Peace is an Athenian Old Comedy written and produced by the Greek playwright Aristophanes. It won second prize at the City Dionysia where it was staged just a few days before the validation of Peace of Nicias, which promised to end the ten-year-old Peloponnesian War, in 421 BC. The play is notable for its joyous anticipation of peace and for its celebration of a return to an idyllic life in the countryside. However, it also sounds a note of caution, there is bitterness in the acknowledgment of lost opportunities, and the ending is not happy for everyone. As in all of Aristophanes' plays, the jokes are numerous, the action is wildly absurd and the satire is savage. Cleon, the pro-war populist leader of Athens, is once again a target for the author's wit, even though he had died in the Battle of Amphipolis just a few months earlier.
Eirene / Ploutos (Peace and Wealth): Roman copy of a work by Cephisodotus the Elder (c. 370 BC) that once stood on the Areopagus. The Dramatis Personae in ancient comedy depends on interpretation of textual evidence. This list is developed from A. Sommerstein's translation.
The Erechtheion: work on this iconic building began in 420 BC during the Peace of Nicias, not long after the performance of Peace at the City Dionysia.
Old Comedy is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians. The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes – whose works, with their daring political commentary and abundance of sexual innuendo, de facto define the genre. It is important to note that the only extant plays of Old Comedy are credited to Aristophanes. There are only fragments and 'testimonia' of all other Old Comedy playwrights and plays.
Thalia, muse of comedy, gazing upon a comic mask (detail from Muses' Sarcophagus)