"Old Comedy and the Waves of Athenian Hegemony: Maritime Imperialism and (Lack of) Autodikia in Cloudcuckooland"

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Thalassa. Great is the Power of the Sea

Sosipolis

Lugar: Atenas; Año: 2011;

The general purpose of this paper is to focus on the importance of the legal allusions specifically related to sea expansion and naval imperialism in Birds. Considering the frequent references in Comedy to the contemporary Peloponnesian War and the discussions on Athenian imperialism in the context of the Delian League, the aim of the ideas presented here is to unveil the nature of some legal passages in Aristophanes mainly dealing with the situation of foreigners facing the jurisdiction of the maritime courts and the figure of the kleter nesiotikos. By focusing on some concrete passages in Birds, the final purpose is to show in which ways the use of the juridical aspects involving the Athenian political expansion throughout the Aegean Sea might have also constituted for the genre an efficient humorous device and a fruitful comic technique.