The Acharnians is notable for being the first surviving play from the famous Greek playwright Aristophanes (his first two being lost to history). Like most plays from the time period, it was written as an entry to a competition in Athens, in which it won the prize for first place. The Acharnians is an example of a play from the genre of Old Comedy, which is a specific type of comedic play that heavily relies on ridiculous satire and absurd jokes for the desired effect. Despite this lighthearted preface, however, the play concerns an issue that was no joke for the Greeks at the time: the ongoing Peloponnesian War, in which the Greeks were fighting the Spartans and had been for quite a long time.
The play is set in the public meeting place for political discussions in Athens, where Dikaiopolis, the main character, is preparing for a long day at the forum. He is thoroughly sick of the Peloponnesian War, which has been dragging on for six years. He yearns for peace, and he makes sure everyone knows it, pushing all conversation during the meeting toward the subject of peace with the Spartans. Since no one will listen to him, he sends Amphitheus, a self-proclaimed demigod-like person, to the Spartans to ask for a private peace treaty for only himself and his family. On the way back, Amphitheus is pursued by the titular Acharnians, old men from Acharnia who want to avoid peace because of the harsh plundering the Spartans did of their lands. The body of the play follows Dikaiopolis as he defends his position to the Chorus, who is partially convinced by his first attempt (aided by a character playing Euripedes), but whom he entirely convinces when questioning the Greek general Lamachus about the war. The play ends with Lamachus coming back from war, wounded and using two soldiers to prop him up (one on each side), juxtaposed with Dikaiopolis, who has come back from a banquet with the enemy with a girl on each arm.
It's important to realize the time period of this play; written in 425 BC, it reveals the popular disillusionment with the Peloponnesian War. By this point, the Greeks were fed up with the war with Sparta, and they desired peace above almost all else. The Acharnians would have had a great reception from the wealthier Athenians, who would make up most of the audience. Aristophanes both satirizes the war, as seen through the humorous scene at the end, and actually makes a strong argumentative case against it, which takes up the majority of the play. Unlike a lot of satire, this one actually has some solid logic supporting it.
It's also interesting to note the familiarity Aristophanes expects his audience to have with contemporary and historical Greek figures. It's understandable but not as common as one might think to include references to still-living figures of influence in Greek comedy. Dikaiopolis begins the play with a soliloquy in which he mentions Cleon (a general), Dexitheus and Chaeris (musicians), and Aeschylus (a famous Greek tragedian who had died about twenty years earlier). More interesting than these references, though, is Aristophanes's inclusion of Euripedes (another famous Greek tragedian, but one who was still alive) as a character in the play. He acts as a reluctant aid to Dikaiopolis in his attempt to persuade the Chorus to his position on the war. He speaks a little praise of Dikaiopolis ("I love the clever tricks of an ingenious brain like yours"), but on the whole he is quite annoyed with him. It's interesting to speculate whether Euripedes was in the audience at the time of the production - or even the actor playing himself on the stage.
