The Oresteia was first produced in 458 B.C.  Medea was first produced 27 years later.  Lysistrata was first produced 20 more years after that.  Is there a progression in this series of Athenian plays, each produced about a generation after the other?  What do these plays have in common?  What themes do they share?  What common issues do they explore?  How are they related to one another?  Can we come to any conclusions about the development of ancient Greek culture in the 47 years between 458 B.C. and 411 B.C.?

One could argue that the conflict between the men and women in Lysistrata is just another version of the conflict between Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra in the Agamemnon or between Jason and Medea in Medea.  Does it seem to be the same conflict to you?  If so, does Aristophanes come to the same conclusions and resolution as Aeschylus? as Euripides? as neither of his predecessors?  If the conflict doesn't seem the same to you, what about the conflict is different?

Lysistrata is a very funny, shocking, sexually explicit comedy.  But under its humorous surface, there lurks some pretty serious and important issues.

The Greeks had been fighting the Persians for generations.  At the battle of Marathon (in which Aeschylus and Socrates fought as young men), the Greeks finally defeated the Persians so soundly (in a heroic battle in which the Greeks were grossly outnumbered and still won) that the Persians never tried to conquer Greece again (and, in fact, they were themselves later conquered by the Greeks and Macedonians under Alexander the Great).

But once the foreign enemy (the Persians) had been defeated, the Greeks began to fall out amongst themselves.  Athens and Sparta, the two most important and powerful Greek cities, began to compete with one another for colonies and allies.  Eventually (in 431 B.C.), they went to war with one another in what has come to be called the Peloponnesian War, a war that devastated Greece to the point that she never really recovered (being subsequently conquered first by the Macedonians of Alexander the Great and then by the Romans).

Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes are writing during the throes of this terrible war between Athens and Sparta.  They're also writing at a time when people like Epicurus, Socrates, and Plato are going around questioning all the foundations of Greek culture and society (the existence of the gods, the authority of Athenian law, etc.).  In many respects, the Peloponnesian War was ancient Greece's equivalent of the Vietnam War for us.

So, when Aristophanes writes Lysistrata, a play about a bunch of women who hatch a plot to end the Peloponnesian War, he's engaging a great many touchy social and political issues of his day.

So, where does Aristophanes seem to stand on the issues that we've been exploring in relation to the Oresteia and Medea?  In order to answer that question, I recommend that we focus on Lysistrata herself.  Why is she doing what she's doing?  Are her motives admirable or ludicrous?  What about her methods?  What methods does she use to accomplish her goals?  Are those methods particularly feminine?  Are they admirable or ludicrous?  How do they compare to the methods of Clytaemnestra and Medea?  What does Lysistrata believe in?  What does she value?  Why do her values come into conflict with the men's values?  Why is she opposed to the war (and why are the men for it)?  Does Aristophanes mean for us to side with Lysistrata or to ridicule her (or a little of both)?  What is Aristophanes trying to tell us about the social and political issues raging in his day?  Why should we care about issues surrounding a war that has been over for more than 2,000 years?