About the work
Thesmophoriazusae was performed at the City Dionysia in 411 BC; no placement in the competition is recorded.
Plot
At the women-only festival of the Thesmophoria, the women of Athens plan to discuss Euripides, who has repeatedly portrayed them unfavourably in his tragedies. Euripides sends his elderly kinsman, disguised as a woman, into the festival to defend him. When the disguise is discovered and the kinsman is seized, Euripides tries to free him through further disguises and scenes borrowed from his own tragedies, finally promising the women never to write badly of them again.
Cultural significance
The play is rich in parody of Euripides' recent tragedies, such as Helen and Andromeda, and its assembly of women deliberately inverts Old Comedy's usual gender roles.