Young, bald and talented

I find it disconcerting that not much is known about Aristophanes. There’s the saying, “a picture can tell a thousand words”…well, books and plays are entirely made up of words and Aristophanes’ texts are open for interpretation. Some have surmised that based on comments made by the Chorus in The Clouds (bird god) that Aristophanes might have been 18 years old during the production of his first play The Banqueters. And it has also been inferred from statements made in The Clouds and Peace, another one of his plays, that Aristophanes went prematurely bald. I’m gonna have to check these plays out and pinpoint where exactly one might make such inferences.