This article attempts to survey certain aspects of parody as it appears in ancient literature: it is concerned mainly with the nature and purpose of parody, the techniques which it employs, the relation of parody to certain other literary forms, and its origin. In any such discussion the principal difficulty is likely to be one of definition and classification, for the terms ‘parody’, пαρῳδή, &c., cover a range of divergent meanings, and a certain looseness can sometimes be detected in their use. What then is the basic meaning which пαρῳδή in itself conveys?