Stefanos Kyriakidis

By the 14th century, the Byzantine Empire was, if not on the verge of actual collapse, at least seriously decadent and clearly on its last legs. The hungry wolves of Europe were preparing to dine on its corpse, and as a result the Byzantine army and its allies were constantly engaged in battles and skirmishes. In this story, a widow lives in the 14th-century Byzantine village of Doxobus with her son Xenos. She forms a relationship with a village elder, and when she gives birth to the elder’s son, her son from her previous marriage is sent to live in a monastery.

The comedy was written and played at the end of the 5th century BC, at the end of the Peloponnesian War, a time of decline of the Athenian Republic. Aristophanes, on the occasion of the political situation in his country, tries to help his fellow citizens by presenting this comedy. Dionysus and his slave Xanthias, with the instructions of Hercules, go down to Hades looking for a poet, who will bring his city out of the impasse in which it has reached. After the poetic struggle between Euripides and Aeschylus, Dionysus chooses the latter to save Athens and they leave Hades together.