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Aristophanes
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In 427 BC when the first comedy of Aristophanes was produced, he was below the legal age of 18; so he was probably born in or soon after 445 BC. He wrote about forty plays in as many years, but only eleven still exist. He was an Athenian citizen whose family owned land on Aegina. His second play The Babylonians satirized the demagogue Cleon and portrayed the allies of Athens as slaves of Athenian imperialism, causing Cleon to bring charges against him. He must have been acquitted, because he continued to satirize Cleon the next year. In The Acharnians, produced in 425 BC, Aristophanes complained the politician had lied, slandered, and abused him nearly to death.
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Aristophanes was a sharp observer of the social and political life of Athens, but his plays reveal no systematic or original political credos. In Acharnians and Lysistrata the sympathetic characters denounce the folly and greed of Athens’ wartime leaders and urge that more should be done to negotiate a peaceful settlement, but Birds supports vigorous prosecution of the war-effort, particularly the expedition against Sicily. In Knights and Wasps the wickedness of popular leaders like Cleon is vehemently exposed, but at the same time the people are criticized for their ignorance and gullibility in following such leaders. On the whole, Aristophanes compares contemporary Athens, which he sees as being in decline, unfavorably with the Athens that had defeated the Persians and built a great empire, while at the same time he urges his countrymen to recapture the ideals, policies and leadership that had made Athens great. To judge from the kinds of people he satirizes and does not satirize, Aristophanes thought that democracy worked best when the ordinary citizens deferred to the well-born, wealthy and educated citizens, though he never suggests the adoption of an oligarchic arrangement to accomplish that goal.
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Every comedy of Aristophanes has an agon, or contest at this point in the dramatic action, where the hero’s plan has stirred controversy in the community. The agon reveals a duality within the hero, that although a representative Athenian, he is not directly so; at first he represents only a minority opinion, opposed by those who are not as revolutionary as the hero.
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After Lysistrata, Aristophanes seems to have given up on politics. It would be nineteen years before he would again devote an entire play to a political issue, and by that time it had become far too dangerous to launch a direct attack on state policies. Athens had long since been crushed by the Spartans and its liberties had decreased significantly. It was during this turbulent period that Socrates was put to death. Thus Ecclesiazusae (Women in Parliament) and Plutus are far less pointed than the poet's earlier works in their call for a new utopian society. Mercifully... Aristophanes would not have to hold his tongue for long. Three years after the production of Plutus, the comic poet passed away, leaving behind approximately forty plays--eleven of which have survived to this day.
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Knights, performed at the 424 BCE Lenaea, is Aristophanes' most political play: It amounts to a vicious attack on the politician Cleon, who at that time was standing for election to Athens' board of generals. In Knights, Cleon clearly appears in the character of a flattering, scheming slave named Philodemos ("lover of the people"). Philodemos' foolish and elderly master is Demos ("the people"), and the plot involves Philodemos' vulgar competition with a sausage vendor for Demos' affection. The Athenians approved of Aristophanes' mockery of Cleon, and Knights received first prize. However, the real-life Cleon still won the election.
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Aristophanes was born in Athens in 448 B.C.E. The poet is considered one of the greatest dramatist of the Greek comedy. Little is known about his life. Aristophanes received his education from 430 until 428 B.C.E. He continuously targeted contemporary personages and events in his works. His protrayal of Cleon in "The Babylonians" in 426 B.C.E.
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Aristophanes