Aristophanes was a satirist who produced Lysistrata around 413 BC when the news of
             Athen's warships had been destroyed near Sicily. For twenty-one years, while Athens was
             engaged in war, he relentlessly and wittliy attacked the war, the ideals of the war, the war party
             and the war spirit. This risked his acceptance and his Athenian citizenship. Lysistrata is probably
             the oldest comedy which has retained a place in modern theatre. It primarily deals with two
             themes, war and the power of sexuality..
             Lysistrata (an invented name meaning, She Who Puts an End to War) has summoned the
             women of Athens to meet her at the foot of Acropolis. She puts before them the easy invitation
             that they must never lie again with their husbands until the war is ended. At first, they shudder
             and withdraw and refuse until, with the help of the women from Sparta and Thebes, they are
             impelled to agree. The women seize the Acropolis from which Athens is funding the war. After
             days of sexually depriving their men in order to bring peace to there communities. They defeat
             back in an attack from the old men who had remained in Athens while the younger men are on
             their crusade. When their husbands return from battle, the women reject sex and stand guard at
             Acropolis. The sex strike, portrayed in risqué episodes, finally pressure the men of Athens and
             Sparta to consent to a peace treaty.
             Ancient Greece in 431 BC was not a nation. It was a collection of rival city-states that
             were allies with each other or with leading military powers. Athens was a great naval power,
             while Sparta relied mainly on its army for superiority. In 431 BC, these alliances went to war
             against each other in a conflict called the Peleponnesian War. The war, which went on for 27
             years, is named for the Peloponnesus, the peninsula on which Sparta is located.
             As the war began, Sparta and Athens each took advantage of their m...