Comedy by
Aristophanes (
Batrachoi), produced in the year 405 B.C., towards the end of the
Peloponnesian War, shortly after the death of
Euripides.
Dionysus (in whose honor the tragedies were nominally held; there's a quick joke about looking over the theatre and seeing himself (his statue)) complains that there are no good writers left in Greece, and goes with his slave, Xanthias, down to the underworld to fetch one back. After crossing the river Styx with Charon, during which he argues with the chorus of frogs swimming in the mud, he realizes that both Aeschylus and Euripides are down there. Since he can only bring back one, he holds a competition in which the two compose short verses, mocking the other. Aeschylus mocks Euripides for his incompetent verse and flippant metre and language, Euripides Aeschylus for his bloated and heavy handed style.
In the end, Aeschylus wins by a small margin, since his noble poetry is better suited to the needs of the Athenian people at the end of the war.