rfi THECOMEDIFS II
These allegorical figures are presented as very realistic hetaerae
The vine-dresser Trygaios marries Opora in order to beget
young vines.1 Theoria is brought to the council which in time
of peace had sent the theoroi to Delphi and Delos. Thus peace
is realized in what seemed to the poet, and to the majority of
the people, its most important aspect • as the necessary condi-
tion for the farmer's tranquil work and for the religious obliga-
tions and festivals which were part of the normal life of Greece.
There are two interesting points to notice about this, one
positive, the other negative There was no 'patriotic* rejoicing
at a peace which maintained the greatness and power of
Athens, the real cause of the war. Instead we see a manifest
desire to celebrate the Panhellenic importance of the peace,
the salvation and rescue of all Greeks This gives us the true
political measure of the play The attitude is one that is easily
understood, since dualism in Greece had culminated in war
and severed all Panhellenic ties For the individual man, and m
a sense for the individual State, peace was still identified, as it
was in the Acharmans^ with the ideal of a quiet existence, an
ideal almost out of touch with politics Ten terrible years of
war had gone by, yet men were still clinging blindly to the
hope that in the end those years would have left no mark, that
life could simply continue where its pleasant and prosperous
course had been interrupted in 432. Nor did the politicians
think otherwise when they attempted in the peace of Nikias to
restore the status quo. In this self-deception of leaders and led
is to be found the ultimate reason why the peace of 421 was no
real and lasting peace
From the seven years which followed no comedies of Aris-
tophanes survive Those were the years of half-peace and
renewed war, the years also of the struggles and preparations
for the Sicilian expedition. To the author of the Peace who
maintained the ideal of an idyllic and care-free life, those years
must have been a series of disappointments and sorrows He
even ceased to attack in any elaborate way his old enemies, the
demagogues. He certainly hated men like Hyperboles as
much as he had hated Kleon, and he must have felt very uneasy
about Alkibiades. But he left that field to other comedians,
whom he had previously blamed for attacking the contemptible
Hyperboles, while he fought against the formidable Kleon.2
1 P