About the Play:

"For us, comedy about women begins with Lysistrata."
Douglas MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens."

"Lysistrata is extraordinary. . . . She is an advocate of traditional values for all Greeks, male and female. . . . Lysistrata finds her closest analogue in Athena herself."
Jeffrey Henderson Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was first performed in late winter in 411 B.C.E. The war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians was now in its 21^st year. Less than two years earlier, in 413, the Athenian expedition to conquer Sicily had ended in disaster with the loss of the fleet, the execution of the commanders, countless deaths, and at least 7,000 men taken prisoner and thrown into the stone quarries of Syracuse: Thucydides (History vii. 87) calls it "the greatest event in the war," and even "the greatest in Greek history," "the most glorious to the victors, the most tragic to the defeated. They were utterly destroyed, the fleet and the army; of the many that went out, few returned home." In 412 Athens’ allies (Chios, Erythrae, Clazomenae, Teos, Lebedos, and Miletus, hence the scarcity of leather products) had revolted and the Persians had entered the war on the side of those revolting against Athens. Spring of the year 411 saw an oligarchic revolution overthrow the Athenian democracy and appoint a government of Four Hundred men (displacing the council and assembly).

Lysistrata offers an alternative to diplomacy by threat and violence and we salute her peace initiative.

Special Thanks To: Ariana Burns, Judy McNevin, Sherill Armiger, Palouse Peace Coalition, Sleepless Women, the Women’s Center, the mummers and members of the Lysistrata Project.