La critica dei culti nel teatro del V secolo

The aim of the book is to discuss the religious aspect of Aristophanes’ criticism of euripidean tragedy as found in “Thesmophoriazusae” and “Frogs” and to provide a comparative study of Aristophanes’ and Euripides’ religiosity. Euripides’ tragedies which Aristophanes parodies (or simply hints at) seem to be all especially representative of Euripides’ thoughts about religion, in particular of his peculiar interest in ‘foreign’ cults (such as those of Dionysus or of the Mother of Gods) and in Orphism. Contrary to scholarly consensus, then, Aristophanes’ Euripides is not an atheist imbued with sophistic theories: rather, he emerges as the champion of an alternative form of religiosity. Against the backdrop of Euripides’ strange cults, Aristophanes emphasizes his own religiosity, deeply rooted in the traditions of the Athenian polis: Aeschylus’ victory in the poetic agon of the “Frogs” is also the victory of the Mysteries of Eleusis over Euripides’ exotic and unorthodox beliefs.