Person

Aristophanes

c. 446–c. 386 BCE · 5th century BCE

Aristophanes was an Athenian comic playwright, the chief representative of Old Comedy, whose eleven surviving plays include The Clouds, The Birds, Lysistrata and The Frogs. Written largely during the Peloponnesian War, they mocked politicians such as Cleon, intellectuals including Socrates and the poet Euripides, and remain the main evidence for Athenian comic drama.

Aristophanes
Image: Alexander Mayatsky · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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AthensImpactByzantiumImpactAncient GreekLiterature

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Aristophanes. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/aristophanes
MLA
“Aristophanes.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/aristophanes. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Aristophanes.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/aristophanes.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Aristophanes’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/aristophanes (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻