THE ACHARNIANS
by Aristophanes


[Translator uncredited. Footnotes have been retained because they
provide the meanings of Greek names, terms and ceremonies and explain
puns and references otherwise lost in translation. Occasional Greek words
in the footnotes have not been included. Footnote numbers, in brackets,
start anew at [1] for each piece of dialogue, and each footnote follows
immediately the dialogue to which it refers, labeled thus: f[1].




INTRODUCTION



This is the first of the series of three Comedies--'The Acharnians,' 'Peace'
and 'Lysistrata'--produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and
twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian
people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by
their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent ruin of
industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency of asking Peace. In
date it is the earliest play brought out by the author in his own name and
his first work of serious importance. It was acted at the Lenaean Festival,
in January, 426 B.C., and gained the first prize, Cratinus being second.

Its diatribes against the War and fierce criticism of the general policy of
the War party so enraged Cleon that, as already mentioned, he