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Hello and welcome back to our second part of our Aristophanes podcast with Dr. Rosie Wyles of Kent University.

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And in this part, we're going to be talking about the Sparta depth study sources.
 
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So to remind those students, if you're doing Sparta as a depth study, then you have two sections of Lysistrata that you need to be reading.

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And if you are doing Athens, then you've got variety from, I think, one, two, three, four plays that you should be reading.

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However, we hope that all of you listening to this will enjoy the discussions, everything,

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because they're all wonderful plays and they will add to your interest in this subject and your understanding of this subject.

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So, Rosie, let's dive into Sparta then. And for those students doing the Sparta depth study, of course,

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what they're trying to do is to understand what Spartan society was like, what Spartan government was like.

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And Lysistrata is an interesting play, isn't it?

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We have to say, of course, that Aristophanes is an Athenian quite probably never went to Sparta and he's probably working

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with information from people who had gone there and common Athenian prejudices about the Spartans.

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But in this play we have this famous women getting together and working out how to put an end to the war.

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The plan is set in the year 411 and we have Lysistrata, who is the leader of the Athenian women,

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and Lampeto who is the leader of the Spartan women.

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Just tell us a bit more about this play because it's so iconic.

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Just give us a bit of an overview. Well.

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So this play brings up questions about Aristophanes and his view on women.

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For us it's so important because it gives us this view of a whole range of female characters.

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And importantly, there is a female protagonist.

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You have Lysistrata leading this and dominating the comic action in a way that seems

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really extraordinary for the time in which it was written and produced in 411 B.C.

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It brings up questions of whether this is pure fantasy and enjoyable for a male audience.

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Imagining what if women had some power?

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But of course, don't worry. By the end, we're back to asserting the status quo.

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And here's also where it might be important again to consider the audience and whether you

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have any women in the audience and the impact that seeing a play like this might have,

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because in the play, the women do have power for at least a portion of the play.

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They levy power in two ways by denying their husbands sex and also by importantly, taking control of the Acropolis, where the money is, the Treasury.

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So that that all of this in a bid to end the war.

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Right. And actually, to that end, it's not just gender that is interesting here, but attitudes towards war.

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Because by having a female protagonist, you enable a different viewpoint to come across.

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What's it like for those left behind?

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What does war mean to the people in Athens and those jokes about how ridiculous it is to see men clanging around in their armour in the agora?

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And yet, you know, you get a sense of actually how difficult and how disruptive this is,

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not just in terms of loss of those who go out and fighting don't come back,

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but also in terms of what this does to the city, what this does to your space, your civic space, suddenly becomes dominated by the trappings of war.

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Thank you. It's probably worth saying as well that the year 411 is interesting because it's soon after the failure of the Sicilian expedition.

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And so there would have been a shortage of men in Athens.

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Many of them would have died. And so there's a poignancy, almost about how women may have been feeling about the loss of husbands and sons.

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Absolutely. And you know, how how the city recovers from that.

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I mean, there's also potentially you could say, how does it feel to be a man in that city, which is somehow feels now female dominated?

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So it's a response to the changing demographic of the city.

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And what does it mean to go through such a dramatic loss?

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And I think, you know, in that way, this isn't just about, of course,

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thinking about Athens and the city of Athens, but also how it aligns itself or not with other Greek states.

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And thinking about the different kinds of women that we meet, and especially in that opening scene of the play,

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reflects on actually Athens and its place in relation to other Greek cities.

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Yeah. And there's an interesting link there, isn't there,

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back to the Arcanians where Dikaiopolis was just saying, well, maybe it's not just all the Spartans fault.

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Maybe we're to blame as well. And being a little bit more reflective and.

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Asking questions of that Athenian audience. Do we have some responsibility for being in this situation?

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How much can we blame ourselves? Exactly.

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And thinking about similarities and thinking about, you know, I mean, this is part of the point, I think, about the sex drive because it's a leveller.

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I mean, everyone is in the same position every.

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And of course, you know, this is comic exaggeration. In reality, these husbands could absolutely get sex somewhere else.

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But it's not the point in terms of the comedy. It's about saying, look, we're all the same.

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We're all in the same situation. We all can be reduced to this basic level of basic needs.

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And when when you are reduced in this way, they all come together and it's sort of finding common ground.

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Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. Oh, I could talk about Lysistrata all day, but we're gonna need to move on.

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So let's look. First of all, the first prescribed section, which is just lines 79 to 84,

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quite a famous little bit, isn't it, where Lampeto arrives at the beginning of the play?

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And what can we learn here about at least the Athenian perception of Spartan women?

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I think that's absolutely right. So in perception and talk about actually stereotyping and it's not just the Spartans who are stereotyped but I mean

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there's a whole opening section is about stereotyping different kinds of Greeks. Lampeto is very memorable isn't she?

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And this exchange is memorable because of the way in which Lysistrata starts saying, Oh, look at the colour in your cheeks, what resilience.

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You can throttle a bull and you know, it plays to the characteristics of Spartan women are famous for their athleticism.

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We might think about the statue at the bronze figure in the British Museum, the Spartan gril running and you know,

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that whole idea of the way in which they're so active compared perhaps to other Greek women.

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Right. That they can be out there. And Lampeto is there proudly talking about her rump jumps that she does every day to stay fit.

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And the question is really here how much edge there is to Lysistrata's comment.

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Is this one of those backhanded compliments between girls, which really is a way of drawing attention to difference, you know,

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just to saying, you know, it's a joke about the way in which starting women are so, you know, is not necessarily a celebration of that.

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It depends really how you take the tone that there's something interesting as well here, though,

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with that interaction and her being prodded, Lampeto Well, you're putting me like I'm some kind of sacrificial animal.

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But the scholar has some very nice analysis of this by she, in her study of costume,

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talks about the way in which Lysistrata with her control there of lampeto's

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body is part of the way in which Lysistrata takes a male role in in the opening of

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the play so that there's more going on actually with that little interaction and

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if you start to think about that is sort of Lysistrata taking that dominant role,

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then there's something interesting, I think,

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to be said about Athenian and Spartan relations and even in a play which is trying to find similarity in common ground,

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that there is some assertion, I think, of controlled assertion of superiority.

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And so that's maybe worth thinking about. And it links quite nicely when you start to think about that end section that we're going to look at and whether

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there is sort of cultural superiority and whether it's patronising of spartan traditions or again,

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whether it's a celebration of those traditions. Yeah.

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Again, very interesting.

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And it is worth just talking a little bit about that Spartan woman figurine, which you can see in the British Museum, which is also prescribed source.

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Because if we just take the Aristophanes, we might think, Oh, well, yeah, that's a bit of exaggeration or stereotyping.

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But then if you put these lines alongside that figurine, I think as historians we'd have to say,

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Well, you know, this must be based in some sort of truth. I believe the figurine was discovered in Sparta itself,

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and so were Spartan women taking more exercise and probably doing rump jumps and

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wearing short skirts and running around more than any of the Greek sets of women.

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We put the two of them together, the answer probably becomes yes, isn't it?

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And that's helpful, isn't it, for understanding how we should take this and understanding that actually, you know,

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if Aristophanes is dealing in stereotypes, they only become meaningful if they're anchored in some reality.

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And so. Absolutely. Looks like a I think a typical Spartan woman on the Athenian view of a typical Spartan woman.

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But you're right. It's not just by looking at that other evidence, you can say, well, it's not just an opinion view of a typical spartan woman.

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Actually, this is what people think of when they think of sports and girls.

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You know that this is a key characteristic of that group.

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Okay, great. Well, let's come to the second section, which is the final lines of the play,

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1241 to 1321 And there's a few things that we can pick out here from a historical perspective aren't there.

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Yeah. So. Well, this I think before before you even start to think about this, you have to address the key question,

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which is whether you think it's intended to mock the Spartans or not.

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Right. That's absolutely key to this interpretation. It is a position that's being held in scholarship.

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So you can think about the great Wilamowitz, who suggested this was about making the other, the Spartan other ridiculous because it engages.

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What you get in that passage is such an engagement with sporting tradition and spartan tradition of song, of course, of performance.

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But there's all these references which are so native to spartan tradition.

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So that's one position you can hold on that.

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I actually think that scholarship has shifted now to a reading that in fact wants to.

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Take this into account. As you know, it's not a simple othering and not a simple way of mocking the Spartans.

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Otherwise, you know,

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you have this whole play trying to get to this sort of position of peace and what a sting in the tail it would be at that point to mock the Spartans,

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after all. I mean, there's a way in which you can argue that this is celebrating that choral tradition, that it is appealing to cultic.

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Traditions, cult religion transcends.

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In the same way that we've talked about basic needs sort of lifting you above whatever squabble you're having.

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And particularly there's an engagement here with Alkmeon, the poet and his maiden songs.

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And so there's some very nice analysis of this by the scholar Anton Bierl.

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And he has argued that by referring to maidens songs, which are typically performed for women who are just on the verge of getting married.

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In fact, this end section becomes a sort of way in which the couples who have been separated.

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It enacts remarriage. And it's that sort of assertion of the status quo and that unifying.

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So the unifying of the couples which also ties in with the idea of peace.

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And, you know, in a much broader terms, you have a feast followed by a sort of marriage.

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And, of course, as a celebration, as a feast, as a marriage, all is well in the world have the end of the comedy.

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So that's very helpful. And Alcmaeon's first, three fragments are prescribed sources.

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So students will need to know about these. Again,

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it's it's somewhat suggests that Aristophanes knows about Spartan culture doesn't mean

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he's talking about some things that I don't think has really equivalents in Athens.

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His idea of these maiden songs. Yeah. So again,

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are we putting the Aristophanes alongside Alcmaeon in the same way that we've put the Aristophanes alongside that British Museum figurine and saying,

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Well, if you put them together, then Aristophanes does seem to know basically what he's talking about.

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Yes. I think that's exactly exactly how you can think about making the most of our stuff.

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This is all about trying to get points of reference, you know, whether it's looking up an inscription that might refer to a politician so that,

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you know, that it was a real politician will find out more about that politician or.

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Yes. Whether it's looking at other historical sources.

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I mean, this seems particularly important in terms of the Sparta  depth study that you have not just not Almaeon, but you have responses to Alcmaeon.

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In Athens, by an Athenian playwright.

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And I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think of that in terms of an engagement.

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This isn't just a pastiche of Spartan oral tradition in general.

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I think there are specific points of contact that you can identify with.

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Alcmaeon. Even if Aristophanes is willing to make a direct reference, he's not willing to name Alcmaeon.

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But for those who know that, you can look at the bits, for example, the motifs of the horses, there are specific parts that you can pick out.

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And as I mentioned, that analysis by Anton Bierl is really good at doing that to make that case,

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to say, yes, there is something going on here with Aristophanes and without that.

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There's also something I think worth noting here in terms of Athens and the way Athens operates and in signing the past.

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Right. So that first part of the song where the Spartan talks about optimism and democracy and the pairing of those victories.

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But of course, eroticism equally pairs those two.

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It's very convenient because this is your.

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Exemplar where you want to say we both took part and we were both important in the Persian wars.

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Here's one for you, Athens. You did well there and here's one for us.

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We did well in Thermopylae, and that is your unifying narrative.

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So it's a perfect example to take that.

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Song begins by appealing to memory.

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And I think there's a real self-consciousness here and elsewhere in the play as well of how you construct your own past,

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you know, how things are remembered. And that here Aristophanes is pushing that Athenian agenda,

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or rather his agenda in terms of peace by saying, let's remember the Persian wars like this.

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Let's think about when we were successful and both successful.

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Right. There's no mention of Marathon, of course, at this point in the play.

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And I think that's really,

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really important that you're choosing to focus on actually examples which point to that shared role that Sparta and Athens had in the Persian wars.

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And again, that probably really speaks to the idea that the Thermopylae legend very quickly became almost the ultimate warrior myth of Sparta,

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even though it only happened in in 480. And Aristophanes is picking up on that, that the Spartans just saw this as their finest hour.

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Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And he he allows them that there's a generosity to this ending of the play.

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If we accept that reading of it, which is generous rather than mocking Sparta,

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So that's this generosity that says, okay, let's give their due and allow Sparta their space.

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And in the same way that you would say, if this is celebrating that tradition and that art in specific, the choral tradition,

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that it's a way of saying, okay, well, this is my comic play performed in the festival in Athens, but here we are.

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Here's a little space for you to acknowledge that you have arts to, that you have performance, that there are things other than war that we both do.

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Well, thank you. And I guess also just to finish the section on Lysistrata,

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we might think about the fact that Aristophanes is often seen as from the, let's say, aristocratic elites of Athens.

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He's a slightly more conservative, slightly more old fashioned view. That's a commonly held view.

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And that section of Athenian society traditionally has been more pro Sparta, hasn't it?

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You can think about Cimon earlier in the century. And so is there a sense here perhaps that in Aristophanes' own worldview,

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he's more sympathetic towards peace with Sparta and working with Sparta and the idea of of dual hegemony,

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which which Cimon had advocated in the four seventies and four sixties.

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I think that fits well doesn't it with the idea that he was so against Cleon.

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And particularly against Cleon as a warmonger and, you know, particularly keen to point out that Cleon was on the take in effect.

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And absolutely, I think you could read that into this and you might think about Wasps and think about the presentation of Delecleon

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or Cleon-hater in that play and the way in which there's potentially some hints towards Spartan sympathy there. 

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Brilliant. Rosie, that's been so interesting thinking about Lysistrata and what it might tell us about

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that. I'm sure our Spartan depth students will really enjoy listening to that.