"Equality and Challenge: The Case of ‘Lysistrata' in Ancient Greek Drama"

This paper concerns with the successful revival of the ancient Greek drama through the study of “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes.  The educational and recreational character of the ancient Greek drama gives the audience messages for equality, a notion useful in building sound personalities, ready to participate in a democratic state. In this paper I will be present the analysis of “Lysistrata” through the mask/prosopeio of the ancient Greek drama. The results were acquired after going through and studying elements from a variety of sources, such as masks form pottery, bas-reliefs, sculptures, frescoes, statuettes and texts. Aristophanes, who is considered to be the best ancient Greek comedy writer, was well aware of the social problems faced by the Athenian republic during and after the Peloponnesian War and thus felt challenged to present these problems through his writings. One famous persona he made up was “Lysistrata”, an audacious, vivid, powerful woman. Nowadays, “Lysistrata” is taught in philosophy schools and played in theatres around the world. The messages conveyed involve idea of the equality, peace, reconciliation, dialogue, human rights.  The educational activities deriving from the ancient masks presented masks could take the form of articles, lectures, e- lectures, workshops, interactive programs, videos etc.