Wasps
Aristophanes422 BCEAristophanes went after the Athenian jury system, old men hooked on the power of passing judgment, and turned it into a comedy about a man who puts his dog on trial.
Read this if you…
- hate Bureaucrats and Litigators
- like the clouds and lysistrata
Skip this if you…
- haven't read Clouds or Lysistrata to decide if you even like Aristophanes
Why It Matters
Aristophanes went after the Athenian jury system, old men hooked on the power of passing judgment, and turned it into a comedy about a man who puts his dog on trial. It's one of the sharpest takedowns of legal culture and civic dysfunction in ancient literature. The mockery of how ordinary people get drunk on a little authority still lands.
The 
Take
Pretty fun concept to be addicted to litigation. The trial of the dog was best part
Where to go next
- The Oresteia by Aeschylus. Wasps built on it. - *Wasps* is a sustained parody of Aeschylus, and it lands sharpest with the *Oresteia* fresh in mind - Philocleon's dog-trial restructures the *Eumenides* courtroom; the night-watch prologue echoes *Agamemnon*; Bdelycleon forcing a new cloak on his father mirrors the Furies changing their robes after the verdict - Read the trilogy first and you'll catch the jokes Aristophanes built straight on top of it
Depicted in Art
Greek title page reading 'Aristophanous komodiai ennea' — the first printed edition of Aristophanes' nine comedies, with Peace listed among them, in Venetian Greek type.
Aldus Manutius (printer); Markos Mousouros (editor), 1498
A double-headed marble herm: Aristophanes facing one direction, Menander the other — the masters of Old and New Comedy joined back-to-back as a single sculptural object.
The stone semicircle of seats and orchestra of the Theatre of Dionysus on the south slope of the Acropolis, the actual ancient venue where Peace took second prize at the Dionysia of 421 BC.
A bearded marble head of Aristophanes mounted on a herm, mouth slightly open as if mid-speech; inscribed in Greek 'Aristophanes, son of Philippides, the Athenian'.
Recommended Editions
Jeffrey Henderson
Harvard University Press · 1998
Henderson's Loeb is the scholarly Aristophanes, facing-page Greek with notes that actually explain the Athenian courtroom jokes Wasps depends on. Nothing else gets you that close to the original.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Why, this class of old men, if irritated, becomes as terrible as a swarm of wasps. They carry below their loins the sharpest of stings, with which to prick their foes; they shout and leap and their stings burn like so many sparks.”
“How sweet it is to be a juror! There is no creature on earth as happy, as pampered, or as feared.”
More by Aristophanes
- The Acharnians
425 BCE · Comedy
- The Clouds
423 BCE · Comedy
- Peace
421 BCE · Comedy
- The Birds
414 BCE · Comedy
- Lysistrata
411 BCE · Comedy
- The Frogs
405 BCE · Comedy