[In the following essay, Vickers argues that the Dionysalexandros was most likely written after Pericles's death.]

Cratinus' Dionysalexandros may be a posthumous lampoon of Pericles rather than one written and performed in the statesman's lifetime. “In the [Dionysalexandros] Pericles is satirized with great plausibility by means of émphasis, because he brought the war on the Athenians,”¹ says the plot summary. The concept of “emphasis,” and its role in comedy, has been discussed in the Introduction. According to Byzantine commentators, authors of Old Comedy attacked their victims phanerôs (“openly”), and it was only through pressure from “the rich and the authorities, who did not want to be lampooned,” that attacks made ainigmatikōdôs (“in riddles”) became obligatory (De comoedia 4.12-14 [Koster]). Aristophanes stands at the transitional point between the one manner and the other, between Old and Middle Comedy. Audiences were expected to look for hidden meanings, although they were no doubt aided by portrait masks, which made identification of the protagonists an easy matter.²

The plot of Dionysalexandros is complicated: it involves a mock judgment of Paris, an abduction of Helen, a devastating attack by Achaeans, and the transformation of Dionysus into a ram, before “Alexander [Paris] appears and detects both [Helen and Dionysus], and orders them to be led away to the ships intending to hand them over to the Achaeans; but when Helen objects he takes pity on her and keeps her to be his wife, but sends off Dionysus to be handed over.”³ Many attempts have been made to elucidate the nuances of the “emphasis” of Cratinus' play. It is agreed that Dionysus “comes forward” in the character of Pericles, but there is less unanimity over whether he “becomes” Paris, or whether for Aphrodite and/or Helen we are to read Aspasia.⁴ I have no firm view on these points, beyond noting that if either of them was valid, we should have examples of the kind of “polymorphic characterization” I believe to be widespread in Athenian drama.

What can confidently be said about Dionysalexandros, however, is that it is imbued with talk about sheep to such an extent that it is reasonable to entertain the possibility that the play is a parody of Lysicles and Aspasia as much as of Pericles. Apart from what we know, or can deduce, from the plot—that Dionysus is turned into a ram, and that Paris was a shepherd—there are line such as: ho d'ēlíthios hasper próbatōn bê bê légōn badízei (“the fool walks along saying ‘baa baa’ like a sheep”; Cratin. PCG 45); eneisi d' entauthoî mákhaira koúrdes, haîs keípomen tà próbata kaì toùs poiménas (“In there we keep shears with which we do not only clip sheep but shepherds”; Cratin. PCG 39); oúk, allà bólita khlōpà kaì oispitēn pateîn (“No, but fresh cow dung and sheep droppings”; Cratin. PCG 43); nakótiltos hōspereì kōdárion ephainómēn (“I appeared shorn like a fleece”; Cratin. PCG 48).

Immediately after Pericles' death, Aspasia married Lysicles, a “sheepdealer.” At least he is implicitly described as such by Aristophanes in Knights (probatopalēs: 132), and Socrates is supposed always to have addressed him in terms of próbata (“sheep”) and kaidia (“fleeces”; Dio Chrys. 55.22). According to Aeschines Socraticus, Aspasia bore Lysicles a son, taught him (Lysicles) to speak in public (just as she had supposedly taught Pericles), and thanks to her he became a successful politician, the “first man in Athens.”⁵ Lysicles was a general and was killed collecting tribute in Caria in 428/27 b.c.⁶ It is probably indeed the case that “stories of Lysicles' political ‘primacy’ and relationship with Aspasia reached Aeschines through comedy and must therefore be taken at something less than face value,”⁷ but in the present context this is all to the good.

The date of Dionysalexandros is not fixed, but arguments have been put forward in favor of 430 and 429 b.c., on the assumption that the play was performed in the lifetime of Pericles, and that the depradations of the Achaeans were a topical allusion to the Spartan invasions of either 431 or 430 b.c.⁸ Pericles died in 429 b.c., but there was another Spartan invasion in 428 (Thuc. 3.1.1), another in 427 (Thuc. 3.26.1), and yet another in 425 b.c. (Thuc. 4.2.6).⁹ Eric Handley has, moreover, convincingly shown that at the very beginning of what we have of the fragmentary plot summary, there is a statement to the effect that “Hermes goes off, and they [the Chorus of satyrs] make some remarks to the audience about the getting of sons,” reading p<erì> huôn poiō<seōs> at POxy. 663.8.¹⁰ While it is true that there was the question of the legitimacy of the son of Pericles and Aspasia in 429 b.c., this is not quite the same thing; nor is Handley's tentative suggestion that there may be a reference to the gift of Athenian citizenship to Sadocus the Thracian especially convincing. There was, however, the remarkably quick marriage (or cohabitation) of Aspasia and Lysicles after Pericles' death, and the birth of a son, Poristes (Per. 24.7).¹¹ This certainly fits the bill, and if POxy. 2806, of which fragment 1.1.6-7 makes mockery of premature births (“Your wives will bear all of you babies, five-month ones and three-month ones and thirty-day ones”),¹² also belongs to Dionysalexandros (as Handley has proposed), then we may have both a fresh insight into the Aspasian ménage, and suitable material for the posthumous lampooning of Pericles.

Notes

1. POxy. 663, 44-48; CGFP 70; Cratin. Dionysalexandros i, PCG.

2. Sommerstein 1981, 154-155.

3. Trans. Grenfell and Hunt 1904.

4. Schwarze 1971, 4-6; Rosen 1988b, 52-53, for proposals that have been made; add Stadter 1989, lxvi n. 90. The line “in baskets I will bring salt-fish of Pontus” (Cratin. PCG 44 ap. Ath. 3.119b) may allude to Pericles' activities in the Black Sea area.

5. Per. 24.6; Schol. Pl. Menex. 235e; Call. Com. PCG 21.

6. Thuc. 3.19.2; Develin 1989, 123. It is interesting that Lysicles was killed by Samian exiles from Anaea (cf. Thuc. 3.32.1); was this revenge on Aspasia for her alleged part in Pericles' Samian campaign?

7. Frost 1964a, 398 n. 44.

8. Cf. Schwarze 1971, 24; Handley 1982, 115.

9. The invading force sent in 426 turned back at the Isthmus because of earthquakes in Sparta (Thuc. 3.89).

10. Handley 1982, 110.

11. Stadter (1989, 237) raises the interesting possibility that the association of Aspasia and Lysicles may have begun when Pericles was still alive.

12. Trans. Handley 1982, 110.