The tyrant’s mortar: reification, voracity and international agency in Aristophanes’ Peace (vv. 236-300)

Authors

Keywords:

Aristophanes. Peace. Material culture. Political agency. War.

Abstract

From a theoretical perspective interested in the functionality of material culture and its implications for the understanding of Greek comedy, this article will analyze, in Peace (421 B.C.E.), the episode of War’s entrance and the description of his culinary preparations towards the end of the play's prologue (vv. 236-300). War (Polemos), represented here as a Panhellenic tyrant capable of exerting force over the objects around him, replaces in its personification the divine agency and is opposed in these verses to the passive description of the cities as mere ingredients of a sauce recipe he intends to eat. Ironically, the play will show that reification ends up functioning as a triggering instance of political subjectivity at the international level.

Author Biography

Emiliano Buis, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)

Abogado, Licenciado, Doctor en Letras Clásicas y Diploma de Posdoctorado en Derecho (UBA), Magister en Historia y Derechos de la Antigüedad (Universidad de París 1) y en Egiptología (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares). Es Profesor Titular Regular de Derecho Internacional Público en la UBA, la UNICEN y Universidad de San Andrés, y Profesor Adjunto Regular de Lengua y Cultura Griegas en la UBA. Es Investigador Independiente del CONICET con Categoría I del Programa Nacional de Incentivos, además de Investigador Permanente del Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas y Sociales “Ambrosio L. Gioja” de la Facultad de Derecho de la UBA. Es Profesor de la Maestría en Estudios Clásicos y Subdirector de la Maestría en Relaciones Internacionales de la UBA. Dirige el Grupo de Trabajo sobre Derecho Griego Arcaico y Clásico y sus Proyecciones en el Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho y fue Presidente de la Asociación Argentina de Estudios Clásicos por dos períodos consecutivos.

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Published

2024-07-08

Issue

No. 32 (2024)

Section

Dossier Transpositions in Antiquity Studies(s)

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