Achaeus of Eretria was a Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 author of tragedies

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...

 and satyr plays, variously said to have written 24, 30, or 44 plays, of which 19 titles are known, some of which include Adrastus, Alcmeon, Cycnus, Hephaestus, Iris, Linus, Eumenides, Œdipus, Omphale, Philoctetes, Phrixus, Pirithous, and Theseus.
Achaeus of Eretria was regarded in antiquity as being the 2nd greatest writer of satyr play

Satyr play

Satyr plays were an ancient Greek form of tragicomedy, similar in spirit to burlesque. They featured choruses of satyrs, were based on Greek mythology, and were rife with mock drunkenness, brazen sexuality , pranks, sight gags, and general merriment.Satyric drama was one of the three varieties of...

s, after Aeschylus.

His first play was produced in 447 BC and won a prize. A quote in Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

' The Frogs

The Frogs

The Frogs is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus, in 405 BC, and received first place.-Plot:...

suggests he was dead by 405 BC. Some classicists suggest that the fact that he only won a single prize was due to his non-Athenian birth, as the men of Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 were loath to honor any but their own fellow-citizens.

Achaeus of Eretria

Eretria

Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...

 belongs to the classic age, but is not recognized as a classic writer. His satyric plays were much admired for their spirited style, albeit somewhat labored and lacking in clarity. The philosopher Menedemus

Menedemus

Menedemus of Eretria was a Greek philosopher and founder of the Eretrian school. He learned philosophy first in Athens, and then, with his friend Asclepiades, he subsequently studied under Stilpo and Phaedo of Elis. Nothing survives of his philosophical views apart from a few scattered remarks...

 thought his plays second only to Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...

, he was part of the Alexandrian canon, and Didymus

Didymus Chalcenterus

Didymus Chalcenterus , ca. 63 BCE to 10 CE, was a Hellenistic Greek scholar and grammarian who flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus.- Life :...

 wrote a commentary on him. Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

 (10.451c) describes him as having a lucid style, but with tendencies to obscurity. Athenaeus also claimed that Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

 took a line from Achaeus, while Aristophanes quotes him twice, in The Frogs and The Wasps

The Wasps

The Wasps is the fourth in chronological order of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes, the master of an ancient genre of drama called 'Old Comedy'. It was produced at the Lenaia festival in 422 BC, a time when Athens was enjoying a brief respite from The Peloponnesian War following a one...

.