Aristophanes of Athens was judged in antiquity to be the foremost poet of Old Attic Comedy, a theatrical genre of which he was one of the last practitioners and of which his eleven surviving plays are the only complete examples. His plays are valued principally for the exuberance of their wit and fantasy, for the purity and elegance of their language, and for the light they shed on the domestic and political life of Athens in an important era of its history. Legend has it that when the Syracusan leader Dionysius wanted to study "the republic of the Athenians," Plato sent him the plays of Aristophanes.

Little is known about Aristophanes' life apart from his theatrical career. He was born circa 447 B.C. or 446 B.C., the son of one Philippos of the deme of Kydathenaion and the tribe Pandionis; he died probably between 386 B.C. and 380 B...