Aristophanes (ca. 446 - ca. 386 BC) is the most famous comic dramatist of ancient Greece. Forty-four plays have been attributed to him, of which only eleven have survived. His plays are the only surviving representatives of Old Comedy, a dramatic form whose conventions ensured commentary on the political and social issues of the day. Aristophanes did this so well that Plato, asked by the tyrant of Syracuse for an analysis of the Athenians, sent a copy of Aristophanes' plays in reply.
