Gender Roles In Lysistrata

The division between Greek and Barbarian, and the formation of a Panhellenic identity starts to come about after the Persian Wars (490 BC – 479 BC), where there was more of an effort to separate Greeks and Barbarians: they are ‘other’ and that is negative. War against the East provided the Greeks with the basis for a shared history as well as a shared future. Edward M. Anson links back to Homer and says that ‘the Greeks based their claims of Hellenic ethnicity on their descent from those who had participated in the [Trojan] War’ (2009:12)—shared history. Vlassopoulos then goes further and makes a point that ‘the Persian Wars largely intensified developments that had already started earlier [shared history] and which were only partly related

The women in this play that represent the other Greek states (Athens enemies) signify the theme of Panhellenism that has been discussed thoroughly throughout the late fifth- early fourth-century. Aristophanes’ objective in this play is friendship, peace, and an end of war between the cities. Through these aspects we can see Gorgias and Lysias be linked to Lysistrata. Aristophanes explicitly claims that it is philia (friendship) that should ease tensions between the Greek states and lead them to a harmony (Ar. Lys. 1157-1188); and additionally Lysias wrote that the Greeks needed to remember they were united through friendship and their desire for salvation and must go and fight the Persians (Lys. 33.6). The term homonoia (harmony) was used by Philostratus to describe Gorgias’ policy of harmony among the Greeks (Philostr. VS. 1.493); and this concept of working together, creating a harmony was understood in Lysistrata through the image of the wool-working simile (573) . Furthermore, their (Gorgias and Lysias) Panhellenic ideals are shown when Lysistrata in lines 1128 through to 1134 states the same thing as them, about how Greece would be better off to attack the barbarian men and cities rather than Greek men and