The Motif of Hospitality in the ‘Euripides Scene’ of Aristophanes’ Acharnians

This note argues that in the ‘Euripides scene’ of Aristophanes’ Acharnians a number of Euripidean echoes are meant to evoke the motif of hospitality. In particular, it is suggested that Aristophanes calls attention to this motif in order to enhance his exposure of Euripides’ ‘beggar-making’ – a ‘trademark’ device of Euripidean theatre and a relevant topic in the scene – and to satirize Euripides as comically inhospitable towards the begging Dicaeopolis. Section 1 argues that Ach. 450 contains an allusion to Eur. Alc. 823, a line which in the original context refers to king Admetus’ philoxenia. Section 2 highlights another possibile connection between Euripides’ Alcestis (536-41) and the ‘Euripides scene’ (Ach. 456-60), and argues that the latter passage enacts a ‘thematic reversal’ of the former. By focusing on Ach. 479, section 3 corroborates the claim that in the ‘Euripides scene’ Aristophanes manipulates Euripidean material to depict the comic Euripides as a less-than-hospitable character. In sections 4-5 the idea is proposed that the Aristophanic Euripides may be seen as a sort of ‘anti-Admetus’, and further, interpretive implications of this reading are explored.