Aristophanes

Aristophanes (, in English, ca. 456 BC – ca. 386 BC), son of Philippus, was a Greek Old Comic dramatist. He is also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy. The place and exact date of his birth are unknown, but he was around thirty in the 420s BCE when he achieved sudden brilliant success in the Theater of Dionysus with his Banqueters. He lived in the deme of Kudathenaion (the same as that of the leading Athenian statesman Cleon) which implies he was from a relatively wealthy family and, accordingly, well educated. He is famous for writing comedies such as The Birds for the two Athenian dramatic festivals: the City Dionysia and the Lenaia. He wrote forty plays, eleven of which survive; his plays are the only surviving complete examples of Old Attic Comedy, although extensive fragments of the work of his rough contemporaries Cratinus and Eupolis survive. Many of Aristophanes' plays were political, and often satirized well-known citizens of Athens and their...