The Knights

For other uses, see Knights (disambiguation).
The Knights
Knight.
The Dramatis Personae in ancient comedy depends on interpretation of textual evidence.[1] This list is based on Alan Sommerstein's translation.[2]
Written byAristophanes
Chorusknights
Characters
  • Demosthenes a slave of Demos
  • Nicias another slave of Demos
  • Agoracritus a sausage seller
  • Paphlagonian (Cleon) a slave and steward of Demos
  • Demos an elderly Athenian

Silent roles

  • The Peacetreaties two girls
  • Several slaves
SettingOutside Demos' house near the Pnyx in Athens

The Knights (Ancient Greek: Ἱππεῖς Hippeîs; Attic: Ἱππῆς) was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, who is considered the master of Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and in this respect it is typical of all the dramatist's early plays. It is unique, however, in the relatively small number of its characters, and this was due to its vitriolic preoccupation with one man, the pro-war populist Cleon. Cleon had prosecuted Aristophanes for slandering the polis with an earlier play, The Babylonians (426 BC), for which the young dramatist had promised revenge in The Acharnians (425 BC), and it was in The Knights (424 BC) that his revenge was exacted. The Knights won first prize at the Lenaia festival when it was produced in 424 BC.

  1. ^ Aristophanes:Lysistrata, The Acharnians, The Clouds Alan Sommerstein, Penguin Classics 1973, page 37
  2. ^ Aristophanes: Birds and Other Plays by D. Barrett and A. Sommerstein (eds), Penguin Classics 1978