The Acharnians
This is the first of the series of three Comedies--'The Acharnians,' 'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'--produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent ruin of industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency of asking Peace. In date it is the earliest play brought out by the author in his own name and his first work of serious importance.
Approx. 13,662 words.
was impatiently awaiting a piece by Aeschylus,[4] what tragic despair it caused me when the herald called, "Theognis,[5] introduce your Chorus!" Just imagine how this blow struck straight at my heart! On the other hand, what joy Dexitheus caused me at the musical competition, when he played a Boeotian melody on the lyre! But this year by contrast! Oh! what deadly torture to hear Chaeris[6] perform the prelude in the Orthian mode![7] --Never, however, since I began to bathe, has the dust hurt my eyes as it does to-day. Still it is the day of assembly; all should be here at daybreak, and yet the Pnyx[8] is still deserted. They are gossiping in the marketplace, slipping hither and thither to avoid the vermilioned rope.[9] The Prytanes[10] even do not come; they will be late, but when they come they will push and fight each other for a seat in the front row. They will never trouble themselves with the question of peace. Oh! Athens! Athens! As for myself, I do not fail to come here before all the rest, and