The Fabulist Aristophanes

“…Peisetairos in Birds is simply an ordinary Athenian citizen, weary of the city and its ‘matters’. There is no evidence to suggest that he is particularly poor or belongs to the peasant class. On the contrary, Peisetairos is presented as more educated than the leader of the Chorus of birds because the leader has not “thumbed his Aesop” and Peisetairos has to educate him about the fable of the crested lark. Rothwell has interpreted this as Peisetairos “condescending to speak” to the birds in their own language (that is, the common language of the fable). In fact, Peisetairos is not condescending at all. He flatters the birds by using the fable to argue that birds are even older then the Earth and should be kings. Later in the same play, when Peisetairos is preparing to fly away with Epops, he makes another reference to an Aesopic fable, this time recalling the fable of a fox that fared badly because it made an alliance with an eagle. The story in this case is purely functional – it indicates nothing about the fable-teller’s class or status. It serves as a shorthand way for Peisetairos to summarise his concerns about trying to fly: just as the fox in the fable did not have a happy ending, Peisetairos also fears for his life. As with the fable of the marten cat and mouse in Wasps, this fable must have been well-known because Aristophanes relies on a brief allusion to it.”

In this peer-reviewed journal written by Sonia Pertsinidis; Pertsinidis argues that the theatre of Aristophanes was "Poor-man's theatre", written for the common man and basically a modern day equivalent to pop music or movies. Basically, because Aristophanes uses fables in his plays, calling on folk lore, he is playing to the people with stories and inventions they'd be familiar with. Pertsinidis says that because of his writing involving such tall tales, it indicates that Aristophanes was of the lower class. This is a huge detail because, it would influence how his plays were originally produced, and where they'd have been shown.

Pertsinidis, Sonia. "The Fabulist Aristophanes." Fabula Vol. 50.Issue 3/4 (2005): 208-26. Print.