Greek Comedy went through three phases: 1) Old Comedy, popular at Athens during the fifth century BC, characterized by the prominent role of the chorus, the use of obscenity in both language and gesture, an emphasis on political and social satire, and a vigorous concern with current events (especially the Peloponnesian War);2) Middle Comedy, a term used to refer to comedies written between 400 and 320 BC, characterized primarily by the decline in importance of the chorus and 3) New Comedy (320 to about mid-third century BC), a non-political form of comedy that ignores current events and has young love as a primary theme, with a chorus that does not participate in the plot.1 Middle and New Comedy were much less obscene.
Our knowledge of Greek comedy is limited. Of Old Comedy, we have only ten plays of Aristophanes: Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps,Peace, Birds, Lysistrata, Frogs, Women of the Thesmophoria (= Ladies' Day), and Women of the Assembly. We have his Plutus as the only surviving example of Middle Comedy. Greek New Comedy is represented only by one virtually complete play of Menander (The Ill-Tempered Old Man) and and fairly large portions of six other plays. It should be noted that Menander wrote over a hundred plays in his lifetime. We also have the adaptations of various other New Comedies by the Roman comedians, Plautus and Terence.
Comedies, as well as tragedies, were presented at the City or Great Dionysia, the major festival at Athens in honor of the god Dionysus. At Rome, drama was also performed at various religious festivals.