Stripping in the Parabasis of "Acharnians" Ketterer, Robert C Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1980; 21, 3; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 217

Stripping in the Parabasis of Acharnians 

Robert C. Ketterer 

T HE PARABASIS of Aristophanes' Acharnians begins thus 
(626-27): 

dv~p V1K~ ral(Jl AOY0lalV, Kai rov bijflov fleranei()el 
nepi rwv anovbwv. dAA' dnobvVTes rair:; dvanaiarau; eniWfleV. 

The man wins with his speech and wins over the people as 
regards the truce. But let's strip and attack the anapests. 

These lines are followed by the 'anapests' (628-64) which address 
the subject of Aristophanes' quarrel with Cleon and his services to 
Athens. The subsequent song-speech pair of the para basis begins 
with the invocation of the Acharnian Muse (665-75) and goes on 
to deplore Athens' mistreatment of her old veterans in the courts 
of law. 

The participle dnobvvre~ at 627 has presented problems. Why 
should the chorus bother to strip off their cloaks? (They wear 
tribones: 184, 343.) A scholiast said that they stripped in order to 
dance vigorously (p.326 Rutherford). If this is the case, the action 
has a parallel. In the parabasis of Lysistrata (637, 662, 686) the 
choruses of old men and women remove clothes and set down 
objects in order to dance their quarrel. There, however, the moti­
vation for stripping is clearly spelled out in the text. 1 

Those who have felt that the parabasis constituted an original 
epilogue or prologue, or at least represents a kernel of early comedy, 
suggest that the chorus removed clothing in the parabasis in order 

1 At the beginning of the parabasis of Pax (729) the chorus gets rid of extraneous equip­
ment, causing the scholiast to remark, YVIlVOV yap TWIOV(J/ roy xopov ol KWlllKOi dd, tva. 
opxijrw, "the comic poets always make the chorus naked in order to dance" (p.90 Dindorf). 
While the situation in Pax-a ridding of inhibiting paraphernalia-seems to provide a 
rough parallel to the Ach. and Lys. passages, there is no indication that there was any 
stripping. The schohast is probably making an inference based on passages such as those in 
Ach. and Lys., and elsewhere (not in parabases) where the chorus strips to dance (Vesp. 
408, Thesm. 656). See G. Sifakis, Parabasis and Animal Choruses (London 1971) 105-06 
(hereafter'Sifakis'). 

217 



218 STRIPPING IN THE PARABASIS OF ACHARNIANS 

to divest itself of its dramatic persona. 2 Having removed its cos­
tume, it performed the parabasis simply as a group of Athenian 
citizens. 

Others have preferred a metaphorical meaning for anobVVTeC;. 
On the one hand, it has been objected that the anapestic passage of 
a parabasis is an inappropriate place for the elaborate kicks and 
twirls that the scholiast suggests.3 The anapests contain a serious 
message and vigorous dancing might well distract the audience's 
attention.4 Moreover, the cloaks should not hinder dancing in the 
parabasis when they seem not to impede the bustling and rock 
throwing of the chorus in the parodos (204ff).5 

It is even more unlikely that the dramatic persona of the chorus 
was dropped at line 627. If it were, this could be only for the dura­
tion of the anapests, for in the song-speech pair the chorus is still 
a group of old Acharnians, invoking their Acharnian Muse and 
arguing for the aged veterans who are their contemporaries (ot 
yipovrec; ot' naAalOi J.1.eJ.Up0J.1.ea{}a rij nOAel, 676).6 Furthermore, as 
Dale has pointed out, it is the mask that confers persona, not the 
cloaks. Though the suggestion has been made that masks were 
removed,7 the verb apoduein applies to clothing, not masks. 8 In 
any case, there is no need for such a shift in choral character. An 
aged Acharnian can perfectly well speak the words of the anapests. 
It is moreover appropriate that he should do so: the Acharnians by 
line 626 have been won over to Dikaiopolis' side, and Dikaiopolis 
has more than once identified himself with Aristophanes (377ff, 
502ff). The chorus is thus to be thought of as allied both with the 
dramatic character and with the poet. 

Consequently, adherents of the view that anobvvreC; ought here 
to be taken metaphorically agree that it means something like 

2 See, for example, Th. Zielinski, Die Gliederung der altattischen Komodie (Leipzig 
1885) 186; A. and M. Croiset, Histoire de La litterature grecque3 1II (Paris 1914) 529 n.t. 
Sifakis 106ff reviews the question. 

3 A. M. Dale, Collected Papers (Cambridge 1969) 289. 
4 Sifakis 105. 
S Dale (supra n.3) 289. 
6 A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy, ComedyZ (Oxford 1962) 142 n.5, and 

Dale (supra n.3) 290. 
7 Sifakis 16-17 with notes 14 and 15 summarizes the theory, which was espoused by 

C. Kock, De parabasi (Anklam 1856), and by O. Navarre, Le theatre grec (Paris 1925) 150 
and Les Cavaliers d'Aristophane (Paris 1956) 30-31. Kock's theory that only the chorus 
leader was involved in stripping is not applicable to Ach. 627, as d7roJvvre~ is plural (cf. 
infra n.14). 

8 Dale (supra n.3) 290. 



ROBERT C. KETTERER 219 

"roll up the sleeves and get down to it."9 Stripping for action in 
athletics in this case takes on the extended meaning of readying 
oneself for activity of some verbal or mental kind. Such a meaning 
is found in late usages of the middle dnoJ,joJia/ (cf. LS] s.v.), and it 
is possible that this metaphorical usage is to be understood here. 

Nevertheless, as we have seen, the metaphorical meaning has 
been adopted for the reason that no convincing explanation for 
literal stripping can be found. But since the Acharnians are wearing 
tribones, it is more natural to suppose that dnoJ,jv!e<; means that 
those cloaks were removed if a reason can be found for removing 
them. 10 I submit the following suggestion in support of a literal 
interpretation of the verb. 

The tribon which the chorus wears was a short\variety of hima­
tion worn originally by Spartans but adopted in Attica after the 
Persian wars. Of rough wool, it was commonly worn by the poor, 
by those with Spartan sympathies, and by ascetics. 11 The cloak 
hung short but was wrapped about the upper torso and shoulders, 
obscuring the arms. No chiton was worn underneath it as was 
sometimes the case with the himation. The type is perhaps illus­
trated by a terracotta figurine in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 12 

Such a short garment leaves the legs free: it would not obstruct the 
entering dance, which was anyway none too rapid, for the old men 
complain that they cannot run as they used to (210ff). The cloak 
presumably allows enough freedom to throw the rocks (280ff).13 
It would, however, obscure for the audience any precise movement 
of the arms and hands. If the chorus were intending to emphasize 
the words of the anapests with gestures of the arms, they might 
well want to be rid of the tribones. 14 

9 Dale, ibid. 
10 My thanks to the anonymous reader who suggested this way of approaching the 

argument. Sifakis 108 expresses similar uneasiness with the metaphorical interpretation. 
11 See W. K. Pritchett, Hesperia 25 (1956) 207-08, for description and bibliography; 

M. Brillant, Dar.-Sag. V 414-16 s.v. "Trib6n"; E. Schuppe, RP VI (1937) 2415-19 s.v. 
"Tribon." 

12 See C. W. Dearden, The Stage of Aristophanes (London 1976) 189 n.5. The figurine is 
Museum no. 01.7758; T. B. L. Webster, Monuments Illustrating Old and Middle Comedy 2 

(BICS supp!. 23 [1969]) 32, illustrated in M. Bieber, History of the Greek and Roman 
Theater 2 (Princeton 1961) 39 fig. 137. 

13 One arm might be freed from the cloak: with Brillant (supra n.ll) fig. 7043 compare 
Arr. Epict.Diss. 4.8.34, KaOelKe r~v KO/-lI7V, avef).l7rpe rpifJwva, YU/-lVOV OelKVVel rov W/-lOV, "he 
lets his hair flow loose, assumes a tribon, and shows a bare shoulder." 

\4 It has generally been assumed that the chorus leader chanted the anapests by himself: 
Croiset (supra n.2) 526; Pickard-Cambridge, Dram. Fest. 2 245; Dale (supra n.3) 289. 



220 STRIPPING IN THE PARABASIS OF ACHARNIANS 

Ancient dance did involve extensive use of gesture of the arms 
and hands. 15 Athenaeus (21F) says that the dithyrambist Telestes 
(fifth century B.C.) illustrated completely the spoken text by means 
of his hands, QXPWC; raic; Xepai ra AeyO/.ieVa &IKVVC;. This use of 
gesture for expression and emphasis was shared with the rhetori­
cians of the day. Since anapests are rhetorical in style,16 it would 
be very appropriate for the chorus to dance in accompaniment to 
them, not with violent kicks and twirls, but with expressive ges­
tures used by the actors and orators. For that they would want to 
remove their tribones in order for those gestures to be seen clearly 
by the audience. Since nothing was worn beneath a tribon, the 
verb apoduein, 'to strip off the clothing', is appropriate. 

This suggests that there was a complicated visual joke involved: 
the audience is shown the incongruous sight of orators, who are 
really old farmers in shoddy cloaks, stripping like young athletes 
to get ready for rhetorical action. 

This solution to the problem posed by dnobvvreC; at 627 has 
several advantages. (1) It relieves us of the necessity of falling back 
on the extended meaning of apoduein not otherwise attested in the 
comic poets. (2) The Acharnians thus get rid of their cloaks for the 
same reason that choruses in other parabases (Lys., Pax) rid them­
selves of clothing or objects, that is, because they are impediments 
to action that the chorus must perform. (3) The dance thus per­
formed would not distract from the message of the anapests, but 
would serve precisely to point it up. (4) A reason for stripping off 
the tribones is thereby suggested which takes its motivation from 
the text of the play: the Acharnians stripped because the choreog-

Whether or not this was the case does not affect our argument here. The injunction at Ach. 
627 is in the plural and so is addressed to the chorus as a whole; the entire chorus is some­
how participating during the anapests. See M. Kaimio, The Greek Chorus within the Light 
of Person and Number Used (Helsinki 1970) 147, 195, for the use of first person plural in 
the para basis, who confirms that the whole chorus is addressed; I cannot agree with his 
statements about the shift in dramatic character of the chorus here. 

15 See Pickard-Cambridge (supra n.14) 248-49. 
16 It has, for example, a proem (an apology seeking the audience's good will and Aris­

tophanes' proposition that he has done the city good service), a narration (how the Athe­
nians are used to flattery), proofs (that Aristophanes combats flattery and so serves Athens), 
and an epilogue (summarizing the points made, abusing Cleon, and proclaiming his own 
just cause). In this 'oration' Aristophanes uses the typical rhetorical technique and devices. 
He claims he has been slandered, argues for audience sympathy, says that he has given just 
advice (ra MKaw) and has suggested what is advantageous (ro avtUpepOV). He links his 
personal interest with that of the city. 



ROBERT C. KETTERER 221 

raphy required rhetorical gesture to match the rhetorical content 
and purpose of the anapestic section of the para basis. (5) This 
stripping may have also created a visual joke, while disencumber­
ing the chorus for technical reasons. 

UNION COLLEGE 

August, I980