The Knights

Cleon as a sausage-seller’s rival. Aristophanes’ Knights is wartime Athens, a demagogue, and the demos flattered into a stupor. Political comedy with a cleaver: who owns the people, and who sells them. The Paphlagonian steward, the sausage-seller, Demos flattered like a child. Wartime comedy with a target you could name in the street. Corruption as a shouting match. The Paphlagonian steward versus a sausage-seller for the love of Demos, flattered like a child with a vote.