Aristophanes and Thucydides both wrote during the Peloponnesian War. the former wrote amusing dramas and the latter wrote a more serious history of what was go oning. Although they were writers of two really different signifiers of literature they had the common tie of being critical of democracy and blamed it’s ruins for the Athenian loss of the war. They looked at the same facts about the same events threw different lenses. Aristophanes was much more emotional in his unfavorable judgment of the war and its causes since his household had been forced from their farm which was near Athens into the metropolis itself.
Thucydides. on the other manus. gave a more sophisticated history of the war. he was careful to non overstate. With these two writers we have history and comedy coming together to do the same analysis of the Peloponnesian war. the analysis of class being that Athenian democrats and their failures caused the war and resulted in the licking of Athens. Aristophanes. who grew up on a affluent farm near Athens. was forced to travel into the metropolis at the eruption of the war against Sparta. There he spoke out for those who had lost their land.
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He believed these were the people who had given up the most for the war. his obvious esteem for the countryside makes its manner into his darling plants. His dramas were highly popular and won him awards at the festival of Dionysus more than one time. though one drama besides lead to him being tried for lese majesty as him unashamedly insulted Cleon. a protagonist of the war and a politician Aristophanes detested. As his clip progressed. Aristophanes’ disenchantment with the war progresses with it. He becomes of all time more tired of war and the politicians who support it.
He viciously bashes the opinion category for doing the coevals long war. portraying them. in his drama ‘Knights’ as pull stringsing pranksters who have small usage of instruction. When speaking to the Sausageman about the properties utile to a swayer. Demosthenes. a slave of Demos. describes the Sausageman’s job of merely being able to read and compose a ‘little bit’ as an issue of being excessively educated. “Your merely handicap- the ‘little bit’ ! No educated adult male can be boss. These yearss. nor yet a adult male a character… . Merely an know nothing and a knave! ” ( Knights. p. 0 ) Clearly Aristophanes did non believe the swayers of the metropolis had any value for instruction.
In Pomeroy’s text Cleon himself is found to be back uping this thought when his says “ordinary people… ‘run their metropoliss far better than intelligent ones…’ ( Pomeroy. p. 324 ) The political bashing continues when the Sausageman brags to Paphlagon how he was able to gull ‘the scullions in the kitchen’ when he was still in the cradle by stealing meat and successfully concealing it from them by puting it between his legs. A politician. who had watched the event take topographic point. declared “This male child will certainly some twenty-four hours lead the Democratic Partially! since of course taking from the people what is truly theirs was what political relations was all about.
The author was acrimonious about losing his family’s farm. and rightly blamed the opinion category. Aristophanes thought that the mistreatment of the common people and the ignorance the opinion category seemed to look up to were the cardinal jobs with the democracy in Athens. Thucydides had a similar unfavorable judgment of his authorities. though he was more tactful in the manner he presented it. His histories were non exaggerated to do a point or acquire a laugh. which was a tactic employed by Aristophanes.
Rather Thucydides wrote a serious history of what he genuinely believed happened. There were no mentions to the Gods. who were at times characters in the dramas. At the same clip he made no attempt to stamp down his sentiments toward the regulating category in Athens and the errors he believed they made. The overarching job with the Athenian democracy. he thought. was that the people in control were nescient in their ceaseless thrust fueled by greed and aspiration. those were non the persons he wanted in control of the population.
Greed and corruptness were the complaints of the regulating category. in his chapter on the Sedition of Corcyra he explains “the cause of all these immoralities was the lecherousness for power originating from greed and aspiration ; and from these passions proceeded the force of parties one time engaged in contention. ” ( Finley. p. 297 ) . The ‘greed and ambition’ he attributed to the Democratic Party are to be blamed non merely for a hapless signifier of authorities but besides for the Athenian loss of the war.
On the same page he continues that “in their Acts of the Apostless of retribution they went to even greater lengths. non halting at what justness or the good of the province demanded. but doing the party impulse of the minute their lone criterion. and raising with equal preparedness the disapprobation of an unfair finding of fact or the authorization of the strong arm to gorge the animuss of the hr. ” ( Finley. p. 297 ) . By ever wanting the really best for themselves the selfish swayers over stepped the boundaries of justness and allow retribution command their determinations that affected the whole of Athenian Empire. Aristophanes’ thought about the loss of the war is a small different.
From his earliest lasting drama “Acharnians” it is clear his thinks the war is unpointed from the start since a peace with Sparta could easy be reached. It was so easy in fact a lone husbandman could do an understanding with the Lacedaemonian authorities. In this drama the lead. Dicaeopolis. who is an Athenian husbandman. is tired of the catastrophic war so he decides to do his ain peace understanding with Sparta. An effort by Dicaeopolis to warrant his actions to Lamachus is highlighted by the chorus of the drama. who at one point to state that people would come from far and broad to see person who had spoken something uncorrupt in Athens.
Consumed by desire to lay eyes on and look up to the poet so unafraid and witty. Who dared in the presence of Athens to talk the thing that is rightful and true. ” ( Acharnians. p. 33 ) For people to come from outside the metropolis merely to see person speak something other than prevarications is certainly one of the hyperboles we spoke of in category. but Aristophanes thought it was near adequate to the truth for his audience to believe it would be amusing. He believed the war to be undue and instigated by the greed of the power hungry leaders of the province.
Both of these writers view democracy through a really critical lens. Both blamed the ruins of this system of authorities for the Athenian licking in the Peloponnesian war. Since they were composing for two different sorts of audiences. Aristophanes for the populace of his clip and Thucydides for future coevalss. the manner and content are strikingly different. However. their overall analysis of the events was the similar. it was corruptness and greed of the swayers that led to the agony of the public.
