Abstract

Aristophanes devoted two dramas, Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs, to the subject of tragedy. In both plays, the comic hero learns the telos of the art, which is the education of the spectators in their civic duties. These two plays also unify the comic elements of spectator, comic hero, polis-institutions, and the gods more radically than the other comedies of the poet. Because Dionysus is the main character of Frogs it can unify these elements even more thoroughly than Thesmophoriazusae