The Cult of Peace on the Athenian Stage during the Peloponnesian War: From Euripides's Cresphontes to Aristophanes's Peace and Beyond

Abstract

Abstract:This paper argues that Euripides in Cresphontes (produced probably in 424 B.C.E.) and Aristophanes in Farmers (423 B.C.E.) and Peace (421 B.C.E.) reflect and promote the plan of the peace enthusiasts in Athens to institute an official cult of the goddess in the city once peace with Sparta was agreed; through investigation of contemporary and later literary and visual evidence (including Aristophanes's Acharnians and Lysistrata, Thucydides, and Plutarch) it offers an explanation why this plan was not fulfilled till much later, i.e., after the Peace of Timotheus in 374 B.C.E.