Oferta y demanda

Much as in Clouds, the plot of Wasps is based on a father-son contrast: a father’s unhealthy obsession with jury-service and his comic reaction (manifested through repeated escape attempts) to his son’s effort to re-strict him. Both the father’s and the son’s names,Vikojk]ymandBdeku -jk]ymrespectively, are significant. They are original, comic formations which denote their bearers’ political allegiance: the father is a lover of Kleon, the son is exactly the opposite.³⁴⁸ The year is 422, and Wasps was staged at the Lenaia, shortly before Kleon’s death at Amphipolis (in the autumn of that same year, Th. 5.11).

While compound names with viko- were very common,³⁴⁹ bdeku -has (unsurprisingly) produced no personal names, nor was it used much in compounds.³⁵⁰ The synonymous liso-, though not found in personal names either, is used in a few Aristophanic compounds, three of which occur in Wasps (lis|pokim 411, lis|dgle 473, liso -k\jym 1165);³⁵¹ it should therefore appear as a more regular first com-ponent for the hero’s name, but the use of the less commonbdeku- pro-duces a more striking effect and stresses the singularity of the hero.³⁵² The names are first heard at the end of Xanthias’ comic speech (at 133 and 134) before the heroes appear on stage, which is contrary to the usual Aristophanic practice of revealing names after their bearers have undertaken some action that relates to their meanings. They must have caused amused surprise to the audience – hence the slave’s excla-348 Suggested English translations of the two names are Lovekleon and

Loathe-kleon (MacDowell 1971: 4, 149; Henderson 1998).

349 There are 263 different names in LGPN, of which Vikojq\tgrandVik|nemor are the commonest with more than five hundred attestations each.

350 There is one example alone,^bdek¼jtqopor‘abominable’, ‘disgusting’ (a poetic adjective, cf. A. Eu. 52).

351 A similar formation (with a personal name as a second component) islisok\la -wor(Peace 304); but note that in this compound the second component func-tions as the subject of the first (verbal) element, thus meaning ‘which Lamachos hates’, ‘hated by Lamachos’ (Lamachos is the subject, not the object of hate).

352 Cf. MacDowell (1971: 149) who thought thatbdeku- is more vivid.

mationma· l± D¸a(134).³⁵³It was not unusual for members of the same family to have names that shared a common element, but the second component of the comic heroes’ names is a surprising choice.

The lines preceding the first mention of the names hint at the names’ appropriateness ; these are spoken by a slave (Xanthias) who in-troduces the two men as a father who is obsessed with jury service and a son who tries to cure him of his passion. The father’s enthusiasm for jury-service explains his support for Kleon, as the latter seemed inclined to legal lawsuits (he apparently had the habit of prosecuting officials – perhaps mostly for his own financial and political benefit) and was a benefactor of the jurors’ duty; significantly Philokleon calls to both his co-jurors and Kleon for help in escaping his jury-hating son (197), and the chorus call Kleon ‘our protector’ (242 b jgdel½m Bl?m) and send for him when they need support (409 – 14).³⁵⁴The poet comically prepares his audience for the negative implications of Philo- in the name: ‘viko-’ l´m 1stim !qwµ toO jajoO, says Xanthias (77), and the two slaves mention a number of mostly derogatory adjectives with this first component (vik|jubor ‘fond of dice’, 75; vikop|tgr ‘fond of drinking’, 79; this culminates in the mockery of Philoxenos on which see below). These are failed attempts to define the old man’s illness;

he is in fact a vikgkiast^r (88), a lover of trials (especially in the court of Heliaia), and that is what eventually makes him a Philokleon (133).³⁵⁵

On the other hand the son, who does not share his father’s passion for trials, manages to see the true face of Kleon, who far from seeking to do good, was in reality a manipulator and deceiver of jurymen (as his reported ‘instructions’ for the trial of Laches suggest, 242 – 4), whose poor financial circumstances (cf. 291 ff.) he exploited using the bait of jury-pay.³⁵⁶Initially, Bdelykleon’s outlook is not appreciated by the ju-rymen of the chorus, who mistake him for a lover of tyranny and call 353 Cf. MacDowell 1971: 149.

354 Cf. 596 – 600. On the function of Athenian law courts see Hornblower 2002³: 139 – 40; see also MacDowell (1971: 1 – 4) who notes that there is a degree of comic exaggeration in the way the ills of jury-service and Kleon’s corruptness are presented (cf. Eq. 774 – 6, 797 – 800).

355 He is also avik\d|r‘lover of songs’ according to the chorus (270), another pun on his name.

356 But apparently Philokleon was not poor; he was encouraged by his son to have a good time rather than work, and his rejection of this offer (see e. g. 341, 503 – 11) reveals the force of his obsession.

4.1 Philokleon vs Bdelykleon 81

himlis|dgle(473) – seemingly a parallel to his name, as though hating Kleon equals hating the people. In the latter half of the play, however, this accusation is reversed, and the chorus admit that in fact it is Bdely-kleon who fulfills the positive potential of viko-/vik]y, by loving the people more than anyone else in his generation (888 – 90); now a hater of Kleon becomes synonymous with a lover of demos.

The appropriateness of the names has been underestimated on the as-sumption that the comedy’s centre of action is not Kleon, but the laugh-able side-effects of juridicial passion. The relevance of Philokleon’s name in particular has been questioned, as the character’s political views start to wobble during the agon (especially after 696).³⁵⁷ But the names appear very suitable in the light of the pervasive mockery of Kleon: despite the programmatic statement of 62 – 3 implying that Kleon will not come under an extended attack in this comedy (as he did in Knights), he is here too very much the target of Aristophanes’ sat-ire. This begins early in the play (cf. already the leather joke at 31 – 8), it is central in the agon and the mock-trial scene (in the form of a dog par-odying Kleon, 894 ff.) and continues to the end of the play in Bdely-kleon’s description of the dinner-parties to be attended by his father, where Kleon is one of the sulp|tai (1219 ff.). It also inspires the joke-name Dglokocojk]ym (342) and the reference to the prostitute J}mma (1032).³⁵⁸ The satire of Kleon is clearly an important theme (the number of references to his name is larger than in any other com-edy),³⁵⁹ and indeed the heroes’ names contribute to it. Kleon is pro-foundly relevant to the plot in the sense that the son’s attempt to change his father’s disposition towards trials depends, to a great extent, on his reversing the old man’s opinion of him and other politicians of this 357 MacDowell (1971: 149) thought that in the process of the play the audience would not see a connection between names and action and would therefore not identify the heroes by these names, but rather as ‘the old man’ and ‘the young man’, or ‘the father’ and ‘the son’. But the names are heard a good six times altogether (Philokleon’s name three times: 133, 163, 1466, and Bde-lykleon’s another three: 134, 137, 372), and they are striking enough not to be forgotten. The fact that Philokleon’s name is mentioned once after his final

‘conversion’ (1466) confirms that the poet wished his audience to see it as the name of the hero.

358 See below, p. 89.

359 The name occurs ten times in Wasps, five times in Acharnians, once in Knights, three times in Clouds, once in Peace and twice in Frogs.

kind (which he tries to do at 512 – 25 and mainly in the agon, 655 ff., and at the dogs’ trial). And Philokleon does justice to his name for much longer, by intending to convict the dog Labes (893 – 1002); evi-dence of his full conversion is not heard until the slave’s account of his master’s new behaviour (1292 ff.)

Clearly Aristophanes could have chosen names of stronger relevance to the juridical theme.³⁶⁰But in all probability he preferred to make use of the opportunity of a further allusion to Kleon, to express the fact that Athenian citizens were at that time (in the poet’s belief rather illogically) divided between two opposed views of the preeminent politician’s character. These onomastics were by no means a disappointment, as the names employed for the purpose are among Aristophanes’ most strikingly comic inventions.