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The Knights of Aristophanes

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"The Knights" is one of the comic masterpieces of Aristophanes, constituting a direct personal attack on Cleon. The level of invective and satire is pretty astounding, especially since this was only the fourth comedy written by Aristophanes. In his previous comedy, "The Archanians," a character had threatened to cut up Cleon into shoe-leather for the Knights, and in this play the comic playwright makes good on his promise. From satirizing the policies of Cleon's political party and capturing the miseries of war, Aristophanes turns to a personal attack on Cleon as a demagogue.

The comedy begins with two characters, Demosthenes and Nicias, who are caricatures of the historic orators who Aristophanes saw as following public opinion instead of truly leading the people like Pericles. The pair are slaves in the house of Demos, that is to say the citizens of Athens, and are complaining about the new slave, the Paplagonian ("the Tanner"), who represents Cleon and who controls "Demos" by even worst means than they ever did. So they decide to steal the oracles used to persuade Demos and learn that their enemy will be brought down by a sausage-seller. The next thing we know, a sausage-seller stumbles upon stage and the pair convince him to acting, promising him wealth, power, and the support of a thousand knights (who comprise the play's chorus).

At this point the Paphlagonian shows up and the rest of the play consists of mainly a series of agons between him and the sausage-seller in which the two try to out wit, out lie, and outlast each other to win the favor of Demos. The sausage-seller wins over the Demos and Cleon is condemned to sell sausages made with the meat of asses and dogs, always be drunk, to exchange foul language with prostitutes, and to drink nothing but dirty bath water. In the parabasis the chorus ignore Cleon and talk instated about what would happen to the poor tragic poet who wrote this comedy if Athens treats them the way they have other geniuses as they crow old. The big finale has the chorus singing the praises of the knights, their forefathers, the god Poseidon, and of horses (which are sacred to Poseidon).

Compared to "The Acharnians," it is clear "The Knights" is a much more bitter play, portraying the Paplagonian as an unprincipled, lying, cheating scoundrel. The legend is that no other comic dared to lampoon Cleon on stage and that Aristophanes played the role himself and instead of wearing a mask that would clearly represent the features of Cleon smeared his face with wine to represent the purple and bloated visage of the demagogue. The title, as is often the case with the work of Aristophanes, represents the chorus in the play. The Knights were one of the highest orders of citizens in Athens and embodied many of the aristocratic preferences and prejudices that Aristophanes saw as being outdated.

"The Knights" was the fourth play produced by Aristophanes, presented at the Lenæan Festival in 424 B.C. We do not know much of his first two efforts, "The Revellers" and "The Babylonians," both of which are long lost, but the third comedy, "The Acharnians" was the first of his three great comedies dealing with the subject of the Peloponnesian War, along with "The Peace" and "Lysistrata." "The Knights" was awarded the first prize at the festival, but Cleon remained in power and therefore a subject for further barbs from Aristophanes.