Menander

Considers the influence of Euripides on the fourth-century comic playwright Menander. While there is no doubt that there are numerous specific borrowings from — and allusions to — individual Euripidean plays in the Menandrian corpus, or that a number of dramatic techniques and devices found in Menander have a definitely Euripidean cast, it is possible to argue that Euripides' influence has become so pervasive by the latter half of the fourth century that it is to a great degree virtually transparent: what we are tempted to term Euripidean — the articulation of plots around anagnoriseis and mechanemata, the use of rhetorical devices by the various characters, the depiction of a world seemingly dominated by tyche but where the good are eventually rewarded, the down-to-earth tone and focus on common human experiences, the engagement with social issues — might well have been regarded by Menander and his audience as merely "tragic." Viewed from this perspective, Menander's comedies attest the ultimate triumph of Euripides' art: one can argue that they reflect a period when "tragedy," for the popular audiences that attended Menander's plays in Athens and elsewhere, was in many ways fundamentally Euripidean tragedy. Yet the vision that informs Menander's works lacks the spirit of anomie that characterizes even Euripides' "happier" plays: the careful integration of his plots and the continual impression of a divine hand that guides his characters' fates — for all of the apparent chaos on stage — associate Menander's plays more firmly with the world of Sophoclean drama (and, perhaps, Peripatetic theory) than with the disturbing vision of Sophocles' younger contemporary.

Chrysalus' overdetermined assertion that he will set up his master as a Priam to be bought contains a bilingual wordplay on Priamus/Πρίαμος and πρίαμαι. The wordplay is paralleled in learned etymologies of Priam's name from his ransom by Hesione, and in an ad hoc pun in Diphilus' Emporos.

In contrast to the comedies of Menander and Plautus, in Terence sacrifice is wholly absent.  Sacrifice was an important part of ancient Roman domestic life.  Yet Terence neither stages nor mentions any ritual whatsoever.  Terence deliberately and thematically erases sacrifice from his plays and, in doing so, highlights the instability of his plays' domestic relationships -- and perhaps those of his audience as well.  Terence focuses intensively on the relationships of family members, who are, in Rome, always allied by the practice of domestic cult.  To eliminate sacrifice -- an important element of domestic life -- shows that Terence sees the Roman family as formally dysfunctional.

Taking advantage of the fresh fragmentary discoveries in New Comedy, this paper focuses anew on the relationship between Roman Comedy and fourth-century Greek comedy, and argues that the two genres develop along similar structural principles because they embrace parallel philosophies of dealing with their potential literary models. Setting as premise that postclassical Greek comic drama is the outcome of a well-thought combination of individual genius and cleverly filtered sources, not always literary, the assessment of Plautine and Terentian dramaturgy advanced in this study, is based on extensive discussions of specific case studies and examines in detail the anatomy of a twofold methodology of model reception behind the texts of the palliata. The process in question transforms the so-perceived image of a spontaneous, improvisatory Plautine speech, by proving that Plautus’ literary language, no less than Terence’s own, involves complex intertextuality, which, in turn, comes in the aftermath of a long Quellenforschung whose successful conclusion presupposes critical acumen, powerful memory, and years of experience in viewing and performing Greek comedies.

El presente estudio pretende identificar motivos y recursos empleados en el género de la comedia griega, sus personajes y su puesta en escena para determinar su posible influencia en los cortometrajes y películas de Charles Chaplin. Se prestará especial atención al período de la Comedia Antigua, donde se tendrá en consideración a autores como Aristófanes, Éupolis y Cratino y las diversas maneras de trasladar al esperpento los contextos bélicos que vivieron estos comediógrafos atenienses en el siglo V a.C. y Chaplin en la primera mitad del siglo XX.

The aim of this work is to identify topics, resources, characters and performance used in the Greek comedy to determine their possible survival on the films of Charles Chaplin. I will focus on the period of the Old Comedy and I will consider authors such as Aristophanes, Cratinus and Eupolis and how these Athenians playwrights brought to the grotesque the war they lived in 5th century BC, in comparison with Chaplin’s reactions and messages in the first half of the 20th century. I will end with an analysis of some plot-lines of New Comedy that we can find in the work of the British actor.

In the prologue to his Eunuchus (a reworking of Menander’s Eunouchos), Terence acknowledges that he has retrofitted in two characters -- the parasite and the soldier -- from Menander’s Kolax, a separate comedy. Relying on recent theorization of poetic memory consolidated by Stephen Hinds’ Allusion and Intertext (Cambridge, 1998), in this paper I discuss three passages that feature these two characters (Eunuchus 244-253, 419-429, and 799-801). I contend that in them Terence’s characters are self-consciously encoding reflections on the problematics of poetic memory inherent in the genre of Roman Comedy. In my view, Terence aims to explore creative appropriation and its rhetoric of primacy and coming after that had been recently pioneered by Ennius in his Annals and that would later be repeatedly cultivated by the Neoteric and Augustan poets, especially Ovid. But unlike these later poets, I argue, Terence’s experiment failed, and in conclusion I suggest several reasons why. An appendix discusses the difference between a parasitus colax and a parasitus edax.

No less than art and literature themselves, archaeological and philological studies have had a great impact in determining the images of ancient writers through time, also influencing each other. In this perspective, the reception of Menander from the Byzantine period to the 20th century represents a significant case study. This contribution intends to focus on this time span in order to enlighten the reciprocal influence between the reading (or loss) of Menander’s comedies and the physical (sometimes imagined) portrait of the poet.

Gli studi archeologici e filologici, non meno dell’arte e della letteratura, hanno avuto un grande impatto nella definizione dell’immagine degli scrittori antichi nel tempo, influenzandosi anche a vicenda. In questa prospettiva la ricezione di Menandro tra l’epoca bizantina e il XX secolo rappresenta un caso di studio significativo. Il presente contributo si concentra su questo periodo storico per mostrare l’influenza reciproca tra la lettura (o la perdita) delle commedie di Menandro e il ritratto fisico (a volte immaginato) del poeta.

NA28 and UBS5 identify the source of Paul's statement in 1 Cor 15:33 as Menander, Thais, although NA28 puts a question mark after "Thais." One can, however, demonstrate that the proverb originally came from Euripides. Consequently, future critical editions of the New Testament should include Euripides in the margin along with Menander and should probably make reference also to the mass of proverbs that were shared orally or in writing in the culture of antiquity. One can read 1 Cor 15:33 as a text of Euripides, Menander, or as an expression of the common wisdom of antiquity.

Esistono forti legami fra scienze archeologiche e scienze filologiche, ed è chiara l’importanza che l’aspetto interdisciplinare assume in indagini lessicografiche: nei nostri studi hanno parte fondamentale non solo i dati papirologici strettamente documentari, ma anche i riscontri offerti dall’analisi dei testi letterari e dei reperti – siano essi archeologici o iconografici, si tratta di reperti provenienti principalmente dall’Egitto, ma naturalmente anche da tutto il mondo greco romanizzato.
Certamente per indagare sui legami fra lingua più elevata e letteraria, e lingua ‘quotidiana’, Menandro ci pare autore ben adeguato, non solo per l’attenzione che egli rivolge all’uomo e alla vita di tutti i giorni, ma anche perché è cronologicamente molto vicino al periodo cui appartiene una parte dei papiri che noi leggiamo.
Come exemplum, si è pensato di rivolgere l’attenzione in particolare alle cosiddette scene di agnizione, cioè a quelle scene che, attraverso l’indicazione di oggetti particolari, permettono il riconoscimento del bambino esposto dai genitori, in un passato più o meno lontano, e infine ritrovato.
Scene di questo tipo sono presenti non solo nella Commedia, ma anche in opere della letteratura greca e latina di altro genere, e spesso trovano il loro compimento attraverso oggetti definiti gnorismata. Per quel che riguarda, in particolare, Menandro, o meglio, quello che di lui ci è noto, esse ricorrono nell’Arbitrato (Epitrepontes), nella Tosata (Perikeiromene), e nel Sicionio, oltre che in P.Ant. I 15, frammento papiraceo di commedia attribuibile forse a Menandro (PCG fr. 1084).

In this paper, new ways of looking at Pompeian art are presented, by analysing the ways of visual expression that connect text and image. The works of art are discussed as belonging to five different categories. The majority of visual images in Pompeii belong to text-based art, visual interpretations of scenes from Greek and Roman literature. The second category of images, labelled as text on image, includes both text and image, as essential parts of the work of art; where names, words, and poems were painted on the surface as part of the design. When, for example, a floor mosaic is designed and produced from the start including the text, the image belongs to a third category, text in image. A viewer’s commentary adjacent to the image may be called text to image. A written text may also be seen as an expression of visual culture, text as image, created as a combination of the emotional effect the reader gets while reading the text, and the visual effect of the text in its context the reader gets seeing the letters themselves as symbols and signs that allow the readers to create their own interpretations. The text becomes an interactive, spontaneous composition, providing a means for reading emotions.
Reviews: L’Antiquité Classique 91, 2022, 242-244 (Caroline Supply)
Journal of Roman Archaeology 36, 2023, 642-648 (Olympia Bobou)
The Journal of Roman Studies, First View (Chiara Thumiger)
Medusa – Svensk tidskrift för antiken, 42:3, 42-43 (Martina Björk)
Etruscan and Italic Studies, 2022 (Sinclair W. Bell)

Adultery is often the subject of comic descriptions, focusing on the tricks of unfaithful wives or bold lovers and the stupidity of cuckolded husbands, and possibly inspired by popular adultery tales. Dramatization of adulterous affairs, though common in mime, was rarer in Greek comedy. It occurs in a few plays with contemporary setting, as well as in travesties of related myths (e.g. Helen’s abduction, or Zeus’ love for Alcmene).

Antiphanes, active from the 380s to the late fourth century BCE, was the most prolific dramatist of Middle Comedy. He probably wrote not only for Athenian festivals but also for other cities or itinerant troupes, and produced various types of play: mythological travesties, as well as domestic comedies with love plots and recognitions, heralding the style of New Comedy. He developed many comic figures which became standard characters in later drama (misanthrope, miser, superstitious man, boastful soldier, rustic, parasite, cook). He liked producing innovations on stock motifs and deftly exploited the resources of comic language.

deikelistai (meaning “mimes” or “impersonators”) was the local name for the performers of a type of folk comic play in Sparta. According to the Laconian historian Sosibius, their unsophisticated performances, conducted in simple language, concerned themes such as the stealing of fruit (also a traditional part of Spartan boys’ education) and the foreign doctor. Both these elements are paralleled in other varieties of Doric comedy (Sicilian, Megarian), as well as in Attic comic theatre. Sosibius considered this type of spectacle as old, and Plutarch testifies to its existence in the fifth century BCE.

Glycera, a hetaira, is presented as Menander’s mistress in sources of the Imperial age. Alciphron invented an exchange of letters between the couple, discussing the invitation of King Ptolemy, who wishes to lure Menander to Egypt. This love affair is a biographical fiction, probably developed in Hellenistic times. Glycera’s figure is based on homonymous female characters of Menander’s plays, as well as on a historical hetaira of the same name. The relationship between Diphilus and the hetaira Gnathaena (attested earlier in anecdotes by Lynceus and Machon) may also have served as a model.

Lynceus of Samos, a pupil of Theophrastus, produced plays of New Comedy in Athens, although the report that he competed against Menander is doubtful. His writings also include a treatise on Menander and a collection of anecdotes about figures of Athenian social life (hetairai, parasites etc.), sometimes involving famous comic poets of the time. These may rely on first-hand experience or information.

Machon, a poet of New Comedy, produced his plays in Ptolemaic Alexandria, probably in the context of the early Ptolemies’ efforts to promote their capital as a centre of comic art. His surviving titles and fragments suggest typical New Comedy plots, with misunderstandings, recognitions, and food themes, but also include uncommon elements (e.g. a cook fond of eating his own dishes). Machon also published the Chreiai, a collection of versified anecdotes about celebrated parasites, hetairai, and other figures of social life, many of whom are mentioned in Middle and New Comedy. His work displays coarse humour and caustic satire.

Maeson, a character of Megarian comedy, was said to have been created by a Megarian actor of the same name (a tradition of doubtful historicity). Maeson appeared as a cook, servant, sailor, and in other dramatic roles, being portrayed as ignorant, uncouth, and gluttonous. A slave mask of Attic New Comedy was also called Maeson. A proverb about ingratitude is attributed to “Maeson the Megarian”, though on obscure grounds.

Megara, a city between Athens and Corinth, was known for its local kind of farce (Megarian comedy). Megarians claimed to have first invented the genre of comedy around the early sixth century BCE, a doubtful assertion. Aristotle was familiar with comic performances at Megara in his time, but no dramatic festivals are recorded in later periods.

Megarian comedy, an improvised popular farce produced at Megara, was known to fifth-century Athenian audiences. There was rivalry between the comic traditions of Athens and Megara: poets of Old Comedy condemned Megarian jokes as vulgar, while the Megarians claimed to have first invented the genre of comedy. The Attic playwrights’ references, combined with later testimonia, reveal some of the motifs and characters of Megarian comic drama: obscene jests, slaves tossing nuts to the audience, the hungry Heracles cheated of his dinner, a cook and glutton named Maeson, possibly also the stealing of fruit and the drug-seller. The scene of the Megarian man visiting Dicaeopolis in Aristophanes’ Acharnians may parody material from Megarian performances.

Persia, the head of a large Eastern empire in Classical times, is presented in Greek comedy as a land of excessive wealth and luxury. Its typical comic traits include a fairytale abundance of gold and precious objects, massive consumption of food and drink, rich exotic clothing, pompous officials and courtiers, voluptuousness, and effeminacy. Old Comedy, in particular, proudly recalls the past Greek victories in the Persian Wars and considers contemporary Persia a great, dangerous, but alluring power.

Riddles, a favourite pastime in Attic symposia, became popular especially in Middle Comedy. They are propounded and solved on stage in numerous scenes, often set in a sympotic context. A particular group of them concern culinary items described by a comic cook in high-flown riddling language. Spectators enjoyed the dramatized sympotic game, presumably attempting to find the solution before the characters did. Riddles also functioned as a form of humour and were sometimes subjected to parody as a stock comic theme.

Susarion, named as the inventor of comedy in Hellenistic and later sources, is variously described as an Attic poet active in the deme of Icaria or as a Megarian. These variant traditions presumably stem from the rivalry between Athens and Megara concerning the origins of comedy. The single fragment attributed to Susarion is a later forgery. His historical identity, when not doubted, becomes the object of widely differing theories.

Thais, a brazen, profit-loving hetaira, was a central character in Menander’s play of that name and later became the emblematic type of the comic courtesan for Roman authors. In an epigram of Martial, the young Menander is presented as having a love affair with Thais. This is meant as a playful metaphor for the composition of the corresponding comedy; it does not imply the existence of a broader biographical tradition about Thais and Menander.

Timon, mentioned in Old Comedy as the emblematic misanthrope, was a proverbial figure well known to the audience. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata suggests that he became a man-hater because of the wickedness of his fellow-men, a theme later developed in Lucian’s dialogue Timon, which perhaps reworks comic material. The traditions about Timon may have influenced the portrayal of other theatrical misanthropes, such as Menander’s Knemon.

The concept of metatheatre, defined by N. Slater as « theatrically self-conscious theatre, i.e., theatre that demonstrates an awareness of its own theatricality » , is outstanding for the study of ancient theatre, both Greek and Roman. It makes possible to raise many questions and to better understand the textual links between the stage and the audience . However, the researchers have often opposed the general dramatic action stricto sensu and the metatheatrical speeches, more limited in the plays. In this paper, I would like to demonstrate that the Menander’s theatre, as a whole, is metatheatrical and that the public is entirely part of the dramatic illusion: for the author, the point would not be to propose a universe dissociated from the spectators. There wouldn’t be a border between the tiers and the stage made visible for a short while by specific lines (passive assistance vs actives comedians). Menander would rather aim at creating a fictional space including actors and spectators connected continuously together by a set of interdependent links. By this way, Menander would take all the participants of the show from the extratheatricality to the intratheatricality. These conditions would generate a homogenous group united, during the time of the performance, by its awareness of the theatrical norms.

The collection of moral maxims known as the “Syriac Menander” has much in common with the new Christian educational models of the fourth–fifth centuries, which established the Bible, especially the books of Proverbs and Jesus Sirach, as alternatives to the gnomic collections attributed to Menander. The Syriac reception of the “Euthalian apparatus” adopted for the study of the orations of Gregory of Nazianzus gave birth for new collections of sentences, which were closely connected with the name of Menander. The evidence presented in the article helps us better understanding the reception of the figure of Menander in Syriac literature.

"Hellenistic oratory remains an elusive subject as not one Greek speech has survived from the end of the fourth century BC until the beginning of the first century AD. This collection of fourteen interdisciplinary essays offers a wide-ranging study of the different ways in which Hellenistic oratory can be approached.

Written by a team of leading scholars in the field, it examines the different kinds of evidence which shed light on the dynamic character of oratory during the Hellenistic period. All essays stress the pervasive influence of Hellenistic oratory and survey its different manifestations in diverse literary genres and socio-political contexts, especially the dialogue between the Greek oratorical tradition and the developing oratorical practices at Rome.

The volume opens with a detailed introduction, which sets the study of Hellenistic oratory within the context of current trends in Hellenistic history and rhetoric, and closes with an afterword which underlines the vibrancy and sophistication of oratory during this period. It will appeal to all students and scholars of Hellenistic history, society, and the history of rhetoric."