Study Guide
1. Aristophanes' Wasps.
The Wasps was performed in 422 B.C. As mentioned in the introduction to this play in the course packet, it is a comedy that parodies the jury system in Athens. The excerpt you are reading concerns a hilarious mock trial held in a private house. The genre of comedy in fifth-century Athens was overtly political and topical. The subjects of the plays are often absurd fantasies, but they are rooted in the political life of the city, and Aristophanes will often lampoon real people, often quite nastily. The plays, while dealing in fantastic plots and schemes, will often reflect real aspects of Athenian life. In Wasps, the way in which Aristophanes sets up the mock trial basically reflects the way that court cases were handled (e.g. prosecutor, defendant, jury), physical features and objects (e.g. the "bar," the voting urns, notice boards, etc.), and the procedure (e.g. prosecutor goes first, the herald announces the indictment, an oath is taken, etc.).
Since the mid-fifth century (probably) jurors were paid for their service, 2 obols at first, raised to 3 obols by Cleon (the same Cleon who is implicitly alluded to in the names "Procleon" and "Anticleon" ("Procleon" because he and other jurors in the play love Cleon for raising their jury pay; "Anticleon" because he and others like him think that Cleon is simply bribing the mass of poorer Athenians to get their support). An obol is the smallest unit of money in Athens. There are 6 obols in a drachma, which is roughly equivalent to a normal daily wage. Thus, 3 obols would not be quite enough to live comfortably on, but it was also the amount that oarsmen in the navy received during much of this time (this is controversial, given the lack of consistent evidence).
After the trial ends, the play is important for understanding a theme prevalent in Aristophanes' plays, the relationship between and differing values of the young and old. After the trial is over, the Leader of the Chorus sings. This is a section of the play in which the playwright ("the author"), voices his own views. The reference to being let down (p. 86, left column) is to Aristophanes' failure to win first prize in the comic competition of the previous year, in which he had produced Clouds, a comedy parodying Socrates as a sophist who ran a "Thinkery" and corrupted the youth by teaching them how to get ahead.
Note: There are many topical jokes about and allusions to people, political life, and the empire, too many to explain here. Don't worry about them for purposes of the discussion!
Study Questions.
2. Plato, Apology.
There is abundant food for thought in the Apology relating to, for example, attitudes toward the democracy, toward law and justice, toward the gods, and toward the relationship of the individual to the state. Read carefully the introduction in the course packet, and think about the following points and questions as you read the dialogue, bearing in mind that the speech (as mentioned in the introduction) is not the actual defense speech, but one written later by Plato to dramatize the issues he wanted to highlight. Bear in mind also that we have no speech of the prosecution, real or written after the fact. Keep in mind also the Aristophanes reading as you go through the Apology and think about the way trials were run.
The term "sophist" comes up a lot in the Dialogue. As noted in lecture and the textbook (e.g., p. 84), sophists (literally "wise men") were men who played an important practical function in the democracy in Athens by teaching public speaking, the key to political success in the democracy (that is, office-holding was not the route to political power in this system [though holding a generalship brought you clout] but rather the ability to persuade the masses in the assembly, which made all the decisions of the polis. The bad rap that sophists came to have in Athens was due to their reputation of "making the weaker argument the stronger and the stronger argument the weaker," i.e. teaching relativism. Think about how this could be seen as a dangerous trend in a polis in the midst of the crisis of the Peloponnesian War. Aristophanes helped to reinforce the idea that that Socrates was a sophist in his play, Clouds (see above).
Study Questions.