An Attic Comic-drama by Aristophanes
This website is the result of my efforts to better understand what is perhaps the most thought-provoking of Aristophanes’ satires. I hope that its contents may prove useful to other students of Comedy and stimulate further examination of the many important topics raised by the play.
Aristophanes’ theme in ‘Clouds’ was Athens’ judicial system, a subject of keen interest to his audience, both citizens and allies alike, for, in regulating relations between the citizens and in their oversight of state officials, the courts underpinned the rule of the Demos. In ‘Wasps’, the following year, Aristophanes would expose the risk to Democracy of partiality in juries, while here he concentrates his perceptive gaze upon the threat posed to the judgement of these same poorly-educated jurymen by spec