Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions – serie

This is the first volume dedicated to Aristophanes' comedy Peace that analyses the play for a student audience and assumes no knowledge of Greek. It launches a much-needed new series of books each discussing a comedy that survives from the ancient world. Six chapters highlight the play’s context, themes, staging and legacy including its response to contemporary wartime politics and the possible staging options for flying. It is ideal for students, but helpful also for scholars wanting a quick introduction to the play.Peace was first performed in 421 BC, perhaps only days before the signing of a peace treaty that ended ten years of fighting between Athens and Sparta (the Archidamian War). Aristophanes celebrates this prospect with an imaginative fantasy involving his hero's flight on a gigantic dung-beetle to Olympus, the rescue of the goddess Peace from her imprisonment in a cave, and her return to a Greece weary of ten years of war. Like most of the poet's comedies, this play is heavy on fantasy and imagination, light on formal structure, being an exuberant farce that champions the opponents of War and celebrates the delights of the return to country life with its smells, food and drink, its many pleasures and none of the complications that war brings in its wake.

This is the first volume dedicated to Aristophanes' comedy Peace that analyses the play for a student audience and assumes no knowledge of Greek. It launches a much-needed new series of books each discussing a comedy that survives from the ancient world. Six chapters highlight the play’s context, themes, staging and legacy including its response to contemporary wartime politics and the possible staging options for flying. It is ideal for students, but helpful also for scholars wanting a quick introduction to the play.Peace was first performed in 421 BC, perhaps only days before the signing of a peace treaty that ended ten years of fighting between Athens and Sparta (the Archidamian War). Aristophanes celebrates this prospect with an imaginative fantasy involving his hero's flight on a gigantic dung-beetle to Olympus, the rescue of the goddess Peace from her imprisonment in a cave, and her return to a Greece weary of ten years of war. Like most of the poet's comedies, this play is heavy on fantasy and imagination, light on formal structure, being an exuberant farce that champions the opponents of War and celebrates the delights of the return to country life with its smells, food and drink, its many pleasures and none of the complications that war brings in its wake.

This is the first volume dedicated to Plautus' perennially popular comedy Casina that analyses the play for a student audience and assumes no knowledge of Latin. It launches a much-needed new series of books, each discussing a comedy that survives from the ancient world. Four chapters highlight the play’s historical context, themes, performance and reception, including its reflection of recent societal trends in marriage and property ownership by women after the Punic Wars, and its complex dynamics on stage. It is ideal for students, but helpful also for scholars wanting a brief introduction to the play.Casina pits a husband (Lysidamus) and wife (Cleostrata) against each other in a struggle for control of a 16-year-old slave named Casina. Cleostrata cleverly plots to frustrate the efforts of her lascivious elderly husband, staging a cross-dressing ‘marriage’ that culminates in his complete humiliation. The play provides rich insights into relationships within the Roman family. This volume analyses how Casina addresses such issues as women’s status and property rights, the distribution of power within a Roman household, and sexual violence, all within a compellingly meta-comic framework from which Cleostrata emerges as a surprising comic hero. It also examines the play’s enduring popularity and relevance.

This is the first volume dedicated to Plautus' perennially popular comedy Casina that analyses the play for a student audience and assumes no knowledge of Latin. It launches a much-needed new series of books, each discussing a comedy that survives from the ancient world. Four chapters highlight the play’s historical context, themes, performance and reception, including its reflection of recent societal trends in marriage and property ownership by women after the Punic Wars, and its complex dynamics on stage. It is ideal for students, but helpful also for scholars wanting a brief introduction to the play.Casina pits a husband (Lysidamus) and wife (Cleostrata) against each other in a struggle for control of a 16-year-old slave named Casina. Cleostrata cleverly plots to frustrate the efforts of her lascivious elderly husband, staging a cross-dressing ‘marriage’ that culminates in his complete humiliation. The play provides rich insights into relationships within the Roman family. This volume analyses how Casina addresses such issues as women’s status and property rights, the distribution of power within a Roman household, and sexual violence, all within a compellingly meta-comic framework from which Cleostrata emerges as a surprising comic hero. It also examines the play’s enduring popularity and relevance.

Launching a much-needed new series discussing each comedy that survives from the ancient world, this volume is a vital companion to Terence's earliest comedy, Andria, highlighting its context, themes, staging and legacy. Ideal for students it assumes no knowledge of Latin, but is helpful also for scholars wanting a quick introduction. This will be the first port of call for anyone studying or researching the play.Though Andria launched Terence’s career as a dramatist at Rome, it has attracted comparatively little attention from modern critics. It is nevertheless a play of great interest, not least for the sensitivity with which it portrays family relationships and for its influence on later dramatists. It also presents students of Roman comedy with all the features that came to characterize Terence’s particular version of traditional comedy, and it raises all the interpretive questions that have dogged the study of Terence for generations. This volume will use a close reading of the play to explore the central issues in understanding Terence’s style of play-making and its legacy.

Launching a much-needed new series discussing each comedy that survives from the ancient world, this volume is a vital companion to Terence's earliest comedy, Andria, highlighting its context, themes, staging and legacy. Ideal for students it assumes no knowledge of Latin, but is helpful also for scholars wanting a quick introduction. This will be the first port of call for anyone studying or researching the play.Though Andria launched Terence’s career as a dramatist at Rome, it has attracted comparatively little attention from modern critics. It is nevertheless a play of great interest, not least for the sensitivity with which it portrays family relationships and for its influence on later dramatists. It also presents students of Roman comedy with all the features that came to characterize Terence’s particular version of traditional comedy, and it raises all the interpretive questions that have dogged the study of Terence for generations. This volume will use a close reading of the play to explore the central issues in understanding Terence’s style of play-making and its legacy.

This book introduces readers who may have no previous knowledge of Menander's comedies to Epitrepontes (The Arbitration), arguably the most exquisitely crafted of his better-preserved plays. It explains what we know about the play, how we know it, and how far we can tentatively fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Sommerstein analyses the nature of the dramatic genre (Athenian New Comedy) to which Epitrepontes belongs. He assesses the plot and the characters, every one of whom makes an essential contribution to the uplifting outcome, and the social and ethical assumptions that dramatist and audience shared. As well as looking at the influences of earlier drama and of contemporary philosophical and popular thought, he considers the afterlife of Menandrian comedy in general and of Epitrepontes in particular, both in antiquity and in modern times, but also in the long period in between, when Menander was the great dramatist whose plays were thought to have been irrevocably lost.

Offering for the first time a student introduction to Aristophanes’ most explosive political satire, this volume is an essential guide to the context, themes and later reception of Cavalry. The ancient comedy is a fascinating insight into demagoguery and political rhetoric in classical Athens. These are subjects that resonate with a modern audience more now than ever before.Originally performed in 424 BCE, Cavalry was the first play Aristophanes directed himself and it was awarded first prize. It targets the Athenian demagogue, Cleon, who had risen to prominence since the death of Pericles and to pre-eminence after an audacious victory over Sparta in 425 BCE. In Cavalry, Aristophanes attacks Cleon’s popularity with the masses, but also criticises the democracy itself as guilty of gullibility, self-interest and political shortsightedness. As the play shows, the only hope of escape from the crisis is for Athens to find a leader even more popular Cleon. And who better to be more foul-mouthed, depraved and shameless than a sausage-seller, if only because he turns out in the end to have a good heart and a true love of traditional Athenian values?

Offering for the first time a student introduction to Aristophanes’ most explosive political satire, this volume is an essential guide to the context, themes and later reception of Cavalry. The ancient comedy is a fascinating insight into power relations between slaves and slaveholders and the upper and lower classes in classical Athens, and its political and social themes resonate with a modern audience more now than ever before.Originally performed in 424 BCE, Cavalry targets the Athenian demagogue Cleon, who had risen to prominence since the death of Pericles and to pre-eminence after an audacious victory over Sparta in 425. In Cavalry, Aristophanes attacks Cleon’s popularity with the urban underclass, but also targets democracy itself as guilty of gullibility, self-interest, and political short-sightedness. As the play shows, the only hope of escape from this crisis is for Athens to find a leader even more foul-mouthed, depraved, and shameless than Cleon himself. And who better than a sausage-seller, if only because he turns out in the end to have a good heart and a true love of traditional Athenian values?

This is the first book-length study of Plautus' shortest surviving comedy, Curculio, a play in which the tricksy brown-nosed title character (“The Weevil”) bamboozles a shady banker and a pious pimp to secure the freedom of the enslaved girl his patron has fallen for while keeping her out of the clutches of a megalomaniacal soldier. It all takes place in the Greek city Epidaurus, the most important site for the worship of the healing god Aesculapius, an unusual setting for an ancient comedy. But a mid-play monologue by the stage manager shows us where the action really is: in the real-life Roman Forum, in the lives and low-lifes of the audience.This study explores the world of Curculio and the world of Plautus, with special attention to how the play was originally performed (including the first-ever comprehensive musical analysis of the play), the play’s plots and themes, and its connections to ancient Roman cultural practices of love, sex, religion, food, and class. Plautus: Curculio also offers the first performance and reception history of the play: how it has survived through more than two millennia and its appearances in the modern world.

A comedy about tragedy and a play about playmaking, Aristophanes’ Frogs (405 BCE) is perhaps the most popular of ancient comedies. This new introduction guides students through the play, its themes and contemporary contexts, and its reception history. Frogs offers sustained engagement with the Athenian literary scene, with the politics of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and with the religious understanding of the fifth-century city. It presents the earliest direct criticism of theatre and a detailed description of the Underworld, and also dramatizes the place of Mystery cults in the religious life of Athens and shows the political concerns that galvanized the citizens. It is also genuinely funny, showcasing a range of comic techniques, including literary and musical parody, political invective, grotesque distortion, wordplay, prop comedy, and funny costumes. Frogs has inspired literary works by Henry Fielding, George Bernard Shaw, and Tom Stoppard.This book explores all of these features in a series of short chapters designed to be accessible to a new reader of ancient comedy. It proceeds linearly through the play, addressing a range of issues, but paying particular attention to stagecraft and performance. It also offers a bold new interpretation of the play, suggesting that the action of Frogs was not the first time Euripides and Aeschylus had competed against each other.

A comedy about tragedy and a play about playmaking, Aristophanes’ Frogs (405 BCE) is perhaps the most popular of ancient comedies. This new introduction guides students through the play, its themes and contemporary contexts, and its reception history. Frogs offers sustained engagement with the Athenian literary scene, with the politics of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and with the religious understanding of the fifth-century city. It presents the earliest direct criticism of theatre and a detailed description of the Underworld, and also dramatizes the place of Mystery cults in the religious life of Athens and shows the political concerns that galvanized the citizens. It is also genuinely funny, showcasing a range of comic techniques, including literary and musical parody, political invective, grotesque distortion, wordplay, prop comedy, and funny costumes. Frogs has inspired literary works by Henry Fielding, George Bernard Shaw, and Tom Stoppard.This book explores all of these features in a series of short chapters designed to be accessible to a new reader of ancient comedy. It proceeds linearly through the play, addressing a range of issues, but paying particular attention to stagecraft and performance. It also offers a bold new interpretation of the play, suggesting that the action of Frogs was not the first time Euripides and Aeschylus had competed against each other.

Lysistrata is the most notorious of Aristophanes’ comedies. First staged in 411 BCE, its action famously revolves around a sex strike launched by the women of Greece in an attempt to force their husbands to end the war. With its risqué humour, vibrant battle of the sexes, and themes of war and peace, Lysistrata remains as daring and thought-provoking today as it would have been for its original audience in Classical Athens.Aristophanes: Lysistrata is a lively and engaging introduction to this play aimed at students and scholars of classical drama alike. It sets Lysistrata in its social and historical context, looking at key themes such as politics, religion and its provocative portrayal of women, as well as the play’s language, humour and personalities, including the formidable and trailblazing Lysistrata herself. Lysistrata has often been translated, adapted and performed in the modern era and this book also traces the ways in which it has been re-imagined and re-presented to new audiences. As this reception history reveals, Lysistrata’s appeal in the modern world lies not only in its racy subject matter, but also in its potential to be recast as a feminist, pacifist or otherwise subversive play that openly challenges the political and social status quo.

Lysistrata is the most notorious of Aristophanes’ comedies. First staged in 411 BCE, its action famously revolves around a sex strike launched by the women of Greece in an attempt to force their husbands to end the war. With its risqué humour, vibrant battle of the sexes, and themes of war and peace, Lysistrata remains as daring and thought-provoking today as it would have been for its original audience in Classical Athens.Aristophanes: Lysistrata is a lively and engaging introduction to this play aimed at students and scholars of classical drama alike. It sets Lysistrata in its social and historical context, looking at key themes such as politics, religion and its provocative portrayal of women, as well as the play’s language, humour and personalities, including the formidable and trailblazing Lysistrata herself. Lysistrata has often been translated, adapted and performed in the modern era and this book also traces the ways in which it has been re-imagined and re-presented to new audiences. As this reception history reveals, Lysistrata’s appeal in the modern world lies not only in its racy subject matter, but also in its potential to be recast as a feminist, pacifist or otherwise subversive play that openly challenges the political and social status quo.

This new volume in the Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions series is perfect for students coming to one of Plautus' most whimsical, provocative, and influential plays for the first time, and a useful first point of reference for scholars less familiar with Roman comedy. Menaechmi is a tale of identical twin brothers who are separated as young children and reconnect as adults following a series of misadventures due to mistaken identity. A gluttonous parasite, manipulative courtesan, shrewish wife, crotchety father-in-law, bumbling cook, saucy handmaid, quack doctor, and band of thugs comprise the colourful cast of characters. Each encounter with a misidentified twin destabilizes the status quo and provides valuable insight into Roman domestic and social relationships.The book analyzes the power dynamics at play in the various relationships, especially between master and slave and husband and wife, in order to explore the meaning of freedom and the status of slaves and women in Roman culture and Roman comedy. These fundamental societal concerns gave Plautus' Menaechmi an enduring role in the classical tradition, which is also examined here, including notable adaptations by William Shakespeare, Jean François Regnard, Carlo Goldoni and Rodgers and Hart.

This new volume in the Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions series is perfect for students coming to one of Plautus' most whimsical, provocative, and influential plays for the first time, and a useful first point of reference for scholars less familiar with Roman comedy. Menaechmi is a tale of identical twin brothers who are separated as young children and reconnect as adults following a series of misadventures due to mistaken identity. A gluttonous parasite, manipulative courtesan, shrewish wife, crotchety father-in-law, bumbling cook, saucy handmaid, quack doctor, and band of thugs comprise the colourful cast of characters. Each encounter with a misidentified twin destabilizes the status quo and provides valuable insight into Roman domestic and social relationships.The book analyzes the power dynamics at play in the various relationships, especially between master and slave and husband and wife, in order to explore the meaning of freedom and the status of slaves and women in Roman culture and Roman comedy. These fundamental societal concerns gave Plautus' Menaechmi an enduring role in the classical tradition, which is also examined here, including notable adaptations by William Shakespeare, Jean François Regnard, Carlo Goldoni and Rodgers and Hart.

Matthew Wright brings Menander’s Samia to life by explaining how it achieves its comic effects and how it fits within the broader context of fourth-century Greek drama and society. He offers a scene-by-scene reading of the play, combining close attention to detail with broader consideration of major themes, in an approach designed to bring out the humour and nuance of each individual moment on stage, while also illuminating Menander’s comic art.The play dramatizes a tangled story of mistakes, mishaps and misapprehensions leading up to the marriage of Moschion and Plangon. For most of the action the characters are at odds with one another owing to accidental delusions or deliberate deceptions, and it seems as if the marriage will be cancelled or indefinitely postponed; but ultimately everyone’s problems are solved and the play ends happily. Samia is one of the best-preserved examples of fourth-century Greek comedy: celebrated within antiquity but subsequently lost for many years, it miraculously came back to light, in almost complete form, as a result of Egyptian papyrus finds during the 20th century.

Matthew Wright brings Menander’s Samia to life by explaining how it achieves its comic effects and how it fits within the broader context of fourth-century Greek drama and society. He offers a scene-by-scene reading of the play, combining close attention to detail with broader consideration of major themes, in an approach designed to bring out the humour and nuance of each individual moment on stage, while also illuminating Menander’s comic art.The play dramatizes a tangled story of mistakes, mishaps and misapprehensions leading up to the marriage of Moschion and Plangon. For most of the action the characters are at odds with one another owing to accidental delusions or deliberate deceptions, and it seems as if the marriage will be cancelled or indefinitely postponed; but ultimately everyone’s problems are solved and the play ends happily. Samia is one of the best-preserved examples of fourth-century Greek comedy: celebrated within antiquity but subsequently lost for many years, it miraculously came back to light, in almost complete form, as a result of Egyptian papyrus finds during the 20th century.

In this first introduction to Plautus’ Trinummus, students and non-specialists alike are guided through the themes, context, and enduring humor of this Roman comedy. The play portrays the story of an elaborate game of keep-away involving a hidden treasure, a hot-blooded spendthrift youth, his pious sister, her would-be fiancee, a con-artist, and the most unlikely of comic schemers-a group of overly pious old men. The conflict of the plot focuses on whether a pair of old men can help their absent friend Charmides by getting a dowry to his daughter without Charmides’ wastrel son Lesbonicus first spending the money on the usual comic debauchery. The money is taken from a treasure hidden by Charmides when he left and a sycophant is hired to pretend to bring letters from Charmides along with the cash for the dowry. Comic confusion ensues when Charmides returns from abroad just in time to intercept the con-artist and overturn the scheming of his friends. Long neglected, Trinummus is one of many Plautine plays that is experiencing a resurgence. This volume elucidates the humor of the play, which is largely based on parody and clever inversions of typical characters and situations from Roman comedy. This discussion is accompanied by an examination of the religious, social, and historical context of the play, as well as its modern reception. The genuine humor of Trinummus has something to say to modern readers, as it showcases how parody can skewer those engaged in pompous moral posturing and presents readers with a playwright who astutely views issues of imperialism and moral justification through a comic lens.

In this first introduction to Plautus’ Trinummus, students and non-specialists alike are guided through the themes, context, and enduring humor of this Roman comedy. The play portrays the story of an elaborate game of keep-away involving a hidden treasure, a hot-blooded spendthrift youth, his pious sister, her would-be fiancee, a con-artist, and the most unlikely of comic schemers-a group of overly pious old men. The conflict of the plot focuses on whether a pair of old men can help their absent friend Charmides by getting a dowry to his daughter without Charmides’ wastrel son Lesbonicus first spending the money on the usual comic debauchery. The money is taken from a treasure hidden by Charmides when he left and a sycophant is hired to pretend to bring letters from Charmides along with the cash for the dowry. Comic confusion ensues when Charmides returns from abroad just in time to intercept the con-artist and overturn the scheming of his friends. Long neglected, Trinummus is one of many Plautine plays that is experiencing a resurgence. This volume elucidates the humor of the play, which is largely based on parody and clever inversions of typical characters and situations from Roman comedy. This discussion is accompanied by an examination of the religious, social, and historical context of the play, as well as its modern reception. The genuine humor of Trinummus has something to say to modern readers, as it showcases how parody can skewer those engaged in pompous moral posturing and presents readers with a playwright who astutely views issues of imperialism and moral justification through a comic lens.

Plautus' Mostellaria is one of ancient Rome’s most breezy and amusing comedies. The plot is ridiculously simple: when a father returns home after three years abroad, a clever slave named Tranio devises deceptions to conceal that the son has squandered a fortune partying with pals and purchasing his prized prostitute’s freedom. Tranio convinces the gullible father that his house is haunted, that his son has purchased the neighbor’s house, and that he must repay a moneylender. Plautus animates this skeletal plot with farcical scenes of Tranio’s slapstick abuse of a rustic slave, the young lover’s maudlin song lamenting his prodigality, a cross-gender dressing routine, a drunken party, a flustered moneylender, spirited slaves rebuffing the father, and Tranio hoodwinking father and neighbor simultaneously. This is the first book-length study of Mostellaria in its literary and historical contexts. It aims to help readers and theater practitioners appreciate the script as both cultural document and performed comedy. As a cultural document, the play portrays a range of Roman preoccupations, including male ideologies of the acquisition, use and abuse of property, relations between owners and enslaved persons, the traffic in women, tensions between city and country, the appropriation and adaptation of Greek culture, and the specters of ancestry and surveillance. As a performed comedy, the play celebrates the power of creativity, improvisation and metatheater. In Mostellaria’s farce, sleek simplicity replaces complexity as Plautus aggrandizes his comic hero by stripping plot to the minimum and leaving Tranio to operate alone with no resources other than his quick wit. A chapter on Mostellaria’s reception considers modernity’s continuing fascination with Plautine farce and trickery.

Plautus' Mostellaria is one of ancient Rome’s most breezy and amusing comedies. The plot is ridiculously simple: when a father returns home after three years abroad, a clever slave named Tranio devises deceptions to conceal that the son has squandered a fortune partying with pals and purchasing his prized prostitute’s freedom. Tranio convinces the gullible father that his house is haunted, that his son has purchased the neighbor’s house, and that he must repay a moneylender. Plautus animates this skeletal plot with farcical scenes of Tranio’s slapstick abuse of a rustic slave, the young lover’s maudlin song lamenting his prodigality, a cross-gender dressing routine, a drunken party, a flustered moneylender, spirited slaves rebuffing the father, and Tranio hoodwinking father and neighbor simultaneously. This is the first book-length study of Mostellaria in its literary and historical contexts. It aims to help readers and theater practitioners appreciate the script as both cultural document and performed comedy. As a cultural document, the play portrays a range of Roman preoccupations, including male ideologies of the acquisition, use and abuse of property, relations between owners and enslaved persons, the traffic in women, tensions between city and country, the appropriation and adaptation of Greek culture, and the specters of ancestry and surveillance. As a performed comedy, the play celebrates the power of creativity, improvisation and metatheater. In Mostellaria’s farce, sleek simplicity replaces complexity as Plautus aggrandizes his comic hero by stripping plot to the minimum and leaving Tranio to operate alone with no resources other than his quick wit. A chapter on Mostellaria’s reception considers modernity’s continuing fascination with Plautine farce and trickery.

This is the first book-length study of Plautus' shortest surviving comedy, Curculio, a play in which the tricksy brown-nosed title character (“The Weevil”) bamboozles a shady banker and a pious pimp to secure the freedom of the enslaved girl his patron has fallen for while keeping her out of the clutches of a megalomaniacal soldier. It all takes place in the Greek city Epidaurus, the most important site for the worship of the healing god Aesculapius, an unusual setting for an ancient comedy. But a mid-play monologue by the stage manager shows us where the action really is: in the real-life Roman Forum, in the lives and low-lifes of the audience.This study explores the world of Curculio and the world of Plautus, with special attention to how the play was originally performed (including the first-ever comprehensive musical analysis of the play), the play’s plots and themes, and its connections to ancient Roman cultural practices of love, sex, religion, food, and class. Plautus: Curculio also offers the first performance and reception history of the play: how it has survived through more than two millennia and its appearances in the modern world.

This book introduces readers who may have no previous knowledge of Menander's comedies to Epitrepontes (The Arbitration), arguably the most exquisitely crafted of his better-preserved plays. It explains what we know about the play, how we know it, and how far we can tentatively fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Sommerstein analyses the nature of the dramatic genre (Athenian New Comedy) to which Epitrepontes belongs. He assesses the plot and the characters, every one of whom makes an essential contribution to the uplifting outcome, and the social and ethical assumptions that dramatist and audience shared. As well as looking at the influences of earlier drama and of contemporary philosophical and popular thought, he considers the afterlife of Menandrian comedy in general and of Epitrepontes in particular, both in antiquity and in modern times, but also in the long period in between, when Menander was the great dramatist whose plays were thought to have been irrevocably lost.

This volume is the first book-length introduction to Plautus’ Cistellaria (The Jewelry Box), offering an incisive overview for both students and scholars coming to it for the first time. This play is a story of young lovers defying social norms and disapproving parents in order to be together, featuring a memorable cast of characters and moments of both high humor and drama. This classic mistaken-identity plot includes witty interchanges and a lively conflict of values and ideals.Drawing on performance and cultural studies, gender and sexuality, and philology and intertextuality, Ariana Traill combines a lucid exploration of Cistellaria's setting, characters, plot and themes, with detailed analyses of its literary and socio-cultural contexts. Readers are able to appreciate the play both as a literary artifact, with its attendant issues of generic conventions and variations, and language and imagery, and as a performance script written for a rich tradition of acting, singing and stage movement at Rome, with its conventional costumes, masks and venues. With its majority female line-up (seven of the twelve roles are female), Cistellaria offers an unusual focus on women’s thoughts and feelings as they struggle for their economic and social existence, making it a fascinating source for the study of women and gender in ancient Rome. The play continues to cast a shadow in the western dramatic tradition through its history of reception and adaptation.

This is the first book-length study dedicated to Aristophanes’ Wasps (422 BCE), which is arguably one of his most hilarious and inventive comedies. At the heart of Wasps is a comic conflict between an Athenian father named Philocleon and his son Bdelycleon; at stake are issues of political discourse, the judicial system, social class and mental illness. Alongside Aristophanes’ striking scenes involving a chorus of citizen wasps, a dog trial, and a concluding dance-off between tragedy and comedy, the reader is shown the theatrical genius of the playwright which is able to find the humor in the political, social and generational problems of his time.Ideal for students with no experience in Greek comedy or for researchers wanting an updated analysis of the play, this book explores Wasps in terms of Aristophanes’ particular brand of Old Comedy, its historical context, innovative stagecraft and its reception up until the present day. While early modern playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Jean Racine tended to co-opt memorable scenes from Wasps such as the dog trial, more recent productions have interpreted the play as a political comedy about the fragility of democratic institutions. This is the ideal companion for anyone studying Wasps and its effect on later theater.

This is the first book-length study dedicated to Aristophanes’ Wasps (422 BCE), which is arguably one of his most hilarious and inventive comedies. At the heart of Wasps is a comic conflict between an Athenian father named Philocleon and his son Bdelycleon; at stake are issues of political discourse, the judicial system, social class and mental illness. Alongside Aristophanes’ striking scenes involving a chorus of citizen wasps, a dog trial, and a concluding dance-off between tragedy and comedy, the reader is shown the theatrical genius of the playwright which is able to find the humor in the political, social and generational problems of his time.Ideal for students with no experience in Greek comedy or for researchers wanting an updated analysis of the play, this book explores Wasps in terms of Aristophanes’ particular brand of Old Comedy, its historical context, innovative stagecraft and its reception up until the present day. While early modern playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Jean Racine tended to co-opt memorable scenes from Wasps such as the dog trial, more recent productions have interpreted the play as a political comedy about the fragility of democratic institutions. This is the ideal companion for anyone studying Wasps and its effect on later theater.

Terence’s Eunuchus (first shown on stage in the second century BCE) was extremely successful at its first performance and has been influential ever since, having inspired allusions and remakes by writers and artists from the ancient world into the modern period. This success may be partly due to the fact that the play has a number of ‘Plautine’ elements, such as effective comedy and dramaturgy. At the same time, the piece includes actions that are ethically problematic at least from the point of view of a modern audience, especially the reported rape of a young woman. Thus, this drama is an intriguing example of how a comedy can present attractive entertainment and raise serious issues, both of which contribute to the continuing fascination that Terence’s Eunuchus evokes.Gesine Manuwald analyses the Eunuchus in its transmitted form as a piece of Roman Republican dramatic literature, looking at: the playwright’s role within the Roman comic tradition and his engagement with contemporary dramatists; the structure and effectiveness of the plot as well as the characterization of the protagonists and the comedy’s themes; and the extent to which these might have resonated with a contemporary audience. On this basis, aspects of the history of the play’s reception can be traced, starting in the ancient world, including the late-antique commentary on the play by Donatus, illustrations in early manuscripts as well as literary and artistic reflections in the early modern and modern periods.

This is the first book for a general audience about Women in the Assembly (Ekklesiazousai), whose central themes – gender, politics, theatre – still resonate today. Fed up with Athens’ political dysfunction and involvement in yet another war against Sparta, the women of the city don ridiculous disguises and vote themselves into power. Under female leadership Athenian society is completely reorganized when both private property and marriage are abolished. What happens when a few citizens are slow to embrace the changes? Whose side was the audience on? The Athens that these women create has been interpreted in both utopian and near-dystopian terms, but Moodie argues that Aristophanes does indeed depict a utopia where everyone’s needs can be met.With new analysis of pottery and figurines depicting Old Comedy, coupled with a thorough exploration of Aristophanes’ metatheatrical plot and its relation to his earlier fantastic comedies, Moodie reveals how the comic poet promotes the ideas of his female reformers and blunts the complaints of their critics as he urges collective action for the good of the city. Moodie concludes with a chapter exploring the ways in which playwrights and directors throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have adapted Women in the Assembly in order to respond to current social and political issues, especially the changing role of women in the modern world.