‘The Birds,’ B.C. 414.  Peisthetaerus (Plausible) and Euelpides (Hopeful), whose names and deeds are perhaps a satire on the unbounded ambition that brought ruin on Athens at Syracuse, journey to Birdland and persuade King Hoopoe to induce the birds to build Nephelococcygia or Cloud-Cuckoo-Burgh in the air between the gods and men, starve out the gods with a “Melian famine,” and rule the world themselves.  The gods, their supplies of incense cut off, are forced to treat, and Peisthetaerus receives in marriage Basileia (Sovereignty), the daughter of Zeus.  The mise en scene, with the gorgeous plumage of the bird-chorus, must have been very impressive, and many of the choric songs are exceedingly beautiful.  There is an interesting account by Professor Jebb in the Fortnightly Review (Vol. xli.) of a performance of ‘The Birds’ at Cambridge in 1884.

Two plays, B.C. 411:  (1) at the Lenaea, ‘The Lysistrata,’ in which the women of Athens and Sparta by a secession from bed and board compel their husbands to end the war; (2) The ‘Thesmophoriazusae’ or Women’s Festival of Demeter, a licentious but irresistibly funny assault upon Euripides.  The tragedian, learning that the women in council assembled are debating on the punishment due to his misogyny, implores the effeminate poet Agathon to intercede for him.  That failing, he dispatches his kinsman Mnesilochus, disguised with singed beard and woman’s robes, a sight to shake the midriff of despair with laughter, to plead his cause.  The advocate’s excess of zeal betrays him; he is arrested:  and the remainder of the play is occupied by the ludicrous devices, borrowed or parodied from well-known Euripidean tragedies, by which the poet endeavors to rescue his intercessor.

‘The Frogs,’ B.C. 405, in the brief respite of hope between the victory of Arginusae and the final overthrow of Athens at AEgospotami.  Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are dead.  The minor bards are a puny folk, and Dionysus is resolved to descend to Hades in quest of a truly creative poet, one capable of a figure like “my star god’s glow-worm,” or “His honor rooted in dishonor stood.”  After many surprising adventures by the way, and in the outer precincts of the underworld, accompanied by his Sancho Panza, Xanthias, he arrives at the court of Pluto just in time to be chosen arbitrator of the great contest between Aeschylus and Euripides for the tragic throne in Hades.  The comparisons and parodies of the styles of Aeschylus and Euripides that follow, constitute, in spite of their comic exaggeration, one of the most entertaining and discriminating chapters of literary criticism extant, and give us an exalted idea of the intelligence of the audience that appreciated them.  Dionysus decides for AEschylus, and leads him back in triumph to the upper world.

The ‘Ecclesiazusae’ or ‘Ladies in Parliament,’ B.C. 393:  apparently a satire on the communistic theories which must have been current in the discussions of the schools before they found definite expression in Plato’s ‘Republic.’  The ladies of Athens rise betimes, purloin their husbands’ hats and canes, pack the Assembly, and pass a measure to intrust the reins of government to women.  An extravagant and licentious communism is the result.