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Aristophanes -452 - -385 (67)

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Aristophanes was an Athenian citizen, the leading satirical poet of antiquity, son of Philip from the municipality of Kydathinaion. When Athenians took Aegina in 430 they distributed land, Aristophanes took a piece and he settled down there. He married while he was young and had three sons, the youngest of which he became a poet as well. He lived at the time of the Peloponnesian War, which lasted 27 whole years, from 431 until 404, during which, Athens, the intellectual center of Greece was defeated by Sparta. Aristophanes was the leader in ancient Attica Comedy and with fantasy, parody and myth, mercilessly ridiculed politicians and public figures. He was a rancher, conservative and pacifist, longed for past and old traditions so he fought with satire and comedies, the display of wealth and luxury of his times, the sophists and demagogues, the unworthy politicians who lure people into dangerous ways just to get power. The wealth of information in his work helps us to understand the daily life of Athens in the late 5th century BC. He wrote 46 comedies, 11 survived intact and from the others many pieces.

The comedies that have survived are:
1.-Acharnians (425 p. X.):
One of his best comedies. In the midst of the Peloponnesian War, the farmer and pacifist Dikaiopolis is longing for peace and comes into confrontation with the warrior Lamachos. .
2 Knights (424):
The basic idea of the project is the personification of the Athens Municipality presented as an old man manipulated by slave Paphlagon. .
3.-Wasps (422):
In this comedy he satirizes the legal system of Athenian democracy and especially the people's court of Elijah. Judges adjudicate according to the interests and passions, and presented as wasps stinging men.
4.-Peace (421 p. X.):
Aristophanes ridicules here the belligerent tendency of the Greeks ..
5.-The Birds (414 p. X.):
Two Athenians, to avoid the sycophants and demagogues of their homeland, they resort to chickens (birds) and try to build between Earth and Heaven a fantastic city.
6. Clouds (417):
The comedy satirizes the Sophists and Socrates in particular.
7-Thesmophoriazusae (411):
During a festival, women think the destruction of Euripides because he was considered misogynist.
8.-Lysistrata (411):
The heroine, wanting to reconcile the Greeks who are killing each other, she convened a meeting of women to find a way to stop the bloody war.
9.-Plutus (Wealth) (408 p. X.):
Wealth is a blind man who goes to the wicked.
10. Frogs (405 p. X.):
In this comedy, Aristophanes after the death of the three great tragedians, organizes poetry contest in Hades.
11.- Lysistrata (392)
Praxagora convinces the women to go to the Assembly dressed as men and vote a law to empower women.