The Acharnians, Part 3 Summary

(p. 41 - 52) Dikaiopolis returns and sets up a ring of stones defining what he calls his marketplace where anyone in Greece is welcome to come and trade. The first to arrive is a thin, evidently poverty stricken Megarian, who disguises his two young daughters as pigs and, through dialogue heavy with crude sexual double entendre (see "Quotes," p. 44), trades them to Dikaiopolis for salt and garlic. The conversation is interrupted briefly by an Informer, who tries to define the bargain as illegal and arrest the Megarian, but Dikaiopolis chases him (the Informer) away.

After a brief commentary by the Chorus on Dikaiopolis' courage in chasing the Informer, which they favorably compare to the lack of courage of several other (artists? warriors? public figures?), a second trader arrives. This one is from Thebes, and has a large inventory of edible...