The strongest contrast between comedy and tragedy was that comedy drew its subjects from everyday life and social reality. This meant that its plot consisted of people's preconceptions and shortcomings, of current political or social events. This is why comedy is a fundamental source for our knowledge of the period it took place in.

We have no knowledge of the early stages of comedy's evolution, but we do know that in the course of the festival called Lenaea (organized by the Eponymous Archon in the month of Gamelion, answering to our modern January and February) comedy was played. The Lenaea was in honour of Dionysus 'Lenaeus'. His worship took place outside the city walls, and was of earlier origin than that of Dionysus 'Eleuthereus', patron of tragedy. The first occasion on which comedy was part of the Lenaea was in the mid-5th century B.C. Performances of comedy were held at the Great Dionysia from 486 B.C. onwards, but not during the dramatic festivals.

There is general agreement that the birth of comedy was from the singing of a noisy partying group, the comus, uniting the god's worshippers in unbridled high spirits. A feature of these junketings was the procession with the phallus and appropriate songs. We are told that the people carrying the phallus singled out members of the audience for (often vulgar) verbal teasing - the kind of cheerful coarse teasing that is even today a constant feature of the Carnival weeks in modern Greece. It was in this time-honoured custom, still very much alive and kicking, that the personal attacks and buffooneries of Aristophanes' plays had their roots.

On another view, the birth of comedy started [not from the word comus but] from the word kome ('large village'). The villagers would come in to the city by night, and sing accusing songs in front of the houses who had done them some injustice. This performance belongs to a type of 'people's justice' known from many peoples. It seems quite plausible that the personal mockery of comedy - the so-called iambic idea - was rooted in this custom as well. Also often featured in these processions were animals which people brought with them - the reason perhaps why a comedy so often has the name of an animal as its title.

Aristophanic comedy exhibited these processions, dances and choruses in their developed form. A standard feature of it was the parabasis - an onslaught with aggressive verses which formed the axis, properly speaking. However, other parts were added that now called for an actor. The most important of these was the quarrel scene known as agon.

Comedy can be divided into three stages. Old Comedy (late 5th century B.C.) was above all satirical, full of verve, and preoccupied with ongoing political issues. Middle Comedy (early 4th century B.C.) and New Comedy (4th-3rd centuries B.C.) concentrated on family life and character-study.

The first writer known to have inserted any dramatic content into comedy was Epicharmus. Though born on Cos at the start of the 5th century B.C., he lived in Sicily, at Megara Hyblaea. Small fragments of his plays survive. Writing at the same time as him was Phormis. Unfortunately, while we know the names of a whole galaxy of comedy playwrights (Magnes, Crates, Cratinus, and Eupolis, to name but a few), only a very small number of fragments of their plays, or even just the titles, have come down to us. So Attic Old Comedy is represented exclusively by Aristophanes and his political comedies.

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