ABSTRACT
Sparta dealt Athens a serious blow at Lechaeum by capturing both the Lechaeum Long Walls and its dockyards and Corinthian ships. Athens' fleet and army had to be financed. Athenians were still suffering severely from the losses of the Peloponnesian War, as Aristophanes' last plays demonstrate two extant plays of Aristophanes. Ecclesiazusae and Ploutos, were produced in the later Corinthian War, and indicate both what the poet considers funny and what he considers pressing public problems. Ecclesiazusae focuses on politics, if not as exclusively or vehemently as do Knights or Wasps. One must resist the temptation to conclude, as some have that Athenian politics itself had lost its vigour. In Ecclesiazusae the focus is macroeconomic, with such themes as the greed of the demos, the inability of the polis to raise money, and the contrast between rich and poor receiving most attention.
