The Complexities of Herakles as a Symbol in Aristophanes' Comedy

In Aristophanes' plays a special space seems to be reserved for Herakles. By playing with the varied literary reception of this figure, the poet transforms it into a complex symbol of his own poetic discourse pertaining to the contemporary comic theater. Herakles comes to play a twofold role: a serious one – that as a body double of the poet who resembles the hero while claiming the merits of his own comedy, as the one able to proclaim what is just for the polis and to assume the risks of truth-telling (Ve. 1029-1044; Pax 751-760: Mastromarco 1989, 1993; Lind 1990; Milanezi 1997; Brockman 2003); and a comic one – when he is used in caricatural transformation as a boisterous glutton, in Aristophanes' critical remarks on his rivals' comedies (e.g., Ve. 56-60; Pax 741). In the first case, Herakles becomes an emblem of the ideal comedy, the one which attacks the most formidable monsters (Ve. 1030; Pax 752) with a courage worthy of Herakles, (Ve. 1021, 1036; Pax 759), fighting for the people's good, to free and purify the state of all its evils (Ve. 1043). The state's evils, in line with the mythic metaphor, are personified by the monsters that Herakles defeated (Ve. 1031-5, Pax 752-7), whose basic traits come to portray a hybrid figure with which the poet identifies the real, dangerous monster that pollutes the state, Cleon. In the second case, Herakles becomes emblem of bad comedy, the sort that aims only at making people laugh (Nu. 539) and at offering a temporary release from everyday anxieties and pressures (e.g., Murray 1987; Heath 1990). This is the comedy that confines itself to offering up jests stolen from Megara, such as Herakles always chewing and ever hungry (Pax 741, cp. Ve. 60). A seemingly fixed correspondence seems to be established: serious alexikakos and katarthes Herakles with monstrous Cleon, ridiculous opsophagos Herakles with rival comic playwrights. This paper will discuss the possibility of identifying some fluidity in the above-mentioned correspondences. There are passages where the ridiculous opsophagos Herakles, and what it represents, does not appear as a vehicle of Aristophanes' criticism against rival comic playwrights. It indeed appears to mirror traits and actions that are typical of Cleon and of a more general figure of the demagogue. Ra. 549-78 (Lauriola 2004) and Av. 1565-693 display an encounter respectively between a voracious, thief Herakles and Cleon, patron of low, despicable persons, and a hungry Herakles and a disguised figure of a demagogue (Peiseteros), who uses food as impudent flattery to gain the approval of others for his own cause, which resembles a tactic typical of Cleon and the demagogues. Herakles thus seems to work as a serious-comic counterpart of Cleon, as being an emblem not only of good comedy, courageously fighting the polluting leaders, but also – in his ridiculous transformation - of the negative traits of the leaders themselves and of their manipulative tactics. Bibliography Brockman 2003: C. Brockmann, Aristophanes und die Freiheit der Komoedie. Untersuchungen zu den fruhen Stuechen unter besonderer Beruecksichtingung der Acharner, Munchen-Leipzig 2003. Heath 1990: M. Heath, Aristophanes and his rivals, Greece and Rome XXXVII (1990) 143-158. Lind 1990: H. Lind, Der Gerber Kleon in den Ritterndes Aristophanes. Studien zur Demagogenkomoedie, Frankfurt – New York – Paris 1990. Lauriola 2004: R. Lauriola, Aristofane, Eracle e Cleone, EIKASMOS. Quaderni Bolognesi di Filologia Classica VX (2004), 85-99. Mastromarco 1989: G. Mastromarco, L’eroe ed il mostro, Rivista Italiana di Filologia Classica CXVII (1989), 410-423. Mastromarco 1993: G. Mastromarco, Il commediografo e il demagogo, in A. H. Sommerstein, S. Halliwell, J. Henderson, B. Zimmermann (eds.) Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis, Papers from the Greek Drama Conference, Nottingham 18-20 July 1990, Bari 993, 341-357. Milanezi 1997: S. Milanezi, Essere poeta comico ad Atene: un lavoro per Eracle, in M. Guglielmo, G. F. Gianotti (eds.), Filosofia, Storia, Immaginario mitologico, Alessandria 1997, 123-132. Murray 1987: R. J. Murray, Aristophanic Protest, Hermes CXV (1987), 146-154.