<P> Seven works of Sophocles have survived, the most acclaimed of which are the three Theban plays, which center around the story of Oedipus and his offspring . The Theban Trilogy consists of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone . Although the plays are often called a "trilogy," they were actually written many years apart . Antigone, the last of the three plays sequentially, was actually first to be written, having been composed in 441 BC, towards the beginning of Sophocles's career . Oedipus the King, the most famous of the three, was written around 429 BC at the midpoint of Sophocles's career . Oedipus at Colonus, the second of the three plays chronologically, was actually Sophocles's last play and was performed in 401 BC, after Sophocles's death . </P> <P> There are nineteen surviving plays attributed to Euripides . The most well - known of these plays are Medea, Hippolytus, and Bacchae . Rhesus is sometimes thought to have been written by Euripides' son, or to have been a posthumous reproduction of a play by Euripides . Euripides pushed the limits of the tragic genre and many of the elements in his plays were more typical of comedy than tragedy . His play Alcestis, for instance, has often been categorized as a "problem play" or perhaps even as a work of tragicomedy rather than a true tragedy due to its comedic elements and the fact that it has a happy ending . </P> <P> Like tragedy, comedy arose from a ritual in honor of Dionysus, but in this case the plays were full of frank obscenity, abuse, and insult . At Athens, the comedies became an official part of the festival celebration in 486 BC, and prizes were offered for the best productions . As with the tragedians, few works still remain of the great comedic writers . The only complete surviving works of classical comedy are eleven plays written by the playwright Aristophanes . These are a treasure trove of comic presentation . He poked fun at everyone and every institution . In The Birds, he ridicules Athenian democracy . In The Clouds, he attacks the philosopher Socrates . In Lysistrata, he denounces war . Aristophanes has been praised highly for his dramatic skill and artistry . John Lemprière's Bibliotheca Classica describes him as, quite simply, "the greatest comic dramatist in world literature: by his side Molière seems dull and Shakespeare clownish ." Of all Aristophanes's plays, however, the one that has received the most lasting recognition is The Frogs, which simultaneously satirizes and immortalizes the two giants of Athenian tragedy: Aeschylus and Euripides . When it was performed for the first time at the Lenaia Festival in 405 BC, just one year after the death of Euripides, the Athenians awarded it first prize . It was the only Greek play that was ever given an encore performance, which took place two months later at the City Dionysia . Even today, The Frogs still appeals to modern audiences . A commercially successful modern musical adaptation of it was performed on Broadway in 2004 . </P> <P> The third dramatic genre was the satyr play . Although the genre was popular, only one complete example of a satyr play has survived: Cyclops by Euripides . Large portions of a second satyr play, Ichneutae by Sophocles, have been recovered from the site of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri . </P>

Which of these types of literature was invented by the ancient greek writers