The Wasps () is the fourth in chronological order of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes. It was produced at the Lenaia festival in 422 BC, during Athens' short-lived respite from the Peloponnesian War and shortly before the death of Cleon.
The Wasps follows a son's attempt to stop his father from constantly serving jury duties as it is detrimental to his father's health. It also serves as a parody of Cleon; a figure Aristophanes was publicly critical of. He also ridicules the law courts, one of the institutions that provided Cleon his power. The play has been thought to exemplify the dramatic style of Greek Old Comedy.Amnon Kabatchnik, Blood on the Stage, 480 B.C. to 1600 A.D.: Milestone Plays of Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem, p. 55.
Historical background
Peloponnesian War
431: The Peloponnesian War commenced. Many of Aristophanes' plays respond to the war, such as The Acharnians, Peace, and Lysistrata. 425: Athens obtained a significant victory against Sparta in the Battle of Sphacteria and Cleon claimed responsibility for it. 423: Athens and Sparta agreed to a one-year truce. It was during this truce that Aristophanes wrote Peace, while the Peace of Niceas was being debated. 422: The Wasps is first performed at the Lenaia festival during the pause in hostilities.
Athenian jury system Constitutionally, supreme power lay with the people as voters in the assembly and as jurors in the courts, but they could be manipulated by demagogues skilled in oratory and supported by networks of satellites and informers.Aristophanes: The Frogs and Other Plays D.Barrett, Penguin Classics 1964, p. 35 Jurors had to be citizens over the age of thirty and a corps of 6,000 was enrolled at the beginning of each year. The work was voluntary but time-consuming and they were paid a small fee: three obols per day at the time of The Wasps. For many jurors, this was their major source of income and it was virtually an old-age pension. There were no judges to provide juries with legal guidance, and there was no legal appeal against a jury's verdict. Jurors came under the sway of litigious politicians like Cleon who provided them with cases to try and who were influential in persuading the Assembly to keep up their pay.Aristophanes: Wasps D. MacDowell (ed), Oxford University Press 1971, p. 4
Cleon During Aristophanes' life, Cleon was the demagogue of Athens. Aristophanes often criticized powerful figures in his plays, and Cleon was no exception, most notably in The Wasps.
Two years before The Wasps was first performed, Athens had obtained a significant victory against its rival, Sparta, in the Battle of Sphacteria. Most Athenians credited Cleon with the victory. Cleon had succeeded Pericles as the dominant speaker in the assembly, and increasingly he could manipulate the courts for political and personal ends, especially in the prosecution of public officials for mismanagement of their duties.Aristophanes: Wasps D. MacDowell (ed), Oxford University Press 1971, pp. 1–2
The Wasps is not the first time Aristophanes criticized Cleon through the theatre. Cleon had previously attempted to prosecute Aristophanes for slandering the polis with his second play The Babylonians, and though the legal result of these efforts is unknown, they appear to have sharpened the poet's satirical edge, as evidenced later in the unrelenting attack on Cleon in The Knights. The second parabasis in The Wasps implies that Cleon retaliated for his drubbing in The Knights with yet further efforts to intimidate or prosecute Aristophanes, and the poet may have publicly yielded to this pressure for a short time.Aristophanes: Wasps D. MacDowell (ed), Oxford University Press 1971, p. 299, note 1284–91Aristophanes: The Birds and Other Plays D. Barrett and A. Sommerstein (ed), Penguin Classics 1978, pp. 32–33
Plot
Synopsis The Wasps follows Bdelycleon's efforts to convince his father Philocleon to change his ways and stop spending all of his time as a juryman. When trapping Philocleon in the house with nets doesn't work, Bdelycleon debates his father, winning over the favor of the chorus. To make his father feel better, Bdelycleon holds a domestic complaint trial within the house. Philocleon is distressed by its outcome of acquittal, but his son tries to cheer him up by taking him to a party. While at the party, Philocleon becomes incredibly drunk and angers the community. The audience is warned of becoming too stuck in their ways, and what blind worship of Cleon leads to as the play concludes with Philocleon leading the cast in a spirited dance.
Summary The Wasps opens in front of a house covered with a large net. It is guarded by two slaves, Sosias and Xanthias (the latter of whom is asleep). Bdelycleon, their master, is positioned on the roof but he too is asleep. The two slaves wake and we learn from their banter that they are keeping guard over an "animal." Xanthias addresses the audience, explaining that their master is a very important man who has tasked them with guarding his father who has an unusual disease. Xanthias and Sosias challenge the audience to guess the nature of the disease. Addictions to gambling, drink and good times are suggested but they are all wrong—the father is addicted to the law court: he is a phileliastes () or a "trialophile." The symptoms of the old man's addiction include irregular sleep, obsessional thinking, paranoia, poor hygiene and hoarding.The Wasps lines 83–135 Counselling, medical treatment and travel have all failed to solve the problem, and now Bdelycleon has turned the house into a prison by covering it in nets to keep the old man away from the law courts.
Bdelycleon wakes and he shouts to the two slaves to be on their guard—his father is moving about. He tells them to watch the drains, for the old man can move like a mouse, but Philocleon surprises them all by emerging instead from the chimney disguised as smoke. Bdelycleon is luckily on hand to push him back inside. Philocleon is desperate to escape, as he was once told by an Delphic oracle that if he ever let an accused man go free, he would die of consumption. He tries to get out by chewing through the nets and trickery, which fails. The household settles down for some more sleep after discussing how they can fend off the other jurors who may come and fetch Philocleon. Then the Chorus (costumed as wasps) arrives. They are the old jurors who move warily through the muddy roads and are escorted by boys with lamps through the dark. Philocleon appears and informs them of his imprisonment. The Chorus asks if there is a way he can escape from Bdelycleon, and after some discussion, he chews a hole through one of the nets and climbs down from his window. Despite his attempts to be quiet, this wakes Bdelycleon and Xanthias up. Philocleon calls for the defense of The Chorus who swarm around Bdelycleon and his slaves like wasps. The Chorus accuses Bdelycleon of tyranny for keeping his father away from the courts, Bdelycleon responds that tyranny is thrown around as an accusation too much. At the end of this fray, Philocleon is still barely in his son's custody and both sides are willing to settle the issue peacefully through debate. If Bdelycleon wins, The Chorus says that it will be over for all old men, who will be seen only as useless. Philocleon swears to fall on his own sword if he loses.
The debate between the Philocleon and Bdelycleon focuses on the advantages that the old man personally derives from voluntary jury service. Philocleon says he enjoys the flattering attentions of rich and powerful men who appeal to him for a favourable verdict, he enjoys the freedom to interpret the law as he pleases since his decisions are not subject to review, and his juror's pay gives him independence and authority within his own household. Bdelycleon responds to these points with the argument that jurors are in fact subject to the demands of petty officials and they get paid less than they deserve—revenues from the empire go mostly into the private treasuries of men like Cleon. These arguments have a paralyzing effect on Philocleon. The chorus is won over to Bdelycleon's side.
Philocleon refuses to give up his old ways, so Bdelycleon offers to turn the house into a courtroom and to pay him a juror's fee to judge domestic disputes. Philocleon agrees, and a case is soon brought before him—a dispute between the household dogs. One dog (who looks like Cleon) accuses the other dog (who looks like Laches) of stealing a Sicilian cheese and not sharing it. Witnesses for the defense include a bowl, a pestle, a cheese-grater, a brazier and a pot. As these are unable to speak, Bdelycleon says a few words for them on behalf of the accused. Philocleon is not softened, but his son easily fools him into putting his vote into the urn for acquittal by misdirecting his hand. Philocleon is shocked by the pronouncement that Labes is acquitted and faints. He worries what will become of him now that he no longer convicts those brought before him, but his son promises him food and drink and they exit the stage to prepare for some entertainment.
While the actors are offstage, the Chorus addresses the audience in a conventional parabasis. It praises the author for standing up to monsters like Cleon and it chastises the audience for its failure to appreciate the merits of the author's previous play (The Clouds). It encourages the audience to value poets more in the future and to treasure the wisdom they give. It praises the older generation, evokes memories of the victory at Marathon, and bitterly deplores the gobbling up of imperial revenues by unworthy men.
Father and son then return to the stage, now arguing with each other over the old man's choice of attire. He is addicted to his old juryman's cloak and his old shoes, and he is suspicious of the Persian tunic and the Spartan footwear that Bdelycleon wants him to wear that evening to a sophisticated dinner party. The fancy clothes are forced upon him, and he is instructed in the kind of manners and conversation that the other guests will expect of him. At the party, Philocleon declares his reluctance to drink any wine—it causes trouble, he says—but Bdelycleon assures him that sophisticated men of the world can easily talk their way out of trouble, and so they depart optimistically for the evening's entertainment.