SOURCE: Vickers, Michael. “Posthumous Parody in Cratinus's Dionysalexandros.” In Pericles on Stage, pp. 193-95. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997.

In the following essay, Vickers argues that the Dionysalexandros was most likely written after Pericles's death.

Cratinus' Dionysalexandros may be a posthumous lampoon of Pericles rather than one written and performed in the statesman's lifetime. “In the [Dionysalexandros] Pericles is satirized with great plausibility by means of émphasis, because he brought the war on the Athenians,”¹ says the plot summary. The concept of “emphasis,” and its role in comedy, has been discussed in the Introduction. According to Byzantine commentators, authors of Old Comedy attacked their victims phanerôs (“openly”), and it was only through pressure from “the rich and the authorities, who did not want to be lampooned,” that attacks made ainigmatikōdôs (“in riddles”) became obligatory (De comoedia 4.12-14 [Koster]). Aristophanes stands at the transitional point between...