These characters can be seen to represent existing anxieties in public life (polis) and in the private sphere (oikos) in classical Athens. Aristophanes presents in his comedies irascible and randy old men in situations that inspired ridicule and derision.
Furthermore attitudes towards old age like gender and ethnicity reflected the habit in Greek culture of dividing the world into mutually exclusive categories, in this case youth versus old age. The cultural script of ageing was determined by biological changes in the body, but also by a social construct influenced by intellectual, economic and political considerations.
Abstract In the fifth and fourth century BC in Athens, old age did not confer automatically respect and authority, in fact, an old person's worth was based on one's ability to remain a functioning member of society.
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