The Comic Oars of Athenian Jurisdiction: Autodikia and the Manliness of Maritime Imperialism in Cloudcuckooville

Abstract

Old Comedy, as a genre pervaded by politics, frequently shows that Athenians were aware of the importance of consolidating their sea sovereignty and depriving the allied states of their traditional autodikia in order to impose their own power. This paper will deal with Aristophanes’ Birds (414 B.C.), a play in which the protagonist Peisetaerus knows very well the importance of maritime imperial ideology when he interacts with the other characters arriving to his newly-founded city. Through some recurring waves that alternate acceptance and rejection of the Athenian institutional mechanisms, Peisetaerus comically addresses a common concern of the new polis by endorsing the male imagery of self-sufficiency, authority, independence and lack of subordination.