[4] He is attacked and ridiculed several times by the comic playwright Aristophanes, whose cutting criticisms are probably in large part responsible for Morsimus's negative reputation.
Aristophanes wrote a character who describes the experience of performing in one of Morsimus's plays as being comparable to being "drenched in urine", and describes anyone who ever helped distribute the texts of Morsimus as a villain deserving the worst punishments in Hades, the same as the ones visited on parricides.
[5][6] Though it's also true that we have fragments of the comic poet Plato's that suggest at least some of Morsimus's contemporaries thought warmly of his work.
Other scholars observe that the fact we have jokes at Morsimus's expense spanning several decades might indicate a certain staying power of his work.
[4] Besides his profession as a poet, he seems to have practiced as a physician and oculist, though biographical sources describe him as equally talentless in drama and medicine.