ABSTRACT
Comedy and law: in modern times these may seem to be two very different subjects, having little connection with each other. But in Classical Athens the connection was closer, and that is why it makes sense to study the two subjects together. The main reason for the connection was that many Athenians, perhaps a majority of the male citizens, participated in both of them. On the one hand, the festivals of the Dionysia and the Lenaia were occasions when a large proportion of the citizen population met together, and the performances of comedies were not only watched by thousands of spectators, but were also performed by quite a large number. The lawcourts, on the other hand, were notoriously prominent in Athenian life; there is, for instance, the joke in Aristophanes' Clouds 207-8, when Strepsiades sees a map for the first time but does not believe that it shows Athens because he cannot see any lawcourts in session on it.
