Commissioner of Public Safety Character Analysis

When the Chorus of Old Men fails to secure the Acropolis, the Commissioner of Public Safety comes on the scene to bring Lysistrata and her women to justice. The embodiment of patriarchal authority, law, and order in Athens, the Commissioner orders his squad of four police (or rather, Scythian archers, the Athenian equivalent of our police) to arrest the rebels, but Lysistrata, Kleonike, Myrrhine, and Ismenia fiercely drive them off with household goods. Although the Commissioner is bullheaded and loathes what he calls the “MORAL CHAOS” brought on by the women, he is also intent on understanding the women’s motives. Lysistrata tries to explain, but when the Commissioner becomes outraged by what he thinks is female presumptuousness, she and her cohorts shut him up by forcibly dressing him up like a woman. Later, the Commissioner takes even worse: when he urges a reinvigoration of the war effort, the women attack him until he staggers offstage. By the play’s end, however, even the Commissioner gets a little drunk and only plays at being an enforcer of the rules.