Lysistrata

“Lysistrata” is a bawdy anti-war comedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, first staged in 411 BCE. It is the comic account of one woman’s extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War, as Lysistrata convinces the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands as a means of forcing the men to negotiate a peace. Some consider it his greatest work, and it is probably the most anthologized.

Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē, "Army Disbander") is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes.

Aristophanes, the great comic dramatist of Athens, wrote the Lysistrata for performance in February 411 BC, probably at the Lenaia. The play was written against the backdrop of the final years of the Peloponnesian War (a long and destructive war between Athens and Sparta): Athens had suffered major military setbacks, and shortly after the performance of the play there was an anti-democratic coup in the city which installed a brutal oligarchic regime (the historical background is given in Thucydides' History, book 8).