Everything about The Knights totally explained
Aristophanes' comedy
Knights (
Greek: Ἱππεῖς
Hippeîs) took the prize at the
Lenaia festival in 424 BCE. The play is above all else an unbridled attack on
Cleon, who was one of the most important political figures in
Athens in the late 420s BCE and may well have been a personal enemy of the poet.
Plot
The play is set in the house of an old man named
Demos (Greek for "The citizen-body" or "The People"). Demos is a fool, and the action begins with two anonymous slaves (perhaps to be identified somehow with
Nicias and
Demosthenes, two prominent Athenian generals, who complain about how Demos' new slave, the
Paphlogonian, is running the household. The Paphlagonian -- who patently stands in for Cleon -- has been terrorizing the other slaves, while fawning over (and systematically bilking) Demos. The slaves are desperate to discover a way to be rid of him, and when they raid his secret collection of oracles, discover that he's fated to be replaced by a Sausage-Seller. By chance, a Sausage-Seller comes along at exactly this point, but is initially reluctant to become involved in politics, since he's crude and ignorant, and barely knows how to read. The slaves, however, explain that these are perfect qualifications for prominence in contemporary Athenian politics -- it's only unfortunate that he knows how to read at all -- and he ultimately agrees to help them. The Paphlagonian, of course, is reluctant to be displaced. But the Sausage-Seller finds support in the chorus of Knights (aristocratic Athenian young men), who declare their unequivocal hostility to the Paphlagonian and everything he stands for.
Most of the play consists of a long series of contests, in which the Sausage-Seller and the Paphlagonian each try to show that that'll serve their master
The People better than their rival can or has. Ultimately, Demos realizes that he's been cheated by the Paphlagonian, and chooses the Sausage-Seller as his new steward, while the Paphlogonian is driven out to the city's gates, where he's to take over the Sausage-Seller's old job and spend his time quarreling with prostitutes and selling donkey- and dog-meat. At the very end of the play, moreover, it abruptly emerges both that Demos is much less of a fool than he's pretended to be, and that the Sausage-Seller isn't just an even great rascal than the Paphlagonian but his new master's savior. Demos is accordingly restored to how he was in his youth, as Athens returns to its lost golden age.
Translations
Further Information
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