Aristophanes is known as the ‘father of Comedy’ and his plays provide topical satirical commentaries on life in Athens during its ‘golden age’ in the fifth century BCE.  He is known to have written some 40 plays, but only 11 survive intact. They were written during the period when Athens was at war with Sparta, the so-called Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), and many of his plays are critical of the war, and the politicians who seemed to be personally invested in prolonging it.