Bringing Peace Down from the Heavens, If Only on the Back of a Dung Beetle: Peace by Aristophanes

The comedy Peace by Aristophanes, first staged in 421 BC, during the Great Dionysian Festival, won second prize. Its historical setting is the Peloponnesian War that rent Greece. Aristophanes :proposes a Dionysian alternative, sensual and festive, for life in the shadow of war, a life captured in the image of a dung beetle.