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Aristophanes was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete. There are many fragments of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
This article concerns the period 409 BC – 400 BC.
Year 411 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Mugillanus and Rutilus. The denomination 411 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iacchus was a minor deity, of some cultic importance, particularly at Athens and Eleusis in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries, but without any significant mythology. He perhaps originated as the personification of the ritual exclamation Iacche! cried out during the Eleusinian procession from Athens to Eleusis. He was often identified with Dionysus, perhaps because of the resemblance of the names Iacchus and Bacchus, another name for Dionysus. By various accounts he was a son of Demeter, or a son of Persephone, identical with Dionysus Zagreus, or a son of Dionysus.
In Greek mythology, Erebus, or Erebos, is the personification of darkness. In Hesiod's Theogony, he is the offspring of Chaos, and the father of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Nyx (Night); in other Greek cosmogonies, he is the father of Aether, Eros, and Metis, or the first ruler of the gods.
In Greek mythology, Nyx is the goddess and personification of the night. In Hesiod's Theogony, she is the offspring of Chaos, and the mother of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Erebus (Darkness). By herself, she produces a brood of children which are personifications of primarily negative forces. She features in a number of early cosmogonies, which place her as one of the first deities to exist. In the works of poets and playwrights, she lives at the ends of the Earth, and is often described as a black-robed goddess who drives through the sky in a chariot pulled by horses. In the Iliad, Homer relates that even Zeus fears to displease her.
Souvlaki is a Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It is usually eaten straight off the skewer while still hot. It can be served with or inside a rolled pita, typically with lemon, sauces, vegetables such as sliced tomato and onion, and fried potatoes as a side. The meat usually used in Greece and Cyprus is pork.
Critias was an ancient Athenian poet, philosopher and political leader. He is known today for being a student of Socrates, a writer of some regard, and for becoming the leader of the Thirty Tyrants, who ruled Athens for several months after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War in 404/403.
The Dionysia was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually consisted of two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. They were also an essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries.
Black soup was a regional cuisine of ancient Sparta, made with boiled pork meat and blood, using only salt and vinegar to flavour. The soup was well known during antiquity in the Greek world, but no original recipe of the dish survives today. The earliest recorded mention of the soup can be dated to the fifth century BC, in a comedy titled The Miners, written by Pherecrates. The ancient sources provide contradictory accounts on whether the soup was a luxurious meal served only at banquets or a dish that could be afforded by all Spartiates. Throughout history, black soup has been praised by and associated with figures such as Benjamin Rush and Adolf Hitler although Hitler was vegetarian.
Thesmophoriazusae, or Women at the Thesmophoria, is one of eleven surviving comedy plays by Aristophanes. It was first produced in 411 BC, probably at the City Dionysia. The play's focuses include the subversive role of women in a male-dominated society; the vanity of contemporary poets, such as the tragic playwrights Euripides and Agathon; and the shameless, enterprising vulgarity of an ordinary Athenian, as represented in this play by the protagonist, Mnesilochus. The work is also notable for Aristophanes' free adaptation of key structural elements of Old Comedy and for the absence of the anti-populist and anti-war comments that pepper his earlier work. It was produced in the same year as Lysistrata, another play with sexual themes.
Eupolis was an Athenian poet of the Old Comedy, who flourished during the time of the Peloponnesian War.
Old Comedy is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians. The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes – whose works, with their daring political commentary and abundance of sexual innuendo, de facto define the genre. It is important to note that the only extant plays of Old Comedy are credited to Aristophanes. There are only fragments and 'testimonia' of all other Old Comedy playwrights and plays.
Philoxenus of Cythera was a Greek dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "New Music". He was one of the most important dithyrambic poets of ancient Greece.
Phrynichus, son of Polyphradmon and pupil of Thespis, was one of the earliest of the Greek tragedians. Some ancients regarded him as the real founder of tragedy. Phrynichus is said to have died in Sicily. His son Polyphrasmon was also a playwright.
Phrynichus Arabius or Phrynichus of Bithynia was a grammarian of the Greek language who flourished in 2nd century Bithynia, writing works on proper Attic usage. His name is also transliterated as Phrynichos or Phrynikhos. His ethnic background is disputed, mainly between an Arab and Bithynian Greek descent.
Cinesias (Greek: Κινησίας; c. 450 – 390 BC) was an innovative dithyrambic poet (an exponent of the "new music") in classical Athens whose work has survived only in a few fragments. An inscription indicates that he was awarded a victory at the Dionysia in the early 4th century (IG 2/32.3028). His contemporary, the comic poet Aristophanes, ridiculed him in his play The Birds, in which Cinesias attempts to borrow wings from the birds as an aid to poetic inspiration. Aristophanes refers to him also in The Frogs (lines 153, 1437), Ecclesiazusae (line 330), Lysistrata (line 860), and in a fragmentary verse (fragment 156. 10 K-A). Another comic poet, Strattis, wrote an entire play against Cinesias, of which only fragments survive (fragments 14–22 K-A), and he was considered by Pherecrates to have had a corrupting influence on dithyrambic poetry (fragment 155. 8ff. K-A). Lysias accused Cinesias of being in a group called the Kakodaimonistai to mock the gods.
Peisander was an Athenian from the demos of Acharnae, who played a prominent part in the Athenian coup of 411 BC, which briefly replaced the Athenian democracy with an oligarchy controlled by a group called the Four Hundred.
References
- S. Brunet, R. Smith, & S. Trzaskoma (eds. & trans.) (2004) Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation. Hackett Publishing Co.: Indianapolis, IN.
- S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, & E. Eidinow (eds.) (2012) The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.