Lysistrata

Lysistrata is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, first performed in 411 BCE during the Peloponnesian War. Its heroine brings women from opposing Greek communities into a plan to withhold marital intimacy and take control of the treasury on the Athenian Acropolis. The resulting confrontations turn household tensions into an extravagant challenge to the continuation of war. The play uses frank comic language and reversals of authority, rather than a realistic political programme. Its distinctive subject is the disruption of family and civic life by conflict, expressed through the conventions of Athenian comedy.