Wealth

Wealth (in Greek, Ploutos, often called Plutus) is a comedy by Aristophanes, and the last of his plays to survive. An honest but poor Athenian, Chremylus, leads the blind god of wealth to the healing god Asclepius so that Plutus can see again and enrich only the deserving. The cure works, but the new world of universal riches produces complaints from every side, including from the gods themselves.

The comedy turns on a familiar complaint: Plutus is blind, and so the wicked grow rich while the good go hungry. If he could see, thinks Chremylus, he would go only to the just (lines 489–506). Together with his slave Cario he brings the god home and sends for the neighbouring farmers. A friend, Blepsidemus, first suspects Chremylus of theft and then joins the plan. The goddess Poverty (Penia) bursts in to argue that she, not Plutus, is the cause of everything good in human life, but she is driven off. Plutus is healed in the sanctuary of Asclepius, and the rest of the play shows the results in a series of visitors: a just man who is delighted, an informer who is ruined, an old woman whose young lover has deserted her, Hermes, and a priest of Zeus, all complaining that Plutus has upset the old order. The play ends with the god being escorted in procession to his new home on the Acropolis.

Date and Historical Background

The ancient introductions (hypotheses) to the play report that Aristophanes produced two comedies called Wealth: an earlier one, which the ancient commentators date to about 408 BC, and the surviving, second one, produced in 388 BC under the archon Antipater. The surviving play is therefore a work of the fourth century, written after the Peloponnesian War, and it is the last of Aristophanes’ comedies that we have. According to the ancient hypothesis, Wealth was the last comedy he produced under his own name; his two later plays, Cocalus and Aeolosicon, were put on through his son Araros. The ancient evidence does not tell us at which festival Wealth was performed, nor what prize it won.

The play shows the changes in comic form that separate it from Aristophanes’ earlier work. There is no parabasis, the address by the chorus to the audience, and after the entrance song the chorus has no songs written out in the text: at several points the manuscripts mark only the words “of the chorus” (for example after lines 321, 626, 801, 958 and 1096), where a choral performance took place.

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Chremylus, a poor but honest Athenian
• Cario, his slave
• Blepsidemus, his friend and neighbour
• Plutus, the god of wealth
• Penia, the goddess of poverty
• The Chorus, old farmers of Chremylus’ deme
• The wife of Chremylus
• A Just Man
• An Informer, with a witness who does not speak
• An Old Woman
• A Young Man, her lover
• Hermes, the messenger of Zeus
• A priest of Zeus the Savior

Setting

The scene is a street in Athens in front of the house of Chremylus. The healing itself takes place off stage, in the temple of Asclepius, and is reported by Cario.

Summary of Wealth

Prologue

A ragged old blind man walks across the stage, with two men following close behind him. Cario, the slave, complains to the audience that this is absurd: it is the seeing who should lead the blind, but his master Chremylus has made him follow a blind man and will not explain why (lines 1–21). The play opens with the slave’s complaint, “How hard it is, Zeus and gods, to be the slave of a master who has lost his wits” (lines 1–2). A slave, he says, must share in his master’s troubles, since fate does not let a man rule his own body; it is ruled by the one who bought him (lines 5–7).

After persistent questioning Chremylus tells him the reason. He says that he is the most pious and just of men, and yet he is poor, while sacrilegious men, orators, informers and every kind of rascal grow rich (lines 26–31). He went to consult Apollo, not for himself, his own life being nearly over, but for his only son: should the boy change his ways and become a knave, a man of no integrity, since that seemed the only way to prosper (lines 32–38)? The god’s answer was plain: Chremylus was to follow the first man he met on leaving the sanctuary, and persuade him to come home with him (lines 39–43). The first man he met was this blind old man. Cario tries to read the oracle as telling the boy to follow the way of the country, that is, to be a rogue; Chremylus insists that the oracle means something greater (lines 44–55).

Cario threatens the stranger until he says who he is (lines 56–77). “I am Plutus,” says the god, and both men are shocked that a god of wealth should be so shabby and unwashed (lines 78–85). It was Zeus who did this, out of jealousy of mankind: when Plutus was a youth he had threatened to visit only the just, the wise and the orderly, and Zeus blinded him so that he could not tell them apart (lines 87–92). Plutus agrees that if he could see he would avoid the wicked and go to the just (lines 95–98). But when Chremylus offers to cure him, Plutus refuses: he fears Zeus, who would destroy him if he found out (lines 116–122). Chremylus answers that Zeus rules only because he has money, and that men sacrifice to Zeus only to get wealth (lines 124–146); Plutus, therefore, is mightier than Zeus. He lists the things for which men are never satisfied (lines 189–197), and says he has hope because of what Apollo himself told him, with the Pythian laurel (lines 212–213). He promises to cure him even at the risk of his own life (lines 216–217). Plutus is persuaded to go into the house, which Chremylus says he must fill with money, justly or unjustly (lines 230–233). Cario is sent off to fetch his fellow farmers so that each can share in Plutus’ gifts (lines 223–226).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

The Chorus is made up of old farmers, who enter in a hurry (lines 253–321). They are poor, weak and thin, and complain that they cannot run as fast as Cario wants until they know why they have been called. Cario tells them that his master offers them a life of pleasure instead of their wretched, cheerless lives. They are at first doubtful, but when he explains that Chremylus has found Plutus himself, and means to keep him, they dance for joy. Cario then leads them in a mock dance, playing the Cyclops with the farmers as his bleating flock, and then Circe with the farmers as her swine, while the Chorus answers by threatening to blind the Cyclops and to hang Circe up like Odysseus (lines 290–315).

Episode

Chremylus comes out of the house to greet the farmers (lines 322–331). He sees his neighbour Blepsidemus approaching (lines 332–334). Blepsidemus has heard that Chremylus has suddenly become rich, a story much told in the barbers’ shops, and he does not believe it (lines 335–342). He suspects that Chremylus has done something shameful, stolen from a temple, perhaps, and he grows more hostile as the questioning goes on. Chremylus assures him that he is better off than yesterday, and there is room for his friend to share in it (lines 343–345). When he finally hears the plan, to make Plutus see again, Blepsidemus is won over (lines 400–404). He asks whether they should bring in a doctor, but Chremylus says there is no doctor to be had in the city, for where there is no pay there is no skill (lines 406–408). The best thing is to put Plutus to sleep in the temple of Asclepius (lines 410–412). They are about to go when a fearsome woman bursts in.

Agon

“You men, who dare a deed that is bold, unholy and lawless,” she cries, and she threatens to destroy them for it (lines 415–421). They take her for an Erinys from a tragedy, for she looks mad and tragic, but she has no torches (lines 422–425). She is Penia, Poverty, who has lived with them for many years (line 437). Blepsidemus is ready to run, but Chremylus holds him back (lines 438–444). The two agree to let her defend herself, with the understanding that if she cannot show that she is the cause of good, she must be gone (lines 445–486).

Chremylus speaks first, and gives the argument that the good should prosper and the wicked and godless should not; if Plutus could see, he would make all men just and rich and pious (lines 489–506). Penia replies that this would not profit them (lines 507–509). If Plutus could see and divide his gifts equally, no one would practise any craft or trouble to learn anything (lines 510–512). Who would forge iron, build ships, sew, make wheels, cut leather, make bricks, wash clothes, tan hides, or break the earth with a plough to reap the grain of Demeter, if he were free to live without working at all (lines 513–516)? Chremylus answers that slaves will do all this work, but Penia asks where they will get slaves when everyone is rich: no slave-dealer will risk his life for profit if he does not need to (lines 517–526). They will have to plough and dig for themselves, and the life will be harder than it is now. Nor will there be beds, rugs or perfumes, since no one will weave or make them when gold is plentiful (lines 527–534).

Chremylus’ reply is a picture of what the poor have: bath-house lice and a crowd of hungry children and old women, rags for a coat and a rush mat full of bugs for a bed, a stone for a pillow, mallow shoots for bread and radish leaves for cake, the broken lid of a jar for a seat (lines 535–547). Penia says these things do not belong to her but to beggars, and she claims that she is the mistress of a better life: she makes men healthier, thinner and more dangerous to their enemies, while the rich are gouty, pot-bellied and overfed (lines 557–561). With her, she says, there is good order, with Plutus there is arrogance (line 564). She adds that the orators who are honest to the people when poor turn against the city as soon as they are rich (lines 567–570). Asked why everyone runs away from her if she is so good, she answers that she makes men better, and that people are like children, who run from the advice of their wise fathers (lines 575–578).

Chremylus does not answer the argument. “You will not persuade me,” he says, “even if you do persuade me” (line 600). Blepsidemus and he drive her out; Penia leaves with a threat that they will call her back (lines 601–610). Chremylus tells Cario to bring the bedding and lead Plutus to the temple of Asclepius (lines 619–625).

Choral Interludes

As in Assemblywomen, there is no parabasis, only a choral interlude after the departure (after line 626 the text marks only “of the Chorus”). Time passes during this interval, because Cario returns with the news that his master has done very well, or rather that Plutus himself has: “in place of a blind man he has eyes and his pupils are bright,” having met a gracious Asclepius the healer (lines 627–636). The Chorus cries out with joy and calls on Asclepius (lines 637–640).

Chremylus’ wife comes out, eager to hear the news that she has been waiting for (lines 641–643). Cario tells her the whole story (lines 649–770). When they reached the temple, they first took Plutus to the sea to bathe, and then went to the god’s precinct, where cakes and offerings were consecrated on the altar. Plutus was laid down, and each of the others made up a bed of his own (lines 653–663). Many others were there as well, among them Neocleides, who is blind but surpasses those who see in stealing (lines 664–667). When the lamps were put out and the priest called for silence, Cario noticed the priest stealing the cakes and figs from the holy table, and then going round all the altars with a bag to look for left-over cakes, and he himself, thinking this a holy practice, rose to go for a pot of porridge (lines 668–683). An old woman reached for it, and he hissed at her and bit her like a snake, so she drew back her hand (lines 688–691).

Next the god came round. First he prepared a plaster for Neocleides, with three heads of Tenian garlic crushed in a mortar with fig juice and squill, mixed with Sphettian vinegar, and he turned his eyelids back to make it smart; Neocleides screamed and tried to flee, but the god laughed and told him to sit there, plastered, so that he would stop swearing false oaths in the assemblies (lines 710–725). Then the god sat down beside Plutus, touched his head, wiped his eyelids with a clean cloth, and Panacea covered his head and face with a purple cloth. The god whistled, and two enormous snakes came out of the temple and licked his eyelids; before Cario could drink ten cups of wine, Plutus stood up and could see (lines 727–738). Cario clapped for joy and woke his master, and the god and his snakes vanished into the temple. Those who lay around were hailing Plutus and stayed awake until day (lines 739–746). He tells how a crowd followed Plutus: the just men of earlier days who lived poorly greeted him with pleasure, while those who were wealthy by dishonest means frowned and grew sullen (lines 750–759).

The wife goes in to bring out the welcoming shower of dried fruit for the god, and Plutus enters (lines 764–770). He speaks first to the sun, to Pallas and the land of Cecrops, and he is ashamed of the company he had kept, and of avoiding those who deserved his friendship because he could not see. He says that from now on he will show all men that he gave himself to the wicked against his will (lines 771–781). The wife of Chremylus welcomes him with the traditional shower of figs and nuts, as is the custom; Plutus asks for it to be done indoors by the hearth, as custom requires, so that the poet need not throw figs and sweets to the audience to make them laugh (lines 789–799). Another dance of the Chorus follows.

Episodes

Cario comes out, singing the praises of wealth: how sweet it is to be prosperous without having done wrong. The meal-bin is full of white barley meal, the jars of dark fragrant wine, the strong-boxes of silver and gold, the cistern of oil and the flasks of perfume; the pots and dishes have become bronze, the rotten fish-plates silver, the oven ivory; the slaves play at odd-and-even with gold staters, and use garlic, not stones, to wipe themselves (lines 802–822). The smoke of the sacrifice that his master offers inside, with a pig, a goat and a ram, has driven him outside.

A Just Man arrives with a small boy carrying an old cloak and shoes (lines 823–848). He was once wretched and is now happy. He had inherited a good fortune from his father and helped friends in need until his money ran out; then they turned away and pretended not to see him (lines 829–839). He has come to thank the god, and to dedicate his threadbare cloak, in which he had shivered for thirteen years, and his shoes, which had weathered the same winters (lines 840–848).

Next an Informer enters, followed by a witness, lamenting that he is ruined: he has lost everything because of this god, who will be blind again if the law-courts do not fail him (lines 850–859). Cario and the Just Man see through him as one of the wicked breed (lines 860–862). The Informer defends his activity as a service to the laws and the city: anyone who wishes may prosecute, and he is that man (lines 913–919). Asked whether he would not change his ways, the Informer answers that he would not, not even for Plutus himself and the silphium of Battus (lines 924–925). They strip off his cloak and shoes, his witness runs away, and Cario asks the Just Man for the old cloak, to put it on the Informer (lines 926–936). When the Just Man protests that the cloak is to be dedicated to Plutus, Cario replies that this is exactly the place for it, next to a villain and a burglar, and that he will nail the shoes to the Informer’s forehead like a wild olive (lines 937–943). The Informer leaves with a threat: he will find a companion and bring the powerful god to court, for overthrowing the democracy by himself, without the consent of the Council or the Assembly (lines 944–950). They send him to the bath-house, to warm himself where Cario once stood (lines 951–957).

An Old Woman arrives, asking the Chorus if this is the house of the new god (lines 959–963). Chremylus comes out and she explains her trouble. Since the god began to see, her life has become unbearable (lines 967–969). She had a young lover, poor but handsome and decent, to whom she gave whatever he needed: twenty drachmas for a cloak, eight for shoes, a tunic for his sisters, a little cloak for his mother and four measures of wheat (lines 975–986). Now that he has become rich, he has forgotten her: he sent back the cake and sweetmeats she had sent him, told her never to come again, and added the proverb “Long ago the Milesians were brave”, meaning that her day was past (lines 993–1002). Chremylus teases her, but she insists that the young man must return to her. A Young Man arrives, wearing a garland and carrying a torch, and teases the Old Woman himself: she has gone grey very quickly (lines 1042–1043). He refuses to have anything to do with a woman who has been wearing make-up for three thousand years (lines 1082–1083). Chremylus answers that since he asked for wine, he must also drink the lees (lines 1084–1085). The Young Man goes in to dedicate his garlands to the god, and the Old Woman follows (lines 1088–1094).

Then Hermes comes to the house and knocks at the door, and Cario comes out and, in a comic exchange, says the door gave way before he could knock (lines 1097–1102). Hermes tells him to call out the master, his wife, the children, the slaves, the dog, himself and the sow (lines 1103–1106). He explains that since Plutus has got his sight, no one makes sacrifices, and he is starving (lines 1107–1138). He asks to be taken in as a servant: he reminds Cario that he used to help hide the master’s stolen goods, and offers to be the god of the door, of trade, of tricks or of guiding; Cario rejects each of these, but accepts him as god of the games, since Plutus will want to hold musical and athletic contests (lines 1139–1167). Cario sends him in at once to wash the entrails at the well (lines 1168–1170).

The last visitor is a priest of Zeus the Savior, who is starving because no one will sacrifice any more, since everyone is rich: in the old days a merchant would offer a victim when he arrived safely, a man acquitted in court would sacrifice, and he himself was invited, but now no one comes to the temple except those who want to relieve themselves (lines 1171–1184). He thinks that he too will say goodbye to Zeus the Savior and stay here with Plutus (lines 1186–1187). Chremylus tells him not to worry, for Zeus the Savior has come of his own accord (lines 1188–1190).

Exodos (Exit Song)

Chremylus announces that they will install Plutus where he was before, as the guardian of the back chamber of the goddess’s temple (the opisthodomos of Athena, lines 1191–1193). He calls for lighted torches, so that the priest can lead the procession for the god (lines 1194–1196). The Old Woman asks what she is to do, and Chremylus tells her to carry on her head the pots in which they will install the god (lines 1197–1199). Her reward is that the young man will come to her in the evening (lines 1200–1201). The pots turn out to be on top of the old woman, instead of the old woman on top of them, as is usual (lines 1204–1207). The Chorus ends the play by saying that they should delay no longer and follow behind them, singing (lines 1208–1209).

A Brief Analysis

The comedy begins with a question that is put in the opening scene: why do the gods allow the pious to be poor and the wicked to be rich? The answer given is that Plutus is blind, and that Zeus blinded him out of jealousy of the good (lines 87–92). Chremylus’ plan, to restore the god’s sight so that wealth will follow goodness, is stated at lines 489–506.

The debate with Penia, which follows, is the centre of the play. Penia speaks second, after Chremylus has stated his case, and her arguments are not refuted. She says that no one would work if all were rich (lines 510–516), that there would be no one to do servile work (lines 517–526), and that the poor are healthier and more orderly than the rich (lines 557–564). Chremylus does not answer them, but drives her out with the comment that he will not be persuaded even if he is persuaded (line 600), and she leaves promising that they will call her back (lines 608–609). The rest of the play then tests the plan in practice.

The results are mixed. The Just Man is a clear gain (lines 823–848), and the informer is stripped of his gains and punished (lines 926–957). But the Young Man casts off the Old Woman who had kept him while he was poor (lines 1042–1085), and the gods are left without sacrifices: Hermes is hungry and the priest of Zeus has nothing to eat, since no one needs the gods now that all are rich (lines 1107–1138, 1171–1184). Chremylus’ answer to the priest, that Zeus the Savior has come of his own accord (lines 1189–1190), and the final move to install Plutus in Athena’s treasury chamber (lines 1191–1193) are the play’s solution. Cario’s speech on the pleasures of a house full of goods (lines 802–822) shows what the new prosperity means for ordinary people in the play.

Sources

Aristophanes, Wealth (Plutus), lines 1–1209; the ancient hypotheses to Wealth, for the two productions (408 and 388 BC), the archons and the later plays Cocalus and Aeolosicon. The play can be read in English on Perseus (Perseus).

See Also: Aristophanes, Assemblywomen, Women at the Thesmophoria, Lysistrata, Asclepius, Hermes