These lines, spoken by the Athenian Lysistrata and her friend Calonice at the beginning of the play, set the scene for the action that follows. It was produced in the same year as the Thesmophoriazusae, another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens' catastrophic defeat in the Sicilian Expedition. Additionally, its dramatic structure represents a shift from the conventions of Old Comedy, a trend typical of the author's career.

The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace-a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. It is a comic account of a woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata ( / l aɪ ˈ s ɪ s t r ə t ə/ or / ˌ l ɪ s ə ˈ s t r ɑː t ə/ Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē, 'Army Disbander') is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. Athenian citizens, Spartan envoys, slaves et al.īefore the Propylaea, or gateway to the Acropolis of Athens, 411 BC.