Aristophanes
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Aristophanes was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens. He wrote forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete. The majority of his surviving plays belong to the genre of comic drama
Bust with the inscription "Aristophanes, (son) of Philippides, the Athenian", 1st century AD
Theatre of Dionysus, Athens – in Aristophanes's time, the audience probably sat on wooden benches with earth foundations.
Muse reading, Louvre
Thalia, muse of comedy, gazing upon a comic mask (detail from Muses' Sarcophagus)
The Clouds
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The Clouds is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and was n
Aristophanes
…wordplays, and political satire. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes's play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the…
Socrates descends in a basket while Pheidippides and Strepsiades discuss (from a 16th-century engraving depicted a scene from the Clouds)
Socrates Pio Clementino Inv 314