From dancing girls, brides and young wives, to naked and flirtatious youths, Aristophanes’ plays are full of figures characterized by their beauty, allure and sexual availability1. Yet for all the scholarly literature on sex and sexualized language in Aristophanes2, and for all the interest taken by classicists in human beauty and eroticism in classical art3, no study to date has focused exclusively on what Aristophanes’ plays can tell us about sexual attractiveness4. This omission is all the more surprising when we consider how potentially valuable comedy is as a source, providing as it does a distinctively open and uninhibited insight into classical sexuality. We may know very little about how beauty was represented visibly on the comic stage5, but the plays of Aristophanes abound in sexualized discussions and descriptions of male and female bodies and also provide important glimpses of domestic detail and everyday life that are routinely missing from our non-comic sources. Furthermore, since Old Comedy was written to appeal to audiences much broader than those of most other literary genres, it presumably speaks to popular notions of beauty and sex appeal in a way that, say, Platonic dialogues do not. Non-dramatic literature may serve as useful evidence for elite tastes and those elements of beauty that could be discussed in polite society, but Old Comedy’s sexual aesthetics could no doubt boast a far broader and brasher appeal.

In the discussion that follows I shall examine a wide range of issues that for convenience’s sake I have gathered together under the headings of beauty and sex appeal, the aim being to use Aristophanes’ plays and fragments as a springboard for thinking about notions of attractiveness and body image in the classical era. The questions asked include: which physical features and attributes do we find conceived of as appealing in the plays? What vocabulary is used to describe them? And what other factors such as nudity, clothing or ways of behaving serve to entice and excite the characters in Aristophanic comedy? Whilst much of what emerges from this survey may be familiar to students of the body beautiful in the ancient world – the attention paid to female breasts, for example, or the allure of seductive clothing – other findings perhaps offer more pause for thought. One point of interest, for example, concerns the physical age of those thought to be sexually appealing: in terms of sexual attractiveness, just when was one at one’s peak? And this feeds into broader questions concerning the way in which youthful beauty in general is described. To what extent are the ideal male and ideal female body perceived as radically different things or, alternatively, are they two sides of the same coin?

This paper is structured as follows. The beauty and sex appeal of the female body is considered first, with subsequent sections examining female accoutrements, flirtatious behaviour and the presentation of prostitute figures. Next, the subject of male sex appeal is explored. Lastly, in the concluding section I draw together a number of points raised in the discussion as a whole and briefly consider what biases Aristophanic comedy displays and how these compare and contrast with the portrayal of beauty and sex appeal in other genres6.

Feminine Charms and the Body Beautiful

Let us look first at descriptions of female attractiveness. The most common words used in Aristophanes to describe female beauties are καλός, ‘beautiful’, and ὡραῖος, which derives ultimately from ὥρα and signifies ‘in the bloom of youth’, ‘in one’s prime’, ‘youthful’, blooming’7. Thus when Demos sees the personified Spondai, Peace Treaties, in Knights he exclaims, ‘how beautiful’ (ὡς καλαί, 1390) and Cinesias describes his wife, Myrrhine, as ‘most beautiful’, καλλίστη, at Lysistrata 955 – a description shared by Peisistratus’ bride, Basileia (Birds 1537), whose ‘beauty’, κάλλος, is also mentioned more than once (Birds 1713 and 1722). ὡραῖος is regularly found in the superlative form – according to the Chorus of the Acharnians, for instance, one of the benefits of Dicaeopolis’ private peace will be ‘to sleep with a blooming young girl’ (καθεύδειν μετὰ παιδίσκης ὡραιοτάτης, 1148-9), and in Hades we see Xanthias being tempted into an inn by the prospect of a ‘very attractive girl piper’ (αὐλητρίς ... ὡραιοτάτη, Frogs 513-4), and ‘two or three dancing girls’ (514-5)8. The less common, cognate adjective ὡρικός, ‘youthful’, ‘blooming’, is found in the Acharnians’ phallic song (272) where it is used of the slave girl, Thratta, whom Dicaeopolis fantasizes about assaulting9.

There are two further adjectives commonly used to suggest female attractiveness: λευκός, ‘pale’, ‘light-skinned’, and ἁπαλός, ‘tender’10. The two coincide in Peisetaerus’ excited reaction to the appearance of Procne, at Birds 667-8 ‘Holy Zeus, what a lovely birdie! How fair, how tender!’, ὡς ἁπαλον, ὡς δὲ λευκόν – an episode which is particularly striking since Procne is a bird of the feathered variety. In the Ecclesiazusae a combination of beauty and fair skin is presented as having the potential of being a girl’s Unique Selling Point, ‘really beautiful and really white-skinned’ (καὶ καλλίστη καὶ λευκοτάτη, 699) and pale skin is a quality which the older, unattractive women in the play aim to mimic by using white lead11. However, the play’s Young Girl is adamant that, however much effort the old hags put into their make-up and beauty routines, attractiveness is essentially the province of the young (901-5)12:

μὴ φθόνει ταῖσιν νέαισι·
τὸ τρυφερὸν γὰρ ἐμπέφυκε
τοῖς ἁπαλοῖσι μηροῖς
κἀπὶ τοῖς μήλοις ἐπάν-
θεῖ. σὺ δ’, ὦ γραῦ, παραλέλεξαι κἀντέτριψαι
τῷ Θανάτῳ μέλημα.

Don’t be jealous of the young; for voluptuousness has its natural abode in tender thighs and blooms in firm breasts; while you, old woman, are plucked and plastered to be the darling of death.

The girl’s outpouring here raises a number of issues, such as which female body parts are mentioned in Aristophanes in the context of attractiveness. The Young Girl refers to thighs and breasts but other body parts are lighted on in the plays, too. One feature singled out for praise is an attractive face (Peace 524: οἷον δ’ ἔχεις τὸ πρόσωπον, ὦ Θεωρία, ‘What a face you’ve got, Showtime!’; Frogs 409-10: παραβλέψας τι μειρακίσκης νυνδή κατεῖδον καὶ μάλ’ εὐπροσώπου, ‘... just now I stole a glance at a girl, and a real nice face she had, too ...’)13. Bottoms are also remarked upon (e.g. by the Spartan delegate at Lysistrata 1148, ὁ πρωκτὸς ἄφατον ὡς καλός, ‘that bum is unspeakably beautiful!’; by Trygaeus’ slave at Peace 875-6, ὦ δέσποτα, ὅσην ἔχει τὴν πρωτοπεντετηρίδα, ‘Oh, master, what a quadrennial bum she’s got!’; and by the Scythian Archer at Thesmophoriazusae 1187, καλό γε τὸ πυγή, ‘Dat bum, ’e is gorgeous’)14. The beauty of female sexual organs is commended as well, albeit only once in the plays, by one of the sex-starved Athenians in Lysistrata (1157-8)15:

Λα. οὔπα γυναῖκ’ ὄπωπα χαϊωτέραν.
Αθ. ἐγὼ δὲ κύσθον γ’ οὐδέπω καλλίονα.

Spartan: I’ve never seen a nobler woman.
First Athenian: And I’ve never seen a prettier pussy.

Topping the list of appealing female attributes are breasts16. Dicaeopolis is far from reticent where the attractions of two dancing girls are concerned, for example (Acharnians 1198-9: ἀτταταῖ ἀτταταῖ τῶν τιτθίων, ὡς σκληρὰ καὶ κυδώνια, ‘Oh my, oh my! What breasts! how firm, like quinces’), and according to Lampito in Lysistrata, the power exerted by the female breast is legendary: ‘Menelaus, certainly, when he somehow caught a glimpse of Helen’s two little apples bare (τὰ μάλα), let his sword, I reckon, drop out of his hand’ (Lysistrata 155-6)17. The food analogies keep coming: breasts are firm like ‘turnips’ (γογγυλί, Thesmophoriazusae 1185) and firmness, as well as smallness, would appear to be indicated by the euphemism ‘nuts’ in fr. 664 (κάρυα)18. In fr. 599 we even hear of young girls who ‘sprout beans’, κυαμίζουσιν (on their chests?)19. Small breasts are also the image conjured up in fr. 338 from Thesmophoriazusae II. Here the diminutive τιτθίδια (‘dear little breasts’?) appears in the description of an unnamed female figure who was20:

τὴν πτέρυγα παραλύσασα τοῦ χιτωνίου
καὶ τῶν ἀποδέσμων οἷς ἐνῆν τιτθίδια

loosening the flap of her girlish chiton and the bands that held her titties.

To be sure, the emphasis we have seen on soft and especially pale flesh may serve to suggest an ideal of beauty that is compatible with an aristocratic lifestyle21, but mentions of soft skin alongside firm (and small) breasts and tender thighs strongly imply that sexual beauty is essentially to be equated with youthfulness. Indeed, this is the overriding message of the first part of the Young Girl’s outburst – ‘Don’t be jealous of the young ...’ – and her subsequent words are presumably to be judged in the same light: that is, the ‘plucking and plastering’ is performed by older women in an effort to replicate the natural look of the young22.

While ‘plastering’ is a reference to the liberal application of make-up, specifically by the old, ‘plucking’ – as well as other forms of hair removal – is an activity associated with adult women of all ages in Aristophanic comedy. For example, the followers of Praxagora in Ecclesiazusae talk of having grown their armpit and body hair to be more like men (60-7), and as far as the pubic region is concerned, Lysistrata suggests that being ‘plucked down below delta-style’ will help the women arouse their husbands (Lysistrata 151). In addition to plucking (Lysistrata 89, 151; Frogs 516; Pherecrates fr. 113.29; Plato com. fr. 188.14), the singeing pubic of hair with a lamp is evidently an alternative means of hair removal (Ecclesiazusae 13; Lysistrata 824-8). There has been a certain amount of scholarly debate concerning attitudes towards female pubic hair in the classical era, the key issue being whether total or just partial depilation was the desired effect23. In Aristophanes, the plucking bare of a ‘pussy’ (χοῖρος) is presented as undesirable on at least one occasion, however: this is a threat extended to Euripides’ disguised Inlaw in Thesmophoriazusae (538; cf. 567)24.

Sexing it Up: Clothing, Scent and Flirtatious Behaviour

The sexual desirability of youth comes across through the nature of the physical features which are described as attractive and also in vocabulary – not just words like ὡρικός and ὡραῖος but also νέος (e.g. Lysistrata 885) and νεαλής (fr. 378), ‘young’, and μεῖραξ (Ecclesiazusae 611) and μειρακίσκη, ‘young woman’ (Frogs 409), used of women in a sexual context25. But apart from physical qualities like youth and neat or depilated body hair, what else gets Aristophanes’ male characters excited? One rich vein of information here is Lysistrata, where the success of the sex strike depends on the women being able to inflame their husbands’ desire26. Lysistrata names four weapons that the women can employ to enhance their natural assets: clothes, shoes, make-up and perfume. As she says to an incredulous Calonice (Lysistrata 46-8):

ταῦτα αὐτὰ γάρ τοι κἄσθ’ ἃ σώσειν προσδοκῶ,
τὰ κροκωτίδια καὶ τὰ μύρα χαἰ περιβαρίδες
χἤγχουσα καὶ τὰ διαφανῆ χιτώνια.

... that’s exactly what I’m counting on to save Greece – our pretty saffron gowns and our perfumes and our riverboat slippers and our rouge and our see-through shifts27.

Furthermore, Calonice later swears on behalf of all the women that she (Lysistrata 217, 219 and 221):

οἴκοι δ’ ἀταυρώτη διάξω τὸν βίον ...
κροκωτοφοροῦσα καὶ κεκαλλωπισμένη ...
ὅπως ἂν ἁνὴρ ἐπιτυφῆ μάλιστά μου, ...

will pass my life at home, pure and chaste – ... – in make-up and saffron gown – ... so that my husband may be greatly inflamed with desire for me.

A saffron gown, or κροκωτόν, of the kind that the women are envisaged as wearing is also donned by one of the over-made up old women in Ecclesiazusae who is looking to snare a young man for sex (879) – this is a garment which, according to one scholar, marks a woman out as ‘fun-loving’28. It is a different outfit worn by the alluring Fawn, the dancing girl in Thesmophoriazusae, however. She appears wearing only a ἱμάτιον and sandals – which she soon removes, much to the Scythian Archer’s delight (1181-5).

As well as clothing, Lysistrata also recommends that the women use perfume to increase their allure (τὰ μύρα, Lysistrata 947) and scents seem to hold erotic associations for other characters in Aristophanes’ plays, too. In the scene in Lysistrata where Myrrhine (whose name itself evokes myrrh) tantalizes her husband Cinesias, she insists not only on having perfume but the right kind for love-making (938-46), and in Ecclesiazusae Praxagora claims that she cannot get laid without it (524-6). Furthermore, towards the end of the same play, a Maid claims that the right Thasian perfume used neat can bring pleasure all night long (Ecclesiazusae 1118-24). In Peace, Theoria, the semi-divine prostitute-figure, is said to smell of myrrh (526) – the same substance with which Trygaeus will anoint himself when he marries Opora (862)29.

In terms of actions that might be found erotic, a number of examples of potentially arousing behaviour have already been mentioned: the image of the women in Lysistrata, sitting idly at home in their sexy clothes30, and Myrrhine’s teasing of her husband as she constantly puts off the act of sex by asking for a string of accoutrements (e.g. a bed, mattress, pillow, perfume, 914-51) while gradually undressing (920, 950). Fawn, the dancing girl in Thesmophoriazusae, also acts seductively as she drives the Scythian Archer wild by dancing, stripping, sitting on his knees, removing her sandals31, letting herself be fondled and kissing him (Thesmophoriazusae 1172-1201). Food-play has erotic potential, too, it seems, since Lysistrata tantalizes Cinesias with descriptions of his wife’s handling of an egg and an apple (both phallic objects, in Greek terms). She says to him (Lysistrata 854-7):

ἀεὶ γὰρ ἡ γυνή σ’ ἔχει διὰ στόμα,
κἂν ᾠὸν ἢ μῆλον λάβῃ, “Κινησίᾳ
τουτὶ γένοιτο” φησίν.

Your wife always has you on her lips; and if she’s having an egg or an apple, she says, ‘Let this be for Cinesias!’.

The Silent Slapper and Other Sexual Fantasies

Clothing may be predicted to have a devastating effect on the women’s husbands in Lysistrata, but as we have seen, its removal and absence is also found arousing by men32. The potency of nudity can be seen in the series of what Bella Zweig has called ‘mute, nude female characters’ in Aristophanes who never fail to arouse men33. The list of such pieces of blatant totty include the two dancing girls in Acharnians (1198-1232); Spondai (Peace Treaties) in Knights (1389-1408); Dardanis the flute girl in Wasps (1326-85); Opora (Harvest) and Theoria (Festival) in Peace (520-728, 819-908 and 1329-59); Diallage (Reconciliation) in Lysistrata (1114-88; and perhaps the Scythian girl who appears at 184), and Fawn (also called Artemisia), the dancing girl in Thesmophoriazusae (1160-1203). All of these elicit explicit comment from male characters – explicit often being the operative word. Some of these reactions were quoted earlier, such as Dicaeopolis’ remarks about the dancing girls’ breasts (Acharnians 1198-9) or the Athenian’s and Spartan’s excited appreciation of Reconciliation’s various attributes (Lysistrata 1136, 1148, 1157-8; cf. 1162-88). What is more, these girls are routinely discussed in terms of the sex they may be able to offer. In Knights, for instance, when Demos sees Spondai he asks, ‘Am I allowed to satisfy my thirty-year itch with them?’ (ἔξεστιν αὐτων κατατριακοντουτίσαι; 1391) and in Wasps Philocleon makes a particularly direct request to the flute-girl Dardanis for sexual favours as payment in kind for taking her away from a symposium (1345-7):

ὁρᾷς ἐγὼ σ’ ὡς δεξιῶς ὑφειλόμην
μέλλουσαν ἤδη λεσβιεῖν τοὺς ξυμπότας·
ὧν οὕνεκ’ ἀπόδος τῷ πέει τῳδὶ χάριν.

You see how cleverly I stole you away when you were just about to have to suck people at the party? Do this prick of mine a favour in return for that.

So, as Zweig has pointed out, the objectification of these female figures could hardly be greater: they are eyed up – felt up too34 – and discussed as sex objects, whilst remaining mute throughout. They are sometimes even discussed as if they were inanimate objects rather than living women: thus Reconciliation’s body is conceived of as a map of Greece (Lysistrata 1162-72) and Dardanis in Wasps is talked about as if she were a torch – her genitalia being a split in the wood, her pubic hair being oozing pitch and her arse a knot in the wood (1373-7).

Yet as sex objects, these figures represent everything that gets the Aristophanic male hot and horny. And in this regard it is interesting to note that when we do learn anything of the girls’ backgrounds it is routinely the case that they are not virginal figures by any stretch of the imagination, but rather envisaged as professional ‘entertainers’35. We have already met Dardanis, the fellatrix flute-girl, whom Philocleon addresses as ‘my little pussy’ (ὦ χοιρίον, Wasps 1353); the dancing girls whose breasts Dicaeopolis so admires36; and Fawn who seduces the Scythian Archer in Thesmophoriazusae. Revealingly, too, Trygaeus’ sidekick slave in Peace starts to express particular interest in Theoria when he learns her name and discovers who she is (871) – namely a prostitute ‘who we used to screw on our way to Brauron after a few drinks’ (873-4). In addition to her requisite attractiveness, presumably the appeal of a working girl is partly her availability, partly her expertise37. It is noteworthy in this regard that heterosexual fellatio is only explicitly mentioned in Aristophanes in the context of prostitutes: it is professional sex-workers, and not ‘respectable’ women, who are considered the most appropriate and, no doubt, the most skilled providers of this particular sexual service38.

Unlike fellatio, one activity which is associated with all forms of erotic object is kissing: Dicaeopolis asks for kisses from his dancing girls (Acharnians 1200-1; cf. Thesmophoriazusae 1191 and Frogs 543); Strepsiades’ wife smelt of ‘deep kisses’ on their wedding night (Clouds 51)39; and Euelpides fantasizes about kissing an attractive boy (Birds 141)40. Another recurring erotic theme in Aristophanes is that of stolen pleasures – some more innocent than others. These range from glimpsing a woman peeping out of a window (Thesmophoriazusae 797-9), to exchanging a glance with a girl whose breast is poking out of her torn dress (Frogs 409-12), kissing a slave girl while the wife is in the bath (Peace 1138-9; cf. fr. 376), and even the full-scale sexual assault of a slave girl caught stealing wood in a remote location (Acharnians 271-5). As I have discussed elsewhere, these rape fantasies are particularly fascinating for the way in which Aristophanes paints them in a positive, celebratory light in the plays with rape is ‘always projected, never accomplished’41. Indeed, it is not just forced sex that is routinely envisaged rather than actually performed in Aristophanes. Only once does a sex act occur during a play: the Scythian Archer’s off-stage fumblings with the dancing girl, briefly acknowledged at Thesmophoriazusae 1210-1142. Even in Lysistrata, it would appear, the sex-starved men are still to satisfy their urges at the end of the play.

Sexy Boys and the (Future) Citizen Body

Men and boys are discussed far less than females in terms of their looks, but what descriptions we do find in Aristophanes reveal positive attributes such as youth, fitness – and, of course, the possession of a small penis43. A particularly full description of male attractiveness and unattractiveness is to be found at Clouds 1010-19, where the old-fashioned, yet somewhat prurient Better Argument praises the physical rewards of a traditional education:

ἢν ταῦτα ποιῇς ἁγὼ φράζω
καὶ πρὸς τούτοισιν ἔξῃς τὸν νοῦν,
ἔξεις ἀεὶ
στῆθος λιπαρόν, χροιὰν λαμπράν,
ὥμους μεγάλους, γλῶτταν βαιάν,
πυγὴν μεγάλην, πόσθην μικράν.
ἢν δ’ ἅπερ οἱ νῦν ἐπιτηδεύῃς,
πρῶτα μὲν ἔξεις
χροιὰν ὠχράν, ὥμους μικρούς,
στῆθος λεπτόν, γλῶτταν μεγάλην,
πυγὴν μικράν, κωλῆν μεγάλην,
ψήφισμα μακρόν.

If you do these things I tell you, and bend your efforts to them, you will always have a shining breast, a bright skin, big shoulders, a minute tongue, a big rump and a small prick. But if you follow the practices of today, for a start you’ll have a pale skin, small shoulders, a skinny chest, a big tongue, a small rump, a big ham and a long ... winded decree.

The benefits of traditional education, then, even extend to having a small tongue, that is, one which has not grown thick and muscular through ‘chatter and babble’ – a practice which Aeschylus also complains has emptied the wrestling schools and worn down young men’s buttocks in Frogs (i.e. through lack of physical exercise, 1069-71)44. The mention here of a ‘shining breast’, στῆθος λιπαρόν, and a ‘bright skin’, χροιὰν λαμπράν (1012), also chimes with terms used earlier by Better Argument to describe gym-fit boys: λιπαρός, ‘gleaming’ and εὐανθής, ‘blooming’ (1002)45. This glowing complexion is evidently achieved through physical exertion (and, in the context of the gymnasium, presumably enhanced by olive oil and sweat)46.

As far as other passages are concerned, it is interesting to see a number of adjectives used of Aristophanic males that we have also met in the context of female beauty. In Birds, for example, Euelpides fanatsizes about making a pass at a boy who is ὡραῖος (138), ‘youthful’, ‘blooming’, and in the Ecclesiazusae we find a number of words used of men and women alike, such as καλός, ‘beautiful’, and νεός, ‘young’, on the positive side and αἰσχρός, ‘ugly’, φαῦλος, ‘plain’, and σιμός, ‘flat-nosed’ on the negative47.

Just how far does this list of adjectives which can apply to either sex extend? An instructive passage to consider in this regard is the Agathon scene in Thesmophoriazusae, where the white-haired Euripides is attempting to persuade the youthful, cross-dressing tragedian to attend the all-female festival of the Thesmophoria on his behalf disguised as woman. Remarking on the effeminate Agathon’s appearance, Euripides says (191-2):

σὺ δ’ εὐπρόσωπος, λευκός, ἐξυρημένος,
γυναικόφωνος, ἁπαλός, εὐπρεπὴς ἰδεῖν.

... you’re fresh-faced, fair-complexioned, clean-shaven, you’ve a woman’s voice, soft cheeks, attractive looks ...

To be sure, Agathon’s female voice (γυναικόφωνος) and shaved cheeks (ἐξυρημένος) are hardly manly attributes, but what is interesting to note is that all the other adjectives found here seem to find use elsewhere of (younger) males in a largely positive light. Indeed, εὐπρόσωπος, ‘fresh-faced’, is used in the plays of both sexes48, whereas the less common εὐπρεπής, ‘good-looking’ is used to describe ‘good-looking young men’, εὐπρεπέσιν ... μειρακίοις at Ecclesiazusae 701. Perhaps more surprising is that ἁπαλός is elsewhere used positively of a man – and a strapping one at that: one of the sturdy and tall fellows (ἄνδρες μεγάλοι καὶ τετραπήχεις) who meet Philocleon at the court railings (Wasps 552-8). This man has a ‘soft hand’ (χεῖρ’ ἁπαλήν, 554) which, together with the man’s height, probably marks him out as aristocratic rather than as effeminate per se49.

λευκός is more intriguing still. As we have seen, this adjective is used approvingly in the context of female looks, but can evidently have negative associations in the male realm: at Frogs 1092, for example, an unfit man is described as λευκός and πίων, ‘pale and fat’50 – the opposite to the gym-fit ideal lauded by Better Argument. Likewise, the pallor of the inhabitants of the Thinkery in Clouds certainly qualifies as a negative characteristic, associated as it is with sickliness and a life (mis)spent indoors51. Yet there are suggestions elsewhere that pallor was not always a negative quality for males. At Ecclesiazusae 427-8 ‘a certain good-looking, pale young man’, εὐπρεπὴς νεανίας λευκός τις, is a phrase used by Chremylus’ neighbour to describe the disguised Praxagora whom he has seen speaking at the Assembly. Of course, Praxagora is a feminine male if there ever was one, but the fact that a ‘pale’ (λευκός) male can be described as ‘good-looking’ (εὐπρεπής) is nevertheless suggestive, as is the association of pallor with youth (i.e. the fact that Praxagora is characterized as a νεανίας, ‘young man’). More importantly, in a fragment from Cratinus’ Wine-Flask, we encounter a character (perhaps the supposedly bibulous ‘Cratinus’ himself) eyeing up some Mendaean wine, which he personifies as a pubescent boy. The whole fragment runs as follows (fr. 195):

νῦν δ’ ἢν ἴδη Μενδαῖον ἡβῶντ’ ἀρτίως
οἰνίσκον, ἕπεται κἀκολουθεῖ καὶ λέγει,
‘οἴμ’ ὡς ἁπαλὸς καὶ λευκός. ἆρ’ οἴσει τρία’.

But now if he sees a little bit of Mendaean wine just come to adolescence, he follows after it and says, ‘Oh my, how soft and fair! Will it handle three?’52.

The suggestion here seems to be that softness and pallor could be seen as attractive qualities when found in an adolescent youth – an alternative aesthetic to the gym-fit and non-‘pale’ look extolled by Better Argument (Clouds 1012 and 1016), to be sure, and one which Hymes calls ‘effeminate male beauty’53. Notwithstanding the fact that Agathon has to shave to achieve his smooth cheeks, then, perhaps what we have in the brief description of the poet in Thesmophoriazusae is an ideal of beauty appropriate to a boy or youth – albeit a look which can at the same time be cast as womanish and, as befits the humour of the play, utterly inappropriate for Agathon to emulate as a grown man.

In addition to Agathon’s smooth cheeks and pretty face, we have already seen a number of physical features of boys and youths singled out for praise by Better Argument: namely a big chest, shoulders, buttocks, and a small penis. This interest in male genitalia is echoed elsewhere in Aristophanes, too. At Birds 137-42, for example, there is talk of fingering a boy’s balls in a passage that shares the element of fantasy with some of the (male-on-female heterosexual) passages discussed earlier54. When Tereus asks him what kind of city he would like to live in, Euelpides replies:

ὅπου ξυναντῶν μοι ταδί τις μέμψεται
ὥσπερ ἀδικηθεὶς παιδὸς ὡραίου πατήρ.
“καλῶς γέ μου τὸν υἱόν, ὦ στιλβωνίδη,
εὑρὼν ἀπιόντ’ ἀπὸ γυμνασίου λελουμένον
οὐκ ἔκυσας, οὐ προσεῖπας, οὐ προσηγάγου,
οὐκ ὡρχιπέδισας, ὢν ἐμοὶ πατρικὸς φίλος”.

A place where the father of a blooming boy would meet me and complain to me like this, as if I’d done him wrong: ‘A fine thing you did to my son, old sparkler! You met him coming away from the gymnasium after bathing, and you didn’t kiss him, you didn’t greet him, and you didn’t draw him close, you didn’t finger his balls – and you an old family friend of mine!’.

In addition to this ‘blooming’ (ὡραῖος) boy, there is mention of a ‘good-bollocked boy’ at Knights 1385 (if this is how we are to understand the adjective ἐνόρχης)55, and in Wasps Philocleon explains that one of the benefits of jury service is that one gets to look at boys’ ‘private parts’ (αἰδοῖα) when they’re being examined for registration (Wasps 578). A more protracted eulogy of male genitalia comes once again from Better Argument, who explains the modest ways in which boys used to act at the gymnastic trainer’s (Clouds 973-78; 981-3).

[ἐν παιδοτρίβου δὲ] καθίζοντας τὸν μηρὸν ἔδει προβαλέσθαι
τοὺς παῖδας, ὅπως τοῖς ἔξωθεν μηδὲν δείξειαν ἀπηνές·
εἶτ’ αὖ πάλιν αὖθις ἀνισταμένους συμφῆσαι, καὶ προνοεῖσθαι
εἴδωλον τοῖσιν ἐρασταῖσιν τῆς ἥβης μὴ καταλείπειν.
ἠλείψατο δ’ ἂν τοὐμφαλοῦ οὐδεὶς παῖς ὑπένερθεν τότ’ ἄν, ὥστε
τοῖς αἰδοίοισι δρόσος καὶ χνοὺς ὥσπερ μήλοισιν ἐπήνθει·
...
οὐδ’ ἀνελέσθαι δειπνοῦντ’ ἐξῆν κεφάλαιον τῆς ῥαφανῖδος,
οὐδ’ ἄννηθον τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ἁρπάζειν οὐδὲ σέλινον,
οὐδ’ ὀψοφαγεῖν, οὐδὲ κιχλίζειν, οὐδ’ ἴσχειν τὼ πόδ’ ἐναλλάξ.

... the boys, when they sat down, had to cover themselves with their thighs, so as not to expose to the onlookers anything that was – cruel; and then, when they stood up again, they had to smooth the sand down, and take care not to leave behind for their lovers the impress of their manhood. In those days, too, no boy would anoint himself below the navel, and so there was a coat of dewy down like on quinces56... Nor was he allowed when dining to pick up a head of the radish, nor to snatch his elders’ dill or celery, nor to eat dainties, nor to giggle, nor to have his legs crossed57.

Not only does this passage convey the attraction of boys’ balls and penises but also actions which men find sexually alluring. The boys’ handling of phallic objects – radishes, dill and celery – and the eating of dainties is reminiscent of the erotic handling of an egg and an apple described at Lysistrata 856-7. Evidently playing with the right food in the right way is a turn-on – regardless of whether this is done by boys or by women. Giggling is also, perhaps, to be considered flirtatious58.

The bulk of comments about male beauty in Aristophanes are to be found in the mouths of men rather than women59. The most opinionated women we find when it comes to men’s looks are the old hags in Ecclesiazusae, who focus on men’s youth as a positive attribute (e.g. 1008 and 1015), whereas the Young Girl in the same play mentions the appeal of her lover’s locks (βοτρύχων, 955)60. The Old Woman in Wealth, whose toy-boy abandons her, says that he is ‘handsome’ (καλός) and ‘good-looking’ (εὐπρόσωπος, 976). In a different vein, in Thesmophoriazusae Critylla exclaims that the Inlaw has a ‘nice-coloured’ penis (εὔχρων, 644).

Conclusions

There are perhaps few surprises as to what sex appeal comprises in Aristophanes. The ideal woman is ‘blooming’ or ‘youthful’ (ὡραῖος, ὡρικός) with a good complexion and soft skin; she has pert breasts and is slender, with firm flesh and well-tended pubic hair61. Whilst citizen wives can use clothes, make-up and scent to devastating effect, the real objects of fantasy in the plays are ever-willing and sexually compliant women – so often conceived of as working girls – who neither charge a fee nor answer back. There are fewer indications of what passes for an ideal boy, but in addition to youth, a physically fit body developed by exercise, gleaming skin, and a small penis are all characteristics which attract praise. While paleness and softness are often characterized negatively in men, there is nevertheless evidence of these qualities occasionally attracting praise when possessed by males who are youthful, aristocratic and/or womanish. And perhaps we can also detect a hint of tension in Aristophanes’ plays between the ideal of the modest youth (the kind that a citizen man might want his own son to be) and the flirtatious and sexually available youth of fantasy (the kind that a citizen man might want someone else’s son to be).

Some further points are worth stressing. The first of these is the overlap between many of the terms used to describe attractiveness in both sexes: adjectives like καλός, εὐπρεπής and εὐπρόσωπος can be used of either sex in a positive light. The ‘womanish male’ aesthetic also leads to some striking correspondences between the physical descriptions of males and females, such as the seemingly positive way in which not just a girl’s flesh, but also a strapping youth’s hand may be described as ‘soft’ (at Wasps 554)62. The similarity between male and female flirtation (e.g. by eating phallic shaped foods: Clouds 981-3 and Lysistrata 856-7) and the comparison of both breasts and testicles to quinces (Acharnians 1199; Clouds 997) provide further interesting points of overlap between the sexes.

There are, of course, notable differences, too, between male and female qualities singled out for praise. A youth might gain praise for frequenting the gymnasium, for example, whereas there was, of course, no such expectation for Athenian women to do so (cf. Lysistrata 78-82, where Lampito is physically fit, however, as per the stereotype for Spartan women). Interestingly, Aristophanes is fairly typical of Greek authors in that he tends to tell us precious little about the facial features of individuals: eye-colour, eye-shape, mouth-shape are seemingly never mentioned63. In the plays, attention is more often directed towards body parts: women’s breasts in particular, but also male and female productive organs. Unlike the unisex adjectives used to describe both men and women, then, the focus on these anatomical features serves to draw the clearest of distinctions between the sexes. The bottom probably deserves a case study all of its own: while the hind quarters of women are occasionally mentioned in a positive light, male bottoms routinely have a negative association, namely with sexual passivity64.

One important quality that is praised in both males and females is youth. Again, no surprises here, especially in the case of boys whose brief window of optimum attractiveness has been much discussed (i.e. during their pubescence, but before facial and body hair begins to grow in earnest)65. Yet the point is nevertheless worth making that boys and girls are essentially presented as being at their most attractive at the same stage of life. Breasts which are firm like apples, quinces or olives; pubic hair which is neat; skin which is soft: these are attributes at least as likely to be possessed by a pubescent girl as a full-grown woman – indeed, probably more so66. Do we know enough about the age of puberty in ancient Greece to infer that the age at which Athenian girls were married (perhaps fourteen to eighteen) roughly coincided, then, with a time of life at which they were considered to be at their physical peak67? If so, the sexualized teen – the younger partner who attracts an older lover – might usefully be seen as a feature of classical Athenian culture in general rather than as a specific feature of pederastic relationships, and the parallels between male and female sexiness become all the more resonant.

There remain two further points to note. The first concerns the gendered perspective on beauty that Aristophanic drama offers us. Despite the presence in a number of plays of female characters, beauty and sex appeal are presented almost exclusively from a male viewpoint. Females talk about male looks only rarely, and those who do make comments are generally older women, such as the old hags of Ecclesiazusae or the woman in Wealth who has been abandoned by her younger lover68.

Secondly, since the vast bulk of comments that men in Aristophanes’ plays make about beauty and sexiness concern females rather than males, this survey usefully bears out Dover’s comment that ‘comedy is fundamentally heterosexual’69. But this ‘heterosexual’ bias (for want of a better word) is certainly not shared by all classical authors and is therefore an interesting phenomenon to try to account for. To what extent might Aristophanic comedy, by focusing on women as objects of sexual desire, simply be reflecting a social reality, i.e. that men in the city more usually pursued sexual relations with women than boys? The fact that female prostitutes were both numerous in the city and far outnumbered their male counterparts could, after all, plausibly be used to support the notion of a more rather than less heterosexually-orientated culture of sexual activity in Aristophanes’ Athens70. Related to this point are debates about popular perceptions of pederasty in classical Athens – an institution which is more characteristic of the elite than the masses. Indeed, Hubbard has even argued (not uncontroversially) that pederasty ‘was probably practiced by only a minority’ of the upper classes and that ‘any practitioner, whether man or boy, was suspect in the eyes of the masses’71. Significant, too, no doubt, are the generic conventions of Old Comedy. The nexus of peace, countryside, food, wine and sex which features so strongly as a positive motif in Aristophanes is linked to ideas of fertility and fecundity – and this in turn provides a heterosexual (i.e. reproductive) momentum to the plays72. Indeed, the resolutions of Aristophanes’ comedies not infrequently involve marriage (Peace, Birds) and/or the promise of heterosexual sex, either marital (Lysistrata) or extra-marital (Acharnians)73. This positive leitmotif of heterosexuality also contrasts with the negative use of the motif of penetration and sexual passivity so often associated with politicians and other public figures in the plays’ personal attacks. Thematically, then, heterosexual relations signal celebration in Aristophanic comedy, whilst same-sex relations generate a more complex set of associations.

Lastly, it should also be said that while a study like this is useful for mapping broad tendencies in the realm of sexual attraction and notions of beauty, there are always exceptions to the general rules. Counter-cultural tastes no doubt existed in Classical Athens just as they do in the modern world. Indeed, we get occasional tantalizing glimpses in Old Comedy of the possibility that some men were interested in older women, for example, and also in pre-pubescent girls (e.g. frs 148 and 599)74. The precise nature of sexual preferences will inevitably have differed from individual to individual and we can hardly expect Old Comedy to capture the full range of sexual proclivities in the city of Athens. To be sure, the complete story of sex appeal in classical Athens is yet to be told, but as I hope to have shown, a study of Aristophanes’ plays affords us an important view of how this key author received and represented notions of beauty and sexiness to a broad audience of his fellow Athenians.