A way to stop a war ….. how the Greeks did it in 411 BC

Well actually not quite, but in today’s In Our Time explores how  the Greek playwright Aristophanes suggested it could be done.

Immediate peace negotiations in Algeria, circa 1960/9161

“Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' comedy in which the women of Athens and Sparta, led by Lysistrata, secure peace in the long-running war between them by staging a sex strike.

 To the men in the audience in 411BC, the idea that peace in the Peloponnesian War could be won so easily was ridiculous and the thought that their wives could have so much power over them was even more so. 

However, Aristophanes' comedy also has the women seizing the treasure in the Acropolis that was meant to fund more fighting in an emergency, a fund the Athenians had recently had to draw on. 

They were in a perilous position and, much as they might laugh at Aristophanes' jokes, they knew there were real concerns about the actual cost of the war in terms of wealth and manpower.

With, Paul Cartledge, AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge, Sarah Miles, Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, and James Robson, Professor of Classical Studies at the Open University

Demonstrating against Cruise Missiles, Manchester, 1981

Producer: Simon Tillotson”

Pictures; Poster calling for peace in Algeria, PSU, circa 1960/61, demonstrating against cruise missiles, in Manchester, in 1981 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Lysistrata, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001y2z4