Menander was an Athenian playwright known for producing works in the New Comedy vein.

He was born in 342 B.C. in Athens. His father, Diopeithes, had both money and connections. Menander himself knew some important people later in life, including Theophrastus, who succeeded Aristotle as a leader in philosophy circles and Ptolemy I of Egypt.

He is known to have written more than 100 plays. Only one of these, Dyskolos (The Grouch), survives to this day. It was this play that he won first prize in the famed City Dionysia festival in Athens in 316. Archaeologists have discovered fragments of a few other plays:

• The Arbitrants
• The Double Deceiver
• The Dour Man
• The Girl from Samos
• The Man She Hated
• The Shearing of Glycera

Menander is the most well-known of the Greek playwrights whose works were New Comedy, a change from the caustic and usually political satire of Aristophanes to plots based on everyday life with which audiences could more readily relate. New Comedy plays had no Chorus.

Menander died about 290 B.C., some sources say of accidental drowning.