Aristophanes

Aristophanes (c. 446 - c. 386 BCE) was the greatest comic playwright of classical Athens and the leading figure of what is called "Old Comedy." His surviving plays - among them "The Clouds," "The Birds," "Lysistrata," and "The Frogs" - combine fantastical plots, bawdy humor, and sharp satire of Athenian politicians, intellectuals, and fellow writers. They are our richest source for the comic stage of the period and offer a vivid, irreverent window onto Athenian society during the Peloponnesian War.