Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal
dramatic forms in the
theatre of classical Greece (the others being
tragedy and the
satyr play).
Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods,
Old Comedy,
Middle Comedy, and
New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of
Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as
Athenaeus of Naucratis. New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of
Menander.