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Greeks II: Aristophanes The Frogs (405 B.C.) notes
Aristophanes had been presenting comedies to the Athenians for more than twenty years when he
presented The Frogs in 405 B.C. In the world of theater, it came only a year after Sophocles’s Oedipus at
Colonus and Euripides’s Medea were presented for the first time. Both of these tragic playwrights had
died within the past year with Euripides dying first in Macedonia. In politics it was a much more
unsettled time than the previous year when Sophocles had written Oedipus at Colonus with its optimism
about the outcome of the war. Since that time, the Athenians had won a huge naval victory at Arginusae,
but this victory turned into a disaster of Athenian infighting. After the battle, the Spartans asked for a
peace treaty freezing everything as it was, but this plea was seen as weakness on the Spartans’ part, and
Cleophon, a radical democratic leader often called a demogogue, convinced the ekklesia to reject the
treaty. This proved to be a poor decision. A storm had come up after the battle at Arginusae, and the
Athenian survivors in the water as well as several disabled ships were not rescued. In a bout of political
infighting initiated by the generals who won the battle, the tables were turned by Theramenes, and six of
the eight generals were executed by vote of the ekklesia with the others escaping to avoid the penalty.
Alcibiades, Athens’s best leader, had been dismissed in 406 when his subordinate lost a sea battle that he
hadn’t ordered, and the fate of the generals ensured that he wouldn’t be heading back to Athens. The
people of Athens almost immediately regretted executing the generals, and doubt grew about the wisdom
of the majority, which had become increasingly radicalized after granting citizenship to slaves who rowed
at Arginusae and by executions and exiles of the leaders of the oligarchic coup in 411. The Spartan army
had almost taken the city in recent months, and it was still camped nearby at Decelea (a suggestion of
Alcibiades when he was on the Spartan side). The Spartan general Lysander was now working with the
Persian prince Cyrus to defeat the Athenian navy, which would indeed occur within a few months, leading
to the fall of Athens and the destruction of its walls and its government in 404. It is important to know
this background both because of references to it in the play and to understand the desperation and
confusion of the time in Athens.
Points to ponder:
What does Aristophanes see as the role of the poet (playwright)?
What does Aristophanes see as the potential salvation of Athens?
What can you tell about Aristophanes’s politics from this play?
How does Aristophanes seem to define wisdom in this play?
Notes:
1. How is Dionysus portrayed in the stage directions and in his actions?
2. How does Aristophanes seem to feel about class issues early in the play? To what specific
incident does he refer?
3. What is Dionysus up to and why? What does he think of the state of current theater?
4. Why has Dionysus come to see Heracles?
5. What is the significance of the two obols joke?
6. How does Dionysus involve the audience in the play?
7. How is Dionysus portrayed when he arrives in Hades?
8. What sorts of activities do the choruses of initiates criticize?
9. What is the condition of the clothes of the chorus? Why?
10. Who in the audience is criticized by the Chorus? Why?
11. What does the refrain to the Chorus indicate about Aristophanes’s views?
Scene II 1. To whom do the landladies (commoners) look for revenge on “Heracles”?
2. In the chorus’s songs at the end of scene 2, what are Aristophanes’s political views?
Act II: 1. What did Athenians fear more about their slaves than a revolt (similar to servants in Victorian
England)?
2. What is the cause of the uproar going on in Hades? To what might Aristophanes be alluding?
3. How does Sophocles figure into all of this?
4. How are Euripides and Aeschylus characterized by their attitudes toward this situation?
5. Who is to judge the contest? Why?
6. How does the Chorus distinguish between the two poets?
7. What are Euripides’s criticisms of Aeschylus?
8. What are Aeschylus’s criticisms of Euripides?
9. How does Aristophanes characterize the two poets through their prayers?
10. How does Euripides describe his contributions to drama?
11. What do the two poets agree is the main purpose of the tragic poet?
12. How do the two poets disagree about how this should be accomplished?
13. For what specific effects on Athenian society does Aeschylus blame Euripides?
14. What topical allusion might be hidden in the reference to Orestes’s return to his polis?
15. How is the brief dispute about Oedipus philosophically significant?
16. What opposing problems do the poets have with one another’s verse?
17. What is Aeschylus’s criticism of Euripides’s lyrical monologues?
18. In what way does Aeschylus trounce Euripides in the judging? What’s the point of this?
19. What test does Dionysus propose? How do the poets respond to the question?
20. What question does Dionysus ask next, and how is it answered by both poets?
21. Who does Dionysus choose? What does the chorus indicate is the reason he is needed?
22. What can you tell about Aristophanes’s political, social and philosophical views from this play?