ABSTRACT
In 486 Bc, two generations after the first state-organised tragic performance — associated with the name of Thespis — and again at the Lenaea, a Dionysiac festival, the first comedy contest was held, the winning play being written by one Chionides. On the strength of their inventory of extant texts, Alexandrian scholars of the third and second centuries Bc compiled a classic canon of comedies similar to its counterpart for tragedies. Cratinus, who died at a great age in 410 Bc, is credited with most of the technical achievements of comedy writing. Eupolis, killed in the prime of life in 405 in the Peloponnesian War, and Aristophanes, whose work continued into the second decade of the fourth century, are regarded as the culmination of ‘old comedy’, far surpassing contemporaries such as Crates, Hermippus or Plato. From a few fragments and anecdotes, it is still possible to form a picture of the genius and wit of Cratinus, but not of the way his plays were structured.
