Was wasps intended as pure entertainment or was Aristophenes really serious about promoting political change?

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Was wasps intended as pure entertainment or was Aristophenes really serious about promoting political change?

The Wasps was written in 422BC by the above Greek Playwrite Aristophenes. It involves a father Procleon and a son Anticleon, the latter of which has a sole aim to keep his father locked up away from jury duty as he see's it as an injustice and a waste of the later stages of his life. The characters names relate to the Athenian politician Cleon, a contraversial but popular character at the time during the Peloponnesian War. Procleon is translated into Ancient Greek as "friend of Cleon" and Anticleon is translated as "hater of Cleon".

Cleon, when he was in power, trebled the wages of the Jurymen to give him a hold on the poorer classes, a move frowned upon by Aristophenes as he demonstrates in The Wasps by conducting a full arguement on how corrupt the courts are and how Jurymen have such little influence on the final outcome, that they are nothing more than state pawns. Aristophenes' dislike for Cleon was something of a class-based one as well. Rumours spread that Cleon was decended from a lower class background, and because of the amount of power and influence he held within Athenian politics, Aristophenes, being something of a rich snob at the time, didn't like this at all and had somewhat of a personal vendetta against him.

Aristophenes wrote the play The Wasps for The Lenaia, an annual drama festival in honour of the Greek god, Dionysus. The Lenaia took place in Athens in the month of Gamelion which is roughly January. During the festival in Aristophenes' time, three plays were performed, most of them comedy as people would probably have been drinking wine at the time in honour of Dionysus.
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Ancient Greek Old Comedy was mainly based on current issues like politics, morals, philosophy and literature. From the surviving plays, historians have pointed out that many local people or politicians are involved as characters in Old Comedy and are impersonated and often mocked. Also, from the little evidence we have, Old Comedies seem to have a fixed structure consisting of an agon and two parabases. The Chorus had a very important role in Old Greek Comedy as well, as they established a strong link between the actors and the audience.

Aristophenes was an Old Greek Comedy artist. ...

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