<p>The Acharnians/The Clouds/Lysistrata<br><br>'We women have the salvation of Greece in our hands'<br><br>Writing at a time of political and social crisis in Athens, the ancient Greek comic playwright Aristophanes was an eloquent, yet bawdy, challenger to the demagogue and the sophist. In <i>Lysistrata</i> and <i>The Acharnians</i>, two pleas for an end to the long war between Athens and Sparta, a band of women on a sex strike and a lone peasant respectively defeat the political establishment. The darker comedy of <i>The Clouds</i> satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged. <br><br>Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Alan H. Sommerstein</p>