![Bust of Aristophanes in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy. The text reads "ARISTOPHANES PHILIPPIDES[sic] THE ATHENSIAN" CC-BY-SA Alexander Mayatsky https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bust_of_Aristophanes.jpg](https://juliaclement.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/960px-Bust_of_Aristophanes.jpg)
Someone once asked me when comedy became political.
My answer: “Two and a half millennia ago the Athenian general and leading politician Cleon brought an apparently unsuccessful case against Aristophanes, the author of the oldest surviving Western comedy plays, for supposedly slandering the Athenians in his lost play Babylonians. Following this, Cleon frequently appeared in Aristophanes’ plays as the target of comedic ridicule. It’s unknown if earlier comedic playwrights were also political so I’m going to say ‘From the start'”
You can also say that attempts to silence comedians were there from the start.
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9