About the work
The Knights was performed at the Lenaia in 424 BC and won first prize – the first play Aristophanes staged under his own name rather than submitting it through an intermediary, as before. No mask-maker was willing to produce a likeness of the powerful politician Cleon, so Aristophanes himself initially played the Paphlagonian without a matching mask.
Plot
In the household of the aging Demos, personification of the Athenian people, the slave Paphlagon – a thinly veiled caricature of Cleon – has won his master's favour through flattery and intrigue. An oracle declares that only an even more shameless rogue can overthrow him; a sausage-seller is found for the part. In an escalating contest of gifts and promises, the sausage-seller wins and finally restores Demos to his former good sense.
Cultural significance
The Knights is considered Old Comedy's sharpest surviving personal attack on a living, powerful politician, and Aristophanes' revenge for Cleon's earlier prosecution over The Babylonians.