Lysistrata

The first new edition in almost sixty years, this volume of Aristophanes' Lysistrata brings the play completely up to date with modern scholarship. It provides the first complete account of its history and contains new information about the comic theater and its social and political context. Lysistrata not only brims with topical references to social life, religion, and politics in classical Athens; it is also one of our best sources for information on the life of women in antiquity, offering a unique glimpse of their everyday life.

In addition to its many topical references to social life, religion, and politics in classical Athens, the Lysistrata is one of our best sources for the life of women in antiquity: unlike epic, tragedy, and oratory, Attic comedy draws its characters and plots from everyday life and provides a unique glimpse into the situation of everyday Athenians. Henderson's standard edition of Aristophanes' play provides much new evidence for those working on anthropological and sociological aspects of Athens, as well as those working in traditional philological fields. The text is brought fully up to date with the advances made in Aristophanic scholarship over the past sixty years. In particular, it is the first to report all the manuscripts, papyri, and testimonial sources of the text, offering a new account of its history and a detailed review of the transmission of the Aristophanic corpus as a whole. Henderson's text and apparatus criticus is supplemented by a full Introduction giving details of the background to the play, its content, staging, philological interest, the textual transmission, and by a detailed Commentary.

Abbreviations; Introduction; Lysistrata and the events of 411; The character of the play; Dramatis personae; Production; The Spartan dialect; The history of the text; Notes on lyric analyses; Sigla; Hypotheses; Dramatis personae; Text; Commentary; Indexes