have a Hyperbolus,* a Cleophon,* and one called the Alliance,* dealing with the alleged conspiracy of Nikias, Phæax, and Alcibiades to get Hyperbolus ostracised.
Aristophanes, son of Philippus, from Kydathenaion
(ca. 450 B.C. to ca. 385 B.C.)
By far the most successful of the writers of the old comedy was Aristophanes; and though he had certain external advantages over Cratînus, and enjoyed a much longer active life than Eupolis, he seems, by a comparison of the fragments of all the writers of this form of literature, to have deserved his success. He held land in Ægina. There is no reason to doubt his full Athenian citizenship, though some lines of Eupolis (frag. 357), complaining of the success of foreigners, have been supposed to refer to him. He probably began writing very young. At least he explains that he had to produce his first piece, the Daitalês* ('Men of Guzzleton') under the name of his older friend the actor Caliistratus; partly because he was too young for something or other—perhaps too young to have much chance of obtaining a chorus from the archon; partly because, though he had written the play, he had not enough experience to train the chorus. This manner of production became almost a habit with him. He produced the Daitalês,* Babylonians,* Acharnians, Birds, and Lysistrata under the name of Callistratus; the Wasps, Amphiarâus,* and Frogs under that of Philônides. That is, these two persons had the trouble of teaching the chorus, and the pleasure of receiving the state payment for the production. They also had their names proclaimed
