Mocking Justice: Aristophanes and the Literary (Ab)use of Law in Old Comedy

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Londres

Conferencia; International Conference “Use and Abuse of Law in Athenian Courts; 2013

Department of Greek and Latin, University College London

Since the Athenian public was mainly composed of adult citizens who were familiar if not intimate with law, it should not be surprising that comedy frequently refers to legal matters in order to accomplish its main mission –to elicit laughter and entertain the audience. In Aristophanes’ plays, references to Athenian law are widespread, and the deployment of legal scenarios may be viewed as a kind of political overlay to his comic plots. But how is law manipulated on stage in order to produce comic effects? It is my purpose here to show that Aristophanes designs and implements a modus comicus in which justice is addressed through at least three different literary strategies: textual parody (eg. V.894-7; Av.1035-45; Th.372-9, Ec.1014-20), trans-contextualization (i.e. quoting law in abnormal locations –e.g. Hades in Frogs– or to persons to whom its should not apply –e.g. Zeus in Birds! –), and exaggeration (i.e. exploiting the Athenian fondness for litigation; e.g. Nu.206-8, Eq.442-3, V. passim). This set of operations allows Aristophanes to stage a dramatic hero who treads on the borderline between lawful and unlawful conduct, attacking the judicial system and using extra-legal means to solve his problems, or profiting from the legal system to his own personal advantage. Excessive litigation is clearly comic, but when denounced or embodied by the protagonist, it draws the public’s attention to a weakness of the legal system. The comic resort to philopragmosyne is complex: legal abuse is mentioned to draw laughs but, at the same time, it generates some awareness of the dangers of uncontrolled litigiousness. Disguised in humour, Aristophanic heroes instruct the public to get rid of corrupt politicians and demagogues who work through their underlings in the courts. Abusing justice on stage, in fact, constitutes a serious way of claiming for a better use of law outside the theatre.