The Athenian Democracy, with criticism serving as an important tool for its rejuvenation and constant evolution, generated comedy as one of the basic forms of expression. A powerful source of criticism for the Athenians' lives, values and beliefs, it originated with the Dionysiac religious practices and reached its peak and autonomous style with Aristophanes. Little is known of his life. He was born in 452 B.C., at the highlight of Athenian prosperity, lived the horror of the Peloponnesian war and died in Aegina in 385 B.C.. The eleven comedies that have been saved (out of 44 that he wrote) provide a record of his unique satirical approach to politics and state figures, to the exploitation of religion, the degeneration of education and the irrationality of war. His contribution to comedy was the creation of the "political satire", which he served using a refined, yet provocative language, an inventiveness in expression and fertile imagination-evident in the diversity of the turns and twists in the plot. His main figure in the play meets and reacts on great public events (war, the teachings of the Sophists, etc) in ways that only the penetrating mind of Aristophanes could create. His satirical targets were lightly disguised but at times his boldness reached the point of recalling their real names (Socrates in the "Clouds", Euripides in "Archaenians", "Frogs" and "Thesmophoriazousae").