Men and Their Horses

Aristophanes’ Men and Their Horses, the second-oldest surviving comedy from the ancient world, was first performed in Athens in 424 BCE in the midst of the Peloponnesian War. With demagoguery and national populism in full swing after the death of Pericles in 429, the play demonstrates the power of theater to express dissent against a public figure through dramatic mockery.

Nearly 2,500 years later, this new translation from Mike Lippman and Wilfred E. Major-unsacrificing in accuracy, pace, and tone, but thoughtfully adapted for a 21st-century American audience-demonstrates how relevant this ancient, political comedy is for our contemporary moment.