The Spartans

In Lysistrata, we only see/hear two Spartans, and oly one of them is actually characterized. Lampito is the spartan woman that is to hold and lead the same idea to abstain from sex in Sparta, and though she holds an important role, she is only present in the beginning. The other spartan, who is only present at the end for peace negotiations, isn’t even given a name. Actually (after looking through the text), it says that a whole delegation of spartans come, but because Aristophanes only refers to the speaker as “Spartan” it’s hard to tell whether the one speaking is the same person or different people. The spartans also have a very distinct dialect or speech. In the Notes (115) it said that the spartans dialect was based off of an american mountain dialect - to me, at least, it sounds like the speech of a southern redneck or countryman. 

I think Aristophanes uses these two things, the lack of distinction and characterization of the delegation of Spartans, as well as their spech to highlight the differences between the Athenians and the Spartans and to show how the Athenians thought of the spartans. The lack of distinction gives the feeling that each spartan had no real value or personal value, and they were just all grouped together as if they had no individual thoughts, as if they weren’t important enough to be separate. The spartan dialect also gives a feeling like the spartans weren’t smart and didn’t have good ideas or thought processes - which isn’t true as both Lampito and the delegation of spartans brought good ideas and new perspectives to the table.