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.Modern readersmight, of course, be shocked that Aristophanes would equate Athenianwives with prostitutes, but as we shall see, this is a persistent theme inthe play, which dovetails with a another set of allusions to them as adul-teresses (for example, in the speech of the Proboulos [403 29]).It shouldbe stressed, however, that these charges are either put in the mouths ofhostile male characters who are eventually discredited, or they areframed in terms of double entendres that can be read innocently as de-pictions of wives longing for their lawfully wedded husbands.The Semichorus of Older WomenAristophanes, however, very quickly juxtaposes these pornographicimages of the younger women with different and very positive imagesof the older women in the semichorus, who rush to the stage with fullwater jugs when they learn that the men are attempting to set fire to thegates of the acropolis and harm Lysistrata and her girls.In a recent arti-cle, I argued that by his very staging of their entrance, Aristophanes im-mediately sets up an important contrast (Faraone 1997, 38 42).On onelevel, the older women appear as typical Athenian housewives per-forming what is still a daily routine for housewives in nonindustrializedparts of the world they have just gone to the local fountain and fetchedtheir daily supply of water for cooking and washing.Aristophanes, 212 christopher a.faraonehowever, takes this quotidian scene and invests it with importantmythological and religious symbolism, thereby positioning thesewomen as heroic saviors who will extinguish the fires that threaten toburn down the acropolis and the women on it.Our appreciation of the heroism of their actions depends on ourknowledge of Greek tragedy in which one finds many scenes, often (ashere) at the very beginning of a play, where irate men threaten to immo-late helpless and innocent women who have taken asylum at an alter(for example, at the beginning of Euripides Heracles and his Androm-ache).In most of the plays that begin this way, the fire is averted bywords not water, but we do have evidence that tragic poets also stagedtheatrical scenes of watery salvation like that enacted in the Lysistrata,for instance, in a lost play about how Alcmene was saved after shehad been charged with adultery and was about to be immolated byher angry husband.5 This kind of scene was a probable source for thestaging of the chorus entrance in the Lysistrata, where the women en-sconced on sacred ground (Lysistrata and the younger women on theacropolis) are nearly immolated by angry torch-bearing men suspiciousof their loyalty before they are saved by the older women who bringwater to douse the fire.These initial scenes between the two semicho-ruses are often dismissed as frivolous slapstick that is not pertinent tothe wider themes of the play, but in fact they introduce the olderwomen in an extremely positive light as dynamic saviors in a play thatis ultimately concerned about the salvation of the city.Toward the end of the play Aristophanes underscores the religiouslycentered authority of these older women when he has them directly ad-vise the audience and justify their advice by boasting about their spe-cial civic credentials, all of which refer to their regular participation inthe religious life of the city:6For I, all you citizens, begin with some useful advice for the city.And it is fittingthat I do so, since it nourished me splendidly and in great comfort.When Iwas seven years old straightaway I served as arrephoros [i.e., weaver of Athena sceremonial robe].Next when I was ten I was a corn-grinder for the FoundingGoddess [i.e., Athena]7 and shedding the saffron gown I was a bear at theBrauronia festival.Also, once when I was a fair maiden, I was a basket carrier[i.e., in the Panathenaic procession] wearing a necklace of dried figs.Do I notthen deserve a chance to give advice to the city? (638 48)Here the description of important religious duties with their domestic-sounding titles like corn grinder and basket carrier repeats the dou-ble image of women as the caretakers of both the household economy of Priestess and Courtesan 213Athens and its religious life, a pattern into which we can also fit the fe-male chorus entrance as women who carry water from the well.The question then arises: how does Aristophanes dramatically linkthese two very different groups of women, the younger sex-crazed whores up above and the older citizen-wives, who stand belowguarding the gates of the acropolis? He does it, as we would expect,with delicious irony and good humor.For example: when the olderwomen run onto the stage with their water jugs, they set their goal ofsaving the besieged women in a larger framework of Panhellenic salva-tion with the following prayer to Athena: Goddess, may I never seethese women in flames; instead let them rescue Greece and her citizensfrom war and madness! O golden crested Guardian of the citadel, forthat is why they occupy your shrine.I invite thee to be our ally, Trito-geneia, defending it with water, should any man set it afire! (341 49,trans.Henderson 1996, 54).This prayer represents the older women aspious and staunch defenders of the city who see themselves as the alliesof the virgin goddess herself.Their prayer however, is quite curious, inthat it quite explicitly calls to mind another famous scene of women onan acropolis threatened by impious men.This was the prayer that thewomen of Corinth made on their own acropolis in the darkest hoursof the Persian War.It is described in a famous epigram by the poet Si-monides, which was apparently set up on the Corinthian acropolis nextto a representation or list of these women:8These women stood praying to Cypris [Aphrodite] for miracles on behalf of theGreeks and the close-fighting citizens.For divine Aphrodite did not wish togive the acropolis of the Greeks to the bow-bearing Persians.In addition to the obvious parallels in circumstance an acropolisunder attack the pleonastic expression in Aristophanes ( rescuingGreece and the citizens at lines 342 43) recalls the first line of the Si-monidean poem: praying on behalf of the Greeks and the close-fightingcitizens. If this epigram was as famous as later sources suggest, Aris-tophanes has summoned up an image of heroic and pious women onan acropolis praying for safety at a time of great national emergency [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]