that, though a tanner, Cleon has never given Demos a pair of shoes, and he provides
him with a pair as well as a tunic and a chair for his comfort. Just before the final
contest, old Demos in conversation with the Knights shows that he isn’t quite as
simple as he seems. He knows the thieving ways of politicians. Then there is a contest
of hampers to appeal to Demos’ appetite; the sausage seller, by a clever trick he uses
on his customers, is able to steal Cleon’s jugged hare while he is distracted, and wins
by showing Demos that while his hamper is empty, Cleon has kept much of the food
for himself (with the clear implication that the real Cleon lines his own pockets). Cleon
now confesses that he has been outdone in shamelessness and sees the truth of the
oracle. The sausage seller is now revealed as Agoracritus, ‘the choice of the assembly’
or ‘market haggler’. ‘In the agoraI thrived on wrangling’ (ll. 1257–1258). This fits the
sausage seller both as purveyor of meat in the market place and as citizen of Athens
schooled in the ways of the world in the assembly. In the wordplay here is
concentrated the wit and design of the whole play. There may also be a third meaning:
‘I fed myself in the agora in judging’ (in the law courts where in the developed
democracy a citizen could earn three obols a day, a living wage. Here may be
adduced the remark in the Gorgiasof Plato, ‘People say that Pericles made the
Athenians lazy and cowardly and garrulous and covetous by his introduction of the
system of payment, for services to the state’ (575e).).
Then, following Medea’s example, the sausage seller boils Demos to rejuvenate
him so that he appears as he was in the good old days of Miltiades, the general who
had commanded the Athenians in their finest hour when they had defeated the
Persians at Marathon. Demos is then amazed at his stupidity and vows to reform the
politics and manners of the city. He is pleased to be shown two sweet 30-year-old
treaties (in female form presumably) whom Cleon had hidden away and whom
Demos can take back to his farm in the country. In a neat reversal Cleon is given
Agoracritus’ old job, selling sausages (a mixture of dog and donkey) at the city’s gates.
As Cleon had successfully prosecuted Aristophanes a year earlier for bringing
the city into disrepute before foreigners, the Knights was a defiant reply, as the
parabasismakes clear. Aristophanes judged the audience well, for the judges awarded
him first prize. Addressing the judges in the Assemblywomen, the poet has this
suggestion to offer: ‘Let the intellectuals choose me for my intellectual content; to
those who enjoy a good laugh, judge me on my jesting. That should get most of the
votes’ (ll. 1155–1157). Those who came simply for the entertainment doubtless
enjoyed seeing their leaders brought down to size, revelling in the caricature, the
burlesque and the reduction to absurdity. In the Athenian democracy Jack was as
good as his master, or perhaps the Jacks had taken the place of the master. The more
discerning doubtless appreciated the playwright’s wit in pressing the resemblance
between the politician who sells himself and the sausage seller haggling in the market
place and indulging in a spot of male prostitution on the side (l. 1242).
LITERATURE 165