Middle Comedy

The greatest names before Aristophanes are those of Cratinus and Eupolis; but from about 470 B.C. there seems to have been a continuous succession of comic dramatists, amongst them Plato Comicus, the author of 28 comedies, political satires Aristophanes. and parodies after the style of the Middle Comedy.

The thratta, then, is really a genuine sea-fish; and Mnesimachus in his Horse-breeder, mentions it; and Mnesimachus is a poet of the middle comedy.

“Comic Platon,” Greek poet, called “the prince of the middle comedy,” flourished 445 B.C.;

Asinaria, is translated from the Greek of Demophilus, a writer of the Middle comedy.

In the most ancient comedies, however, this character was not denominated parasite, and was first so called in the plays of Araros, the son of Aristophanes, and one of the earliest authors of the middle comedy.