2 INTRODUCTION
(Lenaia, second prize) Wasps ('V.'), produced by Philonides.
422
(City Dionysia, second prize) Peace ('Pax'). 5
421
(Lenaia) Atnphiaraos, produced by Phllonides.
414
(City Dionysia, second prize) Birds ('Av.'), produced by Kalli-
414
stratos.
411 Lysistrata ('Lys.'), produced by Kallistratos, and Women at the
Thesmophoria (Thesmophoriazusae, 'Th.'). Th. is datable in rela-
tion to datable plays fEuripides and by politicaJ references; it
is probable that Lys. was produced at the Lenaia and Th. at the
City Dionysia.6
408 Wealth (Plutus), not the play of that name which has survived
(see below).
405 (Lenaia, first. prize) Frogs ('Ra.'), produced by Philonides.
392 Women in Assembly (Ecclesia:<:usae, 'Ec.'). The date, which
depends on a pattially corrupt scholion and on historical refer-
ences in the play, may be ayear out.
388 (probably first prize)7 Wealth (Plutus, 'Pl.').8
After 388: Aiolosikon and Kolealos*, put on by Aristophanes' son
Araros. 9
According to the Vita (p. t. l, al.) Aristophanes was the son of one
Philippos and belonged to the deme Kydathenaion, in the phyle
Pandionis. It appears from what he says in Nu. 528- 32 that he regarded
himself as young and inexperienced when he wrote Banqueters, but it is
unwise to draw firm inferences frorn that to his date of birth or to
Athenian legislation governing the dramatic festivals. 10
: 5
Aristophanes wrote another play of the same name.
6
Cf. AC I9-72 . version of the flrst; (b) the same play was sometimes known by two different tltles; (&)
ti
f'i 1 when two poets had written plays with the same title and only one ofthe two survived,
This is an inference from the oi'der in which the competing plays are listed in Hyp.
:J-tr i iv Pl
.li 8
T{..\{t1TG\4V 818far n)v KW.<p8(av -rat-nv '1rl T<jl i8((i ov6.cm (Hyp. IV). That does
f.!j' not preclude production 8111 -r1vos (1: Ach. 378 says that Aristophanes l8l811{t Babylon-
am, which was produced 8ui Ka.\..\1orp-ro11)
.t!' 9 Halliwell, GRIJS 30 (1989) 515-28. Aristophanes' own career shows that such a col-
Hyp. IV PL 81' lKE(vou (se. l4pap6-ros) Ka./hjKE may mean no more than that; ifhe
wished it to be believed that Aratos had actually written thse two plays, his intention
was not realized, for they are cited by Hellenlstic writers as his own.
1
Cf. n. 2. The belief (which dies hard in works of reference) that Aristophanes was
born in 444 rests on two items of eVidence the initial plausibilityofwhich dwindles upon
scrutiny: (a) IfVE Ra. 501 says that he was .EpaKloKos wben he wrote Batl(/uellt's, but
that is simply an inference from Nu. 528 ff.; (b) if a date ofbirth underlies ytyovws lv
-rofs ywo1 KC1-rd n)v 98' '0..\11.m811 (a 444/3) in the biographical notice given in the
MS M (PrQ/tg. Com. XXX)-Aristophanes did not compete lv rots dywo1 until 427-it
may well have been reached either by adding 17 (one year less than the age of 80K1-
.a.olc.) to the date of .Banqueters or by taking the fall of Athens in 4o./3 as the dK.1j of
Dovtr
d
INTRODUCTION
l. ARISTOPHANES
THE career of Aristophanes as a writer of comedies lasted forty years.
1
At least forty plays wr.e attributed to him in antiquity, eleven of which
survived into the Middle Ages and thus to our own day;.we know the
titles of the lost plays, and we have nearly ai thousand 'fragments' of
them, including sorne substantial pieces of papyrus, sorne extensive
citations, and many words and phrases recorded by ancient scholars.
The essential facts of his literary career are these (lost plays are
asterisked, and those of uncertain date are omitted):
427 (Second prize) Banquetm (Lla,Ta~ECs), produced by Kalli-
stratos.2
426 (tity Dionysia) Babylonians, produced by Kallistratos.
425 (Lenaia, first prize) Acharnians ('Ach.'), produced by Kalli-
stratos.
424 (Lenaia, first prize) Knights ('Eq.'), produced by Aristophanes
hirnself.
423 (City Dionysia, ranked low)3 first version 4 of Clouds ('Nu.').
1 It is never posslble to be precise in stating the number of plays written by an
Athenian comlc poet, since (a) the same poet sometimes wrote two plays bearing the
same title, and the second play could be either a completely dlfferent play or a revised
its authorshlp could be dlsputed.
z A collaboration in whlch a poet put on a play 8ui someone else (as 'director' or
'producer') was by no means uncommon; cf. F. Perusino, CQrol/aL()lldinmsis 2 (198z) 138
nn. 3 f., and Dalla Commedia Antica al/a Commedia di Mt%ZO (Urbino, n.d.) 42 f., F. S.
laboratlon was not conflned to lnexperienced poets, slnce Frogs itself was put on 8d
'1>1..\wvl8011. Its bearing on the interpretation of Eq. 512-46 and V. 1015-50 as cvldence
for Aristophanes' early career is controversial: cf. G. Mastromarco, QS IO ( 1979) 153-1)6,
F. S . Halliwell, CQ NS 30 (1(}8o) 33-45, D. M. MacDowell, CQ NS 32 (1982) 21-6,
Perusino, locc. citt., N. Slater, GRBS 30 (ufo)) 6-82.
3 The number of comedies competing on each occasion was five before the
Peloponnesian W ar; whether a reduction to three was effected at the start of the war or
sorne years after the start is dsputed. Cf. W. Luppe, Phi/Q/Qgus 116 (1972) 37-78,
G. Mastromarco, Belfagor 30 (1975) 469""73
~ The play we have is a revised version; cf. Dover (1968) pp. lxxx-x<..-viii.