The 'Peace' was brought out four years after 'The Acharnians' (422
B.C.), when the War had already lasted ten years. The leading motive is
the same as in the former play--the intense desire of the less excitable
and more moderate-minded citizens for relief from the miseries of war.
Trygaeus, a rustic patriot, finding no help in men, resolves to ascend
to heaven to expostulate personally with Zeus for allowing this wretched
state of things to continue. With this object he has fed and trained a
gigantic dung-beetle, which he mounts, and is carried, like Bellerophon
on Pegasus, on an aerial journey. Eventually he reaches Olympus, only to
find that the gods have gone elsewhere, and that the heavenly abode is
occupied solely by the demon of War, who is busy pounding up the Greek
States in a huge mortar. However, his benevolent purpose is not in vain;
for learning from Hermes that the goddess Peace has been cast into a
pit, where she is kept a fast prisoner, he calls upon the different
peoples of Hellas to make a united effort and rescue her, and with their
help drags her out and brings her back in triumph to earth. The play
concludes with the restoration of the goddess to her ancient honours,
the festivities of the rustic population and the nuptials of Trygaeus
with Opora (Harvest), handmaiden of Peace, represented as a pretty
courtesan.
Such references as there are to Cleon in this play are noteworthy. The
great Demagogue was now dead, having fallen in the same action as the
rival Spartan general, the renowned Brasidas, before Amphipolis, and
whatever Aristophanes says here of his old enemy is conceived in the
spirit of 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum.' In one scene Hermes is descanting
on the evils which had nearly ruined Athens and declares that 'The
Tanner' was the cause of them all. But Trygaeus interrupts him with the
words:
"Hold-say not so, good master Hermes; Let the man rest in peace where
now he lies. He is no longer of our world, but yours."
Here surely we have a trait of magnanimity on the author's part as
admirable in its way as the wit and boldness of his former attacks had
been in theirs.