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How did Athens’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War affect Old Comedy?

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Aristophanes Aristophanes, portrait bust, c. 4th–1st century bce; in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

Athens’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE signaled the end of Old Comedy. This transition occurred because the defeat fostered a profound sense of disillusionment regarding the heroes and gods who had previously played central roles in these plays.1

Furthermore, the political climate of the revived democracy no longer accommodated the bold, outspoken political criticism and personal invective that characterized the works of Aristophanes and his contemporaries. As a result, the genre evolved into Middle Comedy, which was marked by the disappearance of the chorus and the abandonment of direct political satire in favor of social themes and parody.2