Aristophanes

Aristophanes is the major surviving representative of Old Comedy. Plays such as The Clouds, Lysistrata, The Frogs and The Wasps use fantasy, obscenity and direct political satire to attack public figures, intellectual fashions and the conduct of the Peloponnesian War.

He belongs in Classical for pages about Athenian democracy, comic theatre, Socrates, wartime Athens and the public culture of ridicule. His plays provide a sharp counterpoint to tragedy and formal political history.