ “Thinkery” is at the center of Clouds, which spoofs untraditional techniques for educating young men. Wasps satirizes Athenian enthusiasm for jury service. In Peace, a rollicking attack on war-makers, the hero travels to heaven on a dung beetle to discuss the issues with Zeus.

The enterprising protagonists of Birds create a utopian counter-Athens ruled by birds. Also in Volume III is Lysistrata, in which our first comic heroine organizes a conjugal strike of young wives until their husbands end the war between Athens and Sparta. Women again take center stage in Women at the Thesmophoria, this time to punish Euripides for portraying them as wicked.

Frogs, in Volume IV, features a contest between the traditional Aeschylus and the modern Euripides, yielding both sparkling comedy and insight on ancient literary taste. In Assemblywomen Athenian women plot to save Athens from male misgovernance—with raucously comical results. Here too is Wealth, whose gentle humor and straightforward morality made it the most popular of Aristophanes’ plays from classical times to the Renaissance.

Book 179

The Birds

by Aristophanes

Published December 1950

This comprehensive edition of "Birds" aims to enable the reader, including the less-advanced student of Greek, to understand, interpret and enjoy the play. It is a play generally recognized as one of Aristophanes's masterpieces - both for its imaginative plot and for the charm and originality of its lyrics. The commentary gives help with the translation to cater for the less-advanced student of Greek, and also with interpretation and the lyric metres, as well as fully discussing the staging. It uses the resources of modern ornithology to elucidate Aristophanes's reference to birds. The introduction discusses the nature of the play: its historical and mythological background; the history of the text, including the contributions of ancient scholars recorded in the scholia, which are exceptionally important in this play; and also more recent scholarship.

Book 488

Clouds. Wasps. Peace

by Aristophanes

Published 15 December 1998

v. 180

The Frogs

by Aristophanes

Published December 1908

Among extant Greek comedies, the "Frogs" is unique for the light it throws on Classical Greek attitudes to tragedy and to literature in general. It merits a much more extensive commentary than it has so far received, and the establishment of the text itself has rested for over a century on collations which were inadequate and inaccurate. At the same time, its most problematic passages have been the subject, in recent years, of more scholarly articles than those of any other Greek play. In this introduction, edition, and commentary, Sir Kenneth Dover presents the relevant data, arguments, and considerations as fully as can reasonably be done in one volume. The book should be of interest to scholars and students of Classical (Greek) literature.