Circa 446-Circa 386 B.C.E.
Poet

Comedy. The works of Aristophanes are the only surviving examples of fifth-century Attic comedy known as Old Comedy. His first play Banqueters was produced in 427 B.C.E., but is nonextant. The titles of his extant works are Acharnians (425), Knights (424), Wasps (422), Peace (421), Birds (414), Lysistrata (411), Thesmophoriazousai (411), Frogs (405), Assemblywomen (392), and Wealth (388); there is also Clouds, an incompletely revised and never performed version of his comedy of 423 B.C.E. The first two and Frogs are known to have won first prize in the Lenaia, and indeed Frogs was given the exceptional honor of second performance and earned its author the prestige of crown of sacred olive for its sage political advice. Although it i difficult to determine whether Athenians expected anything a all serious in the way of advice from Old Comedy, the recep tion of Frogs must count as some evidence that...