Aristophanes Lysistrata And The Two Acropolis Priestesses

The International Journal of
Literary Humanities
THEHUMANITIES.COM
VOLUME 15 ISSUE 3
__________________________________________________________________________
Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” and the
Two Acropolis Priestesses
NICHOLAS D. SMITH

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ISSN: 2327-7912 (Print), ISSN: 2327-8676 (Online)
http://doi.org/10.18848/2327-7912/CGP/v15i03/35-40 (Article)
Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” and the
Two Acropolis Priestesses
Nicholas D. Smith,1
Lewis and Clark College, USA
Abstract: Scholarship on Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” has become almost unanimously aligned in various degrees of
support of a proposal made by David M. Lewis in 1955 that we should identify Aristophanes’ character, Lysistrata, with
Lysimache, the priestess of Athena Polias when the play was produced in 411 BCE. Lewis also argues that Aristophanes’
Myrrhine should be identified with the priestess of Athena Nike of that same name during that year, but this proposal has
turned out to be more controversial. The author intends to show that the identifications or even associations between
Aristophanes’ characters and the two acropolis priestesses are much more problematic than scholars have recognized.
Keywords: Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” Acropolis Priestesses, Lysimache, Myrrhine
Introduction
cholarship on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata has become almost unanimously aligned in support
of a proposal made by David M. Lewis in 1955 that Aristophanes intended his audience to
identify Aristophanes’ character, Lysistrata, with Lysimache, the priestess of Athena
Polias when the play was produced in 411 BCE.2
Lewis also argues that Aristophanes’ Myrrhine
should be identified with the priestess of Athena Nike of that same name during that year.3
But
these identifications seem to cause some discomfort and require some qualification, even in the
works of scholars who endorse them. For example, Alan H. Sommerstein says, “It is not likely,
to be sure, that we should think of Lysistrata as representing Lysimache in the sense in which
Paphlagon in Knights represents Cleon: it is more a matter of association and reminiscence,
helping to link the heroine with the power and wisdom of Athena.”4
The same ways of
associating the Aristophanic characters with the priestesses, but then attenuating the connections,
can be found in the accounts of most other scholars as well.5
The purpose of this paper is to show
that the problems with such identifications are actually much greater than scholars have
recognized, to such an extent that it is implausible to suppose that Aristophanes actually intended
us to make them in any way that could be sustained through a full reading of the play.
1
Corresponding Author: Nicholas D. Smith, 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Rd., Departments of Classics and Philosophy, Lewis
and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, 97219, USA. email: ndsmith@lclark.edu
2
David M. Lewis, “Notes on Attic Inscriptions (II): XXIII. Who Was Lysistrata?” The Annual of the British School at
Athens 50 (1955): 6. Those who have agreed with Lewis’s proposal include Joan Breton Connelly, Portrait of a
Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 62–63; Julia Lougovaya-
Ast, “Myrrhine, the First Priestess of Athena Nike,” Phoenix 60, no. 3/4 (2006): 211–25; Douglas M. MacDowell,
Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 240–42; and Alan H. Sommerstein, ed. and trans.,
Aristophanes Lysistrata (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990), 5. I am aware of only one scholar who has expressed
skepticism: K. J. Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 152, n. 3, allows that the
similarities are “curious” but doubts any significance, though he does not give any specific reasons why the association
should be ignored.
3
Lewis, “Notes,” 1. This identification, too, has won the support of some scholars, e.g. Connell, Portrait of a Priestess,
62–63; Lougovaya-Ast, “Myrrhine;” MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens, 241. Jeffrey Henderson, ed. and trans.,
Aristophanes Lysistrata (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), xl–xli, and Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 5, n. 31, both see reason
to accept some association of Lysistrata with Lysimache but doubt that Aristophanes’ Myrrhine is to be identified with
the priestess of Athena Nike of that same name.
4
Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 5.
5
See Henderson, Lysistrata, xxxix–xl; MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens, 242; and Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess,
63 for other expressions of caution about how close we are supposed to expect the putative identities to be.
S

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LITERARY HUMANITIES
Lysistrata and Lysimache
The most important evidence for identifying Aristophanes’ Lysistrata with Lysimache is the
similarity in the two names, which not only sound somewhat alike, but also obviously have very
similar meanings—Lysistrata means “she who delivers us from armies;” Lysimache means “she
who delivers us from battles.” The minor difference between the two names—a source of
puzzlement to Lewis6
—has been plausibly explained in terms of the meter of Aristophanes’ verse
and thus is not an argument against the proposed association.7
Aristophanes has Lysistrata say
that if the women in the play can make their scheme to end the war work, “I think then we will
be called ‘Lysimachai’ among the Greeks’” (οἶμαί ποτε Λυσιμάχας ἡμᾶς ἐν τοῖς Ἕλλησι
καλεῖσθαι) (line 554). Commentators have taken this as strong evidence for connecting the two,
but the argument is faulty.8
It should not take the success of her ingenious plans to be called by
her real name, nor would the identity she already has be one she could share with the other
women, but the epithet is here given in the plural. The point of the remark in line 554 seems to
be, at best, that all of the women would deserve to be called by the epithet that happens to be the
actual name of the priestess of Athena Polias.9
Other than the similarity of the two names, however, the evidence for the proposed
identification quickly thins. Sommerstein, for example, discounts the association of
Aristophanes’ Myrrhine with the priestess of Athena Nike on the ground that “Myrrhine…is a
very common name both in real life and in comedy, and the Myrrhine of the play has none of the
exceptional dignity of Lysistrata and is nowhere linked with Athena Nike.”10
Is Lysistrata an
uncommon name, then? Lewis himself notes some instances of it, as well as a number of
generations in Lysimache’s family with the male version of the name (Lysistratos).11
But even if
the name was uncommon, once the audience has made the connection between the Lysistrata of
the play and the real Lysimache (a connection Sommerstein accepts), then it seems more likely
that the audience would make the connection between the two Myrrhines. His objection to
connecting the two Myrrhines derives from Sommerstein’s uneasiness with associating the real
priestess with the lack of “exceptional dignity” he finds in the character’s antics on the comic
stage.
Is Sommerstein correct, however, in contrasting the undignified behavior of Myrrhine with
that of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata? Scholars have generally been impressed with Lysistrata. Jeffrey
Henderson, for example, regards her as “extraordinary.”12
He later admires her “cool discipline
and immunity to sexual temptation” and concludes, “Lysistrata finds her closest analogue in
Athena herself.”13
The impressiveness of Aristophanes’ character seems, too, to be taken as
evidence that she was modelled on the redoubtable Lysimache. Here, again, however, the actual
argument is unconvincing. There can be no doubt that Lysistrata is depicted as wonderfully
6
Lewis, “Notes,” 7.
7
See Lougovaya-Ast, “Myrrhine,” 219, citing P. A. Hansen, Carmina Epigraphica Graeca I (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983).
8
See Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, 62–63; Henderson, Lysistrata, xxxix; Lewis, “Notes,” 6; Alan H. Sommerstein,
“The Naming of Women in Greek and Roman Comedy,” Quaderni di Storia 11 (1980): 396; and Sommerstein,
Lysistrata, 5 and 182.
9
Lewis’s own response to this is a rhetorical question rather than an answer: “Would not the audience now be sure that
she had been called Lysimache all the time?” (“Notes,” 6). The same name/epithet also appears in Aristophanes’ Peace,
line 992, in which it is used to address the statue of Peace personified. No one counts this as evidence for identifying the
priestess Lysimache with the actual goddess. The plural in Lysistrata must, accordingly, not count as better evidence for
such an identification there. The use of the term as an epithet may be “otherwise unattested” (Henderson, Lysistrata,
xxxix), but there is nothing awkward or unlikely about the word being used in such a way. We may choose to see such a
use in either case as purposefully calling to mind the name of the priestess. My point here is only that even granting this
cannot count as evidence for the identification of the one(s) called by the name with the well-known woman who actually
bore that name in one of the two instances only.
10
Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 5, n. 31.
11
Lewis, “Notes,” 7, n. 36. See also Henderson, Lysistrata, xxxix.
12
Henderson, Lysistrata, xxxvii.
13
Ibid., xxxviii.
36

SMITH: ARISTOPHANES’ “LYSISTRATA” AND THE TWO ACROPOLIS PRIESTESSES
resourceful in the way that Aristophanic main characters almost always are.14
But finding
“exceptional dignity,” as Sommerstein described,15
in addition takes a certain amount of
squinting. Lysistrata’s marital status is never revealed in the play—for all we know, she may be a
widow.16
This lack of attachment thus never actually provides her with much of an opportunity to
display the “immunity to sexual temptation” that Henderson so admires in her. Instead, however,
she expresses distress at the shortage of Milesian dildos (lines 107–10; see also line 159), can
manage to speak of what the women must do in the all of the appropriately colloquial ways and
without anything resembling polite euphemism (lines 149–52, 231, and 1119), and has the bright
idea to swear an oath over unwatered wine (lines 195–97), which she seems ready to drink all by
herself (lines 238–39).
Lewis seems to think that the connection between Lysistrata and Lysimache would be all but
inevitable in Aristophanes’ audience because of the connection of both women to the
Acropolis.17
The difficulty with this argument is that it would require Lysistrata to be associated
with the Acropolis before anything has been said about that sanctuary in the play. The first time
the Acropolis is mentioned is in line 241, when Lysistrata reports its occupation to her co-
conspirators. Lysistrata then tells Lampito to go any make the necessary arrangements with the
Spartans and bids the other women to come with her to join the other women inside the
Acropolis, which is far enough from where they are that they make an exit from the stage (see
lines 244–53, after which no women appear again until line 320). Accordingly, the only thing
that would associate Lysistrata with the Acropolis before line 241 of the play would be the
similarity of her name to Lysimache’s.
Despite accepting the association of Lysistrata with Lysimache, Henderson actually gives us
a good reason for skepticism, which is, as he puts it, that “Lysimache would thus be one of only
two examples in all of Greek comedy of a respectable woman being publicly named by a free
man not related to her.”18
The only other example, according to Henderson, is Lysistrata herself
(who is called by name by the first Athenian Delegate at lines 1086, 1103, and 1147, assuming
that he is, in fact, not Lysistrata’s husband).19
This seems to be a strong taboo.20
Henderson’s
explanation for this aberration is that “her priesthood exempted her from the ordinary protocol.”21
One might well wonder if, instead, Lysimache is not explicitly named and a fictional character
supplied instead so that Aristophanes could avoid breaking this taboo instead of risking offending
an important priestess. However, there are even more important reasons for doubt.
Lewis wonders why Lysistrata addresses Kalonike as “κωμῆτις” (“fellow villager”) in line 5
of the opening scene.22
Lewis goes no further with why this might present a problem for the
identification he endorses, but Sommerstein recognizes that “Calonice is a name of Boeotian
rather than Attic formation.”23
Lysistrata’s name, however, is one well suited to an Athenian
woman, so one can understand Lewis’s puzzlement. What Lewis fails to mention, however, is
that two lines later Kalonike addresses Lysistrata as “ὦ τέκνον” (“child” or “youngster”), which
presents a different difficulty. As Sommerstein notes, “everywhere else in comedy the use of this
14
Indeed, perhaps the only true exceptions to this kind of resourcefulness (and these would be debatable) might be
Strepsiades of Clouds and Dionysus of Frogs.
15
Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 5, n. 31.
16
It seems she was once married, at any rate, to make sense of what she says at lines 510–20.
17
18
Henderson, Lysistrata, xxxix. See, too, Sommerstein, “Naming of Women,” 396.
19
See footnote 15, above.
20
See Sommerstein, “Naming of Women,” and David Schaps, “The Woman Least Mentioned: Etiquette and Women’s
Names,” Classical Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1977): 323–30.
21
Henderson, Lysistrata, xxxix. Sommerstein can only shrug: “the naming of Lysistrata…implies that she is no ordinary
woman” (Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 210). In “Naming of Women,” Sommerstein claims that Lysistrata’s being named in
public clearly shows that she is recognized as having an important public role. That would certainly be true of Lysistrata
in Aristophanes’ play but provides no additional reason for identifying her with Lysimache, who is not named here or
elsewhere in Aristophanes (see footnote 8).
22
Lewis “Notes,” 7.
23
Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 155.
37

form of address…requires the addressee to be considerably younger than the speaker; hence
Calonike should be thought of as middle-aged (but not so old as to make her participation in the
sex-strike seem grotesque; the old women have been assigned a different role in the conspiracy,
cf. lines 177–79).”24
But this also presents a problem for the association between the priestess
and Aristophanes’ character, since Lysimache herself was almost certainly already at least
middle-aged when Aristophanes’ play was first produced in 411 BCE. The posthumous
dedication of Lysimache’s statue on the Acropolis (IG II² 3453), has been dated to ca. 380 BCE
or ca. 360 BCE. We do not know how long after her death the memorial was created, but it
seems likely that it would have been made soon after she died. On the basis of the information
the inscription provides, it seems Lysimache served as the priestess of Athena Polias for some
sixty-four years, and died at the age of eighty-eight. If she was eighty-eight in 360 BCE, then she
would have been nearly forty in 411 BCE when Aristophanes’ play was produced. The earlier
date would make Lysimache nearly sixty in 411 BCE. So even if we cannot be at all confident
about precisely how old Lysimache was in 411 BCE,25
it seems clear enough that she would not
be aptly addressed as a τέκνον by some other woman who could not be older than middle-aged.
Lewis reminds us that “the mask [worn by the actor playing Lysistrata] may well have made
all things clear.”26
I expect he is right about this, except that the effects of the mask would be the
opposite of what Lewis has proposed. Indeed, an appropriately youthful-looking mask and a
costume more suited to a much younger woman may well have made “all things clear” to those
who might have been inclined to identify Lysistrata and Lysimache.
Myrrhine and Myrrhine
The name itself seems to provide a strong case for associating Aristophanes’ character Myrrhine
with the priestess of Athena Nike of the same name. Even so, this connection has not enjoyed as
much support as the proposed one between Lysistrata and Lysimache. The main problem cited
against connecting the two Myrrhines is the role that Aristophanes gives his character by that
name in the play. Indeed, one of the most rollicking scenes of the play involves Myrrhine’s
uncompleted seduction of her husband, who is given the name Kinesias in the play. Supporters of
identifying Aristophanes’ character with the priestess face several difficulties. We do know of a
certain Kinesias, a dithyrambic poet who is pilloried by Aristophanes in Birds as a scrawny and
sickly annoyance who needed to be chased away from Cloudcuckooland.27
But the man of that
name in Lysistrata is not characterized in any way that would recall the poet, and his name and
demotic (given at line 852), especially when it is given within this scene of frustrated seduction,
make it difficult to believe that the character is the real husband of a real priestess of Athena
Nike. As Henderson aptly comments, “the name was more likely chosen for the pun on kinein
‘screw,’ just as the deme name Paeonidae reminds us of paiein ‘bang.’”28
Moreover, since this is
the most important scene involving Myrrhine, it is probably worth noting that her name, too,
supplies an entirely apt sexual joke. The name means “myrtle,” a common slang term for female
24
Ibid.
25
Lougovaya-Ast (“Myrrhine,” 219, n. 19), for example, sees Lysimache as in her mid-fifties in 411 BCE but fails to
notice that this creates a problem for identifying her with Aristophanes’ apparently youthful lead character.
26
27
See Alan H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes Birds (Oxford: Aris and Phillips, 1991), 289, note on lines 1372–409.
28
Jeffrey Henderson, ed. and trans., Aristophanes Birds, Lysistrata, Women at the Thesmophoria, Loeb Classical Library
179 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 383, n. 83. MacDowell, however, has no problem with this
identification, despite the obvious sexual connotations: “Her husband is Kinesias, the gangling and cadaverous poet who
is also mocked in Birds.… Kinesias is a rare name, and the audience on hearing it would certainly think of its only well-
known bearer, the poet, who was the constant butt of comic dramatists.… From his role in Lysistrata it is probably right
to conclude that Kinesias the poet was in historical fact the husband of Myrrhine the priestess of Athena Nike”
(MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens, 243–44). MacDowell fails to mention the additional demotic that is provided
(which is nowhere else connected to the dithyrambic poet) and how it makes the entire name into an obvious sexual joke.
38

SMITH: ARISTOPHANES’ “LYSISTRATA” AND THE TWO ACROPOLIS PRIESTESSES
genitalia.29
Myrrhine and Kinesias are thus perfectly named for the comedic scene. Linking them
to historical figures has the effect of blurring the joke, or worse. As Henderson aptly notes, “The
Myrrhine in our play is a typical housewife with a farcical role. It is impossible to discern any
contribution to her characterization that a connection with Athena Nike would provide.
Furthermore, Myrrhine is one of the most common Athenian names and was evidently chosen
(like ‘Kinesias’) for its sexual connotations…. If it suggested any cult, it was Aphrodite’s, not
Athena’s.”30
MacDowell proposes a different reason to link Aristophanes’ Myrrhine with the
priestess, noting that she seems to have ready access to bedding and other things, “and who
would have belongings there but the priestess of that temple?”31
The flaw with this argument is
that all the women occupying the Acropolis would presumably have brought at least a minimum
of such provisions with them.
The priestess’ age is also a problem. If Lougovaya-Ast is right to think that Myrrhine was
first selected to serve as the priestess of Athena Nike as early as 450–445 BCE,32
she would have
been rather old in 411 BCE to have a baby still nursing (see line 881).33
Worse, it is not even
clear that the priestess was still alive in 411 BCE. The editors of the epitaph (IG I³ 1330) that
refers to a Myrrhine who was priestess of Athena Nike date it to ca. 430–400 BCE.34
It is thus
entirely possible that the priestess commemorated in the stele actually died sometime between
430 and 412 BCE, in which case the proposed association between the priestess and
Aristophanes’ character would not be apt.
Conclusion
Not once in the Lysistrata are any of the characters in the play identified as priestesses.35
If
Aristophanes had wanted to encourage the identifications scholars have proposed, he could
certainly have done a better job of it. If the arguments presented here are correct, Lewis and
others have been wrong to identify Aristophanes’ two characters with priestesses who had the
same, or very similar, names. But why, then, would Aristophanes have used these names as he
did? As Lewis observes, with respect to Lysimache/Lysistrata, “Aristophanes…could easily have
selected a name with the same meaning, but without the close resemblance.”36
I propose that
Aristophanes picked the very common name Myrrhine as a perfect one to depict a sexy young
wife whose refusal to have conjugal relations with her over-sexed husband causes him very
motivating distress and consternation. The primary scene in which she appears does not at all
recall a mature priestess with a major religious role on the Acropolis. As for Lysistrata, the
movement of the play certainly proves that her name is a suitable one. Perhaps Aristophanes did
like the idea of naming his play and its protagonist in a way that suggested a famous priestess, as
a kind of tease to the audience. But he also does nothing to reinforce that association and gives a
number of details that serve to dissolve it in the play itself.37
29
Jeffrey Henderson, The Maculate Muse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 134–35. “Myrtle berry,” too, was a
slang term for clitoris (see Sommerstein, Lysistrata, 206, 1004n).
30
Henderson, Lysistrata, xli.
31
MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athensi, 242.
32
Lougovaya-Ast, “Myrrhine,” 211–18.
33
Lougovaya-Ast (“Myrrhine,” 220) puts the priestess “in her late forties or early fifties in 411” but does not seem to
recognize that this creates a problem for the identification of the two Myrrhines.
34
Lougovaya-Ast, “Myrrhine,” 211.
35
The closest such connection is made by the women’s chorus, who claims to have served various ritual roles (in various
sanctuaries) in lines 640–47. There are problems with these lines (see Sommerstein’s notes in Lysistrata, 188–90), but
these have no impact on our focus here.
36
Lewis, “Notes,” 6–7.
37
I am indebted to Jeffrey Henderson, Gordon Kelly, Robert Kugler, and Julia Lougovaya-Ast for their helpful
suggestions on an earlier draft. My gratitude for their assistance is no indication of agreement with my arguments, and all
remaining errors are my own.
39

REFERENCES
Aristophanes. Birds. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Oxford: Aris and Phillips,
1991. First printed 1987.
———. Birds, Lysistrata, Women at the Thesmophoria. Edited and translated by Jeffrey
Henderson. Loeb Classical Library 179. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
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———. Lysistrata. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Warminster: Aris and
Phillips, 1990.
———. Lysistrata. Edited and translated by Jeffrey Henderson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
Connelly, Joan Breton. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2007.
Dillan, Matthew. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. London: Routledge, 2002.
Dover, K. J. Aristophanic Comedy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Hansen, P. A., ed. Carmina Epigraphica Graeca I. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983.
Henderson, Jeffrey. The Maculate Muse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Lewis, David. “Notes on Attic Inscriptions (II): XXIII. Who Was Lysistrata?” The Annual of the
British School at Athens 50 (1955): 1–36.
Lougovaya-Ast, Julia. “Myrrhine, the First Priestess of Athena Nike.” Phoenix 60, no. 3/4
(2006): 211–25.
MacDowell, Douglas M. Aristophanes and Athens. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Schaps, David. “The Woman Least Mentioned: Etiquette and Women’s Names.” Classical
Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1977): 323–30.
Sommerstein, Alan H. “The Naming of Women in Greek and Roman Comedy.” Quaderni di
Storia 11 (1980): 393–418.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicholas D. Smith: James F. Miller Professor of Humanities, Departments of Classics and
Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, USA
40

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stabilize bodies of work into traditions and genres.
Or, in a critical orientation, the literary humanities may
also seek to unsettle received expressive forms and
conventional interpretations. This journal explores
these dimensions of the literary humanities, in a
contemporary context where the role and purpose of
the humanities in general, and literary humanities in
particular, is frequently contested.
As well as papers of a traditional scholarly type, this
journal invites presentations of literary practice—
including unpublished literary pieces. These can either
be short pieces included within the body of article or
if longer, referenced pieces that are readily available
in the public domain (for instance, via web link).
should include factors such as contextual explanation,
interpretative exegeses and audience analysis.
The International Journal of Literary Humanities is a
peer-reviewed scholarly journal.
ISSN 2327-7912
is one of five thematically focused journals in the family
of journals that support the New Directions in the
imprint, conference, and online community.
analyzes and interprets literatures and literacy
practices, seeking to unsettle received expressive
forms and conventional interpretations. This journal
explores these dimensions of the literary humanities, in
a contemporary context where the role and purpose
of the humanities in general, and literary humanities in
particular, is frequently contested.
As well as papers of a traditional scholarly type, this
journal invites presentations of literary practice—
including unpublished literary pieces. These can either
be short pieces included within the body of article
or if longer, referenced pieces that are readily available
in the public domain (for instance, via web link).
Documentation of the literary practice in the article
should include factors such as contextual explanation,
interpretative exegeses, and audience analysis.
is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal.
Humanities Research Network—its journals, book

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