¹ Wright, M., ‘Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps’, in Bakola, E., Prauscello, L. and Telò, M. (edd.), Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres (Cambridge, 2013), 205–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 206 recognizes the centrality of encounters between the world of comedy and tragedy to the structural design and meaning of Wasps. The subsequent appearance of studies by Telò, M., Aristophanes and the Cloak of Comedy (Chicago, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Farmer, M.C., Tragedy on the Comic Stage (Oxford, 2016), 117–54Google Scholar has further established the fruitfulness of Wright's approach. Jedrkiewicz, S., ‘Bestie, gesti e logos. Una lettura delle Vespe di Aristofane’, QUCC 82 (2006), 61–91Google Scholar and Auger, D., ‘Corps perdu et retrouvé dans les Guêpes d'Aristophane’, in Auger, D. and Peigney, J. (edd.), Phileuripidès (Paris, 2008), 503–28Google Scholar are important precursors for Wright. Telò (this note) includes some discussion of Wasps’ engagement with the Oresteia (especially 99–101).

² Compton-Engle, G., Costume in the Comedies of Aristophanes (Cambridge, 2015), 67–74; Telò (n. 1), 29–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Piqueux, A., ‘Le manteau imaginaire de Philocléon (Vesp. 1122–73): vêtements masculins et identité sur la scène comique’, in Coppola, A. (ed.), Gli oggetti sulla scena teatrale ateniese (Padua, 2016), 237–60Google Scholar have established the scene's importance in the comedy, but do not take its engagement with the Oresteia into account.

³ Bakola, E., Cratinus and the Art of Comedy (Oxford, 2010), 49, 135–8 and 174–7Google Scholar; ead., ‘Crime and punishment: Cratinus, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and the metaphysics and politics of wealth’, in Bakola, E., Prauscello, L. and Telò, M. (edd.), Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres (Cambridge, 2013), 226–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, with greater caution about Cratinus’ Eumenides, Farmer (n. 1), 92–3.

⁴ Newiger, H.-J., ‘Elektra in Aristophanes’ Wolken’, Hermes 89 (1961), 422–30Google Scholar, critiqued by Bowie, A., ‘Myth and ritual in the rivals of Aristophanes’, in Harvey, D. and Wilkins, J. (edd.), The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy (Swansea, 2000), 317–30, at 323Google Scholar; supported, however, by Vahtikari, V., Tragedy Performances outside Athens in the Late Fifth and the Fourth Centuries b.c. (Helsinki, 2014), 153Google Scholar.

⁵ Marshall, C.W., Aeschylus: Libation Bearers (London, 2017), 46–52Google Scholar. I am grateful to Niall Slater for this point (and for the one below about deme theatres).

⁶ Nub. 534 (discussed below); although the reference is made in the revised version, it would have been more effective if there had been a revival staged in the 420s.

⁷ Zeitlin, F., ‘Redeeming matricide? Euripides rereads the Oresteia’, in Pedrick, V. and Oberhelman, S.M. (edd.), The Soul of Tragedy (Chicago, 2005), 199–225Google Scholar; Mueller, M., Objects as Actors: Props and the Poetics of Performance in Greek Tragedy (Chicago, 2016), 42–3Google Scholar on its impact; and Torrance, I., Metapoetry in Euripides (Oxford, 2013), 45–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar on Euripides’ Orestes.

⁸ Σ Ar. Ran. 10, with Z.P. Biles, ‘Aeschylus’ afterlife: reperformance by decree in 5th c. Athens?’, ICS 31–2 (2006–7), 206–42 and Lamari, A.A., ‘Aeschylus and the beginning of tragic reperformances’, TC 7 (2015), 189–206Google Scholar. Against the ‘single-performance theory’ and on the participation of prominent playwrights at the Rural Dionysia, see Csapo, E., Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater (Chichester and Malden, 2010), 83–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on performances in deme theatres, see Vahtikari (n. 4), 91–8. On reperformance in the fifth century, see Lamari, A.A., Reperforming Greek Tragedy: Theater, Politics, and Cultural Mobility in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries b.c. (Berlin and Boston, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Stewart, E., Greek Tragedy on the Move: The Birth of a Panhellenic Art Form c.500–300 b.c. (Oxford, 2017), 177–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ On comic parody, see Rau, P., Paratragodia (Munich, 1967)Google Scholar; Silk, M.S., ‘Aristophanic paratragedy’, in Sommerstein, A.H., Halliwell, S.F., Henderson, J. and Zimmermann, B. (edd.), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (Bari, 1993), 477–504Google Scholar; Rosen, R.M., ‘Aristophanes, Old Comedy, and Greek tragedy’, in Bushnell, R. (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Tragedy (Oxford, 2006), 251–68Google Scholar; Bakola (n. 3 [2010]), 118–79; and Farmer (n. 1). I follow Bakola (n. 3 [2010]), 121 in using ‘paratragedy’ and ‘parody’ interchangeably (contra the distinction made by Silk [this note], 479).

¹⁰ See, for example, Rogers, B.B., The Wasps of Aristophanes (Cambridge, 1897), on 976 with n. 568Google Scholar; MacDowell, D.M., Aristophanes Wasps (Oxford, 1971), on 976–7Google Scholar; and Biles, Z.P. and Olson, S.D., Aristophanes Wasps (Oxford, 2015)Google Scholar, ad loc. The theatrical precedent for the dramatization of court procedure is not mentioned in these acknowledgements of the scene's juridical satire. The metatheatrical dimension to the Dog Trial has, however, gained recognition: Farmer (n. 1), 134 with n. 45 and Slater, N.W., Spectator Politics: Metatheatre and Performance in Aristophanes (Philadelphia, 2002), 96 with n. 43Google Scholar.

¹¹ Biles and Olson (n. 10), xliii on elaborate staging. On interperformative allusions, see Wyles, R., Costume in Greek Tragedy (London, 2011), 89–90 and Mueller (n. 7), 42–69Google Scholar.

¹² MacDowell (n. 10), 235 (on 760–859) and Slater (n. 10), 96. It may offer further entertainment as a variant on previous Aristophanic scenes in which multiple props are brought onto the stage; see Nelson, S., Aristophanes and His Tragic Muse. Comedy, Tragedy and the Polis in 5th Century Athens (Leiden and Boston, 2016), 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford, 1977), 390–1Google Scholar notes the rarity of this type of scene change and hypothesizes that the props are brought on. S. Scullion's objection (Three Studies in Athenian Dramaturgy [Stuttgart, 1994], 77–86) to Taplin's argument for a shift of scene does not affect the claim that objects were brought on to set up the court. His objection to the use of stagehands is of greater relevance (Scullion [this note], 115 on Ajax; marginally revised: S. Scullion, ‘Camels and gnats: assessing arguments about staging’, in G.W. Most and L. Ozbek [edd.], Staging Ajax's Suicide [Pisa, 2015], 75–110, at 77), yet the props required for the court in Eumenides must arrive on stage somehow.

¹⁴ On this parody, see S.D. Olson, Aristophanes Peace (Oxford, 1998), xxxii–xxxiv and ad loc., Rau (n. 9), 89–97, Dobrov, G.W., Figures of Play: Greek Drama and Metafictional Poetics (Oxford, 2001), 20Google Scholar; on staging, Hourmouziades, N.C., Production and Imagination in Euripides (Athens, 1965), 150–2Google Scholar. For further discussion of the relationship between Wasps and Peace, see Dobrov (this note), 89–104 and Farmer (n. 1), 118–21.

¹⁵ As Silk, M.S., Aristophanes and the Definition of Comedy (Oxford, 2000), 52Google Scholar argues in the case of the Aristophanic penchant for Euripides.

¹⁶ Sommerstein, A.H., Aristophanes Wasps (Warminster, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ad loc. notes the tragic resonance of the phraseology. The association of Apollo Pythios with the courts (A.L. Boegehold, The Athenian Agora. Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 28. The Lawcourts at Athens [Princeton, 1995], 22 n. 7), while relevant here, does not preclude evocation of the Oresteia.

¹⁷ Biles and Olson (n. 10), ad loc.

¹⁸ The heightened significance afforded to this stage action in the original makes it an ideal point of allusion; for another significant gesture (manipulating fabric) capable of evoking Aeschylus’ trilogy, see Noel, A.-S., ‘Le vêtement-piège et les Atrides: metamorphoses d'un objet protéen’, in Milanezi, S. and Le Guen, B. (edd.), L'appareil scénique dans les spectacles de l'Antiquité (Saint-Denis, 2013), 161–82Google Scholar.

¹⁹ It is made significant by the verbal reinforcement of the visual; see Taplin (n. 13), especially 30.

²⁰ On Athena's voting pebble as a focalizer in the Aeschylean scene, see Bakewell, G.W., ‘Theatricality and voting in Eumenides’, in Harrison, G. and Liapis, V. (edd.), Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 149–59, at 151Google Scholar.

²¹ While the urns are subjected to comic transformation (being substituted by ἀρυστίχοι ‘little cups’, 855), on which see Wyles, R., Theatre Props and Civic Identity in Athens (London, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Vesp. 109–10 imply that a pebble is used (rather than a ‘small domestic item’, pace Biles and Olson [n. 10], ad loc.).

²² On deixis in fifth-century drama, see D.J. Jacobson, ‘Show business: deixis in fifth-century Athenian drama’ (Ph.D. Diss., Berkeley, 2011) and brief comments on Ajax specifically in Finglass, P.J., ‘Second thoughts on the sword’, in Most, G.W. and Ozbek, L. (edd.), Staging Ajax's Suicide (Pisa, 2015), 193–210, at 198–206Google Scholar. All quotations from Wasps use the text of Biles and Olson (n. 10).

²³ Farmer (n. 1), 134 explores the other potential tragic associations of Philocleon's response. On further similarities between Philocleon's temperament and Aeschylus’ Erinyes, see Nelson (n. 12), 164. Bakewell (n. 20), 149 n. 1 notes that Vesp. 993 recalls Eum. 744.

²⁴ On the audience alertness, see Revermann, M., ‘The competence of theatre audiences in fifth- and fourth-century Athens’, JHS 126 (2006), 99–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Those members of the audience who did not consciously identify these allusions at the outset could have nevertheless been psychologically ‘primed’ by them to make the link to the Oresteia in the later court scene.

²⁶ Biles and Olson (n. 10), xli make the comparison with the opening of Agamemnon.

²⁷ There is some debate over whether the Watchman's lines imply that he is lying down as he delivers them (Taplin [n. 13], 277); the allusion in Wasps would be clear in either case. Telò (n. 1), 59 n. 9 notes Bdelycleon's position on the roof as a paratragic element to the opening.

²⁸ ‘The vulgarity of Apollo's reaction is without parallel in tragedy’, Sommerstein, A.H., Aeschylus Eumenides (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar, ad loc. This cue to the tragic intertext is noted by Beta, S., ‘Madness on the comic stage: Aristophanes’ Wasps and Euripides’ Heracles’, GRBS 40 (1999), 135–57Google Scholar, at 136, Wright (n. 1), 205 n. 1 and Telò (n. 1), 99.

²⁹ On the prominence and significance of the net, see Revermann, M., Comic Business: Theatricality, Dramatic Technique, and Performance Contexts of Aristophanic Comedy (Oxford, 2006), 171 and Nelson (n. 12), 161Google Scholar.

³⁰ Taplin (n. 13), 315. This may be reinforced by the reference to spreading the ‘net’ out (Vesp. 132; cf. Aesch. Cho. 983). On Aeschylus making the verbal visual, see Bakewell (n. 20), 156; Chaston, C., Tragic Props and Cognitive Function: Aspects of the Function of Images in Thinking (Leiden and Boston, 2010), 20–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lebeck, A., The Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 131Google Scholar. For an example of Aristophanes making the figurative literal in a tragic parody, see Ar. Ach. 318 with Sommerstein, A.H., Aristophanes Acharnians (Warminster, 1980)Google Scholar, ad loc. The presentation of the ‘politician’ dogs in the trial scene offers another example of this strategy; on canine imagery in the Oresteia, see Saayman, F., ‘Dogs and lions in the Oresteia’, Akroterion 38 (1993), 11–18Google Scholar and D. Raeburn and O. Thomas, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (Oxford, 2011), lxvi–lxviii.

³¹ On the ‘brooding presence’ of the house in the Oresteia, see Taplin, O., Greek Tragedy in Action (London, 1978), 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the ‘tragic’ focus on the door in Wasps, see Marshall, C.W., ‘Dramatic technique and Athenian comedy’, in Revermann, M. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy (Cambridge, 2014), 131–46, at 137Google Scholar. For further tragic resonances to the opening, see Wright (n. 1), 205 and 212–13, and Telò (n. 1), 57.

³² ‘Pastiche’ in the sense applied by Bakola (n. 3 [2010]), 121–2. See also Dobrov (n. 14), 19 on Euripides’ Phoenissae.

³³ On its intense tragic engagement, see Wright (n. 1) and Telò (n. 1), who links this to the idea that Philocleon is represented as a voracious consumer of tragedies.

³⁴ Murnaghan, S., ‘Legal action: the trial as theater in Aeschylus’ Oresteia’, in Weiner, A. and Kaplan, L. (edd.), On Interpretation: Studies in Culture, Law, and the Sacred (Madison, 2002), 190–201, at 192Google Scholar; the challenge to the assumption that this was an Aeschylean norm from Yoon, F., ‘Against the Prometheia: rethinking resolution and the “connected tetralogy”’, TAPhA 146 (2016), 257–80Google Scholar does not affect this claim.

³⁵ On the earlier parts of the play as a series of agônes, see Bowie, A., Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual, and Comedy (Cambridge, 1993), 78–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Compton-Engle (n. 2); Telò (n. 1); and Piqueux (n. 2) respectively.

³⁷ Despite the textual issues afflicting the proposal in Eumenides for purple-dyed clothing (φοινικοβάπτοις ἐσθήμασιν, 1027) to be adopted, it is generally accepted that the Erinyes were the intended recipients and that this costume change took place on stage. On textual issues, see Taplin (n. 13), 412–13 and Sommerstein (n. 28), ad loc. On staging, see Podlecki, A.J., Aeschylus Eumenides (Warminster, 1989), ad locGoogle Scholar.

³⁸ This stage action has long been understood to gain further meaning from the earlier use of fabric in the trilogy (R.F. Goheen, ‘Aspects of dramatic symbolism: three studies in the Oresteia’, AJPh 76 [1955], 113–37) and from its visual allusion to the ‘crimson cloaks’ worn by metics in the Panathenaeic procession (Headlam, W., ‘The last scene of the Eumenides’, JHS 26 [1906], 268–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

³⁹ While there are points of difference between Philocleon and the chorus, these reflect comic distortion (a staple of parody). Moreover, Dionysus in Ran. 1028–9 offers a parallel example of a comic protagonist parodying an Aeschylean chorus (Persians). See also Silk (n. 15), 255 on Philocleon representing a ‘one man community’ in the court scene.

⁴⁰ For καυνάκης, see Stone, L., Costume in Aristophanic Comedy (New York, 1981), 168Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Goheen (n. 38), 122.

⁴² On Philocleon as Erinys, see Telò (n. 1), 96–101.

⁴³ Silk (n. 15), especially 232, Nelson (n. 12), 166, and Farmer (n. 1), 122 and 129.

⁴⁴ See the interpretations of Compton-Engle (n. 2), 71, Piqueux (n. 2), 254 and Telò (n. 1), 36.

⁴⁵ On the relationship between Philocleon's comic body and this costume, see Piqueux (n. 2), 254–5. For the centrality of his comic body to understanding the play, see Auger (n. 1) and Compton-Engle (n. 2), especially 73–4; and on the comic body's significance for comedy in general, see Varakis-Martin, A., ‘Body and mask in Aristophanic performance’, BICS 53 (2010), 17–38Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Piqueux makes a persuasive case for the essential role of words in the power dynamics of this scene, expressed through a struggle over the definition of the cloak; Piqueux (n. 2), 249–53. On the impact of words on the semiotic meaning of costume, see Wyles (n. 11), 51–2.

⁴⁷ Farmer's interpretation ([n. 1], 118, 133) depends on the continuing association (established earlier in the play) of Bdelycleon with comedy. Given Silk's model of the ‘recreative’ comic character ([n. 15], 207–55), there may be inconsistency in this association. See Nelson (n. 12), 168 on the shift to the cause identified with Bdelycleon in the second half of the play.

⁴⁸ Sommerstein (n. 16), ad loc. See Biles and Olson (n. 10), ad loc. on χόλιξ (the term used at line 1144) meaning ‘“intestine” stuffed with meat’; also cf. Ar. Eq. 1179.

⁴⁹ Biles and Olson (n. 10), ad loc. on how this line corresponds to Philocleon's appearance; see also Piqueux (n. 2), 254. On comedy's ‘food-obsessed’ perspective, see Compton-Engle, G., ‘Aristophanes Peace 1265–1304: food, poetry, and the comic genre’, CPh 94 (1999), 324–9, at 326Google Scholar. I disagree with Auger's reading (n. 1), 516.

⁵⁰ This extends the argument of Compton-Engle (n. 49), which posits the generic alignment of food and comedy in Pax 1279–90, by suggesting that Aristophanes already exploited this in Wasps.

⁵¹ Wright (n. 1), 206.

⁵² This assertion of superiority is not necessary hostile. On rejecting the assumption of universal hostility against tragedy in Aristophanes’ work, see Silk (n. 15), 52 (on Euripides); see also Ruffell, I.A., ‘A total write-off: Aristophanes, Cratinus, and the rhetoric of comic competition’, CQ 52 (2002), 138–63, at 140CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Farmer (n. 1), 8 n. 1 and 70 (both on parody). Hostility is implied by Wright (n. 1), 207 and Telò (n. 1).

⁵³ By inviting reflection on the judicial process presented by Aeschylus; see Goldhill, S., Aeschylus The Oresteia (Cambridge, 1992), 33–4Google Scholar on problems with the Oresteia trial, and Bowie, A., ‘Religion and politics in Aeschylus’ Oresteia’, CQ 43 (1993), 10–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 11 for a helpful summary of scholarship on this issue.

⁵⁴ On which, see, above all, Foley, H.P., ‘Tragedy and politics in Aristophanes’ Acharnians’, JHS 108 (1988), 33–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Taplin (n. 13), 415 discusses the reconciliation symbolized by the final procession. A.J. Podlecki, The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy (Bristol, 1999²), 80–1 suggests that the Erinyes’ acceptance of the trial's outcome represents the victorious enthronement of justice, both legal and civil. On ritual, see Easterling, P.E., ‘Tragedy and ritual: “Cry ‘Woe, woe’ but may the good prevail!”’, Mètis 3 (1988), 87–109, at 99–100Google Scholar. See also Macleod, C., ‘Politics and the Oresteia’, JHS 102 (1982), 124–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 136–8 and 140; and Sommerstein (n. 28), on 1021–47; note, however, Goldhill, S., ‘Civic ideology and the problem of difference: the politics of Aeschylean tragedy once again’, JHS 120 (2000), 34–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the ending's complexity and ambiguities.

⁵⁶ On the simultaneous critique in this scene of ritual clothing's ability to transform, see Compton-Engle (n. 2), 72.

⁵⁷ The political sympathies of Eumenides are notoriously ambiguous; however, the production (it can be argued) benefitted society by facilitating distanced reflection on recent events (Bowie [n. 53], 11–12).

⁵⁸ On this claim, see Wright (n. 1), 208. On ambiguity, see Rosen (n. 9), 264.

⁵⁹ First noted by Headlam (n. 38).

⁶⁰ Olson, S.D., ‘Politics and poetry in Aristophanes’ Wasps’, TAPhA 126 (1996), 129–50Google Scholar; Biles and Olson (n. 10), xliv–lxii.

⁶¹ I see no problem with the view that the cloth used in the murder is the same prop as the cloth strewn out on Agamemnon's path; Taplin (n. 13), 315 suggested that the use of the same prop was ‘possible’, but the following year said that it was ‘unlikely’: Taplin (n. 31), 81. For a recent discussion of this issue, see Mueller (n. 7), 60. On Persian associations, see Hall, E., Inventing the Barbarian (Oxford, 1989), 204–8Google Scholar; on wealth and danger in this scene, see Goldhill (n. 55), 45–6 and Mueller (n. 7), 52–3.

⁶² Text from Raeburn and Thomas (n. 30).

⁶³ I agree with Miller, M.C., Athens and Persians in the Fifth Century b.c.: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge, 1997), 154Google Scholar that the comedy of the scene depends on the garment being distinctively foreign (i.e. a καυνάκης). While Bdelycleon refers to it as a χλαῖνα (a standard cloak, 1132), I take this as his attempt to impose a reading on the cloak (trying to persuade his father to put it on by normalizing it; after that fails, he changes tack emphasizing its exoticness). Telò (n. 1) underplays the foreignness of the garment, equating it to a χλαῖνα in his analysis; Compton-Engle (n. 2), 70–1 by contrast recognizes the importance of this aspect of the cloak (using it to argue that political identity is at stake).

⁶⁴ Piqueux (n. 2), 252–3.

⁶⁵ On paranoia, see Telò (n. 1), 35. The polysemic nature of Aristophanic comedy allows for Telò's interpretation of these jokes to stand alongside the reading offered here.

⁶⁶ For the tapestry scene as a dramatized power struggle par excellence, see Taplin (n. 31), 82. The relief is equivalent to the feeling generated by the recognition that Bdelycleon can sleep (unlike the Watchman); see above. A further ludic interaction with Agamemnon may perhaps be identified in the stage business of Philocleon removing his shoes at line 1157 (in preparation for the joke about the boil, 1172); cf. Aesch. Ag. 944–5, with dire consequences, on which see Griffith, R.D., ‘Disrobing in the Oresteia’, CQ 38 (1988), 552–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁷ See Olson (n. 60); contra, Konstan, D., ‘Politics of Aristophanes’ Wasps’, TAPhA 115 (1985), 27–46Google Scholar, and Biles and Olson (n. 10), xliv–lxii.

⁶⁸ Based on Mueller's reading of the Aeschylean scene ([n. 7], 51–60).

⁶⁹ Olson (n. 60); Biles and Olson (n. 10), xliv–lxii.

⁷⁰ Compton-Engle (n. 2), 70–1 identifies the challenge its foreignness poses.

⁷¹ Goheen (n. 38), 125.

⁷² It is not assumed that every member of the ancient audience made every proposed connection or that every meaning was present throughout the scene for those of the audience who identified them. On the challenges of establishing an allusion and judging how far to go with it, see Thalmann, W.G., ‘Euripides and Aeschylus: the case of Hekabe’, ClAnt 12 (1993), 126–59, at 129–30Google Scholar. Intertextual references might also be enjoyed in subsequent periods by a reader rather than a theatre-goer.

⁷³ Wyles (n. 11), 96–103.

⁷⁴ Telò (n. 1), 96–101 on Philocleon as an Erinys. I am grateful to Niall Slater also for pointing out to me the significance of Philocleon's obscene description of the flute girl as a torch (1372) as a further potential challenge to Aeschylean meaning.

⁷⁵ On the revision of Clouds, see Revermann (n. 29), 326–32. While the interpretation of the simile and whether Euripides made a mistake remain vexed questions, the point of reference to Aeschylus’ Choephori is identified from scholium R on 534 (R. Hackforth, ‘Aristophanes, Clouds 534–6’, CR 52 [1938], 5–7, at 5). For varying interpretations of Electra, see Hackforth (this note); Dover, K.J., Aristophanes Clouds (Oxford, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ad loc.; Sommerstein, A.H., Aristophanes Clouds (Warminster, 1982)Google Scholar, ad loc.; and Sidwell, K., Aristophanes the Democrat. The Politics of Satirical Comedy during the Peloponnesian War (Cambridge, 2010), 13Google Scholar. While Sidwell argues for the identification of ‘that Electra’ as Banqueters, he nevertheless acknowledges that the simile makes a ‘cross-reference’ to Aeschylus’ Choephori. It is striking that the explicit intertext is the one play of the trilogy which Wasps does not address, though it has been argued that the passage in fact presents a little Oresteia: Telò, M., ‘Embodying the tragic father(s): autobiography and intertextuality in Aristophanes’, ClAnt 29 (2010), 278–326Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ For the argument that Eupolis is figured as Clytemnestra in Clouds, see Telò (n. 1), 135.

⁷⁷ See Biles, Z.P., Aristophanes and the Poetics of Competition (Cambridge, 2011), 5–6 and 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar on Aristophanes’ poetic posturing in Pax 749 through the appropriation of Pherecrates’ comic representation of Aeschylus’ self-promotion, and 245–7 on Aeschylus as a ‘parabatic figure’ (speaking for Aristophanes) in Frogs.

⁷⁸ Foley (n. 54) and Biles (n. 77), 57 on identification with Aristophanes. Olson, S.D., Aristophanes: Acharnians (Oxford, 2002)Google Scholar comments ad loc. that Dicaeopolis’ ‘taste for Aeschylus marks the hero as an old-fashioned, traditionally minded character’; yet Dicaeopolis’ comment may take on a fresh significance in retrospect (after his identification with Aristophanes).

⁷⁹ Bakola (n. 3 [2010]), 177.

⁸⁰ This seems even more likely given the centrality of this rivalry to the interpretation of Aristophanes’ work: see Ruffell (n. 52) and, above all, Biles (n. 77), especially 97–166. Telò (n. 1), 119 argues for a different form of response by suggesting that Aristophanes alludes ‘polemically to Cratinus's assimilation of his comedy to archaic tragedy’ at the end of Wasps.

⁸¹ On Euripides’ special status in Aristophanes, see Silk (n. 15), 50. In 422, Aristophanes seems to have engaged far more explicitly with Euripides in his Proagon (produced unusually in the same competition as Wasps); see Σ Vesp. 61c (PCG 3.2 Proagon Test. iv, page 253) with Slater (n. 10), 87 and 111–12, and I.C. Storey, ‘The curious matter of the Lenaia festival of 422’, in D. Phillips and D. Pritchard (edd.), Sport and Festival in the Greek World (Swansea, 2003), 281–92.

⁸² On Euripides’ use of the Oresteia, see Thalmann (n. 72), Zeitlin (n. 7), Torrance (n. 7), 45–62 and D.G. Zuckerberg, ‘The oversubtle maxim chasers: Aristophanes, Euripides, and their reciprocal pursuit of poetic identity’ (Ph.D. Diss., Princeton, 2014), 52–68. On his interaction with Aeschylus in the famous example of Euripides’ Electra 518–44, see, above all, the seminal reflections of Winnington-Ingram, R., ‘Euripides: poiêtês sophos’, Arethusa 2 (1969), 127–42, at 129Google Scholar, as well as Dobrov (n. 14), 18–19.

⁸³ Cropp, M.J. and Fick, G., Resolutions and Chronology in Euripides (London, 1985), 23Google Scholar propose this date range based on metrical resolutions; cf. M.J. Cropp, Euripides Electra (Warminster, 2013²), 31–3.