After an overview of the reception of Aristophanes during the Colonels’ Dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974), the paper focusses on George Zervoulakos’ film Lysistrata (1972), to analyse its script, aesthetics, and pol-itics. Particular emphasis is placed on the tricks employed vis-à-vis state censorship: the creators adapted the ancient text, manipulated the censored script, and orchestrated the spectacle (settings, costumes, acting, music andcinematics) in such a manner as to produce a prima facie carefree hippy musical which nevertheless parodies the dictatorial regime. Only this film, amidst the not-yet-rebellious atmosphere of 1972, adopts a rather pessimist tone (incontrast to the optimist call for resistance a year later, in Kambanellis’ play Our Grand Circus).
