1. MILITARY TERMINOLOGY ASSOCIATED WITH THE OCCUPATION-PLOT

The first half of the play is centred on Lysistrata's first scheme: the seizure of the Acropolis. The vocabulary associated with the occupation-plot is unmistakably military. Lysistrata addresses the old women deployed to occupy the Acropolis as ξύμμαχοι ‘allies’ (456) and uses the military term λόχος ‘company’ to refer to them: καὶ παρ’ ἡμῖν εἰσι τέτταρες λόχοι | μαχίμων γυναικῶν ἔνδον ἐξοπλισμένων ‘we also have four companies of fully armed combat women inside’ (453–4).Footnote ² The verb (κατα)λαμβάνω ‘occupy’ is used five times in this context: καταληψόμεθα γὰρ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν τήμερον ‘we will seize the citadel today’ (176), ταῖς πρεσβυτάταις γὰρ προστέτακται … | θυεῖν δοκούσαις καταλαβεῖν τὴν ἀκρόπολιν ‘the elderly women have been ordered … to seize the citadel while pretending to sacrifice’ (177–9), αἱ γὰρ γυναῖκες τὴν ἀκρόπολιν τῆς θεοῦ | ἤδη κατειλήφασιν ‘the women have already seized the citadel of the Goddess’ (241–2), γυναῖκας … | κατὰ μὲν ἅγιον ἔχειν βρέτας, | κατά τ’ ἀκρόπολιν ἐμὴν λαβεῖν, | κλῃθροισί τ’ αὖ καὶ μοχλοῖσι τὰ Προπύλαια πακτοῦν ‘[that] women … hold the sacred image, and seized my citadel, and shut off the Propylaea with bars and bolts’ (260–5), τὴν Κραναὰν κατέλαβον, ἐφ’ ὅ τι τε μεγαλόπετρον ἄβατον ἀκρόπολιν, ἱερὸν τέμενος ‘they have seized the citadel of Cranaus, on the mighty rock, the restricted citadel, a holy precinct’ (480–3). When Cinesias approaches the Acropolis, Lysistrata asks who is standing ἐντὸς τῶν φυλακῶν ‘within the perimeter’ (847), ‘as if the Akropolis were an armed garrison with sentries at its periphery’.Footnote ³ When Cinesias enquires σὺ δ’ εἶ τίς ἡκβάλλουσά μ’; ‘who are you to throw me out?’ (849a), Lysistrata replies: ἡμεροσκόπος ‘daytime sentry’ (849b). From the perspective of the occupation-plot, the use of the military term ἡμεροσκόπος seems entirely appropriate.

2. SEXUAL VOCABULARY ASSOCIATED WITH THE STRIKE-PLOT

The seduction scene is the first of three episodes in which the ischemic priapic effects of the strike-plot on the Athenian and the Spartan men are illustrated in an exceedingly graphic manner, the former being represented by Cinesias (706–80), the latter by the anonymous Spartan herald (980–1013) and both by the Spartan and the Athenian delegates (1072–188). Lysistrata describes the approaching Cinesias to the other women on the Acropolis as follows: ἄνδρα, <ἄνδρ’> ὁρῶ προσιόντα παραπεπληγμένον, | τοῖς τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ὀργίοις εἰλημμένον ‘a man, I see a man coming this way, palsy-stricken, possessed by the secret rites of Aphrodite’ (831–2). Cinesias describes himself as being seized by ὁ σπασμὸς … | χὠ τέτανος ‘spasms … and cramps’ (845–6). When Lysistrata asks Cinesias if he is a man (ἀνήρ; 848a), he retorts, ‘brandishing his phallus’ as Henderson suggests in his Loeb edition:Footnote ⁴ ἀνὴρ δῆτα ‘a man, duh’ (848b). When asked in turn who she is, Lysistrata replies: ἡμεροσκόπος, ‘day watch’ (849).

Cinesias is approaching the Propylaea from the sanctuary of Demeter Chloe (835). As a ἡμεροσκόπος, Lysistrata is thus well positioned not just to see him coming but also to behold the sorry state he is in. Cinesias’ inflated condition was obviously visible to the audience as well, as he was wearing a bigger-than-life comic phallus, like the Spartan herald as well as the Athenian and the Spartan delegates later in the play. It is nevertheless remarkable how often explicit reference is made to the priapic state of the phalli by means of evidential particles such as δῆτα (848) and deictic pronouns, often reinforced by the so-called deictic iota.

Cinesias points ostentatiously at his phallus on at least three occasions: ἀλλ’ ἦ τὸ πέος τόδ’ Ἡρακλῆς ξενίζεται; ‘is this cock here then like Heracles being served?’ (928), ἀλλ’ ἐπῆρται τουτογί ‘well, this one here is already up’ (937), πῶς ταυτηνὶ [sc. ψωλήν] παιδοτροφήσω; ‘how shall I raise this one [sc. hard-on] here?’ (956). The Spartan herald is vividly described by Cinesias as Κονίσαλος (982), an ithyphallic creature associated with Priapus. In what follows, he explicitly emphasizes the visibility of the Spartan's priapic phallus: κἄπειτα δόρυ δῆθ’ ὑπὸ μάλης ἥκεις ἔχων; ‘and that's why you've come with that spear under your arm?’ (985), τί δ’ ἐστί σοι τοδί; ‘what's this you've got here then?’ (991), χαὔτη ’στὶ σκυτάλη Λακωνική ‘then this here is a Spartan baton as well’ (992). In a similar way, he points at the Spartan delegates’ state of affairs: ἀπὸ τοῦ δὲ τουτὶ τὸ κακὸν ὑμῖν ἐνέπεσεν; ‘who caused this evil here to fall upon you?’ (997), who later on confirm its visibility: ὁρῆν γὰρ ἔξεσθ’ ὡς ἔχοντες ἵκομες ‘you can see for yourselves how we're doing’ (1077). Likewise, the Athenian delegates: ὡς ἅνδρες ἡμεῖς οὑτοιὶ τοιουτοιί ‘because we men here are such as you can see here’ (1087).

These few references indicate that the φαλληφόρια of the men are presented as a real φαλλοσκοπία by Aristophanes. This brings me back to Lysistrata's identification of herself to Cinesias as ἡμεροσκόπος, which I believe contains a pun on ἵμερος. This would turn Lysistrata the ‘day watch’ into Lysistrata the ‘lust watch’, as of course she should be, the men's desire for sex being exactly what constitutes the strike-plot, as set out in the prologue (149–54). ἵμερος is what Lysistrata bids Aphrodite and Eros to give to the women in order to produce τέτανον … | καὶ ῥοπαλισμούς ‘delightful cramps and clubisms’ (551–4).

This is reminiscent of that other famous example of ‘sexual manipulation of husbands by wives’:Footnote ⁵ Hera's seduction of Zeus (Il. 14.153–353). Just as Lysistrata warns the Athenian and the Spartan delegates that they should stop fighting each other, because the Persians are waiting to invade Greece again (1133), Hera wants the Greeks to regain the upper hand in the war against the Trojans. Like Lysistrata, she invokes the help of Aphrodite to give her φιλότητα καὶ ἵμερον ‘love and desire’ (198). Like Cinesias, Zeus is overpowered by the passion and desire provided by Aphrodite: καί με γλυκὺς ἵμερος αἱρεῖ ‘and sweet desire takes hold of me’ (14.328).

From the perspective of the strike-plot, therefore, a pun on ἡμεροσκόπος → ἱμεροσκόπος would fit the context perfectly and perversely well.

3. IOTACISM AS A FEATURE OF FEMALE SPEECH

For ἡμεροσκόπος to contain a pun on ἵμερος, the vowels should be very similar and, indeed, they are: at the time of the production of Lysistrata, <η> represented a long mid-open front unrounded [ε:], whereas the <ι> in ἵμερος is a long close front unrounded [i:]. Threatte, discussing orthographic confusion of <η> and <ι>, remarks that it is reasonable to assume that [i:] and [ε:] could be confused ‘by the semi-literate’.Footnote ⁶ As a matter of fact, Lysistrata contains another example of a pun depending on the confusion of [ε:] and [i:], which also relates to the priapism of the men: ἀσκητικὸν τὸ χρῆμα τοῦ νοσήματος ‘a terrible athletic affliction’ (1083–5). It is generally acknowledged that ἀσκητικός puns on *ἀσκιτικός, an otherwise unattested adjective derived from ἀσκίτης ‘(patient suffering from) dropsy’.Footnote ⁷ There is, however, more than the indirect evidence of ἀσκητικός ~ *ἀσκιτικός to make the case for a pun on ἵμερος in ἡμεροσκόπος.

In Plato's Cratylus, Socrates asserts that, in his time, elderly people and even more so women were more conservative in their speech, with particular reference to the confusion of <η> and <ι> (418b9–c6):

The example quoted by Socrates is of particular interest for our purposes. From a historical point of view, his assertion does not make any sense, as ἡμέρα is obviously related to Doric ἀμέρα and ultimately to Arcadian ἆμαρ, Ιοnic ἦμαρ (Homer), Mycenaean a-mo-ra-ma /āmor-āmar/ ‘day after day’, from Proto-Greek *āmṛ, so the variant ἱμέρα could never have preceded ἡμέρα. The opposite is true: Proto-Greek [a:] → Ionic-Attic [ε:] would soon change to [i:] ‘in the dialect of the majority of the Attic population in the period 400–340’, according to Teodorsson.Footnote ⁸ Threatte, on the other hand, contends that confusion of <η> and <ι> is ‘exceedingly rare in Attic inscriptions before ca. 150 ad’, which he takes as evidence of ‘η pronounced as ῑ [i:] (by this time spelled as I or EI)’.Footnote ⁹ This fits well with Teodorsson's other conclusion with regard to the pronunciation of <η> in the first half of the fourth century b.c.: ‘However, the evidence of a close e-quality is also very strong, which shows that this was the pronunciation of a considerable part of the population.’Footnote ¹⁰

These conclusions may seem contradictory, but Duhoux offers a tentative, tempting explanation: Teodorsson describes the sociolect of ‘la masse non cultivée’, Threatte the sociolect of ‘l’élite cultivée’,Footnote ¹¹ which explains, at least in part, their different conclusions as far as the chronology of the sound change [ε:] → [i:] is concerned. The key word is, of course, variation—but how to interpret the attested variation in terms of high and low prestige? And, more importantly, how does this tie in with Socrates’ characterization of female speech as being more μεγαλοπρεπής—surely the Greek equivalent of the modern sociolinguistic variable ‘high’?

In his magnificent study of the ‘languages’ of Aristophanes, Willi discusses a famous Aristophanic fragment (fr. 706 K.–A.):Footnote ¹²

The association of ἀστεία and ὑποθηλυτέρα (διάλεκτος) ties in well with Socrates’ use of the word μεγαλοπρεπής. It suggests that Athenian elite women of the late fifth century were the avant-garde of socially prestigious innovations,Footnote ¹³ in line with recent sociolinguistic research.Footnote ¹⁴ Duhoux believes that the women constituted ‘la minorité cultivée’ and takes into consideration the evidence from the unpublished slates found in Plato's Academy written by schoolboys belonging to the Athenian elite.Footnote ¹⁵ These plates contain many examples of confusion between <η> and <ι>, for example ΑΘΙΝΑ, ΑΡΙΣ, ΔΙΜΟΣΘΕΝΙΣ. Threatte, dating them to the end of the fifth century, explains these as a consequence of ‘the boys’ incomplete mastery of the alphabet’.Footnote ¹⁶ Duhoux, on the other hand, dating them to the second half of the fifth century with excavator Stavropoulos, considers them as early evidence for iotacism in Athens in this period.Footnote ¹⁷ Following Teodorsson,Footnote ¹⁸ he concludes that the boys must have learned the iotacistic pronunciation from their mothers at home.Footnote ¹⁹

This is entirely in line with Teodorsson's interpretation of the quoted passage from Cratylus: ‘the only possible interpretation is that there actually existed more than one pronunciation at the same time, and that the narrow quality [e:] or [i:] must have existed in the dialect of a part of the Attic population for a considerable length of time when Plato wrote his Cratylus.’Footnote ²⁰ He points at Socrates’ repeated use of οἶσθα ‘to indicate reality’ and adds: ‘very few, if any, documents in our corpus … can have been written by women, and that the dialect of that half of the population cannot be studied by means of graphic material at all’.Footnote ²¹ For this reason, Teodorsson takes the evidence from the quoted passage from Cratylus seriously: the iotacistic pronunciation of <η> as [i:] by women is not conservative but innovative, and the conservative pronunciation as [ε:] ‘was practised by educated people and taught at school’.Footnote ²² Duhoux notes that the ‘réaction anti-itaciste’ is clearly reflected in Socrates’ use of οἱ δὲ νῦν “ἡμέραν” ‘but the people of our day [say] ἡμέρα’ (418c6), which would agree well with the dating of the schoolboys’ iotacism to the second half of the fifth century.Footnote ²³

At the end of his lucid article Duhoux wonders: ‘On peut, bien entendu, se demander pourquoi Aristophane, si prompt à la mocquerie, n'a pas utilisé ces différences de prononciation comme matériel comique […] les variétés subdialectales de l'attique ne faisaient peut-être pas partie des matières dont on riait à Athènes: on pouvait trouver amusante la prononciation des étrangers, Grecs ou Barbares; pas celle de ses concitoyens.’Footnote ²⁴ I believe that ἡμεροσκόπος is a perfect example of a pun which exploits the well-known iotacistic pronunciation of <η> as [i:] by Athenian elite women.Footnote ²⁵ It is surely no coincidence that Socrates, in one of his many notorious folk etymologies in Cratylus, explains the ‘old’ pronunciation of ἡμέρα as ἱμέρα with reference to, indeed, ἵμερος (418c8–d2):Footnote ²⁶

The repetition of ὅτι indicates that Socrates assumes that Hermogenes knows (cf. οἶσθα, 418c8) this popular etymology, probably because it was around in circles of educated Athenians at that time. If this assumption is correct, it makes the pun on ἵμερος in ἡμεροσκόπος even more likely.