Who is Lysistrata?
In 413 B.C., Aristophanes, the most inventive comic dramatist of ancient Greece, mounted his latest in a series of plays exposing the folly of war. Its fiery heroine Lysistrata (meaning “releaser of war”) called together not only the women of Athens but of Sparta, with which Athens had long been at war. What she proposed left the women initially aghast – that they should refuse to have sex with their husbands and lovers until the men made peace. In the play, the women are victorious. In reality, the Athenian city-state continued its warmongering until the unthinkable occurred. The year 404 B.C. saw the once-mighty Athens – weakened from long-running war and internal strife – defeated by the comparatively disadvantaged but zealous Spartan rebels. | Back to the Portsmouth Herald | Email this Article | Seacoast Online is owned and operated by Seacoast Newspapers. Copyright 2003 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved. Please read our Copyright Notice and Terms of Use. Seacoast Newspapers is
