The alazôn, the other, and the other’s friend: theater of distrust in greek podium

Abstract

The alazôn appears frequently as a “blocking character” (otherwise known as “killjoys”) in Aristophanes’ comedies. He uses his greater social status, stiffness, boasting and deception in order to prevent the realization of a comic utopia. The term is also used in ancient Greece for the horse race (Pollux, Onomasticon 1195) due to the impressive way stallions display their horsehair. Besides comedy, Greek rhetoric also makes abundant use of the term, applied usually to an opponent. Since a speaker’s performance is compared to the disposition of the horse at the racetrack (Aeschines, Against Timarchus 1176) and since the hubbub of the Athenian court is comparable to the theater (Plato, Republic 492b), it is suggested that the alazoneia topos serves to stigmatize a character (in the theater) or a speaker (in the podium) as opportunistic, an enemy of the common good, and a representative of interests which are foreign to the polis. In this process, it is possible that its use in comedy and oratory mutually reinforce that stigma, promoting a widespread distrust of the speaker/alazôn and of the people associated with him.