Aristophanis Comoediae
by Aristophanes
| Aristophanis Comoediae | ||
 at the College of William & Mary. |
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| Author | Aristophanes | |
| Date | 1710 | |
Lipsiensis: 1710.
Little is known about Aristophanes’s life except from what is written in his plays, poetry, and other texts and from Plato’s dialogs which make reference to him. From Aristophane's play, Clouds, it is inferred that he was born around 450 B.C. at a time when Pericles was expanding Athens from a polis into an empire. In The Symposium Plato features Aristophanes as one of many famous guests at the home of Agathon the poet. He is portrayed as a jokester who is hung over from the previous evening and delights other guests with his sharp wit as well as his hiccups and sneezes. Yet it is clear that Plato held Aristophanes in high esteem. When Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse asked Plato for information regarding the culture and political institutions of Athens, Plato is said to have sent him Aristophanes's comedies.
Eleven of the forty plays attributed to Aristophanes exist today. Nine of the plays were written during the Peloponnesian War and their plots are grounded in the real battles and political strife that took place between Aristophanes's Athens and its oligarchic rival, Sparta.
