Menander in Antiquity: The Contexts of Reception 9781107333031, 9781107004221

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Menander in Antiquity

The comic playwright Menander was one of the most popular writers throughout antiquity. This book reconstructs his and his plays’ afterlife from his lifetime until the end of antiquity, employing a broad range of sources such as portraits, illustrations of his plays, papyri preserving their texts and inscriptions recording their public reperformances. These are placed within the context of the three social and cultural institutions which appropriated his comedy, thereby ensuring its survival: public theatres, dinner parties and schools. Dr Nervegna carefully reconstructs how each context approached Menander’s drama and how it contributed to its popularity over the centuries. The resultant highly illustrated book will be essential for all scholars and students not just of Menander’s comedy but, more broadly, of the history and iconography of the ancient theatre, ancient social history and reception studies.

sebastiana nervegna is a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney and works in the Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies of Australia (CCANESA). Her work on the history and iconography of Greek theatre has appeared in journals, major collections of essays and Companions. She is currently writing a monograph on the reception of Classical tragedy in the Hellenistic period.

Frontispiece Mosaic pavement: Menander, Glykera, Spirit of Comedy (Komodia), late third century ad. Stone, h. 225.0 cm, w. 135.0 cm, d. 11.1 cm (88 9/16 × 53 1/8 × 4 3/8 in.).

Menander in Antiquity The Contexts of Reception

sebastiana nervegna

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107004221 © Sebastiana Nervegna 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group and bound A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Nervegna Sebastiana Menander in antiquity : the contexts of reception / Sebastiana Nervegna. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-00422-1 1. Menander, of Athens – Appreciation – Greece. 2. Menander, of Athens – Appreciation – Rome. 3. Menander, of Athens – Influence. 4. Greek drama (Comedy) – Appreciation – Greece. 5. Greek drama (Comedy) – Appreciation – Rome. I. Title. PA4247.N47 2013 8820 .01–dc23 2012047377 ISBN 978-1-107-00422-1 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Alle mie sorelle amatissime, Anna, Carmela e Gabriella Nervegna, per tutta la tristezza condivisa e per tutti i successi raggiunti

Contents

List of figures [page viii] Acknowledgements [xii] List of abbreviations [xiv] Introduction [1] 1 Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

[11]

2 Menander in public theatres [63] 3 Menander at dinner parties

[120]

4 Menander in schools [201] Conclusion: Menander, survival and loss [252] Appendix 1 Roman palliatae and their Greek models

[261]

Appendix 2 Paintings and mosaics illustrating New Comedy [264] Appendix 3 Paintings and mosaics illustrating tragedy [268] Appendix 4 Menander papyri [271] References [280] Index [306]

vii

Figures

Frontispiece Mosaic pavement: Menander, Glykera, Spirit of Comedy (Komodia). Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of the Committee for the Excavation of Antioch to Princeton University y1940-435. Photo: Bruce M. White. [page ii] 1, 2, 3 Reconstruction of the Early-Hellenistic statue of Menander set in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. Courtesy of the Archäologisches Institut der Universität Göttingen. Photo: Stephan Eckardt. [14] 4 Inscribed base of the Early-Hellenistic statue of Menander set in Eretria (reconstruction of front). Courtesy of Hans R. Goette (Berlin). Photo: Hans R. Goette (Berlin). [38] 5 Inscribed portrait bust of Menander. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California (72.AB.108). Photo: Museum. [124] 6 Menander mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 2, 1. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [125] 7 Menander wall painting from the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii. After A. Maiuri (1933) La Casa del Menandro e il suo tesoro di argenteria. Vol. 2, Tavole, Tav. XII. Rome. [128] 8 Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Caroline G. Mather Fund y1951-1. Courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum. Photo: Bruce M. White. [129] 9a Plokion mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 3, 1. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [138] 9b Plokion mosaic from Chania. Courtesy of Stravroula Markoulaki. [139] 10a Samia mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970). Les mosaïques de la viii

List of figures

10b 10c 11a

11b

11c 11d

12

13a

13b 13c

13d

13e

Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 4, 1. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [140] Wall painting from Pompeii probably reproducing Samia. Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum E 108. Photo: Museum. [141] Fragmentary mosaic from Avenches. Site et Musée romains d 0 Avenches. Photo: Fibbi-Aeppli, Grandson. [142] Synaristosai mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 5, 1. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [143] Synaristosai mosaic from Zeugma. Courtesy of the Centre Henri Stern de Recherche sur la mosaïque (UMR 8546, ENS/CNRS, Paris). Photo: Mrs Anne-Marie Manière-Lévêque. [144] Synaristosai mosaic from Daphne. Reproduced by Mike Bishop. [144] Synaristosai mosaic signed by Dioscurides of Samos. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9987. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 5, 2. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [145] Epitrepontes mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 4, 2. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [146] Theophoroumene mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 6, 1. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [147] Theophoroumene mosaic from Daphne. Reproduced by Mike Bishop. [148] Terracotta figurine from Myrina (Asia Minor) reproducing the cymbal player from Theophoroumene. Athens, National Museum 5060. All rights reserved. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-NM 194. [149] Theophoroumene mosaic signed by Dioscurides of Samos. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9985. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 6, 2. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [150] Theophoroumene wall painting from Stabiae. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9034. Photo: Museum. [151]

ix

x

List of figures

13f Fragmentary Theophoroumene mosaic from the Vesuvian area. Ufficio Scavi di Pompei 17735. After G. Stefani (2000) ‘Mosaici sconosciuti dall’area vesuviana’, in Atti del VI colloquio dell’associazione italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del mosaico. Ravenna: 279–90; fig. 4 on p. 289. [152] 13g Fragmentary wall painting from Pompeii reproducing an excerpt from Theophoroumene. Ufficio Scavi di Pompei 20545. After Pompeii Picta Fragmenta. Turin: 1997: n. 60. [153] 14 Encheiridion mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 4, 3. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [154] 15 Messenia mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 4, 4. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [155] 16a Misoumenos mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 8, 1. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [156] 16b Mould from Ostia (formerly in the Ostia Museum, now lost) reproducing Misoumenos. After S. Charitonidis, L. Kahil and R. Ginouvès (1970) Les mosaïques de la Maison du Ménandre à Mytilène. AntK-BH VI. Bern. Plate 26, 3. Courtesy of the Editors of Antike Kunst. [156] 17a Sikyonioi wall painting from Ephesus. Courtesy of Volker Michael Strocka. Photo: Jan Roewer. [157] 17b Fragmentary mosaic from Chania, probably reproducing Sikyonioi. Courtesy of Stavroula Markoulaki. [158] 17c Terracotta figurine from Tomb C in Myrina, possibly reproducing the protagonist of Sikyonioi and probably dated to the second half of the first century bc. Paris, Musée du Louvre (Myr 321). Photo: Museum. [159] 17d Comic mosaic from North Africa, possibly reproducing Sikyonioi. Sousse 57.010. Reproduced by Mike Bishop. [160] 18a Perikeiromene wall painting from Ephesus. Courtesy of Volker Michael Strocka. Photo: Volker Michael Strocka. [160] 18b Perikeiromene mosaic from Daphne. Reproduced by Mike Bishop. [161] 19 Achaioi mosaic from Ulpia Oescus, Bulgaria. Courtesy of the Pleven Regional Historical Museum. Photo: Museum. [161]

List of figures

20 Philadelphoi mosaic from Daphne. Reproduced by Mike Bishop. [162] 21 Wall painting reproducing Euripides’ Hypsipyle. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9039. After Pompei Pitture e Mosaici, vol. IV. p. 945, fig. 166. [163] 22 First-century ad papyrus probably preserving an unidentified comedy by Menander. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Papiro PSI 1176. Photo after G. Cavallo, ‘Scritture ma non solo libri’, in G. Cavallo, E. Crisci, G. Messeri and R. Pintaudi eds., Scrivere libri e documenti nel mondo antico (Florence 1998) 3–12, tav. 9. Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. È vietata ogni ulteriore riproduzione con qualsiasi mezzo. [241] 23 Miniature from an illustrated manuscript of Terence. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 7899 (P) fol. 120. Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France. [247] 24 Miniature from an illustrated manuscript of Terence. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 7899 (P) fol. 110v. Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France. [248]

xi

Acknowledgements

xii

This book began as a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Eric Csapo. I am delighted to acknowledge all my intellectual debts to him and to thank him for his vision and for his faith in this project. He suggested that I should work on the ancient reception of Menander when I first met him many years ago and, although I have often doubted that I was the right person for this ambitious task, the worth of this project has always been clear in my mind. Over the years, I contracted several debts to many scholars who patiently answered my questions, generously shared their knowledge with me and supported my research in various ways: Anthony Alexander, the late Colin Austin, Alastair Blanshard, Raffaella Cribiore, Raffaele di Virgilio, Katherine Dunbabin, Frances Muecke, Hans R. Goette, J. Richard Green, Andrew Hartwig, Anthony Hooper, Richard Hunter, George Kovacs, Vayos Liapis, John Ma, Stavroula Markoulaki, Toph Marshall, Martin Revermann, Paul Roche, Catherine Rubincam, Stephen V. Tracy and Peter Wilson. For constant support and inspiration I owe extra thanks to my Sydney colleagues and especially J. Richard Green, who soon became like family to me. When I was writing and rewriting this book, I often thought about the man who taught me Latin and Greek when I was a schoolgirl, Raffaele di Virgilio. For all the things that I learnt from him and for all the encouragement that he gave me at a critical stage, I share with him every single achievement. The four anonymous readers who assessed this book in two different stages provided valuable comments on both specific details and the overall argument. Michael Sharp, Jodie Hodgson, Josephine Lane and the entire team at Cambridge University Press were very helpful all along. My copy-editor, Fiona Sewell, deserves many thanks for her patient help and support. Warm thanks are due to all the museums, institutions and scholars that provided the figures for this book: Karen E. Richter and the Princeton University Art Museum; Daniel Graepler and the Archäologisches Institut der Universität Göttingen; Hans R. Goette; Jacklyn Burns and the J. Paul Getty Museum; Annemarie Kaufmann and all the editors of Antike Kunst; Stavroula Markoulaki; Jutta Schubert and the Akademisches Kunstmuseum in Bonn; the Musée Romain Avenches; John Humphrey, Jean-Pierre Darmon, AnneMarie Manière-Lévêque and the Centre Henri Stern de Recherche sur la

Acknowledgements

Mosaïque (UMR 8546, ENS/CNRS, Paris); Michael Bishop; Joachim Heiden and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut-Athen; Volker Michael Strocka; Anne-Catherine Biedermann and the Louvre Museum; the Regional Historical Museum of Pleven and the Bulgarian Cultural and Social Association Rodina in Sydney; Rosario Pintaudi and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. I am extremely grateful to the Australian Academy of the Humanities for awarding me a very generous grant which covered the cost of most figures and related copyrights. It is truly a pleasure to acknowledge all the financial support that I received over the years. The Azienda Comunale per il Diritto allo Studio dell’Università di Bologna sponsored my undergraduate education in Italy and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship took care of my graduate studies in Canada. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Kudos Foundation of Australia and to the Department of Classics and Ancient History of the University of Sydney, which nominated me the Kevin Lee Postdoctoral Fellow in 2009, and to the Australian Research Council, which has been funding my research over the last two years. I cannot thank them enough for bringing me to the beautiful Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies of Australia, where I finally found the research time and the peace of mind that I needed to finish this book and to work on new projects. Many people have variously contributed to this book. I owe a great deal to all the people who were close to me at various times in Ortona, Bologna, Toronto, Mississauga, Ottawa, Melbourne and Sydney. They know who they are and they should also be reminded that, even if I have not seen many of them for a long time now, I have not forgotten all the things that we shared and all the love and support that they gave me. In a way, my family has been there all along. My mother, Maria Dragani, my beloved sisters, Anna, Carmela and Gabriella Nervegna, along with their entire families, have been on my mind all the time, everywhere I have been in all these long years.

xiii

Abbreviations

CAD

E. Csapo and W. J. Slater (1995) The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor. CGFP C. Austin (1973) Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta. Berlin. 2 DFA A. Pickard-Cambridge (1988) The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edn. Revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis, reissued with supplement and corrections. Oxford. FGrH F. Jacoby (1923–) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden. IG (1913–) Inscriptiones Graecae. Berlin. K-A R. Kassel and C. Austin, eds. (1983–2001) Poetae Comici Graeci, vols. i–viii. Berlin and New York. MMC3 T. B. L. Webster (1978) Monuments Illustrating Old and Middle Comedy, 3rd edn. Revised and enlarged by J. R. Green. London. MNC3 T. B. L. Webster, J. R. Green and A. Seeberg (1995) Monuments Illustrating New Comedy, 3rd edn (2 vols.). London. MTS2 T. B. L. Webster (1967) Monuments Illustrating Tragedy and Satyr Play, 2nd edn. London. OCD3 S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (1996) The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn. Oxford. TrGF (1971–2004) Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vols. i–v. Göttingen. Urkunden H. J. Mette (1977) Urkunden dramatischer Aufführungen in Griechenland. Berlin. Unless otherwise stated, all testimonia and fragments by Menander and other comic poets are cited according to the edition by Kassel and Austin (K-A). Menander’s texts are cited according to Arnott’s edition (1997a–2000). xiv

List of abbreviations

Abbreviations for editions of papyri, ostraka and tablets follow J. F. Oates et al., Checklist of Editions of Greek and Latin Papyri, Ostraka and Tablets4 (BASP Supp. 7, 1992). The online and expanded edition is available at http:// library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/papyrus/texts/clist.html. Ancient authors and works are typically abbreviated according to the lists in the OCD3. Journals are abbreviated according to the list in the American Journal of Archaeology 104 (2000) 10–24. The journals that are not included in this list are cited according to L’Année philologique.

xv

Introduction

But Menander, with his charm, shows himself not to lack absolutely anything. He made his poetry, of all the good things that Greece has produced, the most common subject of reading, learning and competitions in theatres, lecture halls and symposia. He shows the nature and quality of verbal skill, approaching every topic with persuasiveness that leaves no escape and mastering every sound and meaning of the Greek language. For what reason does a man of culture think it truly worthwhile to go to the theatre, if not to see Menander? When are theatres full of men of learning, when a comic mask is on the stage? To whom do the dinner table and Dionysus yield way and make room for more rightfully? Just as painters with tired eyes turn to the colours of flowers and grass, to philosophers and men of learning Menander offers a respite from their intense and straining studies, welcoming their mind, as it were, to a meadow that is flowery, shady and full of breezes.1

With these words, Plutarch voices his huge fondness for one of the icons of Greek literature and culture, Menander. To be sure, Plutarch’s passionate admiration for Menander crops up in several of his works, but it finds its best expression here, in his now excerpted Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander.2 In a process that turns the ‘literary’ into the ‘political’ and ‘moral’, this essay blends together ancient literary criticism and its principles with long-standing theories on the evolution of Greek comedy. Its endproduct is a remarkably one-sided and clear-cut assessment of the two towering figures of Greek comedy and their merits. For Plutarch, Greek literature and Greeks in general could well do without Aristophanes. For all of Aristophanes’ claims to wit and refinement, in his comedies Plutarch can see only dirty and inappropriate jokes packed with malice and linguistic 1

2

Plut. Mor. 854b–c (Men. T 103 K-A): ὁ δὲ Μένανδρος μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστα ἑαυτὸν αὐτάρκη παρέσχηκεν, ἐν θεάτροις ἐν διατριβαῖς ἐν συμποσίοις, ἀνάγνωσμα καὶ μάθημα καὶ ἀγώνισμα κοινότατον ὧν ἡ Ἑλλὰς ἐνήνοχε καλῶν παρέχων τὴν ποίησιν, δεικνὺς ὅ τι δὴ καὶ ὁποῖον ἦν ἄρα δεξιότης λόγου, ἐπιὼν ἁπανταχόσε μετὰ πειθοῦς ἀφύκτου καὶ χειρούμενος ἅπασαν ἀκοὴν καὶ διάνοιαν Ἑλληνικῆς φωνῆς. τίνος γὰρ ἄξιον ἀληθῶς εἰς θέατρον ἐλθεῖν ἄνδρα πεπαιδευμένον ἢ Μενάνδρου ἕνεκα; πότε δὲ θέατρα πίμπλαται ἀνδρῶν φιλολόγων, κωμικοῦ προσώπου δειχθέντος; ἐν δὲ συμποσίοις τίνι δικαιότερον ἡ τράπεζα παραχωρεῖ καὶ τόπον ὁ Διόνυσος δίδωσι; φιλοσόφοις δὲ καὶ φιλολόγοις, ὥσπερ ὅταν οἱ γραφεῖς ἐκπονηθῶσι τὰς ὄψεις, ἐπὶ τὰ ἀνθηρὰ καὶ ποώδη χρώματα τρέπουσιν, ἀνάπαυλα τῶν ἀκράτων καὶ συντόνων ἐκείνων Μένανδρός ἐστιν, οἷον εὐανθεῖ λειμῶνι καὶ σκιερῷ καὶ πνευμάτων μεστῷ δεχόμενος τὴν διάνοιαν. On this essay, see the referenced discussion on pp. 49–51.

1

2

Introduction

chaos (Mor. 853b–d, 854d). By contrast, when it comes to Menander, Plutarch does not know what to praise first. Refinement, subtle and flexible use of language, balance and grace are the heart and soul of his plays, fine qualities that Plutarch describes with dazzling metaphors and images. Despite Menander’s sparing use of music, Plutarch (Mor. 853e) paints him as an aulos player masterfully opening and closing the stops of his instrument to suit the dramatic action. Menander’s plots are economical and tightly built and do not make much room for poetic flights, yet for Plutarch Menander’s comedies are flowery and breezy meadows ready to welcome the intellectually tired. As a testament to his worth, Plutarch explains, Menander is popular within select venues and with select people. Comedy is no common fare for intellectuals, yet they crowd the theatres when a play by Menander is on. At dinner parties, Dionysus himself makes room for Menander. Menander reigns in lecture halls, or rather in and out of them, since his comedy has the twin power to instruct and distract. Theatre, symposia and schools are the three venues where an imperial Greek such as Plutarch could expect to find Menander. These are what I call the ‘contexts of reception’ of Menander and his comedy in antiquity. As posing a threat for the political and social values upheld by the elite and Plutarch himself, Aristophanes’ comedy was dangerous. Plutarch was anxious about its moral and educative value, something which helps explain why he is so one-sided in his views on Aristophanes and Menander. Plutarch’s bias notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that Menander enjoyed great popularity throughout antiquity. Papyri and monuments, which can be easily quantified, quickly prove the point. Consider the number and chronological range of our Menander papyri: there are almost ninety records that can be ascribed to a specific play by Menander, although with different degrees of certainty. Spanning from within generations after Menander’s death to the sixth or even seventh century ad and often penned on the back of papyri already used for documents of various kinds, our Menander texts often bring us into direct contact with students and the general public in Egypt. Ancient writers, who make up the elite sources, square well with them: by citing single lines or preserving longer excerpts from Menander’s comedies, they speak just as loudly of their circulation. Not that Greeks and Romans approached Menander only through his texts: they also saw his portraits and illustrations of his plays in their daily surroundings. As far as we can tell, few ancient works were as widely illustrated as Menander’s comedy, and no ancient author was as widely portrayed as Menander. There are over twenty illustrations of Menander’s comedies in both paintings and mosaics identified by inscription, and there is a much

Introduction

higher number of non-identified illustrations in a range of media that can be traced to the same source. Menander portraits number about one hundred, including wall paintings, mosaics, busts, herms and statues. Impressive as they are, these figures are constantly on the rise. With such a spectacular array of sources, Menander’s ancient afterlife sketches itself out. To make things easier, a number of scholarly works have made this material more readily available. Kassel and Austin collected the testimonia for Menander and for his less well-preserved plays (PCG VI.2). Arnott and Ferrari edited the plays best represented on our papyri, with several comedies also blessed with editions with commentary.3 To Green and Seeberg goes the merit of gathering and discussing the iconographic record in the third edition of Monuments Illustrating New Comedy. Next to substantially updating Webster’s catalogue, they also provided the first comprehensive interpretation of the material. Among other things, they identified the archetypes of the extant comic scenes and traced the diffusion of comic monuments across time and place, charting the trends and patterns of their circulation. In order to reconstruct the Early-Hellenistic statue of Menander set in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, Fittschen (1991) collected and discussed the surviving Menander portraits. His study laid the foundation for later works in another area to which recent findings keep adding more evidence. In focusing exclusively on the ancient afterlife of an ancient author, this book has a spot of its own in current scholarship. In recent years, studies on the reception of Greek drama – their interpretation, influence and general use – have not been lacking. In fact, they now make up a vibrant and productive ‘subdiscipline’. Their appeal is not surprising: they ‘cut across’ disciplines, create a sense of continuity and draw a wide audience. With Greek tragedy as their main subject, works on reception have largely focused on post-antiquity, be they concerned with the afterlife of the whole genre or of specific plays.4 This is not to deny the general awareness that reception in antiquity is, indeed, something important. Writing in 1997, Easterling spoke of ‘the task of capturing in detail the reverberations of tragedy in later antiquity’ as ‘one of the most interesting challenges for contemporary critics’, ‘an immensely complex story

3

4

Arnott 1997a [1979]–2000, Ferrari 2001 with edition and translation of other New Comedy authors. Menander’s plays recently edited with commentary: Aspis (Rossi 1994), Epitrepontes (Martina 1997; Furley 2009), Samia (Lamagna 1998), Perikeiromene (Lamagna 1994). See, for instance, the most recent major works: Medea in Performance 1500–2000 (Hall, Macintosh and Taplin 2000); Dionysus since 69 Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium (Hall, Macintosh and Wrigley 2004); Agamemnon in Performance 458 bc to ad 2004 (Macintosh, Michelakis, Hall and Taplin 2005); Le rinascite della tragedia: origini classiche e tradizioni europee (Guastella 2006).

3

4

Introduction

waiting to be told’.5 Consistently, at one time or another, reception in antiquity has been singled out as needing serious work,6 a point otherwise made clear by the general enthusiasm for Graziosi’s book on the early reception of Homer.7 But it is still dwarfed by work on reception in later times, hidden in collections of primary sources and variously fragmented into select episodes and chapters. To be sure, Menander studies often fall under the umbrella of reception studies. By the mid-third century bc, his comedies reached Rome to be performed in Latin adaptations for local audiences. How Roman dramatists adapted their texts probably stands out as the most thoroughly researched strand of Menander’s Nachleben.8 Menander and Roman comedy have priority of mention, but the influence that Menander exerted on later authors and genres has been another key research area in this field. From Roman poets such as Catullus and Ovid, for instance, to the Greek novel and Christian writers, there is no lack of evidence for ancient writers’ familiarity with Menander: be they quotations, allusions or just echoes, the various references to Menander’s drama in later works have been keenly identified and detailed.9 As a towering figure in Greek literature and culture, Menander loomed large, too large to be ignored by ancient authors. Indeed, they often imitated him, cited or variously recalled his lines, and toyed with his characters, often to serve their own purposes. What does call for attention is that there is much more to Menander’s afterlife than the literary reception of his comedy. Ancient authors and genres were surely not the only ones that appropriated Menander’s drama. They stand side by side with a number of other figures: the actors who kept staging Menander’s plays and the audiences who kept attending their performances; the artists who illustrated Menander and his comedies, and the patrons who commissioned and displayed these artefacts; the very many teachers and pupils who kept approaching Menander’s works at different stages of the school curriculum. The role that they all played in Menander’s survival has been greatly overshadowed by the emphasis given to texts and authors, even though texts and authors can tell us a relatively small part of the story. If we are to go 5 6

7

8 9

Easterling 1997: 226. Hardwick 2003, esp. 4; Hall 2004: 53; Revermann 2008; Gildenhard and Revermann 2010, esp. 3. Graziosi 2002. See also Koning 2010 on the ancient reception of Hesiod. Also welcome are May’s chapter on ‘the knowledge of drama and archaism in the second century’ (2007: ch. 2) and the essays collected by Gildenhard and Revermann 2010. Scholarly literature on this topic is massive. Select references are given in Chapter 2. Select references: Thomas 1984 (Menander and Catullus); Davis 1978 (Menander and Ovid); Corbato 1968, Crismani 1997 (Menander and the Greek novel); Grant 1965 (Greek comedy and Christian authors).

Introduction

beyond the common claim of Menander’s high standing in antiquity and to trace the dynamics that fuelled this process, Menander’s afterlife cannot be confined to texts and scholarly circles. My intention is not to discuss how individual authors such as Plutarch or Dio Chrysostom, for instance, read and interpreted Menander or how they used his works, but to place Menander’s survival against a broader cultural and social background. In other words, this book deals not with the literary but with the social reception of Menander and his plays. A major problem lies in finding a ‘handle’ to tackle the material and to frame it within a picture that is as broad as possible. I believe that Plutarch’s ‘contexts of reception’ offer a working solution. Theatre, symposia and schools are the filters through which the evidence can be sifted to allow the most inclusive approach: different as these venues may appear, they all shared an interest in Greek drama and in Menander in particular. A good starting point is provided by scholarly works on the ancient reception of Greek drama in general or on a specific social institution. Consider Easterling’s emphasis (1997) on actors’ repertoires and their importance in making up the canon, a body of chosen texts that underwent various selections later on. The painstaking studies by Le Guen (2001a) and Aneziri (2003) have given us a full account of the Associations of Artists of Dionysus and their important activities during the Hellenistic period. A notoriously debated issue is to what extent theatrical performances were the means whereby Greeks and Romans alike came to know the masterpieces of Classical and Early-Hellenistic Greek drama. Fantham (1984) doubted that the Romans of the Early Empire flocked to see Menander’s plays in theatres. By contrast, Jones (1993) showed the continued importance of theatre and drama in the Greek East during the Roman Empire, when newly composed plays kept being staged alongside the ‘old plays’, as the epigraphic record calls them. The pioneering works by Jones (1991), Csapo (1999 and 2010) and Dunbabin (1996) put private performances under the scholarly radar, raising important questions on the use of Greek drama as a form of private entertainment. A key field in the reception of ancient works in general is, of course, education. By combining close scrutiny of schoolrelated records and sophisticated readings of literary sources, Cribiore (1996, 2001a) and Morgan (1998) unravelled its structures and mechanisms, shedding light on the interaction between pupils and the major figures of Greek literature, including, of course, Menander. This book and its claims are greatly indebted to all these studies, to their detailed discussions and to their precious findings. Needless to say, any work on reception in antiquity cannot but be a preliminary one. This statement is even truer in

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the case of Menander: lucky discoveries of papyri, monuments and inscriptions are bound to add more details and throw new light on old ones. Scattered across time and place, often elusive and tantalizing, this material is no subject for a grand narrative. I maintain that our sources for Menander’s popularity in antiquity can be placed within one of the three contexts of reception of Greek drama: theatre, symposia or schools. Once each source has been properly identified, they can also help us assess how each venue approached Menander and the role it played in his popularity. Menander’s plays quickly entered actors’ repertoires and remained part of them until around the mid-second century ad. So influential was Menander’s impact on ancient comic theatre and its history that his plays became and remained the model for comedy writing throughout antiquity, even after drama stopped being performed on public stages. With their domestic plots and moralistic stance, they were beautifully suited to inform the thoughts and articulate the speech of subjects to a central rule, both inside and outside theatres. This also explains in part why Menander quickly entered the school curriculum, where the conservative cast of ancient education granted him an undisputed position at all levels until Late Antiquity. Once he became a symbol of Greek paideia, Menander’s image and illustrations of his plays were appropriated by house-owners eager to lay a claim to a high degree of cultivation. These three social institutions provide a way to arrange the evidence and to structure the book, where a chapter is devoted to each of them. My starting point is a predictable one, the reception of Menander and his comedy in EarlyHellenistic Athens, which paves the way to the equally interesting issue of Menander’s canonization. Chapter 1, ‘Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome’, argues two main points: (1) in spite of the literary tradition that consistently paints Menander as a dramatist unappreciated by his contemporaries, he had already been turned into a cultural icon in EarlyHellenistic Athens; and (2) Menander owed his canonization not to the scholarly activities pursued in the Library of Alexandria, but to actors and their repertoires. I argue that Menander’s close affiliation with the Peripatetic circle is key to both his playwriting and his reception. Menander consistently staged the kind of comedy promoted by Aristotle and his school, and, in turn, the Peripatetic school promoted Menander. Menander’s drama also quickly gained and retained popular favour to become a theatrical classic as early as the mid-third century bc: the important inscription first attesting, at least for us, competitions of old plays in Athens has Menander competing against Diphilus and Philemon (Hesperia 7 [1938] no. 22). The New Comedy trio figures here for the first time, not in the works of Roman authors usually considered to draw

Introduction

from Alexandrian scholars. To prove further the importance of theatrical production in the early reception of Greek New Comedy, Menander’s drama is the largest source for Roman comedies on Greek subject-matter, the palliatae. He is followed by Diphilus and Philemon. Actors’ activities work as a bridge between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, ‘Menander in public theatres’, which follows Menander in public theatres during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, sifting through a variety of sources for their public revivals and their format. Although Plautus (Mostell. 1149–51) could use the names of Diphilus and Philemon as bywords for comedy under the Republic, during the imperial period both authors apparently faded into obscurity with theatre-goers, and they were also largely ignored by readers. By contrast, Menander’s name (like Euripides’) remained so firmly attached to actors that performers delivering Menander eventually became a sort of literary topos attested well into Late Antiquity. I also argue against the widespread claim that public revivals of Classical and Hellenistic Greek drama were reduced to selections from one or more plays, with spoken parts turned into songs, thus providing the Greek background to the Roman practice of ‘spoiling’ plays (contaminatio). Driven by ancient and modern biases against actors, this claim rests on records related to students, teachers and musicians, not actors. Actors evidently continued to stage old plays in their entirety, although at least occasionally stripping old tragedies of their choruses. This is not to say that the Roman contaminatio has no Greek precedent. Roman poets ‘spoiling’ Greek plays probably followed the example of Greek playwrights revamping their own or other poets’ dramas to stage ‘revised plays’ (διασκευαί). The Roman contaminatio and the Greek διασκευαί are probably two sides of the same coin. Our rich iconographic tradition for Menander and his comedies holds the spotlight in Chapter 3, ‘Menander at dinner parties’. My argument is that our visual record has little to tell us about the use of Menander’s drama in private settings; rather, it testifies to the cultural pretensions of ancient hosts and it reinforces Greek identity in the Greek East under the Empire. My review of the extant illustrations of Menander and his plays brings out three main points: (1) they typically grace private domestic spaces; (2) the differences between artefacts reproducing similar but not identical scenes are due to a long process of corruption and misinterpretation of the image; and (3) the iconographic tradition and textual transmission of individual plays often followed different patterns. Plutarch makes Menander ubiquitous at his dinner parties (Mor. 712 b–d), and this claim is often read against Menander’s wide popularity in domestic art. This connection is, however, misleading because it fails to consider the socio-economic dimension of

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having drama over dinner. As involving stages and actors, drama in private settings was a form of entertainment confined to the very top of the social pyramid, the Emperors and their associates. I identify three reasons why ancient hosts picked Menander and his comedies to grace their houses: cultural pretensions, domestic decor and a desire to reaffirm Greek identity under the Empire. My main argument in Chapter 4, ‘Menander in schools’, is that students and not actors ‘fragmented’ Greek plays, reducing them to one-liners and select passages. Next to discussing Menander’s role as a gnomic author and identifying possible reasons why he came to be credited with multiauthored collections of maxims, the so-called Menander’s Maxims, this chapter also looks at Menander’s presence in school anthologies and the criteria underlying the selection of specific passages from his plays. Part of my discussion focuses on a series of papyri preserving New Comedy and tragedy commonly referred to as ‘actors’ papyri’ and variously linked to theatrical or private performances. Building on my work on the format of public and private dramatic performances in Chapters 2 and 3, I suggest that these texts belong to a school context and that they were used by students. Given its very broad scope, this book places Menander within different socio-historical contexts. In Chapter 1, I frame Menander’s comic style within a discussion of comedy writing in the Classical and EarlyHellenistic period, arguing that the increase in the number of foreign poets active in Athens and Attica seems to have played an important role in the shift from political comedy to comedy of characters. As an Athenian poet who consistently eschewed politics, Menander is a noteworthy exception, which I explain by his connection with the Peripatetic circle. As both Chapters 2 and 4 show, Menander’s avoidance of political and topical references, next to his moralistic stance and accessible Greek, also granted him a warm reception from later audiences and school teachers, but there is a gap between his reception in the Greek and Roman contexts. In the Greek East, for instance, Menander’s plays long retained their appeal as performance-texts not only on the stage but possibly also in schools. From pupils practising ‘speeches in character’ to sophists delivering their magisterial declamations, Greek rhetors seem to have fashioned themselves and their trainees after actors by appropriating their texts and techniques. Quintilian and other Roman rhetors, by contrast, were obsessively concerned about differentiating speakers from actors. This is due, I suggest, to the different social status enjoyed by Greek and Roman actors, and it may not be a coincidence that possible evidence for Roman pupils performing

Introduction

drama comes only when actors are no longer attested. The material record that I discuss in Chapter 3 outlines a similar divide between Menander’s afterlife in the Roman West and in the Greek East. Although Roman houseowners kept setting up Menander portraits in their gardens, their interest in adorning their houses with Menander’s plays registers a decrease after the Early Empire. By contrast, the iconographic tradition of Menander’s drama reaches its climax in the Greek East during the Second Sophistic and beyond, in Late Antiquity. Taking issue with recent discussions of the Romanization of the Greek East and with the claim that material culture had a marginal role in Greek self-definition, I suggest that these illustrations can be placed in the cultural self-fashioning of imperial Greeks. Although my focus is squarely on Menander, other authors and their afterlives often provide a good term of comparison. As sources of various kinds make clear, Menander could proudly stand next to two figures: Homer and Euripides. To be sure, Homer held sway over all texts and authors, at all times. Dio Chrysostom can speak of the warlike Borysthenites, who lived on the Black Sea in the ‘midst of barbarians’, as knowing at least the Iliad by heart. The Indians, he adds, live in a different hemisphere and see different stars, yet they also know Homer and sing in their own language the woes of heroes such as Priam, Hector and Achilles. Fictional as Dio Chrysostom’s comments may be, their emphasis on the Iliad is not casual. Of the two Homeric poems, the Iliad is the one best represented in the over a thousand Homer papyri that we have, and it also provides the richest source of quotations for ancient authors.10 In the late third or early second century bc, Aristophanes of Byzantium, a passionate admirer of Menander, ranked Menander second only to Homer. In the fourth century ad, Ausonius recommended his grandson to master the basics, Menander and ‘the author of the Iliad’. Both Aristophanes and Ausonius were reserving for Menander the highest honour of all – to be associated with Homer.11 Sometimes, when ancient authors speak of Menander, they also mention Euripides in the same breath.12 Pupils such as Apollonios son of Glaukias probably copied lines from both dramatists in the second century bc, and later collectors even turned Euripides into Menander by ascribing tragic maxims to the latter.13 With his some hundred and fifty papyri, including anthologies of 10 11

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Dio Chrys. Or. 36.9, 53.6–7. See Cribiore 2001a: 194–7. IG XIV 1183c (on which see Koerte 1936), Auson. Protrepticus ad nepotem 45–7; Men. T 170, 128 K-A. See, for instance, Quint. Inst. 10.1.69; Sozomenos, History of the Church 5.18.4 (Men. T 101, 131 K-A). P.Louvre 7172. On this anthology and on the Menander’s Maxims, see pp. 80, 205–11, 215.

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various kinds, Euripides rubbed shoulders with Menander.14 The pairing of Menander and Euripides probably comes up more conspicuously in the material record than in literary sources: house-owners displayed side by side portraits of both authors and illustrations of their plays.15 As far as we know, Menander monopolizes our record for illustrations of New Comedy and, whenever we can identify the tragic scenes often set next to them, Euripides’ drama is invariably their source, or at least the likeliest candidate.16 Since festival records and literary sources alike point to Euripides and Menander as the two Greek dramatists who entertained generations of theatre-goers well into the imperial period, at least some of the authors who spoke of Menander alongside Euripides, or some of the patrons who surrounded themselves with their portraits or illustrations of their plays, might have also been familiar with ‘seeing them together’ in their experience as theatre-goers. In Late-Republican Rome at least, Menander and Euripides themselves were to be seen together on the stage, most probably impersonated by mimes.17 Unlike Homer’s poems and Euripides’ tragedies, however, Menander’s comedies did not make it to the Late-Byzantine period, but met with the saddest fate of all. They stopped being transcribed and were left out of the ninth-century renaissance. In a way, it is fair that one of the first books on the reception of an author throughout antiquity be devoted to Menander: after all, he does come to us straight from antiquity. Before they were lost, Menander’s plays travelled far and wide, on public stages and select private ones, in classrooms and among the literati in their leisure time. Across time and space, they brought with them the stamp of refinement and the cultural authority of the major achievements of Athens and its glorious past. 14 15

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Carrara 2009 provides a detailed description and overall discussion of our Euripides papyri. Both Euripides and Menander were probably depicted in the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii, and their portrait heads were also included in the gallery of the villa owned by the Volusii Saturnini at Lucus Feroniae (see p. 133). For illustrations of Menander’s comedies next to Euripides’ tragedies, see the viridarium of the Casa dei Dioscuri in Pompeii and the so-called ‘theatre-room’ in Ephesus (see pp. 138, 155–6, 194). More examples probably lay among the unidentified scenes. The only possible candidate for a tragic illustration not related to Euripides is a metope from the House of the Comedians in Delos (Metope VII, MTS2 DP1 [455]), which may represent the opening scene of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. But see Csapo 2010: 164, n. 37. On the Delos paintings in general, see also Bruno 1985. Cic. On behalf of Quintus Gallius fr. 2, p. 400.6 Sch. (Men. T 85 K-A) with Giancotti 1967: 119–28.

1

Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

Suspect and often fanciful as ancient biographic traditions may be, it comes as a disappointment that they have so little to tell us about Menander, the undisputed star of New Comedy and one of the pillars of Greek literature and culture. Like the master of Old Comedy, Aristophanes, and the three canonical tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Menander also entered ancient biographies – his contemporary Lynkeus of Samos, for instance, wrote a work titled On Menander – but they have left barely any trace in our tradition. Cobbled together from disparate sources, the known facts and dates about Menander’s lifetime are just a handful. They are no match for our many sources for his reception after his death. Menander was born in Athens in 342/1 bc under the archonship of Sosigenes, just a few years before Athens registered a scarring defeat against Philip of Macedon at Chaeronea in 338 bc.1 Bloody as it was, the battle of Chaeronea was just one of the upheavals that troubled Athens during Menander’s lifetime. Menander’s father, Diopeithes, was from Kephisia, a deme north-east of Athens on the south-western flank of Mt Pentelikon; he served as a public arbitrator in 325/4 bc and was reportedly associated with Demosthenes.2 According to the anonymous author of the treatise On Comedy, Menander stood out for both his wealth and pedigree. This claim squares well with the tradition that makes him a student of Theophrastus, as Pamphile of Epidauros recorded in the thirty-second book of her Hypomnemata, written in the reign of Nero.3 Although ancient sources turned Alexis of Thurii into Menander’s uncle, Menander did not boast a theatrical family.4 He was, however, a precocious dramatist and made his debut in 322/1 bc, when still

1

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3 4

IG XIV 1184, see also Strab. 14.1.18, p. 638 (Men. T 2, 7 K-A). Schröder 1996 discusses the dates of Menander’s lifetime; Habicht 1997: chs. 1–3 provides an overview of the larger historical context. Suda μ 589; IG XIV 1184, IG II2 1926.17, 19; schol. Lib. Hyp. Dem. Or. 8.1 codd. F2 Y (VIII p. 621.3 F); Men. T 1, 2, 4, 5 K-A. Arnott 1997a: xiii, n. 1 suggests that Menander’s father could be the Diopei[thes] possibly attested as the khoregos of the winning comedy at the Great Dionysia in 333/2 bc (IG II2 2318.325–6). Prolegomena III, p. 10 K, Diog. Laert. 5.36 (Men. T 3, 8 K-A). Suda α 1138 (Men. T 6 K-A). Arnott 1996a: 11–13 reviews the relationship between Alexis and Menander in both ancient sources and modern interpretations.

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Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

an ephebe.5 The details of Menander’s early career are not all clear,6 but just a few years later, in 316/15, he is given a ‘first victory’ by the Marmor Parium. This victory took place at the Great Dionysia just one year after Menander’s Dyskolos carried off first prize at the Lenaea in 317/16 bc.7 Sitting among the audience might have been Demetrius of Phaleron, the philosopher appointed as the epimeletes (overseer) of Athens by the Macedonian ruler Cassander.8 He was then entering the first winter of his rule in the city. With a Macedonian garrison stationed in Munychia, Demetrius of Phaleron held power until 307 bc, when Demetrius the Besieger landed in Athens, stormed Piraeus and restored the democratic constitution abolished ten years earlier. As the defeated leader fled the city, apparently at his leisure, the Macedonian sympathizers had to face the reprisals of the democrats. Those who stood trial were not sentenced, but fear was in the air. The Peripatetic orator Dinarchus left Athens to live in exile for some fifteen years.9 As a friend of Demetrius of Phaleron, Menander ‘went close to being put on a trial’, but he managed to escape this danger through Telesphoros, a relative of Demetrius of Phaleron.10 Evidently, Menander and his friend Demetrius were well connected with different circles of powerful people. Demetrius the Besieger, who became King Demetrius in 306 bc, did not hold the city undisturbed: ousted in the wake of his defeat at Ipsos in 301 bc, he successfully re-entered Athens in 295 bc, after his naval blockade threw the city into a bitter famine and forced the tyrant Lachares to flee. Menander died probably in 291/0, during the second rule of King Demetrius.11 During his career, he wrote over a hundred plays – most 5

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7 8 9 10 11

Prolegomena III, p. 10 K (Men. T 3 K-A); see also Eusebius’ entries below. Other precocious dramatists include Eupolis, who is said to have debuted at the age of seventeen (Suda ε 3657), and Ameinias, who is on record for competing as an ephebe at the City Dionysia in 311 bc (IG II22323a.46–7). As preserved by later versions, Eusebius has Menander being successful with his first play, Orge, in 321/0 or 322/1 bc ((Hieron.) Ol. 114.4 (321/0 bc), p. 125.22 H; Euseb. (Arm.) Ol. 114.3 (322/1 bc) p. 198 K; Sync. p. 331.24 M (T 49a–c K-A)), while the Marmor Parium (see below) places Menander’s first victory in 316/15 bc without naming the comedy. For a recent review of this issue, see Iversen 2011, who follows Capps 1900: 60–1 in considering Orge Menander’s first win in 315 bc (contra Wilhelm 1897: 200–1, for whom Orge was Menander’s first play). Iversen also suggests that Menander debuted with Thais, basing his claim on an epigram by Martial (14.187). Marm. Par. 239 B 14 Jac., P.Bodm. IV Hyp. Men. Dys. (Men. T 48, 50 K-A). On the question of the official title given to Demetrius of Phaleron, see Tracy 1995: 43–6. Philochorus, FGrH 328 F66. See further below. Diog. Laert. 5.79 (Men. T 9 K-A) with Potter 1987. There is a problem with the date of Menander’s death. IG XIV 1184; Euseb. (Hieron.) Ol. 122.1, p. 128.11 H and Euseb. (Arm.) Ol. 122.1, p. 199 K (Men. T 2, 21a–b K-A) date it 292/1 bc, but our sources (IG XIV 1184, Apollodoros’ Chronika cited by Gell. NA 17.4.4; Men. T 1, 46 K-A) also specify that Menander died aged 52. De Marcellus 1996: esp. 75–6 suggests that Menander died

Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

probably 105 – reporting a total of eight victories at the main dramatic festivals in Athens.12 Production dates are almost completely lacking. Our records for comic performances at the Great Dionysia give fifth place to Menander’s Heniochos in 312 bc and to Paidion in 311 bc, although this may not be Menander’s Paidion.13 A baffling papyrus preserving comic hypotheses (introductions or summaries) mentions that Menander wrote his Imbrians under the archonship of Nikokles (302/1 bc) for production at the Dionysia, but ‘it did not happen because of Lachares the tyrant’. Fraught with chronological and interpretative problems, this information seems to have little credibility.14 Most probably soon after his death, Menander was granted the privilege of a seated statue in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Figures 1, 2 and 3), erected next to those of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Made by Praxiteles’ sons, Kephisodotos the Younger and Timarchos, this statue was bound to become the main model in Menander’s long-lasting iconographic tradition.15 It was still in the theatre when Pausanias toured Athens in the second century ad, although it was then surrounded by ‘many statues of rather undistinguished poets’: with the exception of Menander, writes Pausanias, in the theatre ‘there was none of the comic poets who won a reputation’. He could also see Menander’s tomb, erected along the route that goes up from Piraeus. The Athenians picked a privileged spot to bury Menander, right next to Euripides’ empty tomb.16 Of Menander’s dramatic career, one fact struck a particular chord with ancient authors: his poor competitive record. From the late first century ad onwards, a few Latin authors make a point of mentioning Menander’s small

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in 292/1 bc at the age of 50, Schröder 1996: 35–42, followed by K-A, argues that Menander lived for 51 years, 52 according to Apollodoros’ inclusive counting, and died in 291/0 bc. For numbers of plays and victories, doubtless at the main dramatic festivals in Athens, see Gell. NA 17.4.4 (Men. T 46 K-A). Other sources mention 108 and 109. Menander’s victories at the Lenaea were more than one and fewer than four. See IG II2 2325.160 (Men. T 47 K-A). IG II2 2323a.36, 51 (Men. T 51 K-A with references). P.Oxy. X 1235.105–12 (Men. T 52 K-A) with O’Sullivan 2009. The fragmentary hypothesis to Epitrepontes, P.Oxy. LX 4020, reads EΠ ̣I[(2), ̣ variously interpreted as a repetition of the play-title written above or an alternative title. Handley 2011a restores it as EΠI[NIKIΟϒ, ̣ which would give us the archon’s name and the date of the play’s first production, 296/5 bc. On this hypothesis, see also pp. 222–3. The inscribed base of this statue is still extant, IG II2 3777 (Men. T 25 K-A). Pliny (HN 34.51) gives Kephisodotos the Younger’s and Timarchos’ floruit in the 121st Olympiad (296/5–293/2 bc), which is thought to reflect or at any rate to be close to the date of the erection of Menander’s statue. See, most recently, Palagia 2005: 288 and Papastamati-von Moock 2007: 285–6 with earlier literature. Schultz dates the career of Kephisodotos the Younger to between about a decade before Chaeronea and before the ousting of Demetrius the Besieger in 287 bc, noting that Menander’s statue ‘seems to have been one of the artist’s late commissions’ (2003: 189). For a different view, see Ma (forthcoming). Paus. 1.21.1, 1.2.2 (on Men. T 25 and Men. T 24 K-A).

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Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

Figures 1, 2, 3 Reconstruction of the Early-Hellenistic statue of Menander set in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. Probably erected soon after Menander’s death, this statue was placed in the eastern parodos of the theatre, right next to those of the three canonical tragedians.

success when alive – nothing compared with the tremendous fame he won posthumously. That ‘theatres rarely applauded Menander with a crown on his head’ makes Martial hope that glory is in store for him too. Quintilian thunders against Menander’s contemporaries and their poor judgement for

Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

Figures 1, 2, 3 (cont.)

preferring Philemon to Menander. Philemon’s success over Menander fills Apuleius with so much outrage that he cannot even bring himself to tell the tale.17 Since at least some of our sources consider successful first productions as reflecting poets’ talent and worth, and even as a crucial element in the reception of their works, comments of this kind are not completely unfamiliar. A lover of Greek tragedy like Dio Chrysostom, for instance, found it baffling that Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were not always given first prize. To Athenaeus’ surprise, Anaxandrides’ Tereus and ‘other similar plays by him’ survived despite being flops when first 17

Mart. 5.10.9, Quint. Inst. 10.1.72, Apul. Flor. 16.6 H (Men. T 98, 101, 114 K-A).

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Canonizing Menander in Athens, Alexandria and Rome

Figures 1, 2, 3 (cont.)

staged.18 Latin authors were happy enough to have Menander as the stereotypical ‘underdog’ finally vindicated by later generations, something which gave them some weight with Greek audiences in the late fourth and early third centuries bc. Modern scholars are often just as happy to follow in their footsteps, missing the much more interesting picture that lies underneath.19 18

19

Dio Chrys. Or. 52.4, Ath. 9.374b. Their comments fall under the category of ‘pro-prize’ mentality, so called by Wright 2009, who discusses the role of Athenian literary prizes in ancient literary criticism and concludes that the ‘anti-prize’ mentality was the dominant trend. Arnott in his OCD3 entry on Menander is topical. Critical reappraisals in Handley 1965: 14–15, Major 1997: 45–6 and especially Kostantakos 2008.

Setting the stage

This chapter weaves together different strands to reconstruct the process whereby Menander entered the canon of Greek literature, or, to use a less problematic expression, how he became a cultural icon. Schematically speaking, my focus is on the reception of Menander during his lifetime and in the Early-Hellenistic period and my discussion is articulated around his presence in both scholarly circles and theatrical productions. I start by placing Menander within the Greek comic tradition, within the realia of the booming theatre industry in the fourth and early third centuries bc, as well as within ancient and modern theories on the development of Greek comedy as a genre. In spite of the common view of comedy as progressively losing touch with the surrounding world, political comedy survived well into the early third century bc. At a time when comedy writing registered a noticeable increase in the number of foreign dramatists, political comedy seems to have remained a prerogative of Athenian poets. But Menander deliberately and consistently avoided it to choose a kind of comedy shut in a world of its own, writing ethical and philosophical drama in line with his political and ideological standing. A student of Theophrastus and a friend of Demetrius of Phaleron, Menander was an oligarchic, pro-Macedonian intellectual who invariably staged the kind of comedy promoted by Aristotle, Theophrastus and Plato before them. His comedy appealed to oligarchic regimes and responded well to Peripatetic theories on comedy and the comic. Scholarship on Menander started within the Peripatetic circle and with Menander’s contemporaries, and it went on to find favour among the luminaries working in Alexandria, who were greatly indebted to their Peripatetic predecessors. Important as scholarly activities are in Menander’s afterlife, his canonization is tightly bound with theatrical activities. Menander’s comedies made attractive material for travelling actors and became classics among audiences from the Early-Hellenistic period onwards. Alexandria is typically the place where Greek works are thought to have been selected, after being scrutinized, sifted and ranked. Yet the key premises for the process which ultimately made Menander a symbol of Greek culture are to be found on Early-Hellenistic Greek stages. From there, actors went on to perform Menander’s drama across the Adriatic, in South Italy and all the way to Rome, in adapted Latin versions.

Setting the stage: theatres and dramatists in the fourth and early third centuries bc By the time the young Menander presented his first play in 322/1 bc, theatre could boast a long and distinguished tradition in Athens. The City Dionysia

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had been hosting tragic performances since its establishment around the late sixth century, adding comedies as early as 486 bc. At the Lenaea, the midwinter festival founded in the 440s bc, both genres were on show from the very beginning. By the time Aristophanes produced his Frogs in 405 bc, Greek tragedy had already its trio to boast and to hand over to future generations: to his dismay, Astydamas the Younger was born too late to compete with Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.20 Given that Aristotle could speak of Aristophanes in the same breath as Sophocles and Homer, comedy too had already its big names, even though Aristotle found later comedy more to his taste.21 Both tragedy and comedy also found their way outside Athens and Attica: dramatists exported their products, local audiences watched their plays and local artists reproduced them too.22 It comes as no surprise that Sicily, which had been watching comedies from the early fifth century bc, also took an interest in Attic tragedy. The exact chronology and number of Aeschylus’ trips to Sicily are not completely clear, but we find him there in 476 bc to celebrate the founding of Hieron’s Aetna (or rather the forced resettlement of Catane) with his Women of Aetna and to produce his Persians again, a tragedy first staged in Athens in 472 bc.23 Tradition has Aeschylus dying in Gela, where his lavish burial place soon became a pilgrimage site: ‘those who made their livelihood in tragedy’, we read in the Life of Aeschylus (11), ‘made frequent trips to his memorial, where they made offerings and staged plays’ (or, perhaps better, ‘staged his plays’).24 The hero cult that Aeschylus received in Sicily is one of the factors that may help explain why his plays had a longer afterlife in Western Greek theatres and, later on, in Roman ones than on fourth-century bc and Hellenistic stages in Athens and Greece in general.25 Although Euripides is on record as journeying to Syracuse not as a playwright, like Aeschylus, but as an ambassador, Euripides’ plays were 20

21 22

23

24 25

This is the implication of the epigram that Astydamas wrote for the statue dedicated to him by the Athenians for his victory at the Great Dionysia in 340 bc. On Astydamas’ epigram, which is preserved by a number of sources (60 Astydamas II TrGF T 2a; see also T 2b), see Wilson 1996: 316–17. On his statue, see further below. Arist. Poet. 1448a24–8, Eth. Nic. 1128a22–5 (on which see below). The biographies of ancient poets and their reliability have been notoriously discredited by Lefkowitz 1981, but later scholarship has salvaged at least some of the evidence they gather. See, among others, Taplin 1999: 41–3, Revermann 1999/2000, Csapo 2010: 96–100. On Aeschylus’ presence in Sicily, see Life of Aeschylus 8–11 (Aesch. TrGF T 1.27–47). See also schol. Ar. Frogs Vb3 1028a (Aesch. TrGF T 56a) and note that Eratosthenes’ On Comedies (fr. 109 S) is given as the source for a performance of Aeschylus’ Persians in Syracuse. Phrynichus may have anticipated Aeschylus as the first tragedian in Sicily. See below. Aesch. TrGF T 1.46–7 with Wilson 2007: 356–7. Taplin 2007: 48–87 reviews the pictorial record for performances of Aeschylus in South Italy. On the theatrical reception of Aeschylus in the fourth century bc, see Nervegna (forthcoming, a).

Setting the stage

both known and eagerly sought after there too. The Greeks living in Sicily ‘longed for Euripides’ poetry’ to the extent that, in the wake of the Athenian defeat in Sicily in 413 bc, they granted food and freedom to the Athenian captives ‘for teaching them what they remembered of [Euripides’] works’ and singing his songs.26 According to Plutarch, the Greeks in Sicily would learn ‘samples and morsels brought by visitors’ and were happy to share them with one another. In a similar version of the story given by Plutarch, the Athenian prisoners taught Euripides to their conquerors’ sons.27 Either way, we can trace here a strand of the oral tradition that kept alive bits and pieces of Euripides’ drama, and especially his songs, among common people over generations. This anecdote also brings into relief the role of chorus members in spreading Euripides’ tragedies: to their good fortune, at least some of the Athenian soldiers had served in Euripides’ choruses. Athens was not a big place, but it is perhaps interesting that, as Plutarch suggests, some of the survivors knew Euripides: back in Athens, many of them ‘reportedly greeted him with affection’, happy to tell him their experience in Sicily.28 The first production of Euripides’ Andromache notoriously took place outside Athens and by 411 bc, Aristophanes’ women could complain that Euripides had slandered them ‘everywhere . . . there are spectators, tragic actors and choruses’.29 Euripides himself brought his drama north of Athens. He reportedly spent time both in Magnesia, Thessaly, where he was granted privileges, and in Macedon, at the court of Archelaos, where he died.30 Unlike their tragic counterparts, fifth-century bc comic poets do not seem to have been as mobile. The only possible exception may be the dramatist Phrynichus, who, according to a work on comedy, died in Sicily; since, however, this Phrynichus can be better identified as the tragic poet, this case is controversial at best.31 In the early fourth century bc, at any rate, Greek comedy also moved westwards: we have a huge number of comic vases 26

27 28 29 30

31

Arist. Rh. 1384b15 with scholion on 1384b16 (Euripides as an ambassador in Syracuse; see Taplin 1999: 42 and Csapo 2010: 98); Plut. Nic. 29 (Eur. TrGF T 96, 189a). Interestingly, Plutarch mentions that Euripides’ songs also came in handy for the Carians from Caunus, granting them reception in the harbour of Syracuse. Satyr. Life of Euripides, fr. 39 col. XIX 11, Eur. TrGF T 189b. Elsewhere, Plutarch (Mor. 46b) presents Euripides as training his own choruses. Schol. Andr. 445 (with Allan 2000, esp. 149–51 for general discussion); Ar. Thesm. 390–1. Euripides in Thessaly: Family and Life of Euripides 6 (Eur. TrGF T IA.19); Euripides in Macedon: Eur. TrGF T 112–20 with Revermann 1999/2000, Csapo 2010: esp. 172, Csapo and Wilson (forthcoming). Prolegomena III, p. 9 K. (Phrynichus T 2 K-A); 3 Phrynichus TrGF T 6. The Prolegomena have Phrynichus as the son of Phradmon, which may be a corruption of Polyphradmon, named as one of the possible fathers of the tragic poet (Suda φ 762; 3 Phrynichus TrGF T 1). Harvey 2000: 114–15

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from the Greek West, some of which provide indisputable evidence for reperformances of Old Comedies. The chief examples are the two Apulian red-figure bell kraters reproducing Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusai and Frogs, but more plays are hidden in the over a hundred and thirty vases illustrating complete scenes.32 A spot of its own in the production of comic vases belongs to the theatre-loving Taras, but centres like Metapontum, Thurii and Syracuse must also have had their fair share of exposure to Attic comedy. A case can even be made for non-Greek populations living in South Italy. Starting from the second quarter of the fourth century bc, craftsmen working in Taras used theatrical motifs to grace red-figure askoi and, later on, volute kraters – two types of vessels specifically meant for the native market.33 The survival of dramatic texts has traditionally turned the fifth century bc into the golden age of Greek theatre, but the fourth century bc was the ‘boom period’, as modern economists would describe it. The spread of Greek theatre can be mapped all over the Mediterranean and beyond: from Sicily and South Italy to Macedon, Asia Minor and the Black Sea. Indeed, it is easier to point out the exceptions than to detail the trend. Drawing from literary, archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Frederiksen can list over ninety permanent theatres by 300 bc. Crete stands out in having no theatres before the Roman period. Lacedaimon, Messenia and Thessaly are noteworthy in providing so little evidence for theatrical activities and theatrical buildings.34 Csapo (2010: 102–3) calculates that by 340 bc, twenty-three festivals securely hosted dramatic performances and as many as fifty-five were strongly likely to include them. Theatre spread far and wide, but Attica remained the seat of a vibrant theatrical tradition: it is here, indeed, that we can locate plenty of theatres, dramatic festivals, poets and actors. Our records from Classical

32

33 34

argues for Phrynichus the comic poet mostly because the Prolegomena are here interested in the death of comic playwrights. The works of the tragedian Phrynichus, at any rate, were known in early fourth-century bc Syracuse. See Timaeus, FGrH 566 F 32 (preserved by Ath. 6.250b); 3 Phrynichus TrGF T 11, discussed on pp. 170–1. Thesmophoriazusai: Würzburg H5697 (c. 370 bc). Frogs Berlin F3046 (375–350 bc; now surviving only in one photograph and one drawing). See also a Paestan red-figure bell krater preserved in Salerno (Museo Provinciale Pc 1812; c. 350 bc) and reasonably connected to Eupolis’ Demes, and the three Apulian gutti reproducing Aristophanes’ Acharnians and dated to 330–320 bc (Naples, MN Stantangelo 368; Tampa Museum, Zewadki Collection; Private Collection, Westphalia, Germany). On Attic comedy in South Italy, see Csapo 1986 and 2010: ch. 2; Taplin 1993; Green 1994, esp. 64–7; Revermann 2006: 69–72. J. Richard Green is preparing an updated catalogue of our vases illustrating Old Comedy. Robinson 2004/6. Frederiksen 2002: esp. 91; Wilson and Csapo 2009: 51. Le Guen 2001b: 287–8 rightly explains the case of Crete with the absence here of a Panhellenic festival linked to dramatic agones: war and piracy prevented the Cretans from establishing agones stephanitai attractive for audiences and performers.

Setting the stage

Athens and beyond give the lion’s share to the City Dionysia and the Lenaea, but starting in the mid-fifth century bc a number of theatres and Dionysia – the ‘Dionysia in the fields’ (τὰ κατ’ ἀγροὺς Διονύσια), as our sources commonly call them35 – sprang up like mushrooms throughout Attica. Literary sources offer a glimpse into the Rural Dionysia only rarely, leaving the epigraphic record to fill the gap. Although often fragmentary, scattered across time and not always as specific as one would like, inscriptions in the demes took care to celebrate successful khoregoi, for instance, or to record that benefactors were crowned at the Dionysia.36 To start with the bigger picture, at least seventeen demes securely hosted dramatic performances, Dionysia and choregic activities. In about half of these demes we find both tragedies and comedies (Anagyrous, Eleusis, Halai Aixonides, Ikarion, Kollytos, Piraeus, Rhamnous and Thorikos).37 In other instances, only tragedy (Paiania) or comedy (Acharnai, Aixone) left a trace on surviving inscriptions.38 More elusive are our scattered records relating the celebration of Dionysia (Hagnous, Lamptrai),39 mentioning choregic activities (Aigilia, Halai Araphenides)40 and the awarding of prohedria to deserving individuals (Myrrhinous, Sphettos).41 To this list we may add the 35

36 37

38

39

40 41

Ar. Ach. 202, 250; Aeschin. In Tim. 157; Theophr. Char. 3.3. See Jones 2004: 125–7. On the Rural Dionysia, readers should consult Goette (forthcoming), Csapo and Wilson (forthcoming). List of deme Dionysia: Jones 2004: 129–36 with the comments by Wilson 2010: 40–1 with n. 12. The references given often include only our earliest evidence. Anagyrous: IG I3 969, c. 440–431 bc (tragedy; see further below); IG II2 3101, c. 350 bc (comedy). Eleusis: IG I3 970, dated to the years 425–406 bc (comedy and tragedy; see further below). Halai Aixonides: IG II2 3091, dated to c. 380 bc (comedy and tragedy; see further below) with Csapo 2010: 92–3 for ascribing this record to this deme rather than to the City Dionysia. Ikarion: IG I3 254, c. 440–415 bc (SEG XXXVIII 10, tragedy; see further Wilson 2000, esp. 79–80); for comedy, see Ath. 2.40a–b and Marm. Par. 38. Kollytos: Aeschin. In Tim. 157 (comedy, 354 bc); e.g., Dem. 18.180 (tragedy, 330 bc). Piraeus: ‘law of Euegoros’ mentioned in Dem. 21.10 and therefore predating the events of 348 bc (see also, for what it is worth, Ael. VH 2.13 on Euripides performing in this deme). Rhamnous: SEG XLVIII 129, dated to the fourth century bc (tragedy); IG II2 3108, vaguely dated to the fourth century bc, and IG II2 3109, probably dated to the late fourth century bc (comedy). Thorikos: SEG XL 128 (fourth century, comedy and tragedy); see also SEG XXXIV 174 (c. 375–325 bc). Paiania: IG II2 3097, c. 350 bc. Acharnai: IG II2 3106, fourth century bc (but note that a case for tragedy here could be made on the basis of IG II2 3092 + SEG XLV 250, c. 400 bc, on which see Csapo 2010: 93). Aixone: IG II2 1202, SEG XXXVI 186 (313/12 bc); see also IG II2 1198 (326/5 bc) honouring two khoregoi. Hagnous: IG II2 1183, after 340 bc (on the assignment of this inscription to Hagnous rather than Myrrhinous, see Traill 1986: 132). Lamptrai: IG II2 1161, 325–300 bc (on which see Wilson 2010: 48–9). Aigilia: IG II2 3096, before 350 bc. Halai Araphenides: SEG XLVI 153, 341/0 bc. Myrrhinous: IG II2 1182, SEG XLVIII 121 (? c. 350 bc). Sphettos: SEG XXXVI 187, c. 350–300 bc; note also the choregic relief from Sphettos celebrating a victory in tragedy dated to the late fourth century bc (Csapo 2010: 95 with references). The deme of Athmonon could perhaps be added to the list (SEG LI 193 with Wilson 2010: 41, n. 12).

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two Athenian-Attic communities of Brauron and Salamis, which both celebrated the Dionysia.42 Although they do not necessarily imply dramatic performances, theatrical buildings make up yet another intriguing category of evidence. We can be sure that Trachones (Euonymon), for instance, had a theatre by the mid-fourth century bc if not earlier, but the identification and dating of the one in Kephale, for instance, seem to be beyond recovery.43 Demes-men started building their theatres early on. Ikarion, the alleged birthplace of Thespis and Susarion, and the home town of both comedy and tragedy according to Athenaeus (2.40a–b), had its own theatre by the end of the sixth century bc. With its earliest theatre dated to 525–480 bc, Thorikos is a close runner-up.44 Spaced throughout Attica and apparently concentrated in the demes with the largest population and an average bouletic quota around 7.8, the Rural Dionysia guaranteed a fairly even distribution of the festival activities, all held in the winter, during the month of Poseidon.45 Evidently, they also catered to the smaller neighbouring demes: the maximum capacity of the theatres of Euonymon and especially Thorikos is well beyond the deme demographics and was therefore designed to host audiences coming from elsewhere.46 A few features distinguish the deme Dionysia and their organization from the city festivals. Most interestingly perhaps, the deme khoregoi, who were often members of the same family, collaborated to fund the festival and could also obtain privileges and awards unfamiliar to their urban colleagues.47 Just like their city counterparts, however, dramatic competitions in the demes could also boast popular playwrights. An inscription found at Anagyrous and dated to slightly after the mid-fifth century bc gives Euripides as the successful didaskalos. One of Euripides’ few victories, it was inscribed on a special record: this is one of our earliest choregic 42

43 44

45

46

47

Schol. Ar. Peace 874; Arist. [Ath.Pol.] 54.8 (see Jones 2004: 136). A relief from Brauron possibly dated around the mid-fourth century bc gives iconographic evidence for comedy. See Csapo 2010: 95. Sear 2006: 391, 410. For the theatre of Trachones, see also Csapo 2010: 89 with references. Sear 2006: 399, 409. Wilson 2010: 41 with nn. 12–13 (see also Jones 2004: 140) counts at least eight demes with securely attested ‘built’ theatres: Acharnae, Aixone, Euonymon, Ikarion, Piraeus, Rhamnous, Sphettos, Thorikos, with Halinous as another candidate. Marathon may also have had its own theatre. See Wilson 2010: 67–8, n. 97. Dionysia and demes’ population: Jones 2004: esp. 139 with Wilson 2010: 41–2. Note that, with its bouletic quota of 3, Kollytos is below the average but is most likely to have attracted larger crowds and presumably held its Dionysia in the urban theatre. Jones 2004: 142; see also Whitehead 1986a: 212–13 (Rural Dionysia attracting audiences from other demes); Wilson 2010: 68–9 (data on the capacity of the theatres in Euonymon and Thorikos and the demographics of these demes). Wilson 2010: esp. 45–6.

Setting the stage

memorials, and it is also unique in including the names of the chorus members (who are all from Anagyrous). A few years later, both Aristophanes and Sophocles were crowned in Eleusis, where they directed plays. The names of Cratinus and Sophocles appear on an early fourthcentury bc monument from Halai Aixonides, a marble base that supported a statue.48 The demes welcomed dramatic activities in the fifth century bc to increase their demand in the following century. To this period belong the majority of our records: by then, a relatively small area like Attica gave dramatists plenty of opportunities to stage their plays. And it is very likely that they did not miss out on them. The multiplication of venues and dramatic performances in the fourth century bc goes hand in hand with that of comedies and comic playwrights. The now anonymous author of On Comedy knew of 365 Old Comedies, including spurious cases, and 617 Middle Comedies in circulation in his day. One of the speakers of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai boasts having read and excerpted an even higher number of Middle Comedies, 800. This figure is roughly half-way between the some 580 titles known from this period and the sum of the figures given by the Suda for individual authors, well over 900.49 What we know about the output of individual playwrights fits well into this picture. With his 44 recorded plays Aristophanes leads the Old Comedy trio, well above Cratinus (21) and Eupolis (17), but he is not too far from Hermippos (40), with Plato (28), Theopompos (24) and Strattis (16) following at a distance. Fourth- and early third-century comic poets outdid their earlier colleagues in productivity. Antiphanes is variously credited with 365 or 280 plays, Alexis with 245 and Eubulus with 104. The New Comedy ‘big three’, Menander, Diphilus and Philemon, are credited with some 100 comedies each, and even their less prolific contemporaries did not fare too poorly. We hear of 45 comedies for Philippides and 30 for Posidippus. Of course, these numbers are not problem-free. Apart from the usual suspicions about the reliability of our source for them, the Suda in most cases, at least occasionally the direct or indirect tradition preserves a different number of titles. Consider also that the attribution of (especially) Middle Comedy plays was already a tricky business for ancient scholars and that, while some homonymous titles might have been omitted, the alternative 48

49

IG I3 969 (c. 440–431 bc, on which see Wilson 2000: 131–4), IG I3 970 (c. 425–406 bc), IG II2 3091 (c. 380 bc) with Csapo 2010: 90–4. Wilson (2000: 248) considers the probability that IG II2 3091 commemorates victories won in the fifth century bc and that it was recorded either later in life by the khoregoi themselves or by their descendants or deme. Prolegomena III, pp. 7 and 10 K; Ath. 8.336d. See Mensching 1964: 45–7, Hunter 1983: 11–12.

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titles preserved for several comedies may have inflated our figures.50 In some cases, moreover, our figures may be related to the plays in circulation at a given time rather than to a poet’s overall output.51 Needless to say, the length of a poet’s career is the other important variable in assessing his productivity. Frustratingly, we lack secure dates for most playwrights, but what we have does point to later comic poets writing more and faster. Aristophanes and Plato were both active for some forty years, while Eupolis was so for some twenty years only. Their average was roughly one play per year against the three or so comedies that Menander wrote every year, apparently keeping an overall consistent pace of production. Old Comedy poets often comment on the effort they put into composing their plays. At the end of his Chirons, for instance, Cratinus takes care to claim that this comedy ‘was barely finished in two years’, although other poets would need an entire lifetime to imitate it.52 But Menander was reportedly under no stress at the eve of the Dionysia. Asked by a friend if he had a play ready, he allegedly responded: ‘Yes, by the gods, I have composed the comedy. The plot is all laid out and all I have to do is to throw in the lines.’53 Antiphanes, who was active from the 380s to at least the 310s bc, makes the prologue speaker of his Poetry complain of the different demands imposed on tragic and comic poets. All a tragedian has to do is to name his characters and the audience already knows the whole story; in the worst case scenario, if he is completely at a loss, he can simply ‘lift the crane like his finger’ and make everybody happy. A comic poet must invent everything from scratch: ‘new names . . . background, present circumstances, end and beginning. If a Chremes or Pheidon forgets any of this, he is hissed off the stage.’54 Apart from the rhetoric of his lines reworking an Old Comedy topos, Antiphanes himself must have mastered the difficult skill of comedy writing fairly well to average four or five plays per year.55 The typical plots revolving around a love-story that came to predominate on the comic stage made drama ‘mass production’ an easier task. The chorus’ marginalization 50 51 52

53 54

55

Hunter 1983: 12 with earlier literature. On alternative titles, see pp. 93–8. Kostantakos 2008: 82. Aristid. Or. 28.91, without naming Cratinus (F 255 K-A). See Bakola 2010: 55 and, in general, Sommerstein 1992: 19. Plut. Mor. 347e–f (Men. T 70 K-A). Antiphanes, Poetry F 189.15, 18–22 K-A. The speaker of this prologue has been identified with either poetry or comedy, but the reference to ‘us’ (17) points to a comic playwright. See Revermann 2006: 18, n. 29; Olson 2007: 172. On the chronology of Antiphanes, see Kostantakos 2000. On Old Comedy poets and the rhetoric of innovation, see Ruffell 2002, esp. 160–1; Slater 1999: esp. 359–60; Sommerstein 1992: 17–19.

The politics of the Greek comic tradition

and the reduction of the musical component also helped the case: not only were later playwrights largely relieved of the burden of devising a role for their choruses, whose songs were eventually reduced to entr’actes, but they also tended to limit actors’ songs.56 Our fragments for fourth- and thirdcentury comedy have few lyrics. Only occasionally does Menander throw songs into his plays (Theophoroumene, Phasma, Leukadia): indeed, his comedies offer some good opportunities for missed songs.57

The politics of the Greek comic tradition So far I have been referring to the history of Greek comedy using the standard tripartite division of this genre into Old, Middle and New Comedy. Fully attested in the second century ad when we consistently hear of Middle Comedy, this distinction is likely to have been originally formulated by Early-Hellenistic scholars in its bipartite, if not tripartite form.58 Ancient writers articulated the history of Greek comedy into three phases, explained by political changes, a string of laws curtailing comic freedom as well as violent reactions by real people ridiculed or represented in Greek comedy (komoidoumenoi) and general fear. These writers’ accounts are often sprinkled with incredible anecdotes. If a single episode is to be selected as a turning point in the history of comic theatre, centre-stage probably goes to Eupolis and Alcibiades: to retaliate against Eupolis’ Baptai, Alcibiades reportedly had the playwright thrown into the sea. Eratosthenes already knew and discredited this anecdote, but the story kept being repeated from one source to the other.59 Platonius, who possibly lived in the ninth or tenth century, is typical in identifying Old Comedy and its

56

57

58

59

Our sources for the interaction between actors and choruses in later comedy include Aeschin. In Tim. 157, Alexis F 239, possibly Eubulus F 102–3 and Timocles’ Orestautokleides F 27–8 K-A (a parody of Aeschylus’ Eumenides; see Olson 2007: 175–6 with references). Hunter 1979 discusses comic choruses in the fourth century bc. See also below on choruses in Roman comedy. Middle Comedy is fond of long speeches on meals and foodstuff, composed in anapestic dimeters spoken or chanted by actors (see Arnott 1996a: 20). Theophoroumene: schol. Eur. Andr. 103; Phasma: Caesius Bassus, GrL 6.1.255 K (T VII Arnott); Leukadia: ll. 11–16 with Arnott’s comments. See also the young man singing on the Naples relief discussed on p. 164. See also pp. 216–17 on Thrasonides’ speech at the beginning of Misoumenos. Nesselrath 1990: esp. 186–7 ascribes the tripartite structure of comedy to Aristophanes of Byzantium, although solid evidence is lacking. Note, however, that the tripartite structure of comedy is already attested in TC XVIII, a work that Janko 1984 uses to reconstruct the lost second book of Aristotle’s Poetics. Cic. Att. 6.1.18. Prolegomena I, pp. 3–4; XIa1, p. 27; XIc, p. 44; XXb, pp. 78–9 K.

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political attacks as the mode of fifth-century radical democracy. On his reading, Middle Comedy and its parodies came to the forefront under the Thirty Tyrants, giving way to New Comedy during the Macedonian domination (Prolegomena I, pp. 3–6 K). Needless to say, Platonius and his sweeping chronology make no room for the various democratic restorations in between. Crucial to ancient theories on the transformation of comedy is the transformation of personal abuse, from the open attacks of Old Comedy to the veiled ones of Middle Comedy and the lack of invective in New Comedy, or rather its targeting only slaves and foreigners.60 Not without difficulties, poets and plays were placed within a teleological development of the genre according to the amount of invective they featured. There is common agreement, for instance, that Menander belongs to New Comedy, but Cratinus, who is generally considered the earliest and bitterest representative of Old Comedy, can be assimilated to Middle Comedy because his play Odysseis ‘censures no one’. Likewise, Plato straddles the Old and the Middle.61 The neat succession of these three kinds of comedy sits quite uncomfortably with our knowledge of comic production in Classical and EarlyHellenistic Athens.62 ‘Rape, recognition and all the other things that Menander emulated’ went back at least to Aristophanes’ Kokalos, with Anaxandrides, traditionally labelled a Middle Comedy poet, as another contender for the introduction of ‘love affairs and rapes of girls’.63 That the standardized characters and masks that literary sources associate with Middle and New Comedy were already in circulation during Aristophanes’ lifetime is unquestionably proven by the archaeological record. Consider the so-called New York Group, made in the late fifth century bc and apparently found in a grave in Athens. This series now comprises some twenty actors’ figurines reproducing not the characters of a specific play but standardized types: they point to a shift from representation of comic scenes, such as those we find on Western Greek vases, to types. Figurines were the favourite media for comic souvenirs for most of the fourth century bc, giving way to masks towards the end of this period.64 On the one hand, the plots and types we traditionally associate with Menander can be traced 60

61

62 63 64

This transformation of comic abuse is variously phrased in Prolegomena I, pp. 3–6; XIa, p. 27; XIb, p. 44; XVIIIa, p. 71 K. Cratinus’ Odysseis: Prolegomena 1, p. 5 K (but see Sommerstein 2009: 284–6, who argues that Platonius or his source may have confused Cratinus’ Odysseis with the fourth-century Odysseus of Theopompos). Plato as a Middle Comedy poet: Prolegomena XVIIIa, p. 71 K with Rosen 1995. Important discussions: Csapo 2000, Sidwell 2000a, Revermann 2006: 98–9. Life of Aristophanes 50–1 (Ar. T 1 K-A); Suda α 1982 (Anaxandrides T 1 K-A). MMC345–60, AT 9–23 (New York Group). See Green 1994: 34–7, 63–5, MNC3 1.54–8.

The politics of the Greek comic tradition

back to the fifth and early fourth century bc. On the other hand, political comedy is hard to fit into the straitjacket of the Old–Middle–New Comedy triad. The fifth-century poet Crates is on record as abandoning ‘the iambic form’ and constructing ‘universalized stories and plots’. Aristotle gives Crates as the first author of this kind of comedy in Athens, and a later source speaks of Pherecrates as imitating Crates in refraining from abuse.65 As Halliwell (1991) has shown, the laws and various restraining measures that ancient sources cite to explain the transition from Aristophanes to Menander have little if any credibility: they come from comic texts and guesswork on them and are the product of scholarly efforts to make sense of dramatic tradition.66 The most reliable attempts to restrain comic freedom in Athens – the decree passed by Morychides which was in force from 440/39 to 437/6 bc and Cleon’s alleged attempts to prosecute Aristophanes – were ad hoc initiatives of limited success.67 Fourth- and early third-century Greek comedy still made room for personal abuse. Comedy notoriously came to be defined as imitation of life, but when a Hellenistic work calls the vocabulary of the fourth-century orator Demades ‘poetic with a mixture of comedy’, comedy here equals invective and personal ridicule.68 In reading later Greek plays, Diogenes Laertius and Athenaeus found two types of komoidoumenoi particularly congenial to their interests: philosophers and courtesans. Pythagoras, his followers and other philosophical schools were favourite comic butts, but Plato held the spotlight. Lampooned for a variety of things, from his teachings to his stern expression and his habit of walking up and down, he replaced Socrates in fifth-century comedy.69 From Lais, who became a byword for ‘courtesan’, to Sinope and the many other hetairai Aristophanes of Byzantium and other authors later

65

66

67

68

69

Arist. Poet. 1449b7–9; Prolegomena III, p. 8 K (Pherecrates T 2a K-A). Crates’ comedies without iambic style are generally thought to have lacked personal invective, but note also Heath 1990, who detects problems with this interpretation. To the same tradition seems also to belong the ‘non-production’ note in the hypothesis to Menander’s Imbrians. See above. Morychides’ decree: schol. on Ar. Ach. 67; Suda ε 3509. See Halliwell 1991: esp. 64. For Cleon’s attempts to prosecute Aristophanes, we depend on Acharnians (esp. 377–82, 502–8), Wasps (1284–91) and related scholia. See Sommerstein 2004. Demetr. Eloc. 286. Worman 2008: esp. 10–11, 235–7, discusses Demades and his crude style. On definitions of comedy, see further below. Pythagoras and his followers: Diog. Laert. 8.36–8, Ath. 4.161a–f (probably drawing their comic jibes from a work on komoidoumenoi). On Plato as a comic butt, see Diog. Laert. 3.26–8; see also Arnott 1996a: 49–50, Brock 1990: 41. Webster 1953: 50–6 discusses references to philosophers in Middle Comedy. Note also that two philosophers, Menedemus and Cleanthes, are the protagonists of two later satyr-plays, Lycophron’s Menedemus and Sositheus’ Cleanthes-drama. See Sutton 1980: 81–2, Günther 1999a and 1999b: 614–16.

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collected, courtesans rivalled philosophers as targets of comic ridicule.70 Given that a certain Antiochos of Alexandria wrote a work entitled On the Poets Satirised in Middle Comedy (Ath. 11.482c), poets (and presumably their plays) must also have offered plenty of comic material. But reducing later komoidoumenoi to philosophers, courtesans and poets would be misleading. For all its importance in recording the reception of fifth-century tragedy, fourth-century oratory has virtually nothing to say about fifth-century comedy, but sheds some important light on the contemporary comic stage.71 Advocating a lasting peace that went beyond the one just agreed upon with the disgruntled allies at the end of the so-called Social War (357–355 bc), Isocrates (8.14) comments on the dangers and hazards of opposing current views. ‘Although there is a free government’, he remarks, ‘there is still no freedom of speech (parrhesia) except here in the assembly for the most reckless orators who care nothing for your welfare, and in the theatre for the comic poets.’ In 346 bc, as he was prosecuting Timarchos for speaking in the assembly when he was once a male prostitute, Aeschines (In Tim. 157) makes a point of mentioning a comic reference to ‘big Timarchos-like whores’. More elusive but still interesting are the references to Aristophon of Azenia, a long-lived politician (430s to 330s bc) famous for both his legal problems and his successful handling of them. The law-suit that Hyperides brought against him for illegal proposals in 362 bc was just one of the seventy-five such trials at which Aristophon managed to be acquitted, at least according to Aeschines.72 Not that his troubles with the law were the only thing for which Aristophon was known: an ancient scholiast notes that Aristophon also earned a reputation for his cruel treatment of the island of Ceos and that this was one of the reasons why ‘he has been ridiculed’ (κεκωμῴδηται).73 With their anxiety about comic abuse, Plato and Aristotle do help us sketch a lively Old Comedy tradition well after its putative end.74 The political involvement and personal abuse traditionally associated with Old Comedy can be traced in at least a few plays staged in the fourth and early third centuries bc. Given that Polyeuktos is a common name, it 70

71

72

73 74

Lais: e.g., Epikrates F 2–4 (from his Antilais), Anaxandrides F 9, Philetairos F 9, Theophilos F 11. Sinope: e.g., Amphis F 23, Anaxilas F 22, Antiphanes F 43, 114 K-A. On Aristophanes of Byzantium’s On Hetairai, see T 364–6 S. For the reception of fifth-century tragedy in fourth-century oratory, see Wilson 1996: esp. 312–17. Hyp. fr. 17; see also Aeschin. In Ctes. 194. The number given by Aeschines is not beyond suspicion. See Oost 1977, Whitehead 1986b. Schol. on Aeschin. In Tim. 64 (schol. on Hyp. fr. 17). Pl. Resp. 606c, Laws 816e, 935d–936a, Arist. Pol. 1336b20–4. See further below.

The politics of the Greek comic tradition

remains unclear whether Polyeuktos by the Middle Comedy poet Heniochos was a caricature of Polyeuktos of Sphettos, one of Demosthenes’ colleagues in the anti-Macedonian party. But a fragment of another comedy by Heniochos, a passage probably lifted from the prologue, has clear political overtones. Cited by Stobaeus under the heading ‘on government’ (περὶ πολιτείας), the speaker introduces the cities gathered at Olympia to celebrate their freedom from tribute. After performing their sacrifice, however, ‘Irresolution’ (᾽Aβoυλία) has taken hold of them, so that they keep changing their mind on what form of constitution they should adopt. ‘Two women’, the speaker concludes (15–17), ‘are always with them and keep them upset: one is called Democracy, the other Aristocracy.’ Olson suggests that Irresolution, Democracy and Aristocracy were characters in the play, with the swaying cities making up the chorus.75 Mnesimachos and Eubulus named two of their comedies after foreign princes, Philip and Dionysius of Syracuse, with Ephippus also turning the Sicilian tyrant into a comic target.76 More direct evidence for political comedy aimed at powerful Athenians comes from Menander’s lifetime, with Philippides as its bestknown representative. The comic poet Philippides, who hailed from the deme of Kephale, was celebrated for his good deeds to the city of Athens and the democracy. As we read in the decree on a stele erected near the sanctuary of Dionysus in 283/2 bc, his merits were so outstanding that they earned him a golden crown, a bronze statue in the theatre and special privileges like the prohedria.77 Philippides was one of the rich benefactors on whom Athens came to rely both politically and economically: among other things, he intervened with Lysimachos, king of Thrace, to ensure a grain distribution in 299/8 bc and to ransom the Athenians captured after the battle of Ipsos in 301 bc. More of his generosity was privately funded. Next to granting a burial to the Athenians who died in Ipsos at his own expense, as the agonothetes of the year 284/3 bc Philippides also sponsored an additional agon (competition) for Demeter and Kore. This contest was meant to be ‘a memorial to the liberation of the demos’ (44–5). Philippides’ commitment to democratic rule and ideals stands out as a leitmotiv in the decree passed for him, where we read that he ‘never did anything in opposition to democracy either by word or by deed’ (48–50). Were it not for Plutarch’s biography of Demetrius the Besieger, however, we would not know that Philippides’ political fight also had the stage as one of 75 76 77

Heniochos F 5 K-A with Olson 2007: 126–8. See also Webster 1953: 44. Mnesimachos F 7–10; Eubulus F 24–8; Ephippus F 16 K-A. IG II2 657 (Syll..3 374, Philippides T 3 K-A). On this decree, see Leslie Shear 1978 passim and the references given below for Philippides.

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its venues and comic ridicule as one of its means. Philippides’ target, or at least one of his targets, was Stratocles of Diomeia. Associated with a number of decrees passed in this period, Stratocles quickly gained a reputation for voicing and promoting Demetrius the Besieger’s requests, clashing openly with the democrat Demochares. This clash was apparently prompted by an ironic comment made by Demochares on Stratocles, a sharp remark which cost Demochares a long exile, from 304/3 bc to 286/5 bc, after Demetrius the Besieger was ousted from the city for the second time.78 For all his political clout, Stratocles did not escape Philippides’ radar and may even have been a character in one of his plays.79 ‘Abusing (λοιδορῶν) Stratocles’, Plutarch tells us, Philippides spoke of him as the one ‘who abridged the whole year into a single month’, referring to his successful proposal to change the calendar to allow Demetrius’ initiation to the Eleusinian mysteries in 303/2 bc. This initiative met with both human and divine indignation: ‘because of him’, Philippides writes, ‘the frost blasted the vines, because of his impiety the peplos split into two, since he gave divine honours to men. This destroys the demos, not comedy’ (ταῦτα καταλύει δῆμον, οὐ κωμῳδία).80 The last line calls for comment. ‘To destroy the demos’ is a technical expression attested in the decrees passed for Demochares in 271/0 bc and for Kallias of Sphettos one year later, in 270/69 bc.81 In both cases, it refers to the rule of Demetrius the Besieger in Athens. As Leslie Shear points out, the ‘destruction of the demos’ is far from simply expressing anxiety about the establishment of an oligarchic rule: ‘to the Athenian ear, [it] would at once conjure up the spector of the “tyrant”’. Attested in the decree of Demophantos in 410/9 bc and in the law against tyranny formulated by Eukrates in 336 bc, this expression probably goes back to the anti-tyrannical legislation of Solon and even Drakon.82 The destruction of the demos is a charge moved by Philippides against Stratocles in response, it seems, to the charge moved by Stratocles against comedy. The exchange between Stratocles and Philippides powerfully bespeaks the degree of freedom that comic poets still had at the turn of the fourth century bc – comedy was still a pressing concern for politicians and politics for comic poets.

78 79 80

81 82

Plut. Demetr. 24.5. See Habicht 1997: 71–2 and further below. See Philippides F 26 K-A with Philipp 1973: 505–6. Plut. Demetr. 26.3, 12.4 (Philippides F 25 K-A). On Philippides and Stratocles, see Philipp 1973, O’Sullivan 2009: 64–8. [Plut.] Mor. 851f, Hesperia Supp. 17 (1978) l. 80. See also below. Andokides 1.96, Hesperia 21 (1952) p. 355, no. 5, ll. 7–15. See Leslie Shear 1978: 50–1.

The politics of the Greek comic tradition

An additional two playwrights, Timocles and Archedikos, can stand next to Philippides. Timocles had something against Demosthenes, ‘who eats catapults and spears, a man who hates words and never made an antithesis, but has Ares in his eyes’, and he did not spare his opponent Aristomedes.83 In his Fourth Philippic, Demosthenes addresses a certain Aristomedes, whom the scholion identified as the same man ridiculed in two comic fragments, one written by Timocles.84 Hermes, one of Timocles’ characters says, ‘has come down to do a favour to the good Aristomedes so that Satyros stops calling him a thief’. Satyros could be disparaged for playing the parts of Xanthias and Karion, but since this actor also made Aristomedes one of his favourite butts, he did more than that.85 Archedikos comes up in Polybius’ tirade against his predecessor Timaeus of Tauromenion: to his disapproval, Timaeus accused Demochares of indecent conduct ‘on the testimony of an insignificant comic poet’, whose name Polybius mentions immediately after.86 Since Timaeus lived and wrote in Athens for at least fifty years after his exile from Tauromenion around 315 bc, he probably knew Archedikos and had first-hand knowledge of his drama, which Timaeus used for his history writing. Philippides thundered against foreign potentates and their underlings, but Archedikos targeted the radical democrats, something which is in line with our knowledge of Archedikos as a politician. As Habicht recognized, Archedikos the comic poet is Archedikos son of Naukritos from Lamptrai, recorded on a few inscriptions. In the year 320/19 bc, Archedikos served as the anagrapheus, an influential office introduced by the oligarchic government in 322 bc, and he is also associated with two decrees, one of which related to the honours to be granted to the king’s and Antipater’s friends.87 Archedikos was philo-Macedonian, on and off the comic stage. His career probably began in the years surrounding Alexander’s death and he was definitely active before Antipater’s death in 319 bc, when Menander had already debuted. Coming straight from a fragment of Demetrius’ Areopagites, the tyrant Lachares joins Stratocles, Demosthenes and Demochares as one of the important komoidoumenoi in later comedy. Given the reference to the famine that beset the city, Areopagites dates to after the end of Lachares’ 83

84

85 86 87

Timocles F 12.5–8, see also F 4 K-A. Demosthenes appears in a number of comic fragments, but Timocles stands out for his abusive tone. See Webster 1953: 44–5, Major 1997: 47. Dem. 10.70 with Didymus’ note. The other comic fragment cited on Aristomedes is by Philemon (see p. 107). Timocles F 14 K-A, Aeschin. On the Embassy 156–7. Polyb. 12.13.3, 7; see also Suda α 4083 (Archedikos F 4, T 2 K-A). IG II2 380–4; IG II2 402 with Habicht 1993: 255.

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tyranny in 295 bc, when Demetrius the Besieger re-entered Athens to establish an oligarchic regime.88 For all the constitutional changes affecting Athens in the late fourth and early third centuries bc, Philippides, Timocles, Archedikos and Demetrius could still lampoon politicians and their agendas. Political comedy was still to be seen on contemporary stages.

Foreign poets, later comedy and politics From the Old Oligarch onwards, ancient authors are aware that Old Comedy performs a democratic function by targeting the noble, the powerful and anyone who ‘tries to rise above the demos’ (πλέον τι ἔχειν τοῦ δήμου).89 Their comments influenced later scholars writing the history of Greek comedy to use political changes in order to explain this genre’s evolution (a good Aristotelian term), turning personal invective and its modes into criteria to shape the canon and classify poets. A shift in popular taste can already be detected in the material record in the late fifth century bc,90 but the impact of ‘internationalization’ on comedy writing in Athens and in Attica in general should not be underestimated. Internationalization is a word usually used with reference to theatre-goers in explaining later comedy and its decrease of topicality: less topical plays, the argument goes, made better plays for export.91 The transplantation of Aristophanes’ Athens-centred comedy is, however, a strike against this case. Although dramatic performances and reperformances become more common in the fourth century and beyond, Athens and Attica in general remained the main centre of theatrical activities. In the Laches (182e–3b), written in the early fourth century but dramatically set in the late fifth, Plato draws an analogy between teachers of military science gravitating to Sparta and talented tragedians making their way to Athens to work there. Judging from our evidence, this claim also holds true of later comic playwrights. There was work to be found and money to be made by travelling to Athens to produce comedies. This brings into relief the other conspicuous trend marking comic theatre in the fourth century and beyond: the increase in the number of poets and plays goes hand in hand with the increase in the number of foreign comic poets active in Athens in this period.

88 89 91

Demetrius II F 1 K-A. See below on the second rule of Demetrius the Besieger in Athens. [Xen.] Ath. pol. 2.18. 90 See above on the so-called New York Group. Slater 1995: 32 is topical. See also Seidensticker 1995: 182 with Csapo 2000: 126–8.

Foreign poets, later comedy and politics

33

Table 1. Recorded comic poets and their provenance Time period

Recorded Poets of known poets provenance

Athenian Non-Athenian poets poets

Fifth century bc

c. 34

17

16

Fifth to fourth century bc c. 21

17

15 or 16

Fourth century bc

c. 47

19

13

Fourth to third century bc

c. 14

10

5

c. 47 Third century bc (including poets dated to either the third or the second century bc)

12

6 or 7

1 Hegemon from Thasos 1 or 2 (?) Alkaios from Mytilene; Diokles from Athens or Phlious 6 Amphis from Athens or Andros; Anaxandrides from Kameiros or Colophon; Antiphanes from Chios, Rhodes, Smyrna or Larissa; Epikrates from Ambrakia; Dionysios from Sinope; Sophilos from Sikyon or Thebes 5 Alexis from Thurii; Apollodoros from Gela; Diphilus from Sinope; Lynkeus from Samos; Philemon from Syracuse or Soloi 5 or 6 Apollodoros of Karystos; Diodoros from Sinope; Phoenicides from Megara; Posidippus from Kassandrea; Eudoxos of Sicily; (?) Philemon the Younger

Consider our figures for recorded comic poets and their provenance (Table 1). Although there is much that we do not know, these figures are probably still significant. In the period spanning from the fifth to the early or mid-fourth century bc, we hear of some fifty-five poets and we have a record for the provenance of over half of them. The number of foreign comic poets producing drama in this period is small and, more importantly, never uncontroversial. According to the Suda, Alkaios was ‘from Mytilene and later [became an] Athenian’, a statement impossible to prove or disprove, although possible confusion with his namesake, the lyric poet, cannot be ruled out.92 The case for Diokles is not beyond suspicion either, since he is 92

Suda α 1274, Alkaios T 1 K-A. A parallel is provided by the epigrammatist Alkaios of Messene, who is said to be from Mytilene in a number of instances. See Gow and Page 1965.2: 6–7.

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said to be ‘from Athens or Phlious’.93 Kassel and Austin list only one nonAthenian comic playwright in the fifth century, Hegemon, who hailed from Thasos, a city where theatrical activities may not be securely recorded before about 300 bc.94 At first sight, his chronology looks unclear. Athenaeus claims that ‘some assign [him] to Old Comedy’ and that his play Philinna was ‘in the style of Old Comedy’, two statements that, according to Arnott, ‘may imply’ that Hegemon lived in the fifth century bc.95 We do have, however, at least one date for him. Since Hegemon reportedly performed his parody, Gigantomachy, in Athens the very day when the news of the Sicilian disaster reached the city, he was active in 413 bc.96 What is interesting about Hegemon is that, as far as we know, he did not earn a living as a comic poet. He was a parody writer, the first in the genre according to Aristotle, with only one play to his credit.97 In the most optimistic view, at any rate, less than 9 per cent of the poets operating in Athens in this period came from abroad. In the following century, from the early/mid-fourth century to the early/mid-third century bc, we hear of some 61 poets, with a total of 11 playwrights out of 29 of known provenance hailing from outside Attica (about 38 per cent). Their percentage grows when we consider the poets active in the third century bc only, excluding those whose careers span the fourth and third centuries bc. The Athenian:non-Athenian ratio is now 7:5 or even 6:6, with nonAthenians reaching nearly 50 per cent. Apparently, foreign dramatists never came to dominate comic production, but their increase is steady and significant. Where do these poets come from? From Sinope on the Black Sea (Dionysios and the two brothers Diphilus and Diodoros) to the Aegean islands like Samos (Lynkeus) and Andros (Amphis), the Greek East is fairly

93 94

95 96 97

Suda δ 1155, Diokles T 1 K-A. See Osborne’s sceptical comments (1983: 110, PT 127). This is the date of the inscription on the proscaenium in the theatre of Thasos recording that the scene building was dedicated to Dionysus by Lysistratos son of Kodis (IG XII Supp. 399). Hippoc. Epid. 1.20 probably mentions not a ‘theatre’ (ϑέατρον) but a ‘summer-house’ (ϑέρετρον) in Thasos. See Sear 2006: 420, Csapo 2010: 101. On theatrical activities in Thasos, see now Csapo and Wilson (forthcoming). Ath. 1.5a–b, 15.699a (Hegemon T 1–2 K-A) with Arnott’s OCD3 entry on Hegemon. Ath. 9.407a–c; see also Ath. 15.698c. Arist. Poet. 1448a12–13. Ath. 15.699a specifies that Hegemon was the first parodist to enter theatrical competitions. The itineracy of ancient Greek poets is most recently treated in the essays collected by Hunter and Rutherford 2009. In their introduction to the volume, Hunter and Rutherford also discuss the activities of foreign poets in Classical Athens, noting that fifth-century comic poets tend to be home-grown, with Hegemon as the only possible exception (on p. 14).

Foreign poets, later comedy and politics

well represented.98 Since these areas are also well represented as a find-spot of Middle Comedy material between 400 and 325 bc,99 one wonders if at least some of these comedy-related objects were meant, among other things, to celebrate the successful poets who hailed from there. Both Samos and Andros had an Athenian clerouchy, in 440 and 450 bc respectively, but as far as we know they did not host dramatic activities, or at least tragedy, until much later.100 From the Greek East also came Antiphanes and Anaxandrides. As a token of the popularity that they both achieved, there were several cities that claimed to be their home town. There is a good chance that comedy originated in Sicily, and Syracuse seems to be the best candidate: although ancient sources debate Epicharmus’ home town, they agree in making him active in Syracuse at the peak of his career, around the 480s bc. Yet, surprisingly, one has to wait over a century to find poets from the Greek West producing in Athens: Alexis from Thurii on the Gulf of Taras, Apollodoros from Gela, Philemon from Syracuse and the Sicilian Eudoxos.101 Sicilians were eager to host Aeschylus and were crazy for Euripides, yet Western comic playwrights are not on record as crossing the Adriatic to stage their plays until well into the fourth century bc. Other poets came from more or less distant Greek cities: Ambrakia (Epikrates), Megara (Phoenicides), Karystos (Apollodoros) and Sikyon or Thebes (Sophilos). Despite their long-standing exposure to Greek drama, the Macedonians’ first comic poet to produce plays in Athens was Posidippus of Kassandrea, in the third century bc. Of course, these dramatists did not belong to Athenian theatrical families, but at least a few of them were either part of a theatrical family or started their own. Diphilus and his brother Diodoros worked in the theatre business and Diodoros also seems to have been active as a comic actor. Both Antiphanes’ son, Stephanus, and Philemon’s son, Philemon the Younger, followed in their fathers’ footsteps.102

98

99 100

101

102

That Amphis was from Andros is virtually certain on the grounds of a decree granting proxenia to the poet Amphis from Andros in 332/1 bc (IG II2 347 a, b). Amphis is also a rare name and otherwise not attested for an Athenian. Since the Suda makes him an Athenian, he may have been granted citizenship later on. See the referenced discussion in Lambert 2008: esp. 62 and 68; Osborne 1983: PT 138, p. 113. Green 1994: 68–9 with figs. 3.9–11. Samos: IG XII 6.253, l. 11 (c. 350 bc); Andros: IG XII 5.714 (mid- or late third century bc). See Csapo 2010: 100. Philemon is unanimously said to be from Syracuse except for Strabo (14 C 671), who includes him among the prominent figures coming from Soloi, in Cilicia. See Sutton 1987: 21–2.

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We know very little of these foreign poets and their activities, but whenever they appear on our records, we can locate them at the Dionysia, the Lenaea, or even both festivals. This is not to say that later poets did not travel to produce their plays elsewhere. Athenaeus claims that two fourth-century comedies, Metagenes’ Thurio-Persians and Nicophron’s Sirens, were ‘unstaged’ (ἀδίδακτά), a claim based on the fact that his source could not find them in the Athenian festival records. Not coincidentally perhaps, both comedies have some appeal to Western Greek audiences.103 For what it is worth, both Antiphanes and Diphilus died abroad, Antiphanes in Chios and Diphilus in Smyrna.104 We often hear of the Macedonians’ fascination with Euripides, but fourth-century comic poets were also apparently sought after. Antiphanes reportedly read one of his plays to Alexander the Great (who was not really pleased with it). Anaxandrides had something to do with the games of Philip of Macedon, possibly the festival at Dion in Pieria celebrated in 348 bc after the fall of Olynthos.105 For all the envoys that the kings of Macedon and Egypt sent to fetch Menander, he declined all invitations.106 Unlike him, Philemon apparently visited Ptolemy’s court, where Webster suggested he wrote his Panegyris.107 Philemon could also have produced at the Dionysia in Delos in 280 bc, although Philemon the Younger cannot be ruled out: we find him along with two other comic poets, Ameinias and Nikostratos, who were also active in Athens.108 These scattered scraps of information and especially the material record point to the diffusion of comedy far and wide in the fourth and early third centuries bc. But poets gravitated to Athens. As Green notes (1994: 68–9), ‘it is a sign of the importance of Athens in the theatrical world and at the same time of the increasingly Greek as opposed to simply Athenian nature of the medium’. According to our records, Menander never left Athens. Unfortunately, only occasionally do we know where he first presented his comedies, and his texts are of little help in reconstructing the details of their production. They make it hard to go beyond the general claim that Menander’s characters operate in a larger Greek world. Aristophanes’ comedies are more likely to be set in a different world than outside Athens, whether this ‘other world’ is 103 104 105

106 107

108

Ath. 6.270a with Revermann 2006: 71–2. Suda α 2735, Prolegomena III, p. 10 K (Antiphanes T 1, 2 ; Diphilus T 1 K-A). Ath. 13.555a, citing Lycophron’s On Comedy (Antiphanes T 8 K-A). Suda α 1982 (but the date given there, 376/2 bc, is suspicious: see K-A on Anaxandrides T 1 K-A). Pliny HN 7.111; see also Alciph. 4.18.5 (Men. T 15, 20). Alciphr. 4.18.5 (Philemon T 10 K-A). See Webster 1953: 125–6, who cites Philemon, Panegyris F 61 (mentioning the king), 62 (mentioning an Aegyptian). IG XI 2.107, 25 (Philemon the Younger T 3 K-A). See also Sifakis 1967: ch. iv, Kostantakos 2008: 90.

Foreign poets, later comedy and politics

Olympus, the underworld, or a fantastic place like Cloudcuckooland, which is, interestingly, a replica of Athens. Menander’s geographical horizons are much broader. Dyskolos, Heros, Heauton Timoroumenos and Halaeis are all set in Attic demes (Phyle, Ptelea, ‘Halai’ and Halai Araphenides) and so probably are Sikyonioi and Epitrepontes (Eleusis, Halai Araphenides).109 Add also comedies set in other Greek cities, from Cape Leucatas (Leukadia) to Sikyon (Plautus’ Cistellaria, modelled on Synaristosai) and references to monuments and landmarks in the Athenian agora, in Attic demes as well as elsewhere.110 Roman playwrights got rid of Menander’s local geographical colours, and they left Plautus to comment that, ‘in their comedies they claim that everything takes place in Athens, so that it looks more Greek to you [sc. the audience]’. Plautus was so fond of the sound effect of ‘Attic Athens’ that he repeated it very often, but Menander mentions Athens only once, at least in his surviving texts.111 Since literary sources locate Menander in Athens only, he must have produced most of his over a hundred plays at the dramatic festivals in Athens and in the Attic demes: he may have been lucky enough to have entered the City Dionysia and the Lenaea every year of his career, but even so some forty plays are left out of the count. At least since Webster (1974: 14), scholars have reasonably claimed that Menander was active in the demes. His early statue at Eretria, in Euboea, could provide a possible lead for his producing his drama there too. Of this statue, we have only one stone from its base (Figure 4), which is generally dated to the early third century bc on the basis of the letter forms of its inscription, MENANΔPOΣ, chiselled into the front side.112 Broken at its left, the extant fragment of this base is rectangular, with a depth measuring less than the width at the front. The surface on top of the stone is prepared with a tooth chisel for 109

110

111

112

Men. Dys. 1–2, Heros 21–2, HT F 77, Halaeis T ii–iii K-A. The long messenger speech in Sikyonioi (176–271) relates events that happened at Eleusis and the deme is mentioned at 57. The rape in Epitrepontes took place at the festival of Tauropolia (451), which was celebrated at Halai Araphenides. See Arnott 2000: 204; 1997a: 386, 442, n. 1. Menander’s Sikyonioi is also attested as Sikyonios; on the coexistence of these two titles, see further on pp. 141–2. Monuments in the Athenian agora: Men. Dys. 173 and Kitharistes 65 (with Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 162–3, 415); the Propylaea in Eleusis: Sik. 189; temple of Apollo at Cape Leucatas: Leuk. 1. Perikeiromene is almost certainly set in Corinth. Non-Athenian settings are also possible for Encheiridion (fr. 2 Arnott with Arnott’s comments) and Imbrians (P.Oxy. X 1235 ll. 114–16, Men. Imbrians T i K-A). Plaut. Men. 7–9 (hoc poetae faciunt in comoediis: / omnis res gestas esse Athenis autumant, / quo illud vobis graecum videatur magis); Men. Sam. 101. Terence is close to Menander in this respect too, in naming Athens only twice, An. 907 and Hec. 88. Surviving texts show that Roman dramatists did not keep a purely Greek setting, but often inserted references to Roman elements. Manuwald 2011: esp. 298 discusses the relevant passages. IG XII 9.280; Men. T 30 K-A. See also Richter 1965.2: 225–6, no. 2, Fittschen 1991: 256.

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Figure 4 Inscribed base of the Early-Hellenistic statue of Menander set in Eretria (reconstruction of front).

carrying another stone, although there is no trace of a dowel to connect it. This gives us a stepped base for the statue. The back of the block has been worked with a pointed chisel: its lower half is chiselled more roughly and more deeply down into the surface (and possibly later) than the upper part, which therefore projects a bit. Since on the upper surface at the preserved edge of the block at the back there is no clamp-hole, a second block cannot have been fixed to the preserved one at the rear. The less careful workmanship of the base’s back seems to suggest that it was set in front of a wall of which the lowest, narrow layer of stones projected slightly. In order to set up the base close to the wall the lower part of the stone was cut away to fit the profile of the wall. On the basis of this interpretation of the inscribed block in Eretria,113 the statue was a standing one, not seated as previously suggested. It thus departed from Menander’s statue in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. Although our preserved stone was found close to the temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, which lies south-east of the theatre and the temple of Dionysus and north of the agora, Menander’s statue was most probably set up in the theatre of Eretria. Presumably, the Eretrians granted this honour to Menander, who was not, after all, a local poet, because they were familiar with him and his drama. Eretria could boast quite a vibrant theatrical activity. First built after 330 bc, to undergo a second construction phase around 300 bc, its theatre was rich in substantial choregic

113

I owe this interpretation to Hans R. Goette (Berlin), whom I also thank for providing the relevant information on this base and a photograph of it. The dating of the statue is based on the letter forms of its inscription, which is in itself a difficult and imprecise dating criterion (see Tracy 2009). I thank Stephen V. Tracy for confirming to me that a date in the early third century bc for this base is not impossible.

Foreign poets, later comedy and politics

monuments, especially in its parodoi.114 Around 290 bc, the full range of theatrical activities – dithyrambic, tragic as well as comic performances – punctuated the celebration of the Dionysia and the Demetrieia, a festival in honour of Demetrius the Besieger, which were held in Eretria and in the other three main cities of Euboea, namely Chalkis, Karystos and Oreos. Granted protection during their travels across the island and threatened with substantial fines for breaching their contract, the artists were to perform at the Dionysia on their way north in the winter and at the Demetrieia on their way back to Karystos in the spring.115 In the fourth and early third centuries bc, Athens and Attica attracted poets who came from all over the Greek-speaking world to find work – a fact which is hard to reconcile with the assumption that comedy lost its topicality for the benefit of foreign audiences. At least some of these foreign poets are on record as acquiring Athenian citizenship. The anonymous author of On Comedy tells us that Antiphanes ‘was registered in the Athenian citizen-list on the motion of Demosthenes’, adding soon after that ‘he is said to have been very gifted in writing and producing plays’. There was evidently a link between Antiphanes’ citizenship grant and his artistic talent. The Athenians, at any rate, were eager to appropriate him and made a point of bringing his bones from Chios, where he reportedly died, back to Athens, presumably to give them a privileged burial spot (along the road leading up from Piraeus?).116 Demetrius of Phaleron, who was roughly his contemporary, also devoted a monograph to him, On Antiphanes.117 Under Lycurgus, Athens passed a few decrees honouring theatre people.118 One of the honorands was Amphis of Andros, to whom Athens granted an ivy crown and proxenia.119 By 307/6 bc, Philemon was an Athenian citizen and entered the demes-men’s list of Diomeia.120 Athenian citizenship was not an honour bestowed on Diphilus, but at one point his brother Diodoros was registered in the deme of Semachidai.121 Aside from these cases, foreign poets active at this time seem to have been metics: at least in the fourth 114 115

116 117

118 120

121

Isler 2007, Wilson 2000: 283–4. IG XII 9.207 and p. 176, IG XII Supp. p. 178; see SEG XXXIV 896. See Le Guen 2001a: 41–56, T 1, who dates this inscription to the years 294–288 bc and provides extensive and detailed commentary. See also Slater 2010: 250–63, who focuses on the performers and their wages. Prolegomena III, p. 10 K; Antiphanes T 2 K-A. On Antiphanes’ chronology, see above. A book with the same title is also attested for Dorotheos of Askalon, a first-century ad grammarian. Diog. Laert. 5.81, Ath. 14.662f; Antiphanes T 5, 7 K-A. See also below. Lambert 2008 collects and discusses the evidence. 119 See references above. Prolegomena III, p. 10 K; IG II2 3073 (307/6 bc) and 4266 (second century ad); Philemon T 2, 12, 15. IG II2 10321, Diphilus T 3 K-A. Habicht 1979: 13–15 suggests that Diodoros is the recipient of a fragmentary decree dated to 295/4 bc (IG II2648) which grants citizenship and a bronze statue

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century bc, foreigners arriving in Athens and staying longer than allowed were required to acquire that status.122 In the best cases, they had the status of isoteleis, metics who were exempted from the special taxes imposed on non-citizens. Even better off were the proxenoi, who often enjoyed important residence privileges.123 Despite being subject to the two main forms of Athenian taxation, the eisphora (levy) and the liturgy if they were wealthy enough, metics were not integrated into the citizenship framework, but had a separate and parallel organization.124 Aristotle (Pol. 1278a35–8) singles out their exclusion from the honours (τιμαί) bestowed on citizens: metics could not sit in the assembly or in a jury, vote, own property, or enter public offices and priesthoods. They were, in other words, the ‘anti-citizens’ living in a city that emphasized and protected citizenship by creating rigid status divides. These divides were informed and articulated by the ‘descent rules’.125 As Davies (1977–8: 111) points out, non-Athenians had to wait until the late second century bc to enter the ephebate and until the first century bc to enter mixed marriages fairly frequently. In the first century bc, at any rate, isoteleia was still an honour significant enough to be recorded on tombstones. No block grants are on record in the fourth century bc, when many of the citizenship grants awarded were politically motivated and created honorific citizens like Dionysius of Syracuse and Philip of Macedon. The number of naturalized metics was much smaller.126 A much-valued privilege for foreigners, citizenship was not an inalienable right for Athenians either, but was the subject of scrutiny and examination. In the mid-fourth century bc, for instance, Demophilos’ decree and the scrutiny of deme lists brought about the disfranchisement of many people, whose anxiety about losing their rights is well expressed in the speeches written by Demosthenes and Isaios.127 More worries about civil rights came about with Macedonian rule and the various restrictions on the franchise. Even comic characters like

122

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in the theatre to a now anonymous honorand. As Osborne 1983: 87, T 93, points out, since Diodoros is listed as a Sinopean in two records from Delos dated to 284 and 280 bc (IG XI 105.21; 107.20), his naturalization may have been later than 295/4 bc. On this decree and its recipient, see also below. Whitehead 1977: 9. It is not completely clear if Apollodoros of Karystos also became a naturalized Athenian. The case rests only on the Suda and its distinction between an Athenian Apollodoros and an Apollodoros of Gela. But see Osborne 1983: 88, T 95. See Whitehead 1977: esp. ch. 1. Whitehead 1977: 78–82. Metics could serve as khoregoi at the Lenaea and possibly dominated the choral competition at this festival: see Wilson 2000: esp. 28–31. Whitehead 1977: 70, Davies 1977–8: esp. 110–11. Hansen 1982: 178–9, Ober 1989: 266–70. Dem. Or. 57; Isae. Or. 12. See Davies 1977–8: 112.

Foreign poets, later comedy and politics

Menander’s act in a world deeply aware of status divides: that they can magically discover themselves to be Athenian citizens has much to say about the degree of fantasy and escapism in his plays. Political comedy and poets’ civil status in Athens are two related issues. Consider the activity of outsiders in other poetic genres. Although it is often hard to establish the civil status of authors we know very little about, we find foreign tragedians in fifth-century Athens. In the most optimistic view, there were about ten.128 Another field where we find foreign poets is dithyramb. From Hypodikos of Chalkis, who is recorded as the first victor in the dithyrambic competition for men (509/8 bc), to the musical vanguard of the New Dithyramb, there was no lack of foreign poets composing dithyrambs. Praise of the polis seems to have been the hallmark of this genre, at least early on. Pindar’s address to the city, one of the few extant fragments of dithyrambic poetry certainly meant for performance in Athens, best exemplifies the point: ‘O shining and violet-crowned and celebrated in song, bulwark of Hellas, famous Athens, divine citadel!’129 With the Athenian Kinesias, ‘the chorus-killer’, as an anomalous case, Athenians commissioned outsiders to lavish praise on their city, and these poets soon came to be characterized as parasites and flatterers.130 Coming from abroad to earn a living in Athens for a short or longer period of time, foreign poets must have found dithyramb a convenient ‘field’, one which was also in constant demand, given the amount of dithyrambic poetry needed every year. Some of these poets were also versatile. Simonides and Ion of Chios were both reportedly active in various genres, including dithyramb and tragedy, while Anaxandrides seems to be the first on record as composing both dithyrambs and comedies. How comfortable could foreign poets be insulting Athenian political leaders or simply making fun of them? Inability to speak, let alone freedom of speech, was one of the defining traits of metics. ‘More silent than a tray’ (συστομώτερον σκάφης) is a saying that Theophrastus (F 654 F) takes care to explain: since during public processions in Athens metics carried a tray, ‘tray’ stands for them. In the fifth century bc as later on, the ‘real’ political comedy targeting Athenian political leaders comes from Athenian poets such as Philippides, Archedikos and Timocles. Given that relationships with foreign potentates 128

129 130

TrGF i lists some ten foreign tragic poets, but see the caveat of Wilson 1997: 177, n. 18, on the difficulty of ascertaining the provenance of some of them. See also Griffith 2008: 64–6. Pind. fr. 76 M; see also Ar. Ach. 633–40. Wilson 2000: 66–7. Herington 1985: 94 with n. 74 lists three dithyrambic poets possibly of Athenian origin operating around the late six and early fifth century. The fifth-century Kinesias is an atypical case. See Wilson 2000: 63, 66–7.

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were often contentious issues, Eubulus, Mnesimachos and Ephippus can join the list with their caricature of Dionysius and Philip.131 The Athenian Menander stands out.

The politics of Menander and his plays As dating attempts readily prove, browsing Menander’s plays for contemporary events and komoidoumenoi is a frustrating task. Although troubled by changes of constitution, oligarchic and tyrannical regimes, coups and armed resistance, only rarely does Athens peep into the world of Menander’s drama. There is little than can be labelled as ‘political’ in plays where the very word πoλίτης, ‘citizen’, is a rarity. The quick spat between the oligarchic Smikrines and the democratic Theron in Sikyonioi is little to go by.132 The closest Menander gets to opening a window on the world around him is a brief reference to the gynaikonomoi and a ‘new law’, a quick reminder that, under the rule of Demetrius of Phaleron, the Athenians’ private life and their parties were under the scrutiny of a board of men.133 Other references are too vague to inspire any confidence. One can reasonably doubt whether the ‘war and the Corinthian troubles’ mentioned in Perikeiromene have any relationship to Corinth as the battlefield between Cassander, Antigonos, Ptolemy and Demetrius the Besieger in the late fourth century, or whether the slave Daos’ claim not to care for mercenaries ‘who soon cut my throat for stealing’ does actually refer to the assassination of Alexander son of Polyperchon.134 Here and there, the names of a few Athenians and foreigners crop up, often in passing. The parasite Chaerephon, the thin man Philippides, the stingy Ktesippos and even the politician Callimedon are standard comic butts who hardly provoke a smile.135 Menander reminds us that Alexander the Great was famous for his heavy drinking and that Dionysius the tyrant of Heracleia had a

131 132

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Csapo 2000: 120, 127. Men. F 769 K-A seems to preserve uniquely the word ‘citizen’ in Menander (see Major 1997: 53–4, n. 36). Men. Sik. 150–68 with Blanchard 2009 for the identification of Smikrines’ interlocutor. This is not to say that Menander’s plays have not been read as topical. See, for instance, the interpretations given of Dyskolos by Wiles 1984 and Owens 2011. Men. F 208 K-A; see also the open critique voiced by Timocles F 34 K-A. On the duties of the gynaikonomoi, see Lape 2004: 50–2. Men. Pk. 125, 280–1 with Major 1997: 50. Chaerephon: F 55, 215, 225, 265, Sam. 603; Philippides: F 266; Ktesippos: F 264; Callimedon: F 224 K-A. For similar jokes on Callimedon, see, for instance, Alexis F 198, Theophilos F 4 K-A.

The politics of Menander and his plays

reputation for indulging in food.136 For the two refugees from Heracleia who populate Fisherman or Fishermen, Dionysius is a ‘fat pig [lying] on his snout’, a harsh comment that struck a note with the author who preserves it, Athenaeus. Athenaeus introduces Menander as ‘by no means prone to abuse’ (ἥκιστά γ’ ὢν λοίδορος), thus stressing that these lines were an exceptional case. This is an interesting remark from a well-read author. This is not to say that avoiding topical references necessarily translates into disengagement from contemporary events. According to Lape (2004), Menander’s focus on private matters such as marriage and reproduction does not eschew the political, but relates to it in a different way. By consistently (although not invariably) staging the marriage between two Athenian citizens in accordance with the Periclean citizenship law of 451/0 that required both parents to be Athenian citizens for their children to be citizens, Menander’s comedies are, according to Lape, forms of ‘romantic resistance’. They were both produced by democratic institutions and safely reinforced them in difficult times, often not without being critical of the democratic culture they represented. Ideologies and biology, however, do not follow the same rules, and only a sophisticated postmodern reading of Menander’s drama can turn him into a democrat. Even dismissing our evidence for ‘real’ political comedy in the late fourth and early third centuries bc, Menander’s contemporaries did not think of him as a democrat. After Demetrius of Phaleron’s flight from Athens, Menander faced prosecution by the restored democracy eager to target the oligarchic core.137 If there is a place in Athens with which Menander can be linked, this place is the stronghold of the Macedonian power in the city, Piraeus. From Piraeus Alciphron’s Menander writes his letters and from Piraeus Alciphron’s Glykera eagerly expects to see Menander coming to Athens.138 As usual, Alciphron’s little snippets are elusive and never beyond suspicion, but Menander was at any rate associated with the Peripatetic school at a time when it had close ties with the Macedonian court. Antipater counted Aristotle among his friends; Cassander was on good terms with the school, which later owed its very survival to Demetrius of Phaleron and his landgiving.139 So close was the Peripatetic school to the Macedonians that it was one of the first items on the democrats’ agenda in 307/6 bc: acting perhaps as Demochares’ mouthpiece, Sophocles of Sunion passed a bill requiring the philosophers active in Athens to be licensed by the state. ‘Phrased to include 136 137 138 139

Men. Kolax, fr. 2 Arnott, Men. F 25 K-A (cited by Ath. 12.549c–d). Diog. Laert. 5.79 (Men. T 9 K-A), on which see also above. Alciphr. 4.18.4; 4.19.17, 21 (Men. T 20 K-A). Lynch 1972: 94–6, 98–9, collects and discusses the evidence. See also Habicht 1994: 236.

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all schools but . . . aimed specifically at the Peripatos’, this law forced Theophrastus and other philosophers to leave Athens. It was repealed one year later through the intervention of Philon, one of Aristotle’s pupils.140 Menander did not ‘feel’ like a democrat, nor perhaps did he look like one to the Athenians gazing at his statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, a statue most probably erected in the years of the oligarchic regime (Figures 1, 2 and 3 above).141 Dressed in an undergarment and a voluminous himation falling to his ankles, Menander is carefully groomed and clean-shaven. According to Zanker, his image embodies a ‘relaxed and luxurious life-style’, ‘the very type so repugnant to the radical democrats’ and the opposite of the traditional demos ideal.142 Menander’s beardlessness has been politically read.143 For the very many house-owners commissioning and displaying a Menander portrait in the Roman period, a clean-shaven chin was the norm, a standard feature which was also part of the iconography of the tradition-abiding Augustus.144 But in Early-Hellenistic Athens, shaving was the trend set by Alexander the Great, a Macedonian practice which spread first among Alexander’s army and later throughout Greece. Common as it became on Hellenistic grave reliefs, it does not seem to have become part of the image of intellectuals with the same ease. It may be that a shaven chin was a sign of ‘fashionable cosmopolitanism’, but Philippides of Kephale was possibly shown with a beard in 283/2 bc.145 In 280 bc, Demosthenes was shown dressed in a simple garment and with a beard. There may be something to the fact that, as Palagia (2005: 292–3) notes, the next clean-shaven poet with an undergarment that we meet is Posidippus in the mid-third century bc. Be this Posidippus the comedy or the epigram writer, both authors were Macedonians.146

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Ath. 13.610e–f, Diog. Laert. 5.38. Habicht 1994: 236 (quotation, his emphasis) and 1997: 73–4. See also Lynch 1972: 104 with n. 50. On this point, see below. Zanker 1995: 78–83. Zanker tended to cast Menander as an effeminate elitist, while later scholars stressed political affiliation over sexual orientation. See below. Palagia 2005: 292–3, Papastamati-von Moock 2007: 298, Bassett 2008: 212–14. Palagia 2005: 291 also comments on Menander’s short-sleeved undergarment. Comparing it with those worn by several members of a Macedonian banquet represented on a wall painting from the façade of the Tomb of Agios Athanasios dating from the early third century bc (fig. 8), she defines it as a ‘direct borrowing from Macedonian male dress’. Palagia 2005: 294, Bassett 2008: 213. Dillon 2006: 119. She also identifies a couple of anonymous clean-shaven portraits as possibly reproducing New Comedy poets. On Demosthenes’ statue, see Zanker 1995: 83–9. Fittschen 1992 reconstructs the portrait of Posidippus; Dickie 1994 debates its identity.

The Peripatetic school, comedy and Menander

For what it is worth, Menander’s physical appearance receives some attention in Phaedrus’ fable on the meeting between Menander and a king who is first identified with Demetrius of Phaleron but turns out to be Demetrius the Besieger towards the end of the story.147 Stylish, soaked in perfume, with his fluctuating dress and mincing gait, Menander must also have been clean-shaven to judge from the abusive term by which he is referred to (cinaedus, 15). According to Smith (1999: 256), Phaedrus’ story comes straight from a tradition hostile to Menander because of his Macedonian leanings; at the same time, it also smacks of negative feelings towards the new fashion of shaving. Of this literary tradition hostile to Menander we have only Phaedrus’ fable and Diogenes Laertius’ comment on Menander’s missed trial. But again, we have next to nothing about Menander’s biography and one wonders if there is a link between these two issues.

The Peripatetic school, comedy and Menander From the earliest discoveries of Menander’s texts, the points of contact between Menander’s drama and the works and ideas of Aristotle and his school have been carefully identified and discussed in a number of areas. Consider ethics. Menander’s Perikeiromene, for instance, is built around a mistaken assumption and its consequences: thinking he has been betrayed by his beloved Glykera, the soldier Polemon mistreats her in a fit of jealousy. The harm done through ignorance that is at the core of the play is also one of the topics of inquiry for Aristotle, who is keen on detailing and classifying the types of actions done through ignorance and the types of injuries that can be caused.148 Aristotle’s elaboration on the two moral concepts of misanthropy and philanthropy, to give another example, has been read into Menander’s Dyskolos, with its characters embodying the same characteristics assigned by Aristotle to agreeable and disagreeable people.149 Literary criticism is another interesting area. Aristotle discusses different types of recognition and comments on their artistic value; to judge from the use that Menander makes of this technique in plays such as Epitrepontes, Samia and Aspis, Aristotle’s observations do seem to have been on his mind. 147 148

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Phaedrus 5.1 (Men. T 10 K-A). On this anecdote, see Henderson 2001: 151–4. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1110b18–1111a21; 1135b12–1136a9. See Fortenbaugh 1974, Hunter 1985: 150. Earlier works on the relationship between Menander and Aristotle’s ethical theories include Post 1938, Corbato 1959: 6–14, Barigazzi 1965, Gaiser 1967. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1108a26–30 with Haegemans 2001.

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Menander’s concern with arguing and proving – a concern that pervades recognition scenes – can also be read against the intellectual background of Aristotle and the Peripatetic school in general.150 Not that scholars have only analysed and charted the Peripatetic influence on Menander: his drama has also been called into service to shed light on Aristotle’s idea of comedy. As Aristotle conceived it and Menander wrote it, comedy leaves us with harmony and reconciliation, fulfilling the educational function of showing the difference between the ridiculous and the vicious.151 More interestingly for my purpose, Peripatetic influence on Menander goes well beyond the ethical and the literary to affect and drive the political, accounting for Menander’s avoidance of political themes and references, personal abuse and indecent talk.152 His comedy smacks of the ideas promoted by Plato, Aristotle and their students in their successful attempt to turn comedy into philosophical and ethical drama, focused on domestic rather than political matters and stripped of ‘real’ invective. By the time comedy had been properly labelled and defined, it became so different from fifth-century comedy that it occupied a spot of its own in the canon. For all the claims to cleverness and originality made by Old Comedy poets, it was Menander and his drama that earned a reputation for being innovative.153 Comedy made its way into philosophical discussion and theorizing from Plato onwards. ‘Indecent talk’ (αἰσχρολογία), ‘buffoonery’ (βωμολοχία) and ‘abuse’ (λοιδορία) are all key words and pressing concerns in philosophical constructions of the ideal state and their implied reshaping of the real one. Although in Plato as in Aristotle ‘the comic’ and ‘the laughable’ are not coextensive, Plato’s view on laughter is a good starting point.154 There is no simple, one-sided definition that can embrace Plato’s comments on laughter, which are often made in the voice of Socrates, but these comments do reveal a deep awareness of the complexities of laughter: its psychological, social and ethical significance needs to be assessed according to its causes and contexts.155 Consider a few well-known passages from the Republic and the Laws. In the Republic, Plato makes his guardians avoid ‘love of laughter’ because strong laughter and the strong reaction that goes with it do not befit those appointed to take care of the state. Comic drama is also a dangerous 150

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Arist. Poet. 1452a29–1452b7; 1454b19–1455a20 with Munteanu 2002 (recognition scenes). For Peripatetic influence on Menander’s playwriting, see also Gutzwiller 2000: esp. 113–15, Traill 2008: 11 and passim. Scafuro 2003 focuses on Menander’s preoccupation with proving and arguing. Quinn 2001. See Bodei Giglioni 1984: 27–8: ‘la scelta di non parlare di politica potrebbe già essere una scelta politica’ (her italics). See also Major 1997. Henrichs 1993: 183. 154 Held 1984. 155 Halliwell 2008: 276–302.

The Peripatetic school, comedy and Menander

lure: in spite of spectators’ efforts to avoid a reputation for buffoonery (βωμολοχία) in their daily life, comedy makes them regress to youthful imprudence, turning them into comic poets at home.156 In the Laws, however, Plato finds a positive function for comedy. Starting from the claim that the serious cannot be understood ‘without the laughable’ (ἄνευ . . . γελοίων), he admits comedy into his city, but not without imposing restrictions. He scrutinizes the intentions of comic writers, distinguishing ‘jest’ from ‘earnest’ and adding ‘passion’ (θυμόϛ) to them. The supervisors of the education of the young must assess the spirit informing comedies, allowing only ridiculing in jest and without passion. Setting exile and fines as penalties, Plato strictly forbids comedy, iambic or lyric songs ‘to ridicule any citizen either by word or by caricature, either with or without passion’. Comic mimicry is also to be left to slaves and hired foreigners, not to be learnt by any free man or woman. Unable to identify themselves with comic performers and fully aware that comedy is simply ‘jeux du rire’, Plato’s citizens are now allowed to enjoy comic performances.157 In Aristotle’s ideal state, lawgivers forbid indecent talk in all its manifestations and comedy is given a restricted audience: ‘the young must not be allowed to watch comedy or iambs before reaching the age when they can recline at table in company and drink, and their education (ἡ παιδεία) will make them all immune from the damage caused by these things’ (Pol. 1336b20–4). Through personal invective, Aristotle assimilates theatre to a drinking party, turning education into a weapon against the dangerous effects of both comedy and iambs. Education is another key word informing and defining theories on comedy via theories on humour. In Aristotle’s ethical world, the use of laughter divides people into three types. Between the vulgar buffoons (βωμολόχοι . . . καὶ φορτικοί), who just want to raise a laugh even if at the expense of their targets, and the unsociable boors (ἄγροικοι καὶ σκληροί), who never say or take a joke, there are the men of wit (εὐτραπελοί) with their jesting worthy of the free and educated.158 The influence exerted by philosophical discussion on the Greek vocabulary and 156 157

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Pl. Resp. 388e, 606c. Pl. Laws 816e, 935d–936a with Jouët-Pastré 2005. Some late anecdotes make Plato fond of Aristophanes’ comedy. Building on a long tradition that has Plato sleeping with Sophron’s mimes under his pillow, Olympiodoros (Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades, 2.65–9; Ar. T 53a, see also 53b K-A) adds Aristophanes’ comedies to Sophron’s works. According to the Life of Aristophanes (Ar. T 1. 42–5 K-A), Plato sent a copy of Aristophanes’ drama to Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, who wanted to learn about Athens’ constitution. These anecdotes and their value have been variously assessed. See Riginos 1976: 174–8 and Hordern 2004: 26–7. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1127b33–1128a21. See also Rhet. 1389b11–12: wit is defined as ‘educated insolence’ (ἡ γὰρ εὐτραπελία πεπαιδευμένη ὓβριϛ ἐστίν).

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its use becomes apparent here. Not only is the abstract noun εὐτραπελία, ‘wit’, first attested in Plato’s Republic, to become frequent in Aristotle, but it also starts losing the negative meaning that it carries from the fifth century onwards. After Aristotle, εὐτραπελία and related words are mostly used in a positive sense.159 Comedy is the means whereby Aristotle illustrates the distinction between types of humour: there is an improvement in decorum, he claims, in the shift from the ‘indecent talk’ (αἰσχρολογία) of earlier plays to the ‘subtle implication’ (ὑπόνοια) preferred by the modern ones. This is the same shift around which later theories on the history of Greek comedy revolve. Aristotle’s ‘subtle implication’, just like his distinction between comic characters and targets of the iambs, comes up again in Theophrastus’ definition of the joke.160 For Aristotle, comedy of his day is based on probability and is populated by characters with chance names, not real people, unlike iambs; for Theophrastus, comedy is ‘a private affair involving no danger’.161 When a work of Peripatetic origin, the Tractatus Coislinianus, draws a distinction between abuse (λοιδορία) and comedy by stating that the former is overt and the latter ‘requires so-called innuendo’ (ἔμφασις), comedy has become something different from abuse, with innuendo as its essential characteristic.162 Needless to say, definitions are never innocent. Once the genre is properly classified and redefined, branding audiences and poets comes next. Aristotle’s divided audience is made up of the free and educated on the one hand and the vulgar labourers on the other – an overall unflattering picture of theatre-goers, but perhaps less demeaning than the one he gives of the audiences for forensic and deliberative speeches.163 Since music is his concern here, Aristotle is not defining theatre-goers by their preference for a specific kind of comedy, but his 159

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Isoc. Areop. 49 is instructive ‘[Early Athenians] strove to be gentlemen but not buffoons (οὐ βωμολοχεύεσθαι); they considered fools those who were witty and had a talent for mocking (καὶ τοὺς εὐτραπέλους δὲ καὶ τοὺς σκώπτειν δυναμένους), those people who are now considered clever.’ See van der Horst 1990: 233–5, Bremmer 1997: 21. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1128a22–5. For Theophrastus’ definition of skomma, see Plut. Mor. 631e [ὀνειδι]σμὸς γὰρ ἐστιν [τη̑ ς] ἁμαρτίας παρε[σχηματισμένος τὸ] σκῶμμα κατὰ τὸν Θεὸφραστον ὃϑεν ἐξαὑτου̑ τη̑ ̣ ὑπονοίᾳ προστίϑησιν ὁ ἀκούσας τὸ ἐλλει̑ πον ὡς εἰδὠς καὶ πιστεύων with Janko 1984: 210–11. Arist. Poet. 1451b11–14: ἐπὶ μὲν οὖν τη̑ ς κωμῳδίας ἤδη τoυ̑ τo δη̑ λoν γέγoνεν συστήσαντες γὰρ τὸν μυ̑ ϑον διὰ τῶν εἰκότων οὕτω τὰ τυχόντα ὀνόματα ὑποτιϑέασιν, καὶ oὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ ἰαμβοποιοὶ περὶ τὸν καϑ’ ἔκαστον ποιου̑ σιν. Theophr. fr. 708.9–10 F: ἰδιωτικῶν πραγμάτων ἀκίνδυνος περιοχή. TC VII: διαφέρει ἡ κωμῳδία τη̑ ς λοιδορίας, ἐπεὶ ἡ μὲν λοιδορία ἀπαρακαλύπτως τὰ προσόντα κακὰ διέξεισιν, ἡ δὲ δει̑ ται τη̑ ς καλουμένης ἐμφάσεως. See the comments of Janko 1984: 201–8. Arist. Pol. 1342a19–21. Aristotle considers audiences in courtrooms and assemblies to be not only unable to follow lengthy interrogatories (Rh. 1419a17–19), but also vulgar (διὰ τὴν φορτικότητα τῶν ἀκροατῶν, Rh. 1395b1–2) and poor in judgement (φαυ̑ λον . . . ἀκροατήν, Rhet. 1415b5–6). See Trevett 1996: esp. 378.

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comments on humour leave no doubt as to where the audience of ‘earlier’ drama sits. On a par with ‘mockers’ (χλευασταί), comic playwrights are at the bottom of Aristotle’s ethical classification of poets, whose different inclinations, he writes, made poetry split into two branches. Noble actions and noble characters are the fare of ‘the more serious’ (οἱ . . . σεμνότεροι) who compose hymns, encomia, epic and then tragedy, while ‘the less worthy’ (οἱ . . . εὐτελέστεροι) turn to invective, iambs and finally comedy – the realm of ‘the base’ (οἱ . . .φαυ̑ λoι). In other words, you are what you write.164 But you are also how you laugh and abuse: Theophrastus’ Characters use these traits to sketch the personality, bringing theories of humour outside the theatre, although not too far from it. Laughter is the means whereby the flatterer (κόλαξ) gets into people’s good books: he laughs at weak jokes and goes as far as stuffing his cloak into his mouth ‘as if he has no control over his laughter’. Making friends, relatives and the dead his favourite targets, the slanderer (κακόλογος) hides his abuse under the blanket of ‘free speech’, ‘democracy’ and ‘liberty’, and enjoys his rights to them. Even more telling is a passage, unfortunately marred by textual problems, from the vignette of the man who has lost his sense (ἀπονενοημένος). ‘Vulgar in character, indecent (ἀνασεσυρμένος, lit. “with his clothes hitched up”) and ready for anything’, this character is also a slanderer, but he hits on men of influence. Singled out for dancing the kordax when sober, for revelling in the Dionysian procession without a mask and for tucking up his clothes, thus potentially revealing his genitalia, he comes straight from the Old Comedy stage, in both speech and dress.165 How does Menander’s comedy fit into philosophizing on humour, the comic and comedy? Embedded in a fragmentary summary of a comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, and keenly articulated with all the right key words and concepts, the best answer to this question comes from a much later source: Plutarch, a prolific Greek author who lived in the late first and early second century ad.166 Looking at Old Comedy with an interest not in its literary value but in its moral and pedagogical function, Plutarch attacks the genre with quite some force. Vulgarity, staginess and

164 165

166

Arist. Rh. 1384b10, Poet. 1448b20–38; 1449a 1–5. See Hunter 2009: 105. Theophr. Char. 2.4, 28.6, 6.1–3 (with the text suggested by Wachsmuth apud Meister, but see further Diggle 2004: 253–4); see also 1.2 (the dissembler forgives those who badmouth him). Halliwell 2008: 237–43 discusses Theophrastus’ characters and their speech habits. Aristotle’s Physiognomics (808a32–3) reserves a spot for those who like abusing (φιλολοίδοροι), describing them with a ‘pendulous upper lip . . . leaning forward and ruddy’. Plut. Mor. 853a–854d. The best discussion of this work is by Hunter 2009: 78–89. See also pp. 1–2.

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coarseness, he writes, are the hallmark of Aristophanes’ comedies: charming only for the uncultivated and ordinary people, they misuse language and are packed with harsh and biting jokes. For all Aristophanes’ self-promotion as a clever poet, Plutarch (Mor. 853b) dismisses his puns as excessive, inappropriate and frigid. From truly Attic wit to correct diction and proper use of style, Menander has all the right qualities, providing education and relaxation for philosophers and scholars alike. Only when Menander is on are ‘the men of learning’ drawn to the theatre to enjoy a comic performance; jesting with good taste and grace is, after all, a mark of the properly educated man.167 This is a statement that Plutarch explicitly attributes to Plato and that sheds light on his own intellectual background. Hellenistic works dealing with types of humour and their relationship with education took their cue from Plato and Aristotle, making up the long tradition to which Plutarch is heir.168 Note also Plutarch’s claim that Menander is ‘full of wit and salt, like the salt from which Aphrodite was born’. Coupled with another passage from Plutarch on the mixture of the serious and the funny in Menander’s plays, this is as far as any ancient author goes in discussing humour in Menander.169 Whatever it is, it is different from Aristophanes’ humour. Character portrayal, realism and style are run of the mill for ancient writers celebrating Menander, but his relationship with laughter remains elusive. Despite the appeals to ‘Victory, the laughter-loving virgin’ that end some of Menander’s plays,170 Menander’s characters take themselves very seriously, exhibit a pain-related vocabulary much more extensive than their laughter-related one and leave scholars to debate what is funny about Menander.171 Not that a ‘different’ sense of humour seems to be typical of Menander only: ancient scholars make ‘seriousness’ (τὸ σεμνόν) the pole towards which later comedy moves.172 The biographical tradition tells us that Philemon died laughing like other comic poets, but Apuleius, for what it is worth, makes his plays blend good jokes and 167

168

169

170

171 172

Plut. Mor. 854a–c, 634f with Hunter 2009: 82–3. Linguistic characterization in comedy is important for TC XIVb, in line with Aristotle’s emphasis on the diction appropriate to each genre (e.g., Poet. 1459a8–15, Rh. esp. 1408a9–14). See Janko 1984: 221–2. Hunter 2009: 89, who stresses that in Plutarch’s discussion ‘the overriding influence remains his version of Platonic ethics and theatrical history’. Plut. Mor. 854c, 634f; Halliwell 2008: 393. See also Propertius (3.21.28; Men. T 89 K-A), who mentions the ‘wit’ (sales) of ‘elegant Menander’. Men. Dys. 968–9, Mis. 995–6, Sik. 422–3. This must have been a standard closing formula since it recurs elsewhere (Posidippus, F 6.12–13 K-A, CGFP 249, ll. 20–1; see also Men. Sam. 736–7). Halliwell 2008: ch. 8. See also Arnott 1997b. TC XVIII, Life of Aristophanes 2–4 (Ar. T 1 K-A). After all, Satyrus traces back to tragedy, and specifically Euripidean tragedy, New Comedy and its motifs (Life of Euripides fr. 39, col. VII; Eur. TrGF T 137).

The Peripatetic school, comedy and Menander

serious matters.173 Diphilus had a reputation for being frigid. In some kind of compensation, ‘serious’ comic playwrights were coupled with witty mistresses: both Gnathaina and Glykera were notorious for their sharp repartee.174 Plutarch recasts Old Comedy within the definitions of humour and education, and the considerations about vulgar poets and audiences familiar from Plato and Aristotle. As Hunter shows (2009: esp. 85–7), he plays on the social implications of stylistic criticism: Aristophanes is the poet of the democratic rabble, Menander of the intelligent and morally right. Plutarch’s complete rejection of Aristophanic comedy strikes a jarring note when compared with the responses of Cicero and Quintilian, for instance, who do acknowledge Old Comedy’s positive social function.175 Their attitude is in line with what we hear about Classical and EarlyHellenistic Athens, a city that was not blind to the social merits of its comedies and their authors. The Athenian assembly decreed a second performance of Aristophanes’ Frogs on account of its parabasis and wise words. The decree for Philippides passed in 283/2 bc does not spell out his merits towards the city qua playwright, but his statue was erected not in the agora but in the Theatre of Dionysus.176 Although remarkable for the strong tone that he uses in attacking Aristophanes and Old Comedy, Plutarch is not an isolated case. His contemporary Dio Chrysostom can play on both the positive and negative aspects of comic political censure, according to what his case calls for. Getting ready to lecture the Alexandrians on morality, he presents himself in the role of an Old Comedy poet and praises the Athenians for allowing comic poets to expose both individual citizens and the entire city. Elsewhere, he is equally happy to cast these comic poets as flatterers, borrowing an image from Aristophanes’ Knights (1110–20): ‘the comic poets looked at the demos with suspicion and fear, so they flattered it like a master’. These poets, Dio claims, ‘did more harm than good by filling the city with insolence, jests and buffoonery’.177 The second-century ad sophist Aelius Aristides is another good example. His declamation against personal 173

174 175

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Apul. Flor. 16.7 H (Philemon T 7 K-A; ioca non infra soccum, seria non usque ad coturnum). On Philemon dying of laughter, see Val. Max. 9.12, ext. 6, [Lucian] longaev. 25 (Philemon T 5 K-A). On Apuleius and Philemon, see also pp. 108–9. Machon 262–284G (Diphilus T 8 K-A), Ath. 13.585b–c. Cic. Rep. 4.11–2 (who also comments on the Romans’ opposition to public slander), Quint. Inst. 10.1.65. Second performance of Aristophanes’ Frogs: Life of Aristophanes 35 (Ar. T 1 K-A. with Kaibel’s note), Hyp. Ar. Frogs I.3 W. See Revermann 2006: 73. On Philippides, see above. Dio Chrys. Or. 32.6, 33.9–10 with Hunter (forthcoming). For Dio’s view on the use of comedy in education, see Or. 18.6–7, discussed on pp. 209, 237.

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abuse in all its forms and venues, in daytime revels and night processions as well as on the comic stage (Or. 29), directly confronts the objection that personal abuse is a positive form of social censure. Starting with the association of abuse with drunkenness and with the claim that education, at any rate, lies outside the capacity of masses, Aelius Aristides moves onto questioning theatre as a fitting venue for the education of free people (16–21), next to mentioning poets’ tendency to be bribed and to target blameless people (22–6). Here he hits a thorny point: to justify the value of Old Comedy, whose parabases are, admittedly, full of ‘admonition’ and ‘education’, within his opposition to comic abuse. Personal humour, he responds, offers material for criticism across time and place: praised in all works, only comedy tarnishes the Athenians’ reputation (27–8). It is not proper, in short, to ridicule in public. How criticism is voiced becomes all important, a point that Plutarch makes well by singling out the mixture of ridicule (γελοῖον) and buffoonery (βωμολόχον) as the factor which made comic poets’ freedom of speech ineffective and simply earned them a reputation for malice (κακοήϑεια) and vulgarity (βδελυρία). If criticism must be voiced, it is to be heard only by selected ears: freedom of speech is a private virtue to be practised among friends.178 This is not too far from the tradition that paints Aristophanes as a drunken poet, demonizing his Clouds as instrumental in Socrates’ death. The role that Aristophanes played in Socrates’ bad reputation with the jurors is a point that Plato’s Socrates notoriously mentions. It was also to be picked up by later writers who pushed it to the extreme, turning Aristophanes into a (probably paid) member of a conspiracy to kill Socrates, an event which brought about the demise of Athens and, eventually, all Greece.179 From Aristotle onwards, paideia discriminates among theatre-goers and protects from the corrupting effects of comedy and iambs. Socrates becomes the example of educated resistance to public slander, an attitude that Plutarch’s Socrates roots in the belief that theatre is just like a big symposion.180 Socrates is the paradigmatic case, but indifference to public ridicule also goes to the credit of other figures. The philosopher Cleanthes remained untouched as the audience of Sositheus’ Cleanthes-drama was in a riot. Meeting Plutarch’s approval, Magas, the king of Cyrene, did not retaliate against the shipwrecked Philemon for casting him as an illiterate, but dismissed him with a ball and dice – fitting gifts for a child.181 Comic victims came to provide 178 179

180

Plut. Mor. 68b–c, 71c–d. Pl. Ap. 19c. This episode is variously echoed by, e.g., Eunap. VS 6.2.4–6, Ael. VH 2.13, Max. Tyr. 3.3. [Plut.] Mor. 10c–d. 181 Diog. Laert. 7.173; Plut. Mor. 458a (Phil. T 9 K-A).

The Peripatetic school, comedy and Menander

exemplary reactions to what came to be perceived as a socially unacceptable form of behaviour. With its domestic plots, virtual lack of abuse and careful use of indecent talk, almost exclusively confined to low-status characters to preserve free citizens’ respectability,182 Menander’s drama responded very well to Peripatetic ideas on comedy and the comic, the same ideas that influenced later writers writing the history of the genre. Scholarship on Menander started within the Peripatetic circle, very close to Menander’s lifetime: the earliest work on him is Lynkeus of Samos’ On Menander, which predates Aristophanes of Byzantium by about one century. Brother of the historian Douris, Lynkeus seems to have outlived Menander, given that he is also credited with letters to the playwright Posidippus, who apparently debuted three years after Menander’s death. The date of his On Menander remains unclear: that Lynkeus wrote his monograph after Menander’s death is an assumption invariably justified by Menander’s presumed lack of popularity when alive. Of this work, which was in at least two books, we have only one fragment about two parasites both considered to be funny although in two different ways. Lynkeus, it is usually noted, might have been explaining two names figuring in Menander’s plays, but it is probably more interesting that he is concerned with types of humour.183 Attested for a number of Peripatetic authors, the monographs with the characteristic title Peri tou deina seem to go back to Chamaeleon and to have dealt with both the biography and the interpretation of a specific author. Leo suggested that they included excerpts followed by a commentary reconstructing the author’s biography and personality, but it seems unlikely that they made no room for some basic personal data.184 We know that several Peripatetic authors wrote this kind of monograph on specific Greek poets (only two, remarkably, on comic poets).185 Taking as its subject a contemporary author with whom Lynkeus was also personally acquainted as a rival on the comic stage, Lynkeus’ On Menander stands out.186 As a playwright also 182 183

184 185

186

Halliwell 2008: 399 with n. 26 collects and discusses the evidence. Ath. 6.242b (Men. T 75 K-A) with Kostantakos 2008: 95–6, 102–4. Dalby 2000 collects and discusses both the fragments and the testimonia of Lynkeus. Leo 1901: 99–107, Arrighetti 1984: esp. 11–17, Blum 1991: 49–50 with notes. Here is the list of the other Peri tou deina monographs, with references to Wehrli’s edition: Chamaeleon fr. 23 (? On Hesiod), 24–5 (? On Alcman), 26–7 (On Sappho), 28-?9 (On Stesichorus), 30 (On Lasos), 31–2 (On Pindar), 33–5 (On Simonides), 36 (On Anacreon), 38 (On Thespis), 39-?42 (On Aeschylus); Heraclides Ponticus fr. 169–70 (On Homer), 178 (On Archilochus and Homer); Dicaearchus fr. 94–9 (On Alcaeus); Demetrius of Phaleron fr. 194 (On Antiphanes). There is no reason to deny Lynkeus a career as a comic poet, going against the Suda and Ath. 4.131f (who preserves an excerpt from his Kentauros). See Funaioli 2004.

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active as a literary critic, Lynkeus was a precursor of the dramatists and scholars who populated the Library of Alexandria.

From Athens to Alexandria and Rome: Menander between scholars and actors Menander died just a few years before the establishment of the Library of Alexandria. Apparently the brainchild of Ptolemy Soter, according to most of our sources the Library was founded by his son and successor Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt in the years 285–246 bc.187 Scholars and patrons of literature, the Ptolemies managed to populate the Mouseion and the Library by gathering connoisseurs from all over the Greek world with many a lure, including a ‘royal pension’. As Ptolemy Soter was working on turning Alexandria into the new cultural capital of the Greek-speaking world, fashioning Alexandria as the ‘new Athens’,188 Demetrius of Phaleron was living in the royal court and helping plan the Library, at least according to the so-called Letter of Aristeas. Written in Alexandria in the second century bc, this letter makes Demetrius the head of the Library and a close collaborator of Ptolemy Philadelphus,189 thus contradicting the tradition that Ptolemy Philadelphus removed Demetrius of Phaleron from his court when he became king, as punishment for favouring another candidate as successor.190 Whether or not Demetrius of Phaleron had a key role in establishing the Library, the Letter of Aristeas does suggest that in Alexandrian memory Demetrius and his name were linked with the idea of collecting Greek works.191 Demetrius’ association with the Library is also to be read within the general influence that the Peripatetics and their works exerted on Alexandrian scholars and scholarship. This influence was both ‘direct’ and ‘paramount’.192 The Peripatetic school and the Library of Alexandria shared scholars, research interests and possibly books. Straton of Lampsacus, who succeeded Theophrastus as the head of the Peripatetic school, was the tutor of Ptolemy 187 189

190 191

Frasier 1972: esp. 321–2. 188 Hunter 2011: 52. Letter of Aristeas 9–10, on which Tzetzes seems to be drawing (see Pfeiffer 1968: 100–1). Demetrius of Phaleron and Ptolemy Philadelphus are also associated by the Alexandrian Jewish writer Aristobulus (fr. 3; Euseb. Praep. evang. 13.12.1–2), but the relationship between Aristobulus and the Letter of Aristeas is a debated issue. The Letter of Aristeas, or rather the Book of Aristeas, its cultural milieu and its interpretation are discussed by Honigman 2003. See also Hunter 2011. Diog. Laert. 5.78. Demetrius apparently died in despondency soon after. Honigman 2003: esp. 90; see also Hunter 2011: 48. 192 Green 1990: 85.

From Athens to Alexandria and Rome

Philadelphus (and possibly of Arsinoe too) and one of the most prominent intellectuals under Ptolemy Soter.193 Later on, the title ‘Peripatetic’ was also applied to two scholars variously linked with Callimachus: the biographer Hermippus of Smyrna, who died after 208–205 bc, and Satyrus, the author of our Life of Euripides, who seems to have been still active in the early second century bc.194 According to a strand of the ancient tradition, the original core of the Library of Alexandria was the book collection of Aristotle, who Strabo claims ‘taught the kings of Egypt how to arrange a library’. Strabo has Aristotle’s library ending up in Skepsis and eventually in Rome via the heirs of Neleus, a pupil of Theophrastus to whom the collection was bequeathed. According to Athenaeus, however, Neleus sold it to Ptolemy Philadelphus to be part of the Library.195 The Peripatetics’ literary interests focused on Homer and tragedy – two subjects that also ranked high on the Alexandrians’ scholarly agenda.196 How Homer and the tragedians reached Alexandria made interesting tales that later sources took care to mention. Zenodotos is on record as the first scholar who edited Homer, and in the second century bc Aristarchos had before him a variety of earlier editions. The texts of the three canonical tragedians preserved in the Athenian archive were cunningly shipped to Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes (246–221 bc), never to be sent back.197 No striking episode accompanied Greek comedy to the Library, but comic texts arrived there fairly quickly. By the mid-280s bc, Lycophron of Chalkis had already gravitated to Ptolemy’s court, composing tragedies, editing comic texts and writing, among other things, a work entitled On Comedy. From Lycophron to Eratosthenes, Euphronios and perhaps Dionysiades, Old Comedy apparently had the lion’s share on the agenda of Alexandrian scholars: in their efforts to reconstruct Classical Athens, they mined fifth-century comedies for names and events, treating them as historical

193

194 195

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Pfeiffer 1968: 92, Frasier 1972: 427. As Frasier 1972: 347 points out, it is unclear whether the naturalist Erasistratus of Ceos, a student of both Theophrastus and Straton, was also active in Alexandria. Diogenes Laertius (5.37) mentions that Theophrastus was well respected both in Athens and abroad: he was a guest of Cassander and Ptolemy Soter tried, in vain, to attract him to Alexandria. Brink 1946: 11–12. Strabo 13 C 608–9, Ath. 1.3a–b. Frasier 1972: 320 with n. 100 doubts the value of Athenaeus’ account. Blum 1991: esp. 58 is optimistic. Podlecki 1969 reviews our evidence for some fifty works related to literary matters and written by some eleven authors more or less properly labelled Peripatetics, from Heraclides Ponticus to Lynkeus of Samos. See also Blum 1991: 47–52. Suda ζ 74; Galen, Commentary on the Epidemics of Hippocrates 2.4. See Pfeiffer 1968: esp. 94, 110–11 (Homer), 82, 192 (tragedy).

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sources.198 By the late third century bc, New Comedy had also made its way into Egypt, in and out of Alexandria. Callimachus was familiar with Diphilus and his plays, and Menander’s Sikyonioi circulated in provincial Oxyrhynchus a few generations after Menander’s death.199 Instructed by the comic poet Machon on the ‘parts of comedy’, Aristophanes of Byzantium, who became head librarian around 190 bc, is the first Alexandrian scholar on record as working on Menander. He collected Menander’s borrowings from other poets, wrote hypotheses to Menander’s plays and, in all likelihood, edited their text too. The admiration that Aristophanes of Byzantium had for Menander is written all over our sources: he made a point of ‘gently’ listing Menander’s borrowings ‘out of his excessive love for Menander’; he notoriously wondered whether Menander imitated life or life imitated Menander; and he ranked Menander second only to Homer.200 It is not surprising, then, that Aristophanes of Byzantium is generally turned into a figure of capital importance in Menander’s afterlife – the scholar who ‘virtually canonized’ Menander.201 Influential as Aristophanes of Byzantium was on later authors and their evaluation of Greek works, one scholar cannot account for creating cultural icons. As Easterling (1997) showed, actors’ repertoires are the earliest selection of plays, the same one to which scholars turned their attention. Rather than sifting through scholarly records, reconstructing when and how the New Comedy trio made its way into the history of Greek comedy makes up a more useful point of entry into Menander’s canonization. Writing under the Early Empire, Velleius Paterculus is the first author to name New Comedy’s champions: after listing the masters of Old Comedy, he adds that ‘Menander and his contemporaries, especially Philemon and Diphilus, discovered New Comedy within a very few years and did not leave anything to be imitated’ (neque imitanda relinquere). Some editors prefer to read this as saying that Menander, Diphilus and Philemon ‘did not leave [comedy] to be imitated’ (neque imitanda〈m〉 relinquere); either way there is the feeling that these poets perfected comedy to the extent that the genre came to a close.202 In Velleius Paterculus as in other sources, Menander is the main star. When detailing his reading list of Greek poetry, Quintilian 198

199 200

201

Rusten 2006: 556–7. On Alexandrian scholars and their works on Greek comedy, see the review of Dobrov 2010: 16–18. Ath. 11.496e–f; P.Sorb. 72+ 2272 + 2273 (on which see further on p. 252). Euseb. Praep. evang. 10.3.12 (Porphyr. 408.62 F Smith); Syrian. On Hermogenes’ On Stases 1 (p. 29, 18 R), 2 (p. 22, 25 R); IG XIV 1183c (Men. T 76, 83, 170 K-A). See Pfeiffer 1968: 190–2; Dickey 2007: 92. Major 1997: 45. 202 Vell. Pat. 1.16.3 (Men. T 93 K-A) with Astorga 1990: 8.

From Athens to Alexandria and Rome

makes some illuminating remarks. He tells us he is departing from Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchos in including Hellenistic authors, and he also refers to three iambic writers selected by Aristarchos. At least in selecting Greek poets, then, he does seem to be drawing from the Alexandrians.203 Quintilian appreciates Old Comedy and names its ‘big three’ but limits New Comedy to Menander alone. Other comic poets and especially Philemon, he writes, ‘have things that can be excerpted, if they are read not too critically’, but Menander ‘doomed to obscurity all his fellowplaywrights’.204 If ancient authors give Menander a rival, it is invariably Philemon, who is equally invariably named only to stress his undeserved success over Menander. Outside the New Comedy trio Menander and Diphilus are never paired, let alone compared.205 Viewed from this perspective, there is little against the claim that the New Comedy triad was anything but a later formation and that Diphilus’ name was ‘added at one point just out of pressure to make up a triad’.206 But the triad that we find first attested in literary sources with Velleius Paterculus goes back to EarlyHellenistic Athens and actors’ activities. In 1938 Meritt published two inscribed fragments of blue marble found in the Agora Excavations which record the names of the actors placed first, second and third in three competitions, ‘old comedy’, ‘old satyr-play’ and ‘old tragedy’.207 Plays were already reperformed in the fifth and fourth centuries bc, but their staging within a specific festival category marks another chapter in Greek theatre history.208 Fragment B, which is very lacunose, apparently bears the name of Sophocles and the title of two plays staged in the category of old tragedy, Ixion and Oedipus, but fragment A fortunately preserves both the archon’s and the agonothetes’ names, Alkibiades and Nikokles, thus dating this record to 255/4 bc. In that year, the audience attending the festival – probably the Great Dionysia rather 203

204 205

206 207

208

Quint. Inst. 10.1.54, 59. For Quintilian’s use of Hellenistic sources in his poetry section, see Steinmetz 1964 and Rutherford 1998: 41. Quint. Inst. 10.1.65–6; 72. Note, however, that Athenaeus (6.258e; Diphilus, Telesias T ii K-A) mentions together the parasite of Diphilus’ Telesias and the flatterer of Menander’s Kolax as superb examples of characterization. See Nesselrath 2011: 119–20. Astorga 1990: 8. Hesperia 7, no. 22 (SEG XXVI 208; Urkunden IV a, b, Men. T 53 K-A). On this record see also CAD 42 and most recently Summa 2008: 481–5. We do not know when competitions of old plays were first established in Athens, though suggestions have been made. See Peppas-Delmousou 1984 and Ceccarelli 2010: 112–14 (arguing that this agon was part of the reorganization of the festival after Demetrius was ousted in 287 bc); Summa 2008 (arguing that the contest of old plays was added after the victory of the Greeks over the Galatians in 279/8 bc).

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than the Lenaea – watched plays by the big New Comedy three. Kallias won the competition with Diphilus’ Misanthropoi, Dioscurides came second with Menander’s Phasma and finally a now anonymous actor received third place with Philemon’s Ptoche.209 The New Comedy trio figures here for the first time, well before Aristophanes of Byzantium and his literary activities. By the time these New Comedies became old comedies, Menander had been dead for over thirty years, but Diphilus and Philemon apparently died closer to the date of this record. We know very little about Diphilus’ dates,210 but Philemon reportedly died during the Chremonidean War (c. 267–263/2 bc).211 Here, we can catch a glimpse of his success and of the background to the various anecdotes that make him such a popular playwright in Early-Hellenistic Athens. To sharpen the picture, his name also crops up on a tantalizingly fragmentary inscription recording successful actors. This record raises many questions – its date is simply set after 309/8 bc and its relationship to other fragmentary inscriptions variously associated with it is unclear – but the now anonymous actor inscribed on it performed a comedy by Philemon, just as his tragic colleague won fame with a tragedy by Euripides.212 The New Comedy trio comes straight from mid-third-century bc Athens. We find it next in Rome, where, according to tradition, the ‘semi-Greek’ Livy Andronicus first staged plays in 240 bc, most probably at the Ludi Romani.213 The Roman comedies fashioned after Greek originals, the palliatae, are important for several reasons. Next to being the earliest surviving works in Latin and providing precious material for the reception of Greek literature and culture in Rome, they also give us specific evidence for the plays that festival records elsewhere label as ‘old’ drama. Roman dramatists drew from the repertoire of travelling Greek actors, evidently 209

210

211 212 213

The title of Diphilus’ comedy has been restored as Misanthropoi by Capps, defended by DFA2 123–4. Reportedly a contemporary of Menander, Diphilus figures on the inscription recording victories at the Lenaea after Menander, Philemon and Apollodoros, and his death was recorded on a tombstone apparently in c. 275–250 bc (Prolegomena III, p. 10 K, IG II2 2325.163, IG II2 10321.3–4; Diphilus T 1, 4, 3). According to Webster 1953: esp. 152, he was born between 360 and 350 bc, reached Athens at the latest soon after 340 bc and died at the latest in the early third century bc. Aelian fr. 11 H; Philemon T 6 K-A. IG II2 3075, Philemon T 17 K-A. See Urkunden VI C1, Peppas-Delmousou 1978. Cic. Brut. 72 (who points out that the exact date of Livy Andronicus’ first production was disputed), Tusc. 1.1.3, Gell. NA 17.21.42. On Livy Andronicus, see also Livy 7.2.8–10 and Manuwald’s general discussion (2011: 30–5). Rawson 1985 is a very useful survey of theatrical activities in Rome and in Italy under the Republic. On New Comedy in Rome, see also pp. 70–6.

From Athens to Alexandria and Rome

selecting the plays that had most appeal for audiences – the well-tested theatrical classics. Their decision to adapt specific plays and authors is often read in terms of individual choices dictated by their taste and sensitivity, but their pool of options must also have been a factor. Very many comedies were composed and performed between the fourth and the early third centuries bc, but not all of them became actors’ stock in trade. During some hundred and fifty years, from Livy Andronicus to Turpilius, who died in 103 bc, we hear of some 130 palliatae written by a number of playwrights. This is probably only the tip of the iceberg. Plautus alone was credited with about 130 plays in antiquity and, although not without some predictable exaggeration, the prologue of our Casina mentions ‘a crop of poets’ (flos poetarum) staging comedies when Plautus was active.214 Of this output, only 21 plays by Plautus and 6 by Terence are extant, in addition to short fragments cited by various authors, especially grammarians. Drawn from both plays and ancient writers, our information on the palliatae and their models are very patchy. Consider Gellius’ remarks on the Roman comedies that he and his friends ‘often read’: while omitting both Diphilus and Philemon, Gellius makes room for Alexis and Posidippus, two playwrights who do not have a large presence in the models that we can reconstruct.215 Alexis looms behind a play by Turpilius and perhaps a couple of comedies by Plautus. Posidippus’ works were reperformed in Hellenistic Athens and made it to Rome, as Gellius has it, but we can no longer trace the Roman chapter of their reception.216 We have a Greek model for some 26 palliatae composed by some seven poets between about 235 and 103 bc (see Appendix 1). To be sure, these are only the most reliable cases, based on Roman playwrights’ admissions, claims by ancient writers or comparison with extant fragments of Greek plays. Over 80 per cent of these palliatae come from the works of Menander, Diphilus and Philemon. With 15 plays, Menander dominates the scene. Diphilus (4 plays) and Philemon (3 plays) come straight after. Tiny as they are, these figures are still significant when coupled with other scraps of information and placed within the broader context of actors’ activities and canonization. Menander’s large role in the extant palliatae makes it clear that his plays had a spot of their 214

215 216

Gell. NA 3.3.11 (on which see also pp. 97–8); Plaut. Cas. 18–19. See Wright 1974: 61 with references. The fragments of Republican drama are edited by Ribbeck 1897–8 and Warmington 1935–6. Gell. NA 2.23.1. See further pp. 171–2. A possible clue comes from Plautus’ Truculentus. As Fontaine 2010: 25, n. 40, notes, Cyamus is a slave cook, and a speaker in Athenaeus (14.658f) implies that comic slave cooks could be found almost only in Posidippus. On Posidippus’ revivals in Hellenistic Athens, see p. 66.

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own in actors’ repertoires: indeed, one scholar can write that ‘by the middle of the second century bc, the Roman comic stage had become thoroughly “Menanderized”’.217 Identifying comic scenes on Western Greek vases is a notoriously tricky business, but a red-figure kalyx krater made in Sicily, probably in Syracuse, around 330 bc, is likely to reproduce a comedy by Diphilus.218 The disguise scene it illustrates – a slave dressed up as a girl, most probably a bride – may have something to do with the ruse in Plautus’ Casina, a play fashioned after Diphilus’ Kleroumenoi.219 This vase may then help us reconstruct the performance tradition whereby this comedy travelled across the Adriatic to reach Sicily and finally Rome. Plautus comes in handy with the reception of Diphilus and Philemon. In the imperial period, both authors seem to have faded mostly into obscurity, to be relegated to Stobaeus’ Anthology and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae, but Plautus leaves no doubt about their success on the Republican stage.220 The closing scene of his Mostellaria is a reconciliation scene, a common tableau in Greek and Roman New Comedy. A young man, Callidamates, manages to settle the dispute between a tricky slave, Tranio, and his master, Theopropides. Swindled of his money, Theopropides asks, ‘What should I do now?’ only to get a prompt response by Tranio: ‘If you are a friend of Diphilus and Philemon, tell them how your slave tricked you and you will have given the best tricks in comedies.’221 A rare example of Plautus’ naming Greek playwrights outside his prologues, these lines tell us that to the Roman audience the names of Diphilus and Philemon rang a familiar bell. They stood for tricky slaves and duped masters – the very core of Plautus’ comedy.

Back to Athens: Menander in the Theatre of Dionysus When Menander died, probably in 291/0 bc, Athens was under the control of Demetrius the Besieger, who re-entered the city in 295 bc and held it no 217 218

219

220 221

Nesselrath 2011: 121. Diphilus’ chronology is problematic (see p. 58 with n. 210), but the date of this vase should not be an issue. Messina, Soprintendenza 11039 from Messina, via S. Marta and attributed to the Manfria Painter. See Handley 1997: 194–7, Green 2010: 83–6. The relationship between Plautus’ Casina and Diphilus’ Kleroumenoi and the extent of Plautus’ alterations remain disputed issues. See most recently Lowe 2003, who stresses the Roman character of Plautus’ lot-drawing scene. On the later reception of Diphilus and Philemon, see Chapter 2. Plaut. Mostell. 1149–51: Si amicus Diphilo aut Philemoni es / dicito eis, quo pacto tuos te servos ludificaverit: / optumas frustrationes dederis in comoediis. Scafuro 1997: 182 discusses the end of the play, with its dispute and reconciliation.

Back to Athens

later than July 287 bc. Later sources keenly stress that the rule now imposed by Demetrius was an oligarchic one. In the decree passed in his honour in 271/0 bc, Demochares is praised for taking no part in the oligarchy and holding no office after the overthrow of democracy – in fact, he lived in exile from 303 to 287 bc. Kallias of Sphettos is reported to have ‘allowed his own property to be confiscated in the oligarchy’. Throughout Kallias’ political career, which spanned from 307/6 bc to the Chremonidean War, there was only one period which could be called ‘the oligarchy’: the one immediately following Athens’ capitulation to Demetrius in 295 bc. The agon for Demeter and Kore sponsored by the comic poet Philippides after Demetrius’ second and final expulsion was a ‘memorial to the liberation of the demos’.222 The official records dating to Demetrius’ second rule speak just as loudly about its oligarchic nature. The registrar (anagrapheus) figures in the dating formula of two decrees passed in 294/3 and 293/2 bc, both under the archonship of Olimpiodoros. Next to reinstating an office known from the period of extreme oligarchy, Demetrius abolished the archons’ election.223 In 292 bc, Philippides of Paiania, a wealthy man of oligarchic background, was honoured with a decree passed by Stratocles;224 at about the same time, Demetrius also granted the return of the oligarchs exiled in 307 bc. An initiative that Plutarch explicitly ascribes to ‘Theophrastus’ circle’, the return of the exiled oligarchs was accompanied by ominous portents requiring seers’ interpretation and by property confiscation. It is quite possible that the estates of men like Kallias of Sphettos, who preferred to be abroad than to live in oligarchic Athens, were confiscated to resettle the exiles.225 Much to his good fortune it seems, Menander died when his friends went back into power, and the statue that he was awarded in the theatre fits well with King Demetrius’ promotion of oligarchic sympathizers. By 291/0 bc, the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens hosted at least five statues. Astydamas the Younger is on record as being the first to have received this honour, in 340 bc, an episode better known for the pompous epigram that Astydamas composed for it and that earned him a long-lasting reputation for vanity.226 About ten years later, in Lycurgan Athens, the seated statue of Astydamas was followed by those of the three canonical 222

223

224

225 226

Plut. Mor. 851f; Hesperia Supplement (17) 1978, ll. 80–1; IG II2 657.43–5. Leslie Shear 1978: 52–3, Habicht 1979: 30–2. IG II2 378 + Hesperia 1935 (4) 173–4, IG II2 389, 649 + Dinsmoor Archons pp. 7–8; see also Plut. Demetr. 34.4, 46.1. Leslie Shear 1978: 53–5, Habicht 1979: 27–9. IG II2 649 + Dinsmoor Archons pp. 7–8. On Philippides, see also Dem. Meid. 208, 215, with full discussion by Leslie Shear 1978: 54 with n. 152. Plut. Mor. 850d, Dion. Hal. On Dinarch 2–3, 9. Leslie Shear 1978: 55. 60 Astydamas II TrGF 60 T 2a–b, 8a–b. See also above.

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tragedians, apparently all standing.227 An unidentified figure joined their company around 295/4 bc: granted citizenship and a bronze statue, this person – most probably a playwright – must have played some kind of political role.228 Conspicuously placed in the eastern parodos right beside the statues of the three tragedians and set on a two-level structure, Menander’s statue made up a monument about 3.20 m high.229 He sits on a chair that has been variously interpreted as a token of his political disengagement, as a reference to the domestic world of his plays, or, more interestingly perhaps, as advertising the stone prohedria seats in the Lycurgan Theatre of Dionysus.230 Menander now set the standard for the ideal citizen and the ideal spectator. He welcomed the important audience members who entered the theatre through its monumental entry – city representatives, khoregoi, priests and ambassadors from other states. He also greeted politicians and citizens meeting in the theatre to discuss matters related to the city. Menander was right there, on the shifting line between the theatrical and the political space in Early-Hellenistic Athens.

227

228

229 230

That Astydamas’ statue was a seated one is suggested by the format of its base, now preserving only half of his name (IG II2 3775, with Goette 1999: 23 with n. 7). For the tragic group and its reconstruction, see Papastamati-von Moock 2007: esp. 312–24. On the location of Menander’s statue, see also Ma (forthcoming). IG II2648 (on which see also above). See Osborne 1982: 153, D 69: ‘the honours seem very grandiose if something over and above poetical skill is not in question’. Papastamati-von Moock 2007: esp. 276–304. Zanker 1995: 80–1, Bassett 2008: 212. Menander’s chair as the prohedria throne: Palagia 2005: 291, Papastamati-von Moock 2007: esp. 293. Whether to read Menander’s chair as a klismos or prohedria throne of the Lycurgan theatre is a false dilemma, since the former was the model for the latter. See Csapo 2010: 26.

2

Menander in public theatres

Among the many Menander portraits that have come down to us, there is a headless herm now preserved at the University of Turin. Found outside Porta San Paolo in Rome, this herm apparently came from the so-called Villa of Aelian, whose name crops up next to the three epigrams inscribed on it. The third composition preserves a well-known piece of ancient literary criticism, the judgement of the ‘famous grammarian’ Aristophanes of Byzantium, who ranked Menander second to Homer – a statement that Aelian, or whoever erected this herm, nicely visualized by combining the portraits of Menander and Homer in a double herm.1 The first epigram couples Menander with Eros, an association that also opens the central composition: ‘You see Love’s companion, the Siren of the theatres, Menander, always with a crown on his head. I taught men merry life.’2 The final line is unfortunately corrupt, but its reference to marriages as ubiquitous in Menander’s comedy is a frequent comment for ancient authors writing about him, along with references to the life-like character of his plays. That Menander has always a crown on his head is, by contrast, a rare image, running counter to the long-standing tradition that he did not fare well with contemporary audiences, all too often playing second fiddle to Philemon.3 However unimpressive his competitive record in the Athens of his day may have been, there is no doubt that Menander retained the favour of theatre-goers well into the Roman period. This is the successful theatrical tradition at which our epigram hints. A number of chapters make up the ancient afterlife of Menander’s comedies on the public stage: their revivals in the Greek-speaking world after Menander’s death, their Latin adaptations in the Republican period and their reperformances at Greek festivals under the Empire. Like all Classical and Early-Hellenistic Greek playwrights, Menander originally wrote for theatres and public audiences, yet our sources for the later 1

2

3

IG XIV 1183 c (Men. T 170 K-A). On double herms, see most recently Dillon 2006: 33. On this herm, see also on pp. 201–2. IG XIV 1183 b: ἑ]ται̑ ρον ῍Eρωτος ὁρᾶις, Σειρη̂ να ϑεάτρων, / M]έ̣νανδρον ἀεὶ κρᾶτα πυκαζόμενον. / ἀ]ν̣ϑρώπους ἱλαρòν βίον ἐξεδίδαξα, / ] ̣σκηνὴν δράμασι πᾶσι γάμων. For references and discussion, see pp. 14–15, 57.

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theatrical reception of his plays are harder to come by and assess than those related to their presence in schools, for instance. Slight and hidden among inscriptions, comments by ancient writers and actors’ records, our evidence for reperformances of Menander and old plays in general is so problematic that several basic issues are still unclear. Consider the format of these revivals, which are traditionally considered to have been reduced to highlights from one or more plays often given in ‘musified’ versions. Add also the way Roman playwrights adapted Greek drama for Latin-speaking audiences and its relationship to Greek theatrical tradition. Menander’s survival on the public stage needs to be viewed within the larger context of revivals of old plays in general, including tragedies, and within the relationship between Greek and Roman theatre. This chapter is roughly divided into two main sections reconstructing the afterlife of Menander’s drama in public theatres first in Hellenistic and then in imperial times. I start by charting the reperformance tradition that had Menander leaving Athens and Greece to cross the Adriatic and to entertain, eventually, Latin-speaking audiences in their own language. Much of my discussion here focuses on the background to the Roman practice of ‘spoiling’ and ‘mucking around with’ plays: so-called contaminatio. Scholarly views hold that Hellenistic actors took liberties with old plays by variously excerpting their texts and injecting them with music, a practice which allegedly laid the foundations for Roman playwrights and their ‘spoiled’ dramas. This case, however, rests on school-related papyri and records belonging to musicians and their activities, all sources misleadingly associated with actors and dramatic performances. I suggest that the roots of Roman play-spoiling are to be found elsewhere. Roman poets were probably following the example of their Greek predecessors and their habit of revamping plays for a second performance, so-called διασκευή, a practice that goes back to the fifth century bc and became more frequent later on. Although variously altered and adjusted, in both cases plays kept their original plots, so that both theatrical audiences and scholarly tradition knew them as remakes of earlier dramas. During the imperial period, the repertoires of actors restaging classics seem to have narrowed down to include mostly Menander’s comedies and Euripides’ tragedies. For all their appeal to Hellenistic audiences and Roman theatre-goers during the Republic, Diphilus and Philemon apparently dropped out of the scene, to be kept alive by later authors variously citing their lines or by keen grammarians detailing the New Comedy trio. Even when professional or dabbling poets no longer wrote for theatrical performances, and dramatic performances were no longer to be seen on the public stage, Menander’s name

Menander and old plays in Athens

remained constantly associated with actors and playwrights. By then, Greek comedy had long become a one-author genre – the genre of Menander.

Menander and old plays in Athens and in Greek Hellenistic theatres The 380s bc were important years. Back in Athens after his visit to the court of Dionysius I in Syracuse, Plato set up his famous Academy in 387 bc. A centre which was to attract pupils from all over the Greek-speaking world, the Academy was to last, with unbroken succession, until the late first century bc. As Plato was busy establishing his school, the Corinthian War was coming to an end with the so-called ‘King’s Peace’ or ‘Peace of Antalcidas’, the agreement which practically established Sparta’s hegemony on mainland Greece and the Aegean. In 388 bc, the aged Aristophanes produced his last play, the extant Wealth, leaving his son Araros to produce the Aiolosikon and Kokalos.4 Old prejudices make the end of Aristophanes’ career the end of political comedy and the beginning of a general decline in Greek dramatic production.5 Yet 386 bc is one of the single most important dates in Greek theatre history. For the first time, our records for the Great Dionysia include the performance of an ‘old drama’, an additional performance that the tragoidoi offered to the audience, setting an example that the komoidoi would follow about fifty years later, in 339 bc.6 The festival programme now featured an old tragedy, a showcase piece for the bigname actors who both produced and acted in it, a practice that continued well after 386 bc. It became more regular from 341–339 bc, with more regular comic reperformances perhaps from 311 bc.7 As far as we know, Euripides fills the tragic scene. The famous actor Neoptolemos produced an Iphigenia in 342/1 bc and Orestes the following year, while Nikostratos brought back onto the stage a now anonymous Euripidean tragedy in 340/39 bc.8 We also know at least some of the old comedies performed at the Great Dionysia. Restaged in 311 bc, Anaxandrides’ Thesauros is the first on record. That Anaxandrides should 4

5 6

7 8

Hyp. Ar. Wealth III W. It is unclear whether the second Wealth was a new play or a revised one. See further below. For the survival of political comedy in later periods, see pp. 28–32. IG II22318.201–3: ἐπὶ Θεοδότου / παλαιὸν δρᾶμα πρῶτο[ν] / παρεδίδαξαν οἱ τραγ[ωιδοί]; 316–18: [ἐ]πὶ Θεοφράστο[υ] / [πα]λαιὸν δρᾶμ[α πρ]ῶτο[ν] / [π]αρεδίδαξα[ν οἱ] κ[ω]μ[ωιδοί]. IG II22320, 2323a. IG II2 2320. 1–2; 18–19; 32–3. On Neoptolemos and Nikostratos see Stephanis 1988: nos. 1797, 1861.

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be granted such a privilege is not surprising: he was popular enough to be in contact with the Macedonian court and to be singled out by ancient scholars as the inventor of the plots and motifs typical of New Comedy.9 We hear that Philemon’s Phokeis was restaged towards the end of the third century bc, Menander’s Misogynes around 193 bc and his Phasma in 168/7 bc. Posidippus’ Apokleiomene must have been quite popular to be reperformed twice within three years, in both 184/3 bc and 182/1 bc. Later on, in 155/4 bc, the audience at the Great Dionysia watched Philippides’ Philathenaios, the last old comedy attested in our records.10 Although dramatic reperformances are already familiar from fifthcentury bc Athens, they were apparently granted only under exceptional circumstances, at least at the main dramatic festivals, and apparently within the traditional agon.11 By contrast, the revivals staged at the Great Dionysia from 386 bc onwards were institutionalized, non-competitive performances: they were a respectful tribute to the dramatists of the past, a generous gift made by the actors to the audience as well as a token of ‘the peculiarly fourth-century obsession with the fifth’.12 Later on, old plays also came to be produced within a competitive frame, as we read on the fragmentary inscription from the Athenian agora that sees Diphilus’ Misanthropoi successful over Menander’s Phasma and Philemon’s Ptoche in 255/4 bc.13 As far as we can tell, whenever our inscriptions detail the content of the old comedies presented first as one-off performances and then within a competition, they consistently record Middle or New Comedy plays. Aristophanes had his Frogs granted a second performance in Athens and at least some of his plays quickly travelled to the West to be staged in local theatres and to be depicted on local artefacts.14 They did not, however, enter

9 10

11

12 14

IG II2 2323a.39–40. On Anaxandrides, see the referenced discussion on pp. 26, 36. IG II2 2323a.39–40, IG II2 2323.100–1 (Philemon the Younger, T 4 K-A, but this record is perhaps more likely to refer to the more popular Philemon than his son), 129–30, 206–7; Horos 6 (1988) 13; IG II2 2323.163–4, 232–3. Posidippus’ Apokleiomene is also preserved on a third- or second-century bc papyrus, identified by author and play-title (P.Heid. 183; Posidippus, Apokleiomene F 6 K-A). An Athenian decree encouraged revivals of Aeschylus’ plays after his death: Life of Aeschylus 12, Philostr. VA 6.11 (with mention of victories), schol. Ar. Ach. 10, Frogs 866–9. See also IG XIV 1098a; IGUR 215 (reperformance of Teleclides’ Sterroi in 431/0 bc). Second performance of Aristophanes’ Frogs: Life of Aristophanes 35 (Ar. T 1 K-A. with Kaibel’s note), Hyp. Ar. Frogs I.3 W. Also interesting is Hdt. 6.21.2 on the decree against any future use of Phrynichus’ Capture of Miletus, a play probably staged in 493 or 492 bc. On fifth-century revivals, see Wilson 2000: 23, Revermann 2006: 72–3. Biles (2006/7; see also Biles 2011: 60–1) critically reviews and discusses our sources on the decree for Aeschylus. On Aeschylus see also below. Wilson 1996: 315. 13 Hesperia 7 (1938) no. 22, on which see also pp. 57–8. On the revivals of Aristophanes’ plays in South Italy, see p. 20.

Menander and old plays in Athens

the repertoire of Greek actors restaging ‘classics’ in Athens, in the fourth century bc as later on. As a sure indication that old plays in general attracted audiences and created business for the Artists of Dionysus, the associations of actors and other theatre professionals first attested in the Hellenistic period, we know of many other Greek festivals including both old and new drama and we can guess that we do not have the full picture.15 A notorious inscription from Tegea, in Arkadia, and probably dated to the years 190–170 bc, celebrates a now anonymous performer who won a number of contests both as an actor and as a boxer.16 He was successful at the Great Dionysia in Athens with Euripides’ Orestes, the Soteria at Delphi with Euripides’ Heracles and Archestratos’ Antaios, the Heraia at Argos with Euripides’ Heracles and Archelaos, and the Naia at Dodona with Euripides’ Archelaos and Chaeremon’s Achilles. After naming the most prestigious contests, the record concludes that this artist also won a total of eighty-eight ‘scenic contests in individual cities, Dionysia and other contests that cities conducted’. Be these festivals more or less prestigious, qualified as stephanitai or not, attached to Dionysus or to another god, they all included old tragedy.17 So did the yearly ‘musical agon’ that the Athenian Artists of Dionysus established to honour King Ariarathes V and Queen Nysa shortly before 130 bc. Here, we find two different categories of dramatic performers, old tragoidoi and komoidoi along with new tragoidoi and komoidoi.18 In the Athenian imagination, Boeotia is a region full of contradictions. Hesiod, who hailed from Ascra, has the Muses living there, on Mount Helicon, where they busy themselves dancing and singing and eventually initiate him into poetry, detailing the content of his Theogony (1–34). Tragedy, however, turned Boeotia’s leading city, Thebes, into the realm of displacement and disorder – the anti-Athens par excellence.19 Regularly cast as gluttons and slow-witted by comic poets, at least by the first century bc, the Boeotians were refined enough to crowd their festivals with both old and new drama. From the Amphiaraia/Romaia at Oropos to the Sarapieia at Tanagra, the Charitesia and Homoloia at Orchomenos, the Soteria at Akraiphia and the Agrionia in Thebes, Boeotia brimmed with festivals and dramatic 15

16

17

18

As Slater points out (2010: 251), festivals of the Dionysia type, with no thymelic or gymnic agones, are more common than inscriptions suggest: they did not make it into the epigraphic record because, among other things, victors’ lists are not common for dramatic performers. Syll.31080, CAD 200, no. 163. On its dating, see Strasser 2006: 312 with n. 79 and Le Guen 2007: 98, 103, 107. See also Revermann 1999/2000: 463–5. The fact that a festival is called stephanites does not imply the absence of cash prizes. See Slater and Summa 2006. IG II21330.43–6. Also in DFA2 311–12, Le Guen 2001a.1: 67–74, T 5. 19 Zeitlin 1990.

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performances.20 Play-titles went unrecorded on our inscriptions, but there is often sure indication that old plays (παλαιὰ δράματα) were staged alongside the new ones (καινὰ δράματα). In a first-century bc victors’ list from the Amphiaraia/Romaia in Oropos, for instance, tragoidoi and komoidoi are listed along with dramatic poets and actors (hypokritai); in a similar record, these artists appear as ‘actor of old tragedy’, and ‘actor of old comedy’, ‘poet of new tragedy/comedy’, and ‘actor’.21 One of the best-documented Boeotian festivals, the Museia of Thespiae, included dramatic performances from the Early-Hellenistic period to after the second century ad.22 We first hear of tragoidoi and komoidoi here around 215–208 bc; later on, in the first century bc, the successful performers are labelled ‘hypokrites of old tragedy’, ‘hypokrites of old comedy’ and ‘poet of new tragedy/comedy’. Clearly, revivals made up one of the categories of this festival.23 Since a first-century bc victors’ list from the Charitesia names the successful tragoidoi and komoidoi alongside comic and tragic poets and hypokritai, these tragoidoi and komoidoi specialized in old drama, but it is unclear to me if this is also the case for the tragoidoi and komoidoi performing at the Homoloia, the festival celebrated with the Charitesia and mentioned in the same record.24 At the Homoloia, tragoidoi and komoidoi are recorded by themselves. The situation at the Soteria in Akraiphia is also unclear, given that tragoidoi and komoidoi are here recorded next to the successful poets of comedy and tragedy.25 Elsewhere, revivals of old drama cannot be excluded even when they are not explicitly recorded. Consider the extant victors’ lists from the Romaia celebrated at Magnesia on the Meander, an Ionic town inland of Ephesus. Dated from after 150 bc, they specify that the successful performers staged newly composed tragedies, comedies and satyr-plays, a detail that would hardly make any sense if the festival programme included no revivals.26 Old 20 21

22

23

24

25 26

Manieri 2009 conveniently collects and discusses our records for Boeotian festivals. *IOropos 523 (Manieri 2009, Oro. 16; c. 80–50 bc); *IOropos 528 (Manieri 2009, Oro. 20; c. 80–50 bc). On this festival, its upgrading, redating and general organization, see most recently Slater 2010: 272–6. See also Feyel 1942: 88–132, Schachter 1986: 163–79, Manieri 2009: 313–46. *IThesp 154 (A), 152 (B), 153 (C); *IThesp 172; *IThesp 173 (Manieri 2009, Thes. 15, 33, 34). See also further below. *IG VII 3197, first century bc (Manieri 2009, Orch. 25). Other records from the Charitesia mention only tragoidoi and komoidoi: *IG VII 3195, *IG VII 3196 (Manieri 2009, Orch. 23 and 24). The Homoloia are qualified as an agon nemetos, that is, a competition not open to invitation like the Charitesia, but with performers hired beforehand, as for the Dionysia and the Demetrieia celebrated in the main cities of Euboea. See Slater 2010, esp. 263–8, 280–1. Soteria in Akraiphia: *IG VII 2727, c. 80 bc (Manieri 2009, Acr. 27). SIG3 1079 (CAD 200, no. 164) with Le Guen 1995: 66 with n. 33. Note that the satyr-play is here tied to new tragedy, a scenario which finds parallels in Boeotian festivals of the Hellenistic period. See Slater 2010: 253–4 with n. 18.

Menander and old plays in Athens

plays and especially old tragedies were prestigious and well paid, at least judging from our record from the Sarapieia. Here, first prizes were allocated on four levels, with the difference between these levels descending in the ratio 1:2:3.27 Dramatic poets and performers were not all of equal value. The tragoidos of old tragedy received the highest first prize, a crown worth 168¾ silver drachmas, while the komoidos of old comedy, who is in the same category as both the tragic and the comic poet, brought home the second highest first prize, a crown worth 135 silver drachmas. Along with the poet of new satyr-plays, the comic and tragic actors who staged new plays were sent off with the lowest first prize, a crown amounting to 101¼ silver drachmas. More vibrant theatrical activities come from the Egypt of the Ptolemies, who managed to promote one of the earliest Associations of Artists of Dionysus. Two honorary decrees found in Ptolemais and passed by the ‘Artists of Dionysus and the Theoi Adelphoi’ make it clear that the Egyptian guild was already active in 269 bc, when the cult of the Theoi Adelphoi, the Brother Gods, was established.28 The grand procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus described by Callixeinos probably moves its existence even a few years earlier. In this procession, which seems to have taken place in the 270s and probably before 275 bc, the artists play a large role, along with their leader, Philiskos, a priest of Dionysus and in all likelihood one of the members of the Pleiad.29 Since our earliest records for the Athenian Association of Artists of Dionysus (279/8 or 278/7 bc) and of the IsthmianNemean one (probably early third century bc) are dated to about the same period, Ptolemaic Egypt was the first place outside Greece to have its own association, setting an example of royal patronage for future Roman Emperors.30 These are also the years when Greek plays made their way 27

28

29

30

SEG XIX 335 with Slater 1991a: 278, CAD 195–6. On the comparative value of the performers recorded on this inscription, see also Lightfoot 2002: 214. For tragoidoi as more expensive than komoidoi, see also the notice from second-century bc Epidauros which records the fines levied on the technitai for not performing: the tragoidos is to pay six mna and the komoidos two. IG IV2 1, 99 III l.21–4 with Slater 2010: 265–6. Drama in general was an expensive form of entertainment, especially when connected with choral singing and dancing. See Slater 2010. OGIS 50 (dated to between 269 and 246 bc), OGIS 51 (dated to the end of the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, king from 285 to 246 bc) with Le Guen 2001a: 293–300. Rice 1983 discusses Callixeinos’ description of Ptolemy’s procession, which we know via Ath. 5.197c–203c, dating it to between 279 and 275 bc. See also Aneziri 2003: 110–11. The decree whereby the Delphic Amphictiony granted privileges to the Association of Artists of Dionysus in Athens is our earliest evidence for the existence of this association. This decree survives in three copies, two in Athens (IG II2 1132, CID IV 116) and one in Delphi (CID IV 12). Dating the birth of the Isthmian-Nemean Association is harder, since the date of its earliest record is debated (FD III, 1, 85; about 280 or 247?). See further Le Guen 2001a: II.ch. 1.

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into the Library of Alexandria, to be edited and commented upon by scholars who were often also playwrights. Performances of new plays in Ptolemais are clearly attested by the epigraphic record that lists comic and tragic poets (OGIS 51), but in Egypt too the case for revivals is a strong one. Alexandrian scholarship left behind many comments on performancerelated aspects of Greek plays; these comments, which eventually flowed into the medieval scholia, nicely bring together scholarly work on dramatic texts and interest in them as performance scripts.31

Greek poets in the Roman palliatae Neither from Greece nor from Egypt, however, comes the best-known chapter of the reception of Menander (and Greek drama in general) during the Hellenistic period. Rome holds the spotlight. At least for us, Latin literature begins with the Latin adaptations of Greek tragedies and New Comedies. Menander had been dead for some fifty years by the time of Roman theatre’s founding father, Livy Andronicus, consecrated by tradition as the first author to stage plays for the Roman audience in 240 bc: dramatic production in Rome was reportedly born one year after the end of the First Punic War, most probably at the Ludi Romani.32 Actors and stages, the same means whereby Greek plays spread in the Greek-speaking areas, also brought them to Rome. An Association of Artists of Dionysus is first recorded in South Italy in second- or first-century bc Rhegion, well after 240 bc,33 but Attic comedy was reperformed in South Italy from the late 400s bc onwards and red-figure representations of scenes and masks continue for most of the fourth century, tending to drop around the 330s bc. The roots of Roman theatre lie between the Greek and native centres in Apulia and Campania. Livy Andronicus was a ‘half-Greek’ from Taras, Naevius was from Campania, most probably from Capua, and Ennius was a Messapian from Rudiae, south of Taras, who could boast having three hearts, given his ability to speak Greek, Latin and Oscan.34 Unsurprisingly perhaps, Greek-speaking performers coming up from South Italy to perform in Rome went unmentioned in our sources, 31

32 33

34

Falkner 2002: 346–7; see also Hanink 2008: 128–9. See p. 110 for scholia mentioning theatrical reperformances of Euripides’ tragedies. See references above, p. 58. CIG 5762. This inscription, along with all the extant evidence for the activity of the Artists of Dionysus in South Italy, is discussed by Le Guen 2001a: I.317–26. Suet. De grammaticis et rhetoribus 1.2 (Livy Andronicus and Ennius as half-Greeks); Gell. NA 17.17.1 (Ennius and his three hearts). Early Roman dramatists came from the same areas that have given us so many theatre-related vases. This point should be taken into account when

Greek poets in the Roman palliatae

but the ones travelling from the East for major occasions did not escape historians’ attention. In 186 bc, ‘many artists (artifices) from Greece’, as Livy vaguely calls them, journeyed to Rome to perform at the games offered by Marcus Fulvius Nobilior to fulfil the vow that he made during the Aetolian War. A few years later, in 167 bc, Lucius Anicius’ triumph over the Illyrians gathered ‘the most distinguished artists (τεχνίτας) from Greece’, pipers, dancers, boxers and tragoidoi.35 Adapted into Latin and variously adjusted for Roman audiences, Greek New Comedies enjoyed a new lease of life in Rome. Compared to their Greek originals, the Latin texts are a mixture of close translation and free adaptation, or at least this is what we can conclude from our two best testcases, both fashioned after a play by Menander: Plautus’ Bacchides and Caecilius Statius’ Plocium.36 Plautus’ Bacchides and its model, Menander’s Dis Exapaton, revolve around one of the misunderstandings typical of Greek and Roman comedies. Convinced that his friend has betrayed his trust by having an affair with his own beloved hetaira, a young man calls off his plan to swindle his father of the money he brought back from his business trip. Soon enough, however, he realizes that there is a second hetaira and a second love affair, and he eventually manages to get the money back into his hands with another trick.37 The most substantial fragment of the Greek text comes from a papyrus dated to around ad 250–325, P.Oxy. LXIV4407. It preserves some hundred lines that Plautus adapted in his Bacchides (494–562) by operating a number of changes. Structurally, he cut two short scenes which fell just before and just after the choral song in his Greek model. Menander has the young man returning the money to his father on stage, framing the action between two short speeches. Plautus moves this scene off stage, condensing the two speeches in a single long one and focusing squarely on the confrontation between the two friends. Mostly relabelled with pompous names, Plautus’ characters give voice and act as self-conscious comic characters. Rather than speaking, they mostly sing, since Plautus tends to recast Menander’s spoken dialogues into song, thus increasing the number of musically accompanied lines.

35 36

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assessing the value of our visual record, especially our tragedy-related vases, which are, in general, less explicitly theatrical than their comic counterparts. See Nervegna (forthcoming, a). Livy 39.22.2, Ath. 14.615b–e (quoting Polybius). Select references: Handley 1968, Hunter 1985: 16–8, Arnott’s comments to his edition of Dis Exapaton (1997a: 141–73, esp. 148–51), Traill 2008: 92–3. Our scanty remains of Menander’s Synaristosai also offer some comparison with its Plautine adaptation, Cistellaria. See Arnott in his edition of the play (2000: 325–61). The opening scene of Bacchides is largely lost, but there seem to have been three rather than two deceptions. See Traill 2008: 93.

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Caecilius’ adaptation of Menander’s Plokion shows a similar preference for both song and broad comedy: Caecilius’ old man plays up the topos of the nagging wife in two of Gellius’ excerpts, especially in his fascinating polymetric song.38 Gellius cites these passages while giving a résumé of the dramatic action. In both plays there is an old man suspected of having an affair with a slave-girl, along with a poor old man, his raped daughter who gives birth during the play and their honest slave. This slave is given two speeches by both Menander and Caecilius: he delivers the first speech upon hearing his master’s daughter in labour and the second one after finding out the truth.39 In the case of Bacchides as of Plocium, the plot of the comedy and its characters can be easily recognized: the Roman poets did not substantially change their models’ outline.40 This is an important point I will come back to. On the Roman stage, Greek New Comedies lost their five-act structure, increased their musical component, had their scenes cut or extended and their characters multiplied and renamed, with their language variously bent and twisted to suit the Latin tongue. They also almost invariably lost their choruses: in our palliatae we can identify the remains of only two choruses, the fishermen in Plautus’ Rudens (290–324), an adaptation of a play by Diphilus, and the witnesses in Plautus’ Poenulus (515–816), possibly based on Alexis’ Karkhedonios.41 Yet the palliatae often retained their Greek pedigree. Grimal compares Roman comedy to the god Janus, with one face turned towards Rome and the other towards Athens.42 When Roman poets explicitly mention the title and the author of the Greek play they adapted, they both nodded towards Athens and contributed to the popularity of Menander and his fellow playwrights by keeping their name alive during the Republic and beyond. Not that revealing one’s models followed a specific rule. Plautus feels free to present himself and his play along with the title and the author of his Greek model (Asin., Trin., Merc.), but he can also simply give the play’s Greek title (Mil., Poen.) or just its author (Rud.).43 38 39

40

41 42 43

Men. Plokion F 296, 297 K-A; Caecilius F 136–50; 151–5 W. See Wright 1974: 121–6. Gell. NA 2.23.14–21. The slave’s second speech is Gellius’ third excerpt (Men. Plokion F 298 K-A; Caecilius F 163–6 W). See Fantham 1977: 34, Arnott 1975: 40 and 2000: 145. Manuwald 2011: 284 agrees that Roman dramatists ‘kept the main story line of the Greek dramas’ but allows that modification in, for instance, wording, character presentation and individual scenes ‘could affect the plot as a whole’. On these two ‘choruses’ in Plautus, see most recently Manuwald 2011: 232–3. Grimal 1982: 39; see also Gilula 1989a: 102. Plaut. Asin. 10–1, Trin. 18–19, Merc. 9, Mil. 86, Poen. 53, Rud. 32–3. On Casina, see below. To the best of my knowledge, Jocelyn’s 1969 arguments against the authenticity of Plautus’ prologues have not met with general approval.

Greek poets in the Roman palliatae

Terence breaks free from generic conventions in several important ways and turns his prologues into vehicles of literary criticism, but he still makes room for information about his Greek sources, at least occasionally.44 In neither one of the two fragmentary prologues of Hecyra is there any mention of the Hekyra by Apollodoros of Karystos, while the prologue of Phormio simply explains the unusual change of title, from Epidikazomenos to its protagonist’s name.45 The audience of Adelphoe gets to know that one scene of the play comes from Diphilus’ Synapothneskontes (6–11), but is not told about the comedy’s main model, Menander’s Adelphoi. At the other end of the spectrum, Andria and Eunuchus duly broadcast all the information we look for: Andria adapts two plays by Menander, Andria and Perinthia (9–14), and Eunuchus builds on Menander’s Eunuchus, making room for two characters extracted from Menander’s Kolax, the braggart soldier and the flatterer (19–33). Delivered by Ambivius Turpio, the manager of the troupe on which Terence consistently relied, this prologue introduces the comedy about to be performed as Menander’s Eunuchus (quam nunc acturi sumus, / Menandri Eunuchum, 19–20), a puzzling statement for any attempt to distinguish the Roman and the Greek face of the palliata. Two prologues, Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos and Plautus’ Casina, call for comment. Ambivius Turpio, once again, walks on stage to open the Heauton Timoroumenos, a play presented as ‘new’, just like Adelphoe, Hecyra and Phormio.46 Marshall (2006: 21, 85) explains Terence’s stress on his new comedies by both his experience as a poet and the use of dramatic scripts. Unlike Plautus, Terence was not part of a troupe and perhaps ‘poets could think in terms of a new play for each festival’. Moreover, once a troupe bought a script, they could use it as they wanted; if not performed, however, the script returned to its author and could be presented as a ‘new play’, as in the case of Hecyra. It is possible to link Terence’s ‘new plays’ to the pressure to adapt fresh Greek dramas, something which could be read against the anectode that has him dying during his journey back from Greece, with the 108 plays by Menander that he had adapted.47 Terence’s claims also strike another chord: he is adapting the kinds of comedies that Hellenistic festival records label ‘old comedies’. 44

45

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Manuwald 2011: 249–50 identifies some precedents in Rome for Terence’s use of prologues to discuss plays’ literary characteristics. Ter. Phorm. 24–8. Donatus (on Ter. Phorm. 25) notoriously blames Terence for not giving the right name of his model, Epidicazomene rather than Epidicazomenos. On this issue see most recently Fontaine 2010: 16–8. Ter. Heaut. 4, 7, Ad. 12, Hec. prologue 1.2 (see also Hec. prologue 2.14, speaking of Caecilius’ ‘new’ plays), Phorm. 9, 24. Donat. Life of Terence 5 (Men. T 63 K-A) with Manuwald 2011: 290–2.

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What is old on the Greek stage becomes new in Rome. Ambivius Turpio plays on the audience’s expectations of hearing about the Greek pedigree of Heauton Timoroumenos: ‘now I would go on and say who wrote it and who is the author of the Greek play’, he says, ‘if I did not think that most of you already know it’.48 That Terence withholds his own name is no surprise since he consistently refers to himself as the ‘poet’, but that Menander and his Heauton Timoroumenos can go without saying is an intriguing statement.49 How did the audience already know about Terence’s Greek original? Unlike circus and gladiatorial games, dramatic performances do not seem to have produced written programmes which circulated in the theatre.50 In a passage clearly modelled after Cicero, Donatus mentions the practice of announcing both the play-title and the name of its author.51 This seems to have been the duty of the herald (praeco), a professional figure with an undesirable job at the bottom of his class, the apparitores, who made up the retinue of the magistrates presiding over the games.52 According to Pollux (4.88), performances in fifth-century bc Athens were introduced by a herald and later on by a trumpeter; if this habit was also transplanted to Rome, it cannot have been peculiar to the staging of Heauton Timoroumenos alone. It is possible that Ambivius Turpio is referring to a preliminary performance of the play, like the one mentioned in the prologue of Eunuchus. After the aediles had bought the script, Eunuchus was presented before the magistrates and somehow also before Luscius Lanuvinus, who took this chance to censure Terence’s playwriting (20–4). But it is also possible that the Romans had less formal ways of finding out about the performances staged at the games: after all, these were a main event heard about ahead of time.53 Advertised or simply anticipated in the streets and squares of Rome, rumoured in the alleys as in homes, the Roman palliatae may have retained their Greek identity even off the stage. Our prologue of Plautus’ Casina tells us that a similar case can be made for revivals. For all the paucity of evidence that we have for the stage life of 48

49 50

51 52 53

Ter. Heaut. 7–9: nunc qui scripserit / et quoia Graeca sit, ni partem maxumam / existumarem scire vostrum, id dicerem. Terence as the poet: An. 1; Heaut. 2; Phorm. 1; Hec. 13; Ad. 10. Programmes (libelli) are attested at gladiatorial games from the Late Republic onwards (e.g., Cic. Phil. 2.97: gladiatorum libelli; SHA Claudius 5.5: libellus munerarius) and at circus races (Ov. A. A. 1.167). See Beare 1964: 170, who also discusses the use of notices painted in public spaces to advertise gladiatorial games in Pompeii. Donat. De Comoedia 8.1; Cic. Acad. 2.20. Purcell 1983: 147–8. On heralds and Roman comedy, see Marshall 2006: 30–1. See Gilula 1989b: 99, n. 12.

Greek poets in the Roman palliatae

the palliatae under the Empire, they kept drawing public audiences during the Republic. Roscius’ performances in Plautus’ Pseudolus and Turpilius’ Demiurgus excited spectators like Cicero.54 When Varro mentions that the young man in Caecilius’ Hypobolimaeus and the old man in Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos both wear a leather jacket, he does seem to have seen these two plays staged.55 After naming a number of playwrights including Plautus, Caecilius and Terence, Horace claims, perhaps not without some exaggeration, that ‘mighty Rome learns them by heart and views them packed in her narrow theatre’ (hos ediscit et hos arto stipata theatro / spectat Roma potens).56 Reperformance of Terence’s and Plautus’ plays started early on. Our didascaliae for Terence seem to attest revivals in the period 146–141 bc and as late as 106 bc.57 Plautus’ plays were also restaged close to his lifetime, if not indeed within it.58 As we read in our prologue of Casina, theatre-goers watched this comedy again when Plautus was dead, but older spectators were already familiar with it.59 The prologue-speaker presents it as an ‘old comedy of Plautus’, but not before giving the play’s pedigree: ‘this comedy is called Kleroumenoi in Greek, Sortientes in Latin. Diphilus wrote it in Greek and then Plautus with a barking name in Latin’ (31–4). The title given here for the play, Sortientes, looks more like a translation of the Greek than an independent title: ‘Plautus and the Roman audience’, concludes Wright (1974: 95), ‘might well have referred to this play, which is surely one of the most thoroughly Roman of Plautus’ creations, by its Greek title.’ We are familiar with grammarians like Festus citing Roman palliatae by the title of their Greek model – Plautus’ Mostellaria as Phasma and 54

55 56

57

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Cic.Q. Rosc. 20, Fam. 9.22.1. Suggestive of stage performances are also Cicero’s references (Rosc. Am. 46, Sen. 65) to a play by Caecilius, possibly Hypobolimaeus (also mentioned by Varro, see below), and Terence’s Adelphoe. Varro, Rust. 2.11.11 (dated to 37 bc). Hor. Epist. 2.1.56–61. Goldberg 2005: 54–60 downplays our sources for performances of palliatae in the Late Republic and detects problems with Horace’s lines. Rudd 1989: 5, Beacham 1999: 5 and Manuwald 2011: 113 are more positive. See also below on dramatic performances under the Empire. See Manuwald 2011: 111 (with references) and Tansey 2001 with his restoration of a problematic variant notice for Terence’s Phormio in the Bembinus Codex. Terence’s Eunuchus was notoriously reperformed on the same day, at the Ludi Megalenses of 161 bc, and received the highest price ever paid for a comedy (Donat. Life of Terence 3). Chrysalus’ remark that he loves Epidicus, but hates it when Pellio performs it, seems to me good evidence for Plautus revivals in Plautus’ own time (Bacch. 213–5: etiam Epidicum, quam ego fabulam aeque ac me ipsum amo, / nullam aeque invitus specto, sí agit Pellio). But see also Manuwald’s cautious remarks (2011: 109–10). Plaut. Cas. 18–19, 14. The date of this revival is set around 150 bc. See Wright 1974: 61 with further bibliography.

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Cistellaria as Synaristosai, for example60 – but our dramatic texts suggest that this practice may have originated with theatrical productions. Plautus’ Poenulus, or Patruus as the play seems to be named in the text (54), opens tragically (1–4): ‘I’d like to rehearse Aristarchos’ Achilles; from there, from that tragedy I’ll take the lead: “be silent and quiet and pay attention: you are ordered to listen by the commander . . . of ” actors.’ Fraught as they are with interpretative problems such as the extent of the parody and verbal quotation, these lines apparently recall a performance of Aristarchos’ Achilles – that is, of Ennius’ adaptation of this tragedy.61 Much is also unclear about a line of Plautus’ Rudens comparing the violent storm that hit Daemones’ house to Euripides’ Alcmena (86). This tragedy does not seem to have been adapted for the Roman stage, but Jocelyn (1967: 7) at least finds it hard not to imagine that ‘a play about Alcmena had already appeared [in Rome] and had been advertised as being in some sense Euripides’ Alcmena’.62 Our prologue of Casina fits right into this tradition: performed and reperformed, presented as a gift to an audience eager to watch Plautus, this is still a comedy by Diphilus.63

The Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 1: excerpted plays and dramas set to music When Terence produced his Andria at the Megalensian Games of 166 bc, his controversy with Luscius Lanuvinus was already under way. To this controversy, which was to last throughout Terence’s career, play after play, we owe important clues on the relationship between Roman comedies and their Greek models, and precious information on playwriting in contemporary Rome. Known to us only through Terence’s prologues, Luscius was an older dramatist still active in the mid-160s bc and still busy promoting his own ideas on how to adapt Greek plays for Roman audiences.64 This was the issue on which Terence and Luscius disagreed, engaging in a quarrel that 60 61

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Festus 158.33, 394.18; 390.8, 430.24 L. Festus 282.9 L refers to Ennius in Achille Aristarchi. See in general the discussion by Jocelyn 1967: esp. 161–7. In Euripides’ Alcmena, Amphitryon tries to burn his wife alive, but Zeus sends a storm to quench the fire. Taplin 2007: 170 interestingly explains Plautus’ lines by claiming that the violence of this storm, most probably narrated in a messenger speech, became proverbial. Even so, it is significant that the Roman audience could understand the reference. Plaut. Cas. 11–13: nos postquam populi rumore intelleximus / studiose expetere vos Plautinas fabulas, / anticuam eius edimus comoediam. For Luscius’ life and career, see Garton 1972: 41–72.

Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 1

revolved around a number of key words: contaminatio, furtum, negligentia and diligentia. Since Luscius had somehow seen or heard about Terence’s Andria, in his theatrical debut Terence could already defend himself from Luscius’ charge – ‘it is not appropriate to contaminate plays’ – by appealing to the authority of his famous predecessors, Naevius, Plautus and Ennius (16, 18–19). They are equally guilty, Terence pleads, all eager to imitate their ‘carelessness’ (negligentia) rather than his detractors’ ‘obscure care’ (obscura diligentia, 20–1). To Terence’s admission of having transferred into his Andria ‘what was suitable’ from a similar play by Menander, Perinthia (9–14), we hear Luscius respond a few years later, in 163 bc, through the prologue of Heauton Timoroumenos: Terence ‘contaminated many Greek plays to make few Latin ones’ (17–18). Luscius advocates close fidelity to the originals; Terence labels strict adherence to the models as good translation and bad playwriting, claiming that Luscius makes bad Latin plays from good Greek ones (Eun. 7–8).65 Luscius’ accurate rendering of his Greek models seems to be the opposite of contaminari, a verb which in Terence’s prologues as everywhere else in Latin means ‘to spoil’, ‘to muck around with’ plays rather than ‘mixing’ them. Combining models is one way whereby Terence spoiled them.66 To Luscius, Terence offered quite some room for criticism. Next to writing comedies ‘with a thin style and light content’ (Phorm. 5), Terence also helped himself to the plays of other Latin authors by introducing in his Eunuchus two characters lifted from Colax, the soldier and the parasite. Branded a ‘thief’ because Colax was an ‘old comedy’ by Naevius and Plautus, Terence pleads ignorance, forcefully claiming that his model was Menander (Eun. 20–34). Given that Menander’s Kolax had already been adapted twice by 161 bc, providing material for two Roman comedies apparently unfamiliar toTerence but well known to Luscius, this comedy must have been a classic in actors’ repertoires.67 Terence plays on this mishap in Adelphoe, produced at the funeral games for Aemilius Paullus in 160 bc. Based on Menander’s Second Adelphoi, this comedy also includes a scene from Diphilus’ Synapothneskontes, the scene (locum) left untouched by Plautus 65

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Some newly published evidence seems to suggest, however, that Luscius may not have been so faithful in adapting his models. Donatus preserves a summary of Luscius’ comedy Thesaurus which diverges in several details from what seems to be the hypothesis to Luscius’ Greek original, preserved on a ninth-century illustrated manuscript of Terence (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 7899). See Turner 2010: esp. 46–7. Beare 1959, Goldberg 1981: 87. See also Duckworth 1952: 202–5 and Kujore 1974: 42, who renders contaminatio as ‘spoiling by omission (and invention)’. Menander’s Kolax, our sources for its reconstruction and its general interpretation have been recently treated by Pernerstorfer 2009, who also discusses its Latin adaptations.

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in his Commorientes and now taken over by Terence to be expressed word by word – in a way worthy of Luscius’ approval. The audience is left to decide whether Terence is guilty of ‘theft’ (furtum) or has simply reclaimed a scene ‘omitted out of carelessness’ (negligentia) (Ad. 6–14). Important as they are, these are not the only changes that Terence made to his models. We know from Donatus’ commentary that he replaced a monologue with a dialogue in both Eunuchus and Andria, and we may suspect a similar change in other plays, always to achieve a livelier stage action.68 Alterations to the models are also obvious whenever Roman comedies include more than three speaking characters.69 In every case, these do not seem to be extensive reworkings.70 Terence and his predecessors handled their models with some freedom. They left out scenes, rejected close translation and, in the case of Terence at least, drew from more than one play. Mixing of models has been suspected for a number of Plautus’ comedies at one time or another, but there is no circumstantial evidence to prove the claim.71 Given the little that we have of Roman Republican tragedies, identifying multiple originals for them is an even riskier task,72 but Cicero has no doubt: Roman playwrights such as Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius ‘did not imitate the words of the Greek poets, but their force’.73 Whether broadly intended as ‘spoiling’ plays or narrowly explained as ‘mixing’ models, contaminatio was a practice long considered unique to Roman playwrights until Bruno Gentili finally placed it within Greek theatrical production. In manipulating plays and scenes, Gentili claims (1979: esp. 19–34), Roman poets were following the example of Greek actors staging Classical and Hellenistic dramas in excerpted and variously re-elaborated formats. Greek actors performing old comedies 68

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Donat. on Eun. 539 and An. 14. See the referenced discussion by Lowe 1983: esp. 428–31, who also considers possible cases where Terence shortened or eliminated monologues that he found in his models. Lowe 1997 discusses Terence’s four-speaker scenes. There has been much debate on the extent of Terence’s alteration to the end of Menander’s Adelphoi. Donatus’ comments on Ad. 938 (apud Menandrum senex de nuptiis non gravatur: ergo Terentius εὑρετικῶς) has been interpreted as (1) Menander’s Micio did not marry or (2) Menander’s Micio did not oppose resistence to getting married. See Arnott 1963: esp. 142 and Martin 1976: 19–20, who both defend the second reading. Duckworth 1952: 205–8, 387, Arnott 1975: 37–8. From Ribbeck 1875: 62 to Erasmo 2004: 15, 27, the case for Roman tragedies as fusing two or even more Greek plays rests on a narrow definition of contaminari and on Ter. An. 18, where Terence names among his predecessors Naevius and Ennius, who both also wrote tragedies. Jocelyn 1967: esp. 290, 344–5, is very cautious about having Ennius and Republican poets in general freely combining several plays. Cic. Acad. 1.3.10: Ennius Pacuvius Accius multi alii, qui non verba sed vim Graecorum expresserunt poetarum. See Lennartz 1994.

Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 1

and tragedies, so the argument goes, also took liberties with their texts, reducing them to extracts, performing only key scenes and setting to music parts originally meant for spoken delivery. Largely informed by longstanding prejudices against public audiences unable to appreciate drama as such and against performers eager to display their virtuosity, Gentili’s highly influential case rests on evidence that has nothing to do with theatrical practice: school papyri and records produced and used by singers and musicians.74 Papyri have so little to tell us about actors’ activities that they allow the suspicion that actors did not generally rely on written texts. Mime seems to offer an interesting term of comparison: difficult as they are to be made sense of, mimes appear on a few papyri in the form of performance scripts possibly drafted by mime writers and used by performers. Given that mimes were often quickly arranged by performers who could not boast the long years of training that tragoidoi and komoidoi had to undergo, perhaps they did need to rely on a script.75 What dramatic papyri amply testify to is schools’ consistent use of the masterpieces of Classical and Hellenistic Greek drama: excerpted to be copied and memorized by students at different levels of their school training, old drama entered classrooms throughout antiquity. Consider the three thematically arranged anthologies erroneously considered scripts for theatrical performances: (1) a papyrus preserving two short excerpts from Euripides’ Danae and Orestes, both apparently concerned with the theme of wealth, (2) a collection of tragic and comic quotations on women, and (3) an anthology of short quotations mostly but not exclusively lifted from dramatic texts and dealing with different topics such as virtue and wealth.76 Wealth and women were both central themes in ancient training. Wealth alone dominates the collections of maxims that students would copy as young children and would use to embellish their speeches later on as practising declaimers.77 Women were a subject that pupils needed to know just as well, drawing from the authority of authors like Euripides and Menander to write and elaborate on their many faults and dangers.

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For this point and a more detailed discussion of the sources cited below, see Nervegna 2007. This is not to say that the script was to be followed to the letter. See Webb 2008: 112–14, esp. 112: ‘to judge from the evidence of POxy 413, the norm, even when writing was used to fix a [mime] script for a performance, was constant flux’. For our performance scripts of mimes, see further on p. 240. P.Ross.Georg. I 9; BKT V 2, pp. 123–8 (both dated to the second century bc); and PSI XV ineditus (second or third century ad); Gentili 1979: 20, nos. 5, 6, 7. Morgan 1998: ch. 4. On maxims and education, see further on pp. 203–4.

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Also necessary for students was a general training in myth and mythical characters, the raw material of a range of school exercises. Here too tragedy came in handy, especially prologues like those culled from Euripides’ plays to be collected on a third-century bc papyrus. Written across the fibres on the back of a juridical document, this text was a personal copy probably used by a student like Apollonios son of Glaukias, who took care to copy lines from the prologue of both Euripides’ Medea and Telephos in the second century bc.78 Tragic prologues were good to know: next to presenting the mythical background of the dramatic action, they also provided the characters’ genealogy and an example of narrative.79 Other dramatic anthologies can also be placed in school contexts. The two second-century ad papyri preserving five excerpts from Menander’s Kolax are conveniently provided with two footnotes, one of them naming Eratosthenes: whatever criterion guided the selection of these passages, this was a scholarly text.80 To teachers and pupils also belong in all likelihood an additional two papyri preserving Euripides’ Cresphontes (not in an excerpted version as originally thought) and Euripides’ Hippolytus, copied without a choral ode in order not to tax students with metrical problems.81 The case for actors’ staging old plays in anthological versions does not rest only on school records: papyri with dramatic excerpts set to music have been used both to reinforce this claim and to conclude that later actors also turned into song lines originally meant for spoken delivery. The key texts are two: (1) a third-century bc papyrus with portions of lyrics from Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, recorded not in the order they appear in our text of the play; and (2) a first- or second-century ad text preserving two tragic excerpts, a passage on the epiphany of the dead Achilles in anapaests and an address to Lemnos, followed by a reference to Neoptolemos, in iambic trimeter. These two passages were apparently drawn from more than 78

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P.Hamb. II 118 +119 (Gentili 1979: 19, no. 2) preserves the prologues of Alcmena, Archelaos, Hecuba, Hypsipyle, Iphigenia among the Taurians and perhaps other plays. The tragic prologues copied by Apollonios are preserved on P.Didot, pp. 16–28 (P.Louvre 7172; Eur. Med. 5–12) and P.Mil. 1.2 15 (Eur. Telephos TrGF F 696). See Cribiore 1996: nos. 244, 246; Carrara 2009: 100–3, 196–206. On Apollonios, see also p. 215. For prologues and other dramatic excerpts used in school, see pp. 213–17. That P.Oxy. III 409 + P.Oxy. XXXIII 2655 (Gentili 1979: 20, no. 8) contain only extracts from Kolax is proven by comparison with P.Oxy. X 1237, which preserves a fuller text. Turner 1963: 127 (see also, more recently, Pernigotti 2005: 74 and Pernerstorfer 2009: 21) mentioned that these footnotes pointed to the scholarly purpose of this text. Gentili’s hypothesis that it could be a script for performance has been, however, widely accepted and made its way into Arnott’s edition of this play (1996b: 155). P.Oxy. XXVII 2458 (Gentili 1979: 20, no. 9, on which see pp. 239–43) and P.Sorb. 2252 (Gentili 1979: 19, no. 1), on which see Cadell 1962: esp. 25–8, 35.

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one tragedy on Neoptolemos.82 The crucial point here is to determine whether these texts were actually used for dramatic performances. We can probably tackle this issue by looking at how actors staged old plays. Actors performing in public theatres did so with their troupes, which consisted of a troupe-leader, the tragoidos or komoidos, and two actors of minor roles (συναγωνισταί), or the ‘second actor’ and ‘third actor’ (δευτεραγωνιστής and τριταγωνιστής) as ‘the ancient authors’ called them.83 This is a point easy to be overlooked simply because, as the troupeleader, only the tragoidos and komoidos signed contracts, received the actor’s prize and therefore figure in our records.84 They alone had an official existence, but, although rarely, actors of minor roles also crop up in our records. They are to be found, for instance, at Delphi in 165 bc, when special honours were granted to Nikon of Megalopolis and ‘those with him’ – his synagonistai, the Argive Echekrates and Philon recorded on a list of proxenoi at Delphi.85 It spoke well of the Delphians and their generosity that they extended special privileges to Nikon’s supporting actors. In the second century bc, the Commonwealth of the Artists of Dionysus in Ionia and the Hellespont and of Dionysus the Leader decided to help the city of Iasos to celebrate its festivals by sending some of their members for free. As we read on the inscription recording the decree, a number of musicians, two komoidoi and two tragoidoi were to be dispatched ‘with their supporting staff’.86 Much is unclear about the performances of the Emperor Nero, but Nero the tragic actor also had a troupe, the hypokritai whom he used both on and off the stage, allegedly arming them to get rid of his competition.87 Little credibility is a problem with the stories circulating about Nero but surely not with Roman legal sources. The Institutiones of Gaius request compensation for the depreciation of the troupe if a comic actor or a symphoniacus (chorister) is killed: these slave-artists, one concludes, frequently, if not generally, belonged to a troupe and performed with it.88 In Greece as in 82

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P.Leid. inv. 510, preserving IA 1500?–9; 784–?94; P.Oslo 1413 (Gentili 1979: 20, no. 4, and pp. 28–30). For P.Oslo 1413, see most recently Pöhlmann and West (2001: nos. 39, 40), who also treat these two tragic passages as separate items from a collection. Schol. Dem. 5.6. On dramatic synagonistai, see Aneziri 1997 and 2003: 324. Jouan 1983: esp. 66. On komoidoi and tragoidoi as representing the whole troupe see, e.g., O’Connor 1908: 18, Ghiron-Bistagne 1976: 122, Sifakis 1995: 16–18. SIG3 659.10, SIG3 585.128–30. See Stephanis 1988: no. 1886, Slater 1993: 194. IK 28.1.152* at 37–40, CAD 252–3, no. 45. Aneziri 2003: 392, D13. See Slater 1993: 199 with n. 37, Aneziri 2003: 334. Suet. Ner. 24.1, Lucian, Nero 9. On Nero as a tragic actor, see further Nervegna 2007: 31–6. Gaius, Inst. 3.212: si ex gemellis vel ex comoedis vel ex symphoniacis unus occisus fuerit, non solum occisi fit aestimatio, sed eo amplius id quoque conputatur, quod ceteri, qui supersunt, depretiati sunt.

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Rome, the troupe-leader stands for the entire company. Complaining about getting comedies which require a lot of physical strain, the aged Ambivius Turpio makes a point to note that ‘easy’ scripts are offered to other companies. He is clearly identifying himself with his own troupe.89 In very few instances we can have a somewhat more complete picture of dramatic revivals. Generalizations are difficult to make and it may be misleading to assume that what happened in one place was also the norm somewhere else, but whenever we have more evidence to go by, comic choruses also appear. Consider the catalogues of the Delphic Soteria in the mid-third century bc.90 Here, dramatic productions are run by a total of five artists: three actors, one aulos player and one didaskalos, a figure who, within a travelling troupe, took care of financial and administrative issues as well as performance-related tasks.91 Given that there is no record of playwrights, these performances were evidently limited to revivals.92 Next to comic actors, we also find a comic chorus with seven members, who become eight in one catalogue. Much smaller than the chorus of twenty-four members used in Old Comedy, it apparently performed in more than one play.93 In Hellenistic Delphi, comedies had a chorus but tragedies did not,94 a scenario comparable to that of the Sarapieia celebrated at Tanagra before Sulla’s sack of Athens in 86 bc. At the Sarapieia, probably a penteric festival on a small scale, there was a chorus for comedy, new satyr-play and new tragedy, but not for old tragedy.95 New Comedy choruses were almost invariably disposed of by Roman playwrights.96 They went unrecorded on papyri, and a late author such as John of Alexandria could simply label Menander’s choruses as ‘silent’. (Active in the first half of the sixth century ad, John of Alexandria authored a commentary on Hippocrates, where at one point he decides to pass over a chapter ‘in great silence, like a Menander’s chorus’.97) Dio Chrysostom, however, could still see chorus 89 90

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Ter. Heaut. 44–5: si qua laboriosa est, ad me curritur / sin lenis est, ad alium defertur gregem. For our inscriptions from the Delphic Soteria and discussions of this festival, see Sifakis 1967: 71– 83, Nachtergael 1977: 299–328 with Actes 2–11, Le Guen 2001a: I.166–72, T 24. On this kind of didaskaloi and their tasks, see Slater 2010: 254. 92 Le Guen 2007: 106. It is possible that this chorus was increased in number by local performers, a scenario which fits well with the number of chorus-trainers active in the Associations of Artists of Dionysus. See Wilson 2000: 308. Gentili 1979: 23, Nachtergael 1977: 313. SEG XIX 335. For the text of this inscription, see also Calvet and Roesch 1966 and especially Slater 1993: 191. For choruses at the Sarapieia, see Slater 1993: 189–99 and 2010: esp. 279, 281. On choruses in Roman comedy, see p. 72. We can sometimes identify the choral breaks in the Greek models adapted by the Roman dramatists. Hunter 1979 collects and discusses the evidence. John of Alexandria, Commentary on Hippocrates’ On the Nature of the Child p. 132.28 (Mενάνδριον χoρòν μιμησάμενοι σιγῇ πολλῇ διέλϑωμεν τοῦτο τò κεφάλαιον) with Burkert 2000.

Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 1

members and hear their songs on the imperial stage. Contemporary comic and tragic performances, he writes, consist largely of old plays and differ in their format: tragedies have lost their songs to be reduced to their iambic parts, but ‘all is kept of comedy’.98 Actors kept staging old Greek drama with their troupes evidently in fulllength revivals, but musicians felt free to adapt texts to make them fit into new formats.99 The two musical papyri with extracts from Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis and from more than one Neoptolemos-tragedy belong to a group of papyri with drama set to music, a group that makes up about a quarter of our records preserving ancient Greek music.100 What kind of drama? Not comedy, or at least not certainly so. The only secure comic text with notation is a third-century ad papyrus scrap preserving only half of an iambic trimeter from Menander’s Perikeiromene (796). Lifted from the dialogue between Pataikos and Glykera towards the end of the comedy, the emotional exchange whereby they discover they are father and daughter, this line was copied four times with different intonations. Since the notation is in the compass of a fifth, this is not a musical papyrus: this text was meant to be spoken and not sung as assumed by its earlier editor, who used it as evidence for later komoidoi singing iambic parts.101 From satyr-plays seem to come two musical papyri. In one of them, dated to the second century ad, a character addresses the chorus, inviting them to dance. Its content, along with its meter, points to a satyr-play, thus making this papyrus a fascinating piece of evidence for the survival of this genre in the Roman period. Another text, produced in the Hellenistic period, contains an intriguing monody 98

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Dio Chrys. Or. 19.5: καὶ τά γε πολλὰ αὐτῶν ἀρχαῖά ἐστι καὶ πολὺ σοφωτέρων ἀνδρῶν ἢ τῶν νῦν· τὰ μὲν τῆς κωμῳδίας ἅπαντα· τῆς δὲ τραγῳδίας τὰ μὲν ἰσχυρά, ὡς ἔοικε, μένει· λέγω δὲ τὰ ἰαμβεῖα· καὶ τούτων μέρη διεξίασιν ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις. On this passage, see also below. For fully staged plays, see also the anecdote preserved by Philostratus on an actor expelled at the beginning of his play (V S 534–5: κατ’ ἀρχὰς τοῦ δράματος). A mysterious device with knobs appears with figures of actors on imperial monuments. Dunbabin 2006 suggests that its use was to communicate to the audience the number of the act staged, something which does point to complete performances. P.Vind. G. 2315; P.Ashm. inv. 89 B/31, 33; P.Cair. Zen. IV 59533; P.Vind. G 29825 a/b recto; P. Vind. G 29825 a/b verso; P.Berol. inv. 6870, 16–19, 23; P.Oxy. XXV 2436; P.Mich. inv. 2958, ll. 1–18, 19–26; P.Oxy. XLIV 3161 recto and verso (Pöhlmann and West 2001: nos. 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 17–18, 38, 42, 43, 53, 54). To these papyri, which are also discussed by Gammacurta 2006: 231–5 and passim, add also Antiquités égyptiennes E 10534 (Carcinus’ Medea; second century ad), published by West 2007. P.Oxy. XLIV 3162 (Adespota TrGF F 686) and P.Yale 4510 are problematic, but a case for tragedy cannot be dismissed. See Pöhlmann and West 2001: nos. 41, 55. P.Oxy. LIII 3705 with Pöhlmann and West 2001: 185 (pace Huys 1993). Bélis 1988 gives a different transcription and interpretation of this text, which she considers to be a model exercise by a teacher of melography deliberately including mistakes. Pernigotti 2005: 76–7 reviews earlier interpretations and concludes that this papyrus was a personal copy and not a teacher’s model. On this papyrus see also p. 172.

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delivered by a noble Trojan woman abusing one of the Greek heroes involved in the Trojan War – a scenario that may fit Andromache and Neoptolemos.102 Except for these two records, the surviving dramatic texts with musical notation are all from tragedy and, at least in some cases, from old tragedies: Euripides’ Orestes and Iphigenia at Aulis, probably Sophocles the Younger’s Achilleus and Carcinus’ Medea.103 Often subject to textual reworking, these tragic texts are all likely to be excerpts rather than full plays. Dated to around 200 bc, the Orestes papyrus is one of our earliest musical records and, although its musical setting may go back to Euripides himself, its line order, with the inversion of two lines, is generally rejected.104 By making Iphigenia’s duet with the chorus precede lines from the second stasimon, the Iphigenia fragment changes the order of the extracts. The musical papyrus with Carcinus’ Medea contains an exchange between three characters, but only Medea’s lines are set to music. Fragmentary as our texts are, the excerpting criterion is not completely clear, but laments seem recurrent. The Argive women making up the chorus of Orestes weep over the troubles of the royal house; Iphigenia bids farewell to life; expressions of grief open the first fragment probably from Sophocles the Younger’s Achilleus. One or perhaps two fragments from another collection suggest a lament delivered by Thetis over Achilles.105 Although lyrics figure largely on dramatic papyri with musical notation, there are also a few examples of iambic lines set to music: the first item on a second-century ad papyrus, for instance, is a dialogue in iambic meter between Orestes and another character, a passage most probably lifted from a tragic prologue.106 All these features – the presence of extracts, the preference for lyric parts and the frequency of laments – perhaps allow a comparison between these texts and another papyrus which is, however, not a musical one. Dated to about 250 bc, this record preserves on the recto a collection of lyric parts from Euripides’ Phoenician Women (the final part of Antigone’s song and lines from the duets between Antigone and Oedipus), from Medea (extracts from choral odes, including the exchange between the 102

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P.Oxy. XXV 2436, P.Vind. G. 29825 a/b verso. See Pöhlmann and West 2001: esp. 50 and 123, with earlier literature. P.Vind. G. 2315; P.Leid. inv. 510; Ashm. inv. 89 B/31, 33; Antiquités égyptiennes E 10534. P.Vind. G. 2315 (Eur. Or. 338–44, with the inversion of 338 and 339). See Willink 1986: 141–3; Pöhlmann and West 2001: 14. P.Oxy. XLIV 3161 recto with Pöhlmann and West 2001: 178. Gammacurta 2006: 229 suggests that all the fragments preserved here are laments. P.Mich. inv. 2958, ll. 1–18. Other examples of iambs set to music: P.Oslo 1413 a, ll. 15–19, g–m (on which see above); Antiquités égyptiennes E 10534 and possibly P.Mich. inv. 2958, ll. 19–26, apparently also from a tragic prologue.

Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 1

chorus and Medea’s children) and from an unidentified play (a song addressed to a woman).107 The performers of these tragic texts set to music are not actors but singers. The vocal register of the Iphigenia fragment, just like that of Carcinus’ Medea, suggests a male solo singer, but the excerpt from the Ajax-tragedy on the Berlin fragment, originally a choral song, apparently calls for a female.108 Since the first excerpt of the Iphigenia musical papyrus contains the only part of the play with a lyric exchange between Iphigenia and the chorus, one could envisage a two-part performance, yet a virtuoso singer taking up both parts also seems to be a possibility.109 Likewise, the dialogue from the Orestestragedy could be either the performance piece of a virtuoso singer or that of two singers alternating roles. The various scenarios one can suggest for our musical papyri square well with our knowledge of the activities of singers, who also went by the name of tragoidoi. In the imperial period, we often find them with choruses: like khoraulai (choral pipers), tragoidoi were actually expected to have one. This is the point of a host complaining to a guest who has brought too many friends for dinner: ‘I did not know . . . that you were a tragoidos or a khoraules or anyone else at all who is supposed to have a chorus. I invited only you.’ Plutarch also speaks of tragoidoi with a chorus.110 The anecdote related by Lucian on the performance of a tragoidos in Abdera under the reign of Lysimachos (about 300 bc) does not mention any chorus but shows ad hoc singers taking up different roles. After the tragoidos Archelaos performed Euripides’ Andromeda, the disease-smitten townsmen, all thin and pale, also turned themselves into tragoidoi: ‘they went all mad with tragedy, shouting iambs at the top of their lungs; above all, they kept singing the monody of Euripides’ Andromeda and they kept delivering Perseus’ speech in song’.111 107

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P.Stras. W.G. 304–7, with PW 1499–581, 1710–36; Med. 841–65, 976–82, 1087–1115, 1251–92 (including also iambic trimeters, ll. 1271–2, 1277–8, delivered by Medea’s children); Eur. TrGF F **953m (Gentili 1979: 19–20, no. 3). The verso of this papyrus preserves different poetic passages, mostly in iambic meter. See further Fassino 1999, who suggests that the unidentified tragedy is Euripides’ Ino, and Carrara 2009: 103–10. Pöhlmann and West 2001: 20, West 2007: 9, Pöhlmann and West 2001: 59. Prauscello 2006: 179. As an example of a virtuoso singer handling two parts, she cites Ar. Thesm. 101–29: Agathon delivers an astrophic song by imitating the alternating voices of the female chorus-leader and the chorus. Lucillius, AP 11.11.1–3 (quotation); Plut. Mor. 63a; see also Arr. Epict. diss. 3.14.1. The same performers also appear together in the consular games of Justinian (Nov. 105.1). Lucian, How to write history 1: ἅπαντες γὰρ ἐς τραγῳδίαν παρεκίνουν καὶ ἰαμβεῖα ἐφθέγγοντο καὶ μέγα ἐβόων· μάλιστα δὲ τὴν Εὐριπίδου Ἀνδρομέδαν ἐμονῴδουν καὶ τὴν τοῦ Περσέως ῥῆσιν ἐν μέλει διεξῄεσαν. For the reading ἐν μέλει rather than ἐν μέρει, see Kassel 1973: 106. Eunapius (Historici graeci minores, fr. 54) also relates a similar anecdote. See further Easterling and Miles 1999: 101–2.

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Despite the little credence it inspires, Lucian’s story claims a spot in the ancient afterlife of Euripides’ drama. Lucian’s tragoidoi sing parts of the play. Exposed as a sacrifice to a sea monster, the bound Andromeda sings to her companion, Echo, and she eventually attracts Perseus’ attention. So memorable was this scene that Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusai parodied it in 411 bc, the year after its first performance. This is also the same scene that we find on a number of Western Greek vases dated to the fourth century bc.112 ‘One of Euripides’ most beautiful tragedies’, as a scholion calls it, Andromeda attracted performers and dramatists, both professional and amateur. During his last dinner party, Alexander the Great recited an episode from it; Ptolemy Philopator, who reigned from 221 to 205 bc, authored an Adonis that somehow imitated Euripides’ play, and the several Roman playwrights credited with an Andromeda most probably followed Euripides.113 One can surely doubt that a tragoidos actually performed Andromeda in Hellenistic Abdera or under Nero as in Eunapius’ version, but the choice of the play is not a casual one. As well as performing with choruses and by themselves, tragoidoi had their own assistants, the hypotragoidoi. A woman called Theodora is recorded as the hypotragoidos of the tragoidos Asbolis on an inscription from Dura (mid-third century ad). Another example comes from Lucian’s pen. As Zeus’s tragoidos walks up and down, pale and worried, his divine family tries to help him: Hermes resorts to comedy and Athena to epic, but Hera can do neither. She is not as well versed in either genre, nor has she ‘swallowed the whole of Euripides as to be able to be your [sc. Zeus’s] hypotragoidos’.114 The singers who delivered these songs can be placed next to other musicians who appropriated Greek tragedy. Consider the famous aulos player Satyros of Samos, who gave an epideixis in the stadium of Delphi in 194 bc. The inscription recorded on his statue reads that Satyros, uniquely granted the privilege of an uncontested performance, gave ‘to the god and the Greeks the song “Dionysus” with a chorus and a kitharisma from the Bacchae of Euripides’. Although many of the details of Satyros’ show are unclear, he seems first to have performed as a khoraules and then to have given some sort of musical performance on the cithara, 112 113

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For vases more or less probably related to Euripides’Andromeda, see Taplin 2007: 174–86. Schol. Ar. Frogs 53; Nikoboule 127 FGrH F2; schol. Ar. Thesm. 1059. An Andromeda is attributed to Livy Andronicus, Naevius and Accius. Dura 940, fr. 5, col. 1.7–9 (Stephanis 1988, nos. 448, 1448); Luc. Zeus Tragoidos 1–2 (μηδὲ τὸν Εὐριπίδην ὅλον καταπεπώκαμεν, ὥστε σοι ὑποτραγῳδεῖν). Another woman tragoidos is the Athenion who sang a work called The Horse (AP 5.138, with the lemma identifying Athenion as a κόρη τραγῳδός).

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possibly drawing both pieces from Euripides’ Bacchae.115 Songs from plays are part of the repertoire of the khoraules Epagathos and the tragoidos Kanopos, both recorded on a papyrus dated to the first or second century ad.116 Made up by nomoi, which were standard pieces for cithara singing, and a range of other things like dithyrambs and even Homeric battles, the varied repertoire of citharodes also made room for drama. Philostratus mentions a man who goes around Rome with a cithara and delivers, among other things, songs from Nero’s tragedies to entertain Apollonius and his friends.117 About a century later, in the first half of the second century ad, the inhabitants of Miletus honoured their fellow citizen Gaios Ailios Themison, ‘the first and only one to have set to music for himself (ἑαυτῷ μελοποιήσαντα) Euripides, Sophocles and Timotheus’.118 Generally identified as a citharode and possibly a forerunner of the Timotheasts active in Timotheus’ home town, Miletus, at about ad 213–50.119 Themison evidently set to new music old texts, producing the kinds of documents we find among our musical papyri. In his work On Literary Composition, Dionysius of Halicarnassus illustrates the independence of melody from accent by citing what he calls Electra’s address to the chorus in Euripides’ Orestes (140–2) and discussing its melody. Dionysius’ remarks are valuable for many reasons, one being his apparent belief that the music went back to Euripides himself.120 Old music was apparently still available in the Roman period, but there were also plenty of modern adaptations. Musicians and singers such as citharodes, khoraulai and tragoidoi were all experimenting with old tragedy, excerpting and readapting it both textually and rhythmically to deliver it in new formats.121 Euripides seems to fill the scene here too. Since this is the 115

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SIG3 648B. On this inscription see Sifakis 1967: 96–7 with earlier literature, West 1992: 376 and the referenced discussion in Prauscello 2006: 104–8. This papyrus is edited by Cockle 1975. See also West 1992: 377. Hall 2002: 13–14 notes that the songs recorded here seem to be mostly from Euripides’ plays. IG II2 3779.7–8 (with Wilson 2000: 318, n. 79); Ath. 14.638a; Philostr. VA 4.39 (καὶ βραχὺν διεξελθὼν ὕμνον τοῦ Νέρωνος ἐπῆγε μέλη τὰ μὲν ἐξ Ὀρεστείας, τὰ δὲ ἐξ Ἀντιγόνης, τὰ δ’ ὁποθενοῦν τῶν τραγῳδουμένων αὐτῷ, καὶ ᾠδὰς ἔκαμπτεν, ὁπόσας Νέρων ἐλύγιζέ τε καὶ κακῶς ἔστρεφεν). On citharodes in general, see West 1992 passim, Bélis 1999: esp. 186–96, Vendries 1999: esp. 277–80. SEG XI 52c, first published in Hesperia 22 (1953) 182–95. On Themison, see also Latte 1954: 127, Hall 2002: 15–16 and the referenced discussion in Prauscello 2006: 111–16. IDidyma 181.5. But see also Prauscello 2006: 115, n. 369. Dion. Hal. Comp. 63–4 (ii.41–2 U-R) with Pöhlmann and West 2001: 10–11. Only one of the lines that Dionysius ascribes to Electra is delivered by her (142), since the first two belong to the chorus. Roman tragedy also offered singers some material, at least occasionally. Tragic airs from Pacuvius’ Armorum iudicium and Atilius’ Electra were sung at the funeral games for Caesar (Suet. Iul. 84. 2).

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same trend characterizing dramatic activities, actors and musicians were drawing from the same repertoire.122

The Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 2: the Greek ‘revisions’ Given that, as far as we know, at no time in antiquity were old Greek plays presented in anthological versions by troupes of actors performing for public audiences (and, in all likelihood, not for private ones either), the Roman contaminatio must have its roots elsewhere. They are, I believe, still to be found in Greek theatrical production and probably in the practice of revising plays for a second performance, so-called διασκευή. Like Roman authors of palliatae, Greek playwrights staging a revision were working with a script that had already been performed to present it to a different audience. Of course, Roman poets were adapting texts into a different language, but even so, they seem to have operated along similar lines to Greek playwrights revamping dramas: Roman dramatists borrowed both plays and techniques from their Greek predecessors. Galen, who writes in the second half of the second century ad, helpfully gives us a definition of διασκευή: ‘to be a revision’: this term is said of a work that is written after an earlier version. It has the same plot and most of the same expressions but will have some things removed from the original, some things added and some changed. If you want an example for the sake of clarity, you have Eupolis’ second Autolykos, which is a revision of the first.123

Eupolis’ Autolykos, which was probably first produced in 420 bc, is the best example Galen could think of, but Aristophanes’ Clouds works best for us.124 The extant Clouds, which, although intended for performance, was never staged, is a revised version of the original comedy that Aristophanes presented at the Great Dionysia of 423 bc, obtaining the 122 123

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On theatrical revivals of Euripides’ plays in antiquity, see below. Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates’ Regimen in Acute Diseases 1.4 (CMG 5.9.1, p. 120.5): Ἐπιδιεσκευάσθαι λέγεται βιβλίον ἐπὶ τῷ προτέρῳ γεγραμμένῳ τὸ δεύτερον γραφέν, ὅταν τὴν ὑπόθεσιν ἔχον τὴν αὐτὴν καὶ τὰς πλείστας τῶν ῥήσεων τὰς αὐτὰς τινὰ μὲν ἀφῃρημένα τῶν ἐκ τοῦ προτέρου συγγράμματος ἔχῃ, τινὰ δὲ προσκείμενα, τινὰ δ’ ὑπηλλαγμένα· παράδειγμα δ’ εἰ βούλει τούτου σαφηνείας ἕνεκα, τὸν δεύτερον Αὐτόλυκον Εὐπόλιδος ἔχεις ἐκ τοῦ προτέρου διεσκευασμένον. On Eupolis’ Autolykos and its two versions, see Storey 2003: 81–4. Ath. 5.216c–d gives 420 bc as the date of Eupolis’ Autolykos, most probably the first one. See Storey 2003: 81–2.

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bottom prize.125 The following year, in Wasps (1043–50), he abused the audience for his failure, and he eventually decided to revise the comedy for a second production. One of our hypotheses to Clouds explains that this διασκευή was an extensive one, affecting ‘in general almost every part . . . some things have been removed; others have been worked in and refashioned in the arrangement and change of speaking characters’.126 Pollux and especially Athenaeus increase by far the number of revisions that we know: Epicharmus’ Hebes Gamos or Muses, Pherecrates’ Automoloi, Alexis’ Philetairos or Demetrios, Antiphanes’ Agroikos or Boutalion. Diphilus’ Eunuchos or Stratiotes was also a revised comedy, the διασκευή of a play entitled Hairesiteiches. Another play by Diphilus, Synoris, was revamped for a second production, just like Alexis’ Phrygian.127 These may well be only the tip of the iceberg.128 Chamaeleon’s On Comedy makes a point of remarking on the singular habits of Anaxandrides (380s to 340s bc): ‘whenever unsuccessful in the dramatic competition, he would take [his play] and give it to the incense seller to cut into pieces and he would not revise it as most authors did’.129 The proud Anaxandrides distinguished himself from those poets who, to the disapproval of his contemporary and colleague Xenarchos, ‘come up with nothing new, but each of them moves up and down the same things’.130 In the fourth century bc, revising was evidently a widespread practice, something which may help explain the increase in the number of comedies produced in this period.131 The practice existed, but its terminology was fluid. Chamaeleon uses the verb μετασκυάζειν, not διασκευάζειν. The grammarian Phrynichus explains an unidentified comic 125

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Hyp. VI W clearly states that the revised play was not performed and the testimony of Hyp. V W, which mentions a revision that was not produced and a reperformance of the Second Clouds in 423/2 bc, must be wrong (see Dover 1968: lxxxi; Revermann 2006: 327–8). See also schol. Clouds 552 with Dover 1968: lxxxi. Revermann 2006: 327–32 marshalls a number of good reasons why the Second Clouds was intended for performance. Hyp. Ar. Clouds VI W 3–6: καϑόλου μὲν οὖν σχεδὸν παρὰ πᾶν μέρος γεγενημένη 〈ἡ〉 διόρϑωσις . . . τὰ μὲν γὰρ περιῄρηται, τὰ δὲ παραπέπλεκται καὶ ἐν τῇ τάξει καὶ ἐν τῇ τῶν προσώπων διαλλαγῇ μετεσχημάτισται. The hypothesis goes on to tell us that the second version of Clouds also presents original elements. See further Dover 1968: lxxxii–lxxxiv. Ath. 3. 110b, Poll. 2.33.9, Ath. 14.663c, 8.358d, 11.496 e–f, 6.247c, 10.429e. See also below. Another passage from Aristophanes is probably also relevant: in his revised Clouds (!), he claims: ‘I do not try to fool you [sc. the audience] by staging the same things two or three times’ (οὐδ’ ὑμᾶς ζητῶ ‘ξαπατᾶν δὶς καὶ τρὶς ταὔτ’ εἰσάγων, 546). I owe this reference to Andrew Hartwig. Chamaeleon fr. 43W (Ath. 9.374b): ὅτε γὰρ μὴ νικῴη, λαμβάνων ἔδωκεν εἰς τὸν λιβανωτὸν κατατεμεῖν καὶ οὐ μετεσκεύαζεν ὥσπερ οἱ πολλοί. See Revermann 2006: 330–1. Xenarchos F 7.1–3 K-A: οἱ μὲν ποιηταὶ λῆρός εἰσιν· οὐδὲ ἓν / καινὸν γὰρ εὑρίσκουσιν, ἀλλὰ μεταφέρει / ἕκαστος αὐτῶν ταὔτ’ ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω. On this point, see p. 23.

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fragment –‘mending and reheeling’–with the reference to revamping plays by patching them like shoes, an activity that Phrynichus indicates by the verb ἐπισκευάζειν.132 Comparing plays to shoes and playwrights to shoe-makers is a nice image that varies the motif of plays like clothes, used twice by Aristophanes in his charges of plagiarism.133 In discussing the dates of Aristophanes’ two Clouds-comedies and Eupolis’ Marikas, Eratosthenes shows familiarity with the verb διασκευάζειν.134 He probably took it over from Aristotle and his students, one of the many instances of Alexandrian scholars borrowing from their Peripatetic predecessors.135 As two cases easily show, terminology is often a problem when trying to identify διασκευαί as revisions of plays. There was a consensus in antiquity that Euripides’ Medea was drawn from Neophron’s Medea or was actually a tragedy by Neophron: a few sources repeat this claim, but the hypothesis to Medea is unique in calling Euripides’ play a διασκευή, reportedly following Dicaearchus and Aristotle.136 Although the similarities between Euripides’ Medea and our fragments of Neophron’s Medea are remarkable, it is unclear whether Dicaearchus and Aristotle used this term in its technical sense or were broadly referring to the use of a myth already staged by another playwright.137 Consider also a term used as a synonym of διασκευή, διόρϑωσις, ‘correction’, and another tragedy by Euripides, Hippolytus.138 132

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Phryn. PS p. 69.14 (Adespota F 599 K-A): ἐπικαττύειν καὶ πτερνίζειν: τὸ παλαιὰ ἐπισκευάζειν. ἡ μεταφορὰ ἀπὸ τῶν τοῖς παλαιοῖς ὑποδήμασιν ἕτερα καττύματα καὶ πτέρνας προσραπτόντων. λέγουσι δὲ ἐπὶ τῶν παλαιὰ τῶν δραμάτων μεταποιούντων καὶ μεταρραπτόντων. Ar. Clouds 553–4 (Εὔπολις μὲν τὸν Μαρικᾶν πρώτιστον παρείλκυσεν / ἐκστρέψας τοὺς ἡμετέρους Ἱππέας κακὸς κακῶς) with scholion on Clouds 88; Ar. Anagyrous F 58 K-A (ἐκ δὲ τῆς ἐμῆς χλανίδος τρεῖς ἁπλαγίδας ποιῶν), on which see the referenced discussion in Sonnino 1998: 31–2. See also Machon’s epitaph (AP 7.708) further below. Schol. on Ar. Clouds 553: ἐν δὲ ταῖς ὕστερον διασκευασθείσαις. On the relationship between the Peripatetics and Alexandrian scholars, see pp. 54–5. Diog. Laert. 2.134, Suda ν 218, Hyp. Eur. Medea (a) D. 25–7: τὸ δρᾶμα δοκεῖ ὑποβαλέσθαι παρὰ Νεόφρονος διασκευάσας, ὡς Δικαίαρχος 〈ἐν . . . 〉 τοῦ τῆς Ἑλλάδος βίου καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν ὑπομνήμασιν. Equally ambiguous are the various charges of plagiarism recorded for both Aeschylus and Sophocles. In his On Aeschylus’ Myths, Glaukos claimed that Aeschylus’ Persians was plagiarized (παραπεποιῆσθαι) from Phrynichus’ Phoenician Women, and a certain Alexander Philostratus wrote a work on Sophocles’ stealings. Hyp. Aesch. Pers., Aesch. TrGF T 86 (see also Ar. Frogs 1299–1300); Euseb. Praep. evang. 10.3.13, Soph. TrGF T 154a; see also T 154b. These two Medea plays are so strikingly similar that Mastronarde 2002: 57–64 suggests Neophron’s Medea was a later imitation of Euripides’ tragedy. See also Diggle 2008: 410, who, among other things, considers the possibility that Neophron was a post-Euripidean dramatist who imitated Euripides’ interpolated text. On διόρθωσις as a synonym of διασκευή, see Hyp. Ar. Clouds VI W cited above. The Suda includes eight διασκευαί among the works of Timotheus and they may refer to his involvement in tragic productions. Timotheus the lyric poet is probably to be identified with Timotheus the didaskalos recorded on IG II2 3091 (on which see also p. 23), where Timotheus acted as a director possibly for the tragic poet Achaeus. See Luppe 1969, Csapo 2010: 92 with references.

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The hypothesis to the play, which is attributed to Aristophanes of Byzantium, claims that in the second Hippolytus, Hippolytus Crowned, ‘what was indecent and worthy of condemnation has been corrected’ (διώρϑωται, 29–30), but our papyri show that, although dealing with the same mythical episode, these tragedies had two different plots.139 Unless revisions could take more drastic forms, the texts of these two tragedies do not accord with Galen’s definition. To complicate things further, textual changes of any kind fell under the umbrella of διασκευαί. The hypothesis to Rhesus knew of two prologues for this play, one of which, in iambics, was thought to be later and was blamed upon actors’ revisions.140 According to Veyne (1989: 342), revisions are familiar only from comedies, but there may be a couple of instances for tragedies as well. After Aeschylus’ death, Quintilian writes, his plays were ‘corrected and performed within the dramatic competition’; although he does not detail the extent of these changes, his comments on Aeschylus’ bombastic and crude style seem to point to formal improvements.141 Particularly interesting is Quintilian’s link between Aeschylus’ popularity and ‘corrected’ tragedies. This is the opposite scenario to that of Aristophanes’ Second Clouds and the revised plays of Anaxandrides’ fellow playwrights, all presented as the product of their failed first performance. More revised dramas come up under different forms: cases of disputed authorship, charges of plagiarism and comic texts apparently tampered with. Athenaeus tells us that Anteia was a play by Antiphanes, but that it was ‘also assigned to Alexis, with changes only in very few places’: Alexis’ comedy must have been a close adaptation of Antiphanes’, so close that it created a case of contended attribution.142 With the dispute between Aristophanes and Eupolis over Knights as the best-known example, Old 139

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Eur. TrGF First and Second Hippolytus T iia+b with Revermann 2006: 75. Both the order of the two Hippolytus plays and the reason why Euripides staged two tragedies on this myth are a matter of debate. See Gibert 1997. Hyp. Rhesus 30–2: καὶ ἐν ἐνίοις δὲ τῶν ἀντιγράφων ἕτερός τις φέρεται πρόλογος, πεζὸς πάνυ καὶ οὐ πρέπων Εὐριπίδῃ καὶ τάχα ἄν τινες τῶν ὑποκριτῶν διεσκευακότες εἶεν αὐτόν. Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis also presents two prologues, which are Page’s 1934 chief example of what he considers to be actors’ interpolations. That the so-called actors’ interpolations identified in our texts can be plausibly attributed to actors remains a matter of debate. See Hamilton 1974 and Garzya 1981. Quint. Inst. 10.1.66: Tragoedias primus in lucem Aeschylus protulit, sublimis et grauis et grandilocus saepe usque ad uitium, sed rudis in plerisque et incompositus: propter quod correctas eius fabulas in certamen deferre posterioribus poetis Athenienses permisere: suntque eo modo multi coronati. A number of other sources mention revivals of Aeschylus’ plays after his death (see p. 66, n. 11), but Quintilian uniquely speaks of ‘corrected texts’. Our text of Seven against Thebes (on which see further below) may be an example of them. Ath. 3.127b with Arnott 1996a: 817.

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Comedy often resorts to charges of plagiarism. Whether these charges are part of a standard set of abuse or attest to authorial collaboration, they should perhaps be distinguished from reperformances of plays in a revised form by the original or another poet.143 Also relevant is the claim, made by Caecilius of Calacte, that in his Deisidaimon Menander copied the whole of Antiphanes’ Oionistes, ‘from beginning to end’ – a remark that hardly surprised anyone, since it was common knowledge.144 That the highly prolific Antiphanes provided good material for other poets does not come as a surprise, given his general popularity. Antiphanes was granted Athenian citizenship, allegedly spent some time with Alexander the Great, had the honour of having his bones brought hack to Athens after his death in Chios, and was the subject of a monograph by Demetrius of Phaleron.145 Philemon also reportedly borrowed plays from other dramatists: he took Araros’ Kokalos, changed it a little and used it in his Hypobolimaios.146 Signs of revision have been detected in our texts of at least two comedies, one of which is Alexis’ Krateia or Pharmakopoles. Among its fragments, there is a reference dating the play to before 318 bc (the Athenian politician Callimedon seems to be spoken of as still alive and active) and another dating the play to after 306 bc (a character toasts the victory of King Antigonos, the young Demetrius and Phila Aphrodites), two conflicting details explained by a second production. Krateia was apparently revised and reperformed as Pharmakopoles when Alexis was still alive.147 Straton and Philemon possibly provide the second example. Athenaeus quotes a four-line fragment that he ascribes to a cook in Philemon, only to cite the same lines elsewhere as the beginning of a forty-seven-line cook-speech from Straton’s Phoinikides. This is the same 143

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Ar. Clouds 553–6, Eupolis F 89 K-A. On Aristophanes’ and Eupolis’ exchange over the Knights, see Heath 1990: 151–2 and Sonnino 1998, who provides a thorough review of the changes of plagiarism in Old Comedy and agrees with Heath in considering them as ‘part of a system of ritualized insults’ (but see Biles 2011: 156 with n. 91 and ch. 5 on the term ‘ritualized’). The issue of collaboration between the two poets has been variously assessed. See Storey 2003: 287 for general discussion and review of scholarly opinions. Sidwell 2009: 32–3, 36, 47 and passim, discusses various instances of both verbal echoes between plays and motif-borrowing in Old Comedy. Euseb. Praep. evang. 10.3.13: Καικίλιος δέ, ὥς τι μέγα πεφωρακώς, ὅλον δρᾶμα ἐξ ἀρχῆς εἰς τέλος Ἀντιφάνους, τὸν Οἰωνιστήν, μεταγράψαι φησὶ τὸν Μένανδρον εἰς τὸν Δεισιδαίμονα. Menander too had a reputation for theft: his borrowings were first collected by Aristophanes of Byzantium and later by a certain Latinus in his On the things that are not by Menander (Euseb. Praep. ev. 10.3.12; Men. T 76, 81 K-A). See pp. 24, 39. Clem. Al. Strom. 6.26.6: τὸν μέντοι Κώκαλον τὸν ποιηθέντα Ἀραρότι τῷ Ἀριστοφάνους υἱεῖ Φιλήμων ὁ κωμικὸς ὑπαλλάξας ἐν Ὑποβολιμαίῳ ἐκωμῴδησεν. See also Prolegomena XXVIII, p. 133 K. Alexis F 117, 118, 116 K-A with Arnott 1996a: 309–10.

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text preserved, in a different format, on a third-century bc papyrus roll that was used by a schoolmaster teaching different levels. Kassel takes this as evidence for a διασκευή, although the extent of Straton’s borrowings from Philemon remains unclear.148 Distinguished from their model by the addition of a numeral, like Eupolis’ Second Autolykos, or by a different title, revisions could be cited alongside their original version, under different titles and also under different authors, if the play had not been revamped by the original poet.149 Athenaeus feels free to quote from Alexis’ Demetrios or from Alexis’ Demetrios or Philetairos to explain at one point that Demetrios is the revised version of Philetairos. Incidentally, this must have been quite a successful play, given that Turpilius adapted it for Roman audiences in the second century bc.150 The Suda includes among Metagenes’ plays ‘Aurai or Mammakythos’, but since Athenaeus cites from Metagenes’ Aurai or Aristagoras’ Mammakythos, Aristagoras’ comedy was probably a revision of Metagenes’ play.151 This is the same quotation pattern that we find for Roman tragedies and comedies fashioned after Greek originals: the grammarian Festus cites Ennius’ Achilles by the title of its Greek model, Aristarchos’ Achilles, Plautus’ Mostellaria as Phasma and Cistellaria as Synaristosai.152 The practice of reperforming drama in its original or revised version explains at least some of the epithets and double titles attested for a number of plays. The standard example is Sophocles’ Ajax. Ancient scholars explain that this tragedy is called Ajax Mastigophoros (‘whip-bearer’) to differentiate it from the Locrian Ajax, in the same way as Euripides’ two Hippolytus

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Ath. 14.659b (Philemon F 114 K-A), 9.382b–383b (Straton F 1 K-A) and P.Cair. 65445 (Cribiore 1996: no. 379) with Kassel 1974: 124–7. If Straton did revise a play by Philemon, this may be another indication of Philemon’s popularity on Hellenistic stages. See further on p. 58. Of course, this is not to say that all homonymous plays were remakes: Plautus’ Stichus and Terence’s Adelphoe make it clear that Menander’s two Adelphoi were different plays. This is also likely to be the case for Aristophanes’ two comedies entitled Thesmophoriazusai and Wealth, but comedies like Aristophanes’ two plays named Aiolosikon and Peace cannot be confidently identified as revisions or new plays. See Revermann 2006: 75 with earlier literature. Ath. 7.314d, 8.338d (Demetrios), 6.241b (Demetrios or Philetairos), 14.663c (Demetrios as a revised play) with Arnott 1996a: 155–6. We have seventeen fragments of Turpilius’ Demetrius, and one of them (Demetrius F V R) closely adapts a fragment from Alexis’ play (Demetrios or Philetairos F 47 K-A). See further Arnott 1996a: 157–8 and 851–7. On Roman comedies and their Greek models, see also pp. 59–60 and Appendix 1. Suda μ 688 (Metagenes T 1 K-A, adopting Meineke’s reading Αὖραι 〈ἢ〉 Μαμμάκυθος), Λth. 13.571b with Meineke 1839: I.218–19. A comedy variously called Mammakythos or Mammakythoi was also ascribed to Plato (Mammakythoi, T i–iii K-A). See above.

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plays circulated as Hippolytus Veiled and Hippolytus Crowned.153 Epithets of this kind smack of theatres and audiences rather than libraries and papyri. The play came to be named after its key scene, the same scene whereby plays often entered the visual record.154 As evidence of the importance of actors’ activities in renaming at least some plays, we also hear of a Latin tragedy called Ajax Mastigophorus.155 As drawing its name from a minor stage prop, this is also, incidentally, a baffling case. Ajax probably carried a whip in his first appearance on the stage when still mad (91–117): he claims to have Odysseus inside his hut not to be released ‘until he dies, with his back first made red by the whip’ (110), the same action and the same whip that Tecmessa will mention later on, in her lyric exchange with the chorus (241–2). The object invested with a sustained meaning throughout the play is, however, not Ajax’s whip but his sword – the sword that he took from Hector, used to slay the cattle and will eventually turn against himself, to be drawn from his corpse by Teucer towards the end of the tragedy.156 The scholion to the play remarks that Ajax’s falling on his sword – the tragedy’s key scene – called for ‘a powerful [actor] to lead the spectators up to the revelation of Ajax’, a performer such as the otherwise unknown Timotheus of Zakynthos, who earned the nickname of ‘executioner’, the same name by which Ajax calls his sword before throwing himself on it (815).157 However Ajax’s suicide was staged, it was so striking that the whole play came to be called after it: that Dicaearchus referred to this tragedy as Ajax’s Death squares well with Timotheus’ specialism in his 153

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Hyp. Soph. Aj. 9–11. For the title Hippolytus Crowned (῾Iππόλυτος Στεφανίας or Στεφανηφόρoς), see the hypothesis to the play ascribed to Aristophanes of Byzantium (27–8) and P.Sorb. 2252 (c. mid-third century bc), which probably preserves the title ‘Iππόλυτος Στεφανηφόρoς. See further Barrett 1964: 10–15 and Carrara 2009: esp. 66–8. West 1979: 131 and Sommerstein 2002: 4, 6, both note this point, but ultimately conclude that epithets and alternative titles originated with the book trade and that they were already current on papyri before the scholarly activities in Alexandria. Others stress the role of Alexandrian scholars: see Taplin 1975: 185 (on epithets) and Arnott 1996a: esp. 515–16 (on alternative titles), reacting to Bender’s tendency (1904) to explain alternative titles with reperformances. The presence of key scenes in the visual record is discussed on pp. 161–5. On the basis of a corrupted passage in Nonius p. 207.32 and cod. Urbinas 308, Ribbeck attributed this play to Livy Andronicus, who is otherwise on record as writing an Ajax. Jocelyn, however, doubts Livy’s authorship (1967: 179–81). Taplin 2003: 62–5. Schol. Aj. 864a: δεῖ δὲ ὑπονοῆσαι ὅτι περιπίπτει τῷ ξίφει. καὶ δεῖ καρτερόν τινα εἶναι τὸν ὑποκριτήν, ὡς ἄξαι τοὺς θεατὰς εἰς τὴν τοῦ Αἴαντος φαντασίαν· ὁποῖα περὶ τοῦ Ζακυνθίου Τιμοθέου φασὶν ὅτι ἦγε τοὺς θεατὰς καὶ ἐψυχαγώγει τῇ ὑποκρίσει, ὡς σφαγέα αὐτὸν κληθῆναι. Timotheus’ date is not known, but it may be significant that the other two datable actors from Zakynthos, the two komoidoi Lycidas son of Thrasyxenos and Philonides son of Aristomachos, belong to the mid-third century bc (Stephanis 1988: nos. 1559, 2568). On our record for Philonides, see Le Guen 2001b: 287.

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revivals.158 Not that the impact of this scene was lost in the imperial period: when Augustus destroyed the Ajax he was writing and explained to his friends that his own Ajax had fallen on a sponge, the allusion is still to Sophocles’ play (Suet. Aug. 85). A major problem with alternative titles is the impossibility of determining when they were made up and came to circulate, since the Suda is our main source in the vast majority of cases. The driver behind them – performances in revised versions, informal renaming of plays or grammarians’ activities – is just as difficult to pinpoint.159 At a minimum, they indicate the popularity of some plays, specific characters, excerpts or scenes. At least some of them are clearly unrelated to the early reception of specific plays. Menander’s Misoumenos and Dyskolos, for instance, apparently circulated as Thrasonides and Misanthropos only in the Roman period, and Greek plays were still being renamed well beyond the end of antiquity, after one of their main characters or the prologuespeaker.160 One could perhaps consider as a single group the over thirty plays (mostly comedies) for which Athenaeus gives alternative titles. That these titles were meant to differentiate homonymous plays like Sophocles’ two Ajaxes seems hardly likely. There are, for instance, at least eight comedies called Adelphoi, but only one of them is given an alternative title; by contrast, Alexis’ Agonis, apparently a unique case, is recorded as Agonis or Hippiskos.161 For putative readers eager to get hold of the right text, the easiest way to distinguish between homonymous comedies was by the author’s name. This is a feature regularly included with play-titles (and titles in general) preserved on papyri, either before or after the work’s title, whether the title is written on the tag glued onto the roll or on the papyrus itself.162 Alternative 158

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Hyp. to Soph. Aj. 10. For an on-stage suicide, see the scholion to Aj. 815, which remarks that this scene breaks dramatic conventions (ἔστι δὲ τὰ τοιαῦτα παρὰ τοῖς παλαιοῖς σπάνια· εἰώθασι γὰρ τὰ πεπραγμένα δι’ ἀγγέλων ἀπαγγέλλειν), and Arist. Poet. 1452b12–13, who mentions ‘visible deaths’ (oἵ τε ἐν τῷ φανερῷ ϑάνατoι) as exemplifying pathos, one of the components of plots. The most recent and detailed review of this issue is by Scullion 1994: 89–128, who argues against a visible suicide. Scholarly literature on this topic is massive. Standard reference works are Bender 1904, Hunter 1983: 146–8, Arnott 1996a: esp. 51–2, Sommerstein 2002. P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656 (fourth century ad, see further on pp. 216–17, 220), P.Bodm. IV (Hyp. Men. Dys., third or fourth century ad, on which see further pp. 220–1). Laurentianus 32, 2 (L, fourteenth century, preserving Euripides’ plays), is a case in point: it gives Phaedra instead of Hippolytus, Pentheus for Bacchae, Polydor for Hecuba and Electra for Orestes. See Caroli 2007: 217–18. On the popularity of dramatic prologues, see p. 215. See Arnott 1996a: 51. On Menander’s First Adelphoi or Philadelphoi, see p. 164. Caroli 2007: esp. 63–6. Homer is the exception to the rule. For titles included with or on papyri (apparently) preserving plays, see P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656, ‘Menander’s Thrasonides’; P.Cair. sine numero, ‘Empimpramene by Menander’ (Caroli 2007: P 29); P.Sorb. 72+ 2272 + 2273, ‘Sikyonioi by Menander’; P.Oxy. LIV 3741, ‘Phoenician Women by Euripides’ (Caroli 2007: P 29). Also note the interesting case of P.Oxy. V 841, which preserves Pindar’s Paean 6 and has one

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titles on papyri are not common: there is only one secure instance among the thirty-five cases identified by Caroli.163 Sommerstein (2002: 5–6) takes as an example Strattis’ Makedones or Pausanias, a comedy that Athenaeus cites in different ways, and supposes that there were texts circulating under either title, so that the double title arose when the Alexandrians realized that these were two designations for the same comedy. But when Athenaeus does explain the alternative titles that he gives, a διασκευή is involved.164 The most interesting case is probably a play by Diphilus known as Stratiotes, Eunuchos and Hairesiteiches. We hear that Eunuchos is the title that Callimachus gave to Hairesiteiches because Eunuchos (which Athenaeus later mentions as Eunuchos or Stratiotes) is the revamped version of Hairesiteiches.165 Callimachus was not adding a title, but replacing it. In doing so, he was drawing from performance tradition. Judging from our sources, comedies had the lion’s share in the practice of revising drama, but we also hear of tragic revisions. The Suda includes a revamped play among the works of Lycophron, who was active in thirdcentury bc Alexandria: after listing the twenty tragedies that he wrote, the Suda adds that Nauplios, first included among Lycophron’s works, ‘is a διασκευή of these [plays]’. To believe the Suda, the Nauplios was a revamped version of more than one tragedy, and this may be the closest example we have to Terence’s mixing of plays.166 Our text of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes may make up an earlier instance, if the end of the play is indeed not authentic and was modified by adding a scene adapted from another play, probably Euripides’ Phoenician Women.167 In the late first century ad, Dio Chrysostom could still mention comedies and διασκευαί in the same breath

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marginal title at the start of the poem and a second title at the start of the third triad. See Rutherford 1997 and 2001: 336–8. P.Lond. Lit. 47, with the title of one of Bacchylides’ dithyrambs, Antenoridai or Helen’s Request (Caroli 2007: P 15). Other examples are not secure. P.Oxy. LX 4026 (Caroli 2007: P 34), which reads ‘Progamon or Oneiros’, may not be a play-title. Luppe 1966: esp. 185–8 tentatively reads a double title in the hypothesis to Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros on P.Oxy. IV 663 (Caroli 2007: P 26), ‘Dionysalexandros or Idaioi’, to explain the H beside the title, written as a numeral and previously linked to the alphabetic or chronologic arrangement of Cratinus’ plays. Idaioi is, however, not attested as an alternative title for this play. Bakola 2005: 49. 55 and 2010: 96 considers both readings (‘or’ and ‘eight’) a possibility. Ath. 3.110b (Epicharmus’ Muses as the revision of his Hebes Gamos), 14.663c (Alexis’ Demetrios as the revision of his Philetairos), 8.358d (Antiphanes’ Boutalion as the revision of his Agroikos); see also 11.496 e–f cited below. Ath. 11.496e–f: Δίφιλος Αἱρησιτείχει (τὸ δὲ δρᾶμα τοῦτο Καλλίμαχος ἐπιγράφει Εὐνοῦχον); 11.496f: Δίφιλος δ’ ἐν Εὐνούχῳ ἢ Στρατιώτῃ – ἐστὶ δὲ τὸ δρᾶμα διασκευὴ τοῦ Αἱρησιτείχους. Stratiotes and Hairesiteiches occur as separate titles on an extant catalogue dated to around 100 bc (IG II2 2363.34–6; Diphilus T 6 K-A). Suda λ 827; 100 Lycophron TrGF T 3. Hutchinson 1985: esp. xliii. See further Nervegna (forthcoming, a).

Greek background to Roman ‘play-spoiling’ 2

as he lectured the Alexandrians on their extravagant lifestyle.168 Building his case on our sources for Magnes’ Lydians and on Meineke’s identification of διασκευαί as fakes, pseudo-epigrapha, Veyne claims that the διασκευαί known to Dio Chrysostom were remakes of Classical plays staged under the festival category of old comedy.169 According to an anonymous work On Comedy, the nine plays attributed to Magnes were all lost. Hesychius, the Suda and Photius add that Magnes’ Lydians was also lost, although they knew of a διασκευή of it.170 At one point, Magnes’ Lydians was apparently revised, but hardly to be staged in imperial festivals, at a time when evidence of interest in Old Comedies as scripts for public performance is very hard to come by. All we have for their possible revivals are Aristomenes, an ‘actor of old comedy (ὑποκριτὴς . . . ἀρχαίας κωμῳδίας)’ who was a freedman of Hadrian, and a rather mysterious ‘archaic comedy’ included as a competitive category in our epigraphic record from Aphrodisias.171 In the fourth century bc as later, reperformances of old plays are to be distinguished from remakes of plays.172 Imperial authors envisaging revivals of old drama – almost invariably Menander and Euripides – cite their texts as we know them from other sources, not in revamped versions by later poets.173 The διασκευαί mentioned by Dio Chrysostom are revisions of contemporary comedies first presented as new plays and later revised to be performed again as new plays. They are mentioned only to serve Dio Chrysostom’s agenda. Purportedly guided by Serapis, he makes the Alexandrians’ alleged irreverence towards the gods one of his main targets (esp. 5, 12), coupled with their interest in idle pastimes. Regardless of whether a comedy is staged in its original or its revised version, he complains, what one finds on the stage to entertain public audiences are the same indecent scenes: a drunken Carion or a Daos, with a staggering Heracles in a saffron-coloured dress sure to get laughs from everyone. In Greece as in Rome, remakes of plays crop up everywhere. Roman dramatists revised both Greek and Roman comedies: the reason why Plautus was credited with 130 comedies in antiquity is that he retouched 168

169 170

171

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Dio Chrys. Or. 32.94: ὥσπερ ἐν ταῖς κωμῳδίαις καὶ διασκευαῖς Καρίωνα μὲν εἰσάγοντες μεθύοντα καὶ Δᾶον οὐ σφόδρα κινοῦσι γέλωτα, τὸν δὲ Ἡρακλέα τοιοῦτον ὁρῶσι γελοῖον δοκεῖ, παραφερόμενον, καὶ καθάπερ εἰώθασιν, ἐν κροκωτῷ. Veyne 1989: 343–4, Meineke 1839: I.31. Prolegomena III, p. 7 K (Magnes T 3 K-A): τῶν δὲ δραμάτων αὐτοῦ οὐδὲν σῴζεται, τὰ δὲ ἐπιφερόμενα ἐστιν ἐννέα. Hesychius (λ 1352, from which both Photius and the Suda seem to be drawing): λυδίζων διὰ τοὺς Λυδούς, οἳ σῴζονται μέν, διασκευασμένοι δέ εἰσιν. Ath. 3.115b (see also SHA Hadr. 19.6); MAMA VIII 420, Roueché 1993: 173–4, no. 53. See also further below. DFA2 101. 173 On this point, see below.

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other poets’ works. ‘There is no doubt’, Gellius writes, ‘that the plays that do not seem to have been written by Plautus but are attached to his name were written by old poets. He revised them, touched them up and this is why they smack of Plautus’ style.’174 Unlike later critics, Plautus did not worry about issues of authenticity, but probably just capitalized on good and successful scripts. Ancient writers kept revising plays well into Late Antiquity, be these plays meant for performance or not. Among Apuleius’ many intellectual interests and efforts, there are remakes of dramatic texts (reficere is the verb he uses), an example of which comes up in the Anthologia Latina. Labelled Anechomenos and drawn from Menander, Apuleius’ Latin adaptation has more to do with Plautus’ sexual overtones than with graceful Menander.175 From towards the end of antiquity probably comes what seems to be some kind of revision, an anonymous prose adaptation of a Roman comedy, Plautus’ Aulularia, which has, however, little to do with its original.176 Dedicated to a certain Rutilius and written ‘for tales and tables’ (fabellis atque mensis), as the introductory note reads (1–2), in our manuscripts this comedy came to be titled almost invariably ‘Plautus’ Aulularia’, and it circulated under Plautus’ name during the Middle Ages.177 But this is neither what the author claims nor the title that he gives it. ‘Today’, he writes, ‘we are to perform Plautus’ Aulularia, not the old and rough play, but the one searched for and found in Plautus’ traces’, leaving it up to the audience to judge whether the comedy is to be called Querolus or Aulularia.178 And this, incidentally, is yet another double title. Between Epicharmus and the anonymous Querolus there are some ten centuries, or many more if one accepts a later dating for the Latin play. From the very beginning of Greek theatrical tradition to well beyond the end of dramatic performances on public stages, earlier plays provided material for 174

175

176

177 178

Gell. NA 3.3.13: Neque tamen dubium est, quin istaec, quae scriptae a Plauto non uidentur et nomini eius addicuntur, ueterum poetarum fuerint et ab eo retractatae, expolitae sint ac propterea resipiant stilum Plautinum. Apul. Flor. 9.27 H (me fateor uno chartario calamo me reficere poemata omnigenus apta uirgae, lyrae, socco, coturno); Anth. Lat. 712 R (Men. F 431 K-A). See May 2007: 63–71. A later example of reuse of a Classical play is the Christus Patiens, a cento of verses from various sources probably to be dated to the eleventh or twelfth century. Its author was familiar with Euripides’ Bacchae and this cento sheds light on the lost part of the tragedy. See Seaford 1996: 53. Veyne 1989: 345. Querolus shares with its model only the theme of a hidden treasure and one character, the lar familiaris. See further Jacquemard-Le Saos 1994: xxix–xxxii. The dating of Querolus is a matter of debate: for two different opinions, see Jacquemard-Le Saos’ introduction to the play (1994; fifth century) and Masera (1991; eleventh century). Jacquemard-Le Saos 1994: xv–xvi. Querolus 8: Aululariam hodie sumus acturi, non veterem at rudem, investigatam et inventam Plauti per vestigia; 10: Querolus an Aulularia haec dicatur fabula, vestrum hinc iudicium, vestra erit sententia.

Menander and New Comedy under the Empire

remakes. Playwrights tampered with older scripts, refashioning them into new ones, and writers in general toyed with the great masterpieces of ancient theatre. To this process of engaging with old texts and variously adjusting them also belongs in all likelihood the Roman contaminatio. Romans’ ‘spoiled’ dramas look very similar to the ‘revamped’ plays of the Greeks. In both cases, scenes were added or removed, characters changed or renamed and details variously adjusted, yet the model behind the ‘new’ plays was still there to be recognized by audiences and readers. With their scripts and dramatic techniques borrowed from the Greeks, the Roman playwrights further blurred the distinction between Greek and Roman in their Roman plays with Greek subject-matter.

Menander and New Comedy in public theatres under the Empire As Suetonius’ biographies make clear, the Emperors knew very well that the Romans liked their spectacles, and competed in organizing them: the range of shows they offered, their frequency as well as the variety of their venues, all found a mention in the Emperors’ Lives. Dramatic performances also crop up, at least occasionally. Among other things, Caesar offered shows ‘in every ward, all over the city, by actors of all languages’, only to be outdone by Augustus, who had the same artists performing ‘sometimes even through the streets and on more stages’.179 Caligula took care to illuminate the city at night and hold spectacula (shows) pretty much everywhere, a trend followed by Claudius with his new and old shows.180 Our references to the games sponsored by different Emperors are frustratingly vague – ‘old entertainments’ were staged when Vespasian dedicated the new stage of the Theatre of Marcellus, ‘plays of all kind’ amused public audiences under Hadrian – with only one play-title recorded. We know that during the Ludi Maximi offered by Nero in ad 66, Roman audiences watched the reperfomance of a Roman comedy of Roman type (the so-called togata), the Incendium by

179

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Suet. Iul. 39.1: edidit spectacula uarii generis: . . . ludos etiam regionatim urbe tota et quidem per omnium linguarum histriones; Aug. 43.1: fecitque nonnumquam etiam uicatim ac pluribus scaenis per omnium linguarum histriones. Suet. Calig. 18.2: scaenicos ludos et assidue et uarii generis ac multifariam fecit, quondam et nocturnos accensis tota urbe luminibus; Claud. 21.1: spectacula quoque complura et magnifica edidit, non usitata modo ac solitis locis, sed et commenticia et ex antiquitate repetita, et ubi praeterea nemo ante eum.

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Afranius, the most celebrated author of this genre.181 A practising tragic actor himself, Nero preferred tragedy to comedy but the more restrained Augustus included comedy – specifically ‘old comedy’ (vetus comoedia) – among his interests in Greek poetry, ‘often offer[ing] it at public shows’. When Greek and Roman authors speak of different types of comedy, their terminology can be frustratingly fluid and inconsistent. Although ‘old comedy’ (vetus comoedia) can be used to indicate our Greek Old Comedy, it is unlikely that the moralizing Augustus found Aristophanes-like plays more congenial than Menander’s drama.182 There may be something interesting in a passage from Quintilian where he imagines an actor delivering a few lines from Terence’s Eunuchus. If Quintilian is here drawing on his experience from attending public theatres, he is giving us what seems to be the latest secure evidence for a public revival of a specific Republican palliata.183 During the Republic, ludi scaenici (dramatic festivals) are to be found at funerary games, the privately sponsored munera, but this trend seems to have changed after the Early Empire at least in Italy, where gladiatorial combats were apparently the rule.184 Secure evidence for Greek drama staged for public audiences comes from the Greek festivals held in Italy: the Capitolia, the Sebasta and the Eusebeia.185 The Capitolia were celebrated as a replica of the Greek Olympics in Rome. Established by Domitian in ad 86, they drew performers from all over the Empire, hosting dramatic performances until the late second or third century ad.186 ‘Ranking next to the Capitolia’, as Statius has it, the Sebasta predated Domitian’s games: they were inaugurated in ad 2 in honour of Augustus to include originally 181

182

183

184 185

186

Suet. Vesp. 19.1: ludis, per quos scaena Marcelliani theatri restituta dedicabatur, uetera quoque . . . acroamata reuocauerat; SHA Hadr. 19.6: fabulas omnis generis more antiquo in theatro dedit; Suet. Ner. 11.2. Afranius was active in the second half of the second century bc. His dates and works are discussed by Daviault 1981: 37–46; Manuwald 2011: 263–6. Suet. Aug. 89.1: ([Augustus] delectabatur etiam comoedia ueteri et saepe eam exhibuit spectaculis publicis) with Revermann 2006: 86. Although this passage is often thought to refer to Roman comedy, Suetonius is here focusing on Augustus’ interest in Greek literature, as he makes clear a few lines above (ne Graecarum quidem disciplinarum leviore studio tenebatur). On the problems with the terminology used by ancient authors, see Nervegna (forthcoming, b). Quint. Inst. 11.3.182, introducing his quotation of Ter. Eun. 46–8 with ‘suppose that one had to say on the stage’ (ut si sit in scaena dicendum). On later revivals of Republican palliatae, see also p. 244. Dunbabin 2006: 195 with n. 24. See also Flower 1995: 179. The short-lived Neronia were the first Greek games held in Rome, but there is little evidence for their programme. See the referenced discussion in Caldelli 1993: 38–43. Caldelli 1993 collects and discusses our evidence for the Capitolia. For late actors performing at the Capitolia, see Caldelli 1993: nos. 29 (Stephanis 1988: no. 270; second half of the second century ad), 48 (Stephanis 1988: no. 2453, second or third century ad).

Menander and New Comedy under the Empire

only equestrian and gymnastic events, with musical and dramatic performances added after Augustus’ death.187 Actors competed here at least until the first or second century ad, the dating of the inscription recording a successful komoidos in Naples. This now anonymous comic actor performed both at the Sebasta and at the Eusebeia in Pozzuoli, the games founded by Antoninus Pius possibly in ad 142.188 It is not a coincidence that in imperial Italy drama is to be found in the Greek festivals whose programme duplicated the many festivals in the Greek-speaking East. The Museia celebrated in Thespiae kept drawing audiences and competitors well into the imperial period. Here, old and new plays were still being staged around the mid-second century ad, the date of two complete victors’ records naming the successful performers in both kinds of drama. These records are also our latest secure epigraphic evidence for old comedies and tragedies in public theatres. Dated to after ad 212, the latest catalogue for the Museia, which is a complete one, has only komoidoi and tragoidoi, and one is left to wonder what kind of plays they performed.189 The Museia were an old festival, with a long-established tradition, but a new festival such as the Lysimacheia in Aphrodisias, in Caria, could also boast old plays. Probably established in ad 181 by a rich benefactor named Flavius Lysimachus, the Lysimacheia included in their schedule of prizes an unusual category, ‘archaic comedy’, next to new comedy and new tragedy.190 Otherwise unattested in our epigraphic record as a category in dramatic competitions, archaic comedy may here stand for Old Comedy, as often in literary sources, and may be another token of the revived interest in Aristophanes during the second century ad.191 Archaic comedy may have had a special cultural appeal, but, as worthy of a prize higher than both kinds of comedy, new tragedy was the big draw of the festival.192 Financially speaking, tragedy also fared better than comedy at the 187 188

189

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Stat. Silv. 3.5.92. Geer 1935 (dating and programme of the Sebasta). IGUR 263 (Stephanis 1988: no. 3011), dated to the first or the second century ad. On the Sebasta, see also further below. For the dating of the Eusebeia, see the referenced discussion in Caldelli 1993: 44. *IThesp. 178 (Manieri 2009, Thesp. 42; ad 150–60); *IThesp. 177 (Manieri 2009, Thesp. 43; ad 150–60 or after 169); *IThesp. 180 (Manieri 2009, Thesp. 49; after ad 212). See also *IThesp. 179 (Manieri 2009, Thesp. 44; ad 161–9 or 178–80), which records a tragoidos, a poet and actor of new tragedy and a poet of new comedy. On this festival, see also above. MAMA VIII 420, CAD 191–2, no. 159B, Roueché 1993: 173–4, no. 53. On ad 181 as the year when the Lysimacheia were very probably first celebrated see Roueché 1993: 168, 174. Jones 1993: 47: ‘either the adjective [sc. ἀρχαία] is being used loosely or in this contest only revivals of Old Comedy were allowed’. See also CAD 188. There are a total of 3,700 denarii for tragoidoi (2,500 first prize, 800 second and 400 third); 2,300 for komoidoi (1,500 first prize, 500 second and 300 third); 500 for new comedy; 500 for archaic

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Demostheneia, the festival that the wealthy benefactor C. Julius Demosthenes established at Oenoanda, in north-western Lycia, in ad 124.193 Here as at the Caesarea at Isthmia, where drama appears on a victors’ list dated to ad 127, dramatic performers are called tragoidoi and komoidoi, a label that does not make it clear whether the audience watched old or new drama.194 Specific information on the kind of plays staged in the category of old drama during the Empire went unrecorded on festival-related inscriptions, but is luckily preserved by other types of evidence, especially actors’ records and literary sources. Both of them point to the works of two playwrights, Menander and Euripides, also throwing some light on the format of these revivals. Consider an epigram from the Palatine Anthology attributed to Crinagoras, a figure of high standing in Mytilene and variously involved in Roman politics from the Late Republic to the Early Empire. This epigram is a funerary inscription addressed to the deceased: ‘you excelled in the many dramas that Menander wrote with one of the Muses or of the Graces’, an inscription possibly accompanied by a relief sculpture showing the actor, Menander and a female figure in a composition similar to that of the Vatican relief.195 The basic meaning of the verb that Crinagoras uses, διαπρέπειν, is ‘to strike the eye’. This is the same verb that Lucian picks to qualify Neoptolemos’ dancing abilities and that Cassius Dio chooses to describe Cleopatra, who ‘was quite striking (πολὺ διέπρεπε) in the prime of her youth’.196 In pointed contrast with the claim that at one point the komoidoi performing Menander injected his plays with songs, thus anticipating the cantica (songs) of Roman comedy, this funerary inscription presents the performance of this actor in its visual aspect, as a spectacle for the eye.197 This is in line with other descriptions of comic performances. Keen on training his budding orator to avoid theatrical tricks, Quintilian indirectly testifies to the appeal of stage mannerism in his comments on two comic actors, Stratocles and Demetrius, who were active on the public stage under Domitian. He helpfully lists the roles that these two actors performed better,

193

194 195

196 197

comedy (350 first prize and 150 second); and finally 750 for new tragedy. The prize for the ‘general contest’ for tragoidoi (210 denarii) is also higher than that for komoidoi (200 denarii). Wörrle 1988: 8; SEG XXXVIII 1462B. See also Jones 1993: 46, CAD 189–90, no. 158. The tragoidoi are allotted a total of 375 denarii (250 for the first prize and 125 for the second) and the komoidoi only 300 denarii (200 for the first prize, 100 for the second). IK I 2740 (Urkunden II C7); see also Jones 1993: 46. Crinagoras, AP 9.513 (Men. T 58 K-A): Δράμασιν ἐν πολλοῖσι διέπρεπες, / ὅσσα Μένανδρος ἔγραφεν ἢ Μουσέων σὺν μιῇ ἢ Χαρίτων. See Gow and Page 1968.2: 259 with earlier literature. LSJ9s.v. διαπρέπω; Lucian, On Dance 9; DC 42.34.4. Comic actors were also praised for their pronunciation skills. See p. 80.

Menander and New Comedy under the Empire

if not specialized in: ‘gods, young men, good fathers and good slaves, married ladies and respectable old women’ for Demetrius; ‘severe old men, tricky slaves, parasites, pimps and all the livelier roles’ for Stratocles.198 Quintilian quickly comments on their different vocal skills, noting that Demetrius’ voice was ‘more pleasant’ (iucundior) and Stratocles’ ‘sharper’ (acrior), but his focus is squarely on how they move.199 Stratocles ran around, quick on his feet, laughing even when not appropriate and with his neck hunched up. Demetrius’ peculiar gestures marked his entrance on the stage and highlighted his stage time: he would catch the wind with his garment as he came in, wave his hands around and gesture with his right side every once in a while. ‘In all of this’, Quintilian remarks, ‘he was helped by his height and good looks’, a reminder that actors’ physical build had a weight in the roles they performed.200 That these two actors performed New Comedy is beyond doubt, but which plays they staged is harder to gauge. At least when he played the role of a god, Demetrius was surely not performing one of Terence’s comedies. With the exception of mythological parody, a type of comedy that does not seem to have had much favour among later poets, in Greek and Roman New Comedies gods are confined to the prologues, which Terence replaces with his literary polemics. Their Greek names are no clue to their nationality – actors were often given Greek names – but both Stratocles and Demetrius were popular enough to be mentioned by Juvenal in his tirade against foreigners crowding Rome and against a Greek Rome (3.58–125). These performers, Juvenal, or rather his ‘friend’ Umbricius, claims, made it in Rome because the acting business was less competitive than in Greece, ‘a whole country devoted to comedy’. This implies that Stratocles and Demetrius were Greeks who were in Rome to work there.201 The Romans were generally keen on learning Greek, but Greeks do not seem to have had 198

199

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Quint. Inst. 11.3.178: Maximos actores comoediarum, Demetrium et Stratoclea, placere diuersis uirtutibus uidimus. Sed illud minus mirum, quod alter deos et iuuenes et bonos patres seruosque et matronas et graues anus optime, alter acres senes, callidos seruos, parasitos, lenones et omnia agitatiora melius. Quint. Inst. 11.3.178–80: Manus iactare et dulces exclamationes theatri causae producere et ingrediendo ventus concipere veste et nonnumquam dextro latere facere gestus, quod neminem alium Demetrium decuit (namque in haec omnia statura et mira specie adiuvabatur); illum cursum et agilitas et vel parum conveniens personae risus, quem non ignarus rationis populo dabat, et contracta etiam cervicula. See also Fantham 2002: 374–5, Marshall 2006: 92–3. An obvious parallel is the now anonymous Hellenistic tragic actor from Tegea (Syll.3 1080) discussed above, a boxer who often took up Heracles’ roles. Juv. 3.98–100: nec tamen Antiochus nec erit mirabilis illic / aut Stratocles aut cum molli Demetrius Haemo: / natio comoeda est. Juvenal is exaggerating: actors travelled to perform at different festivals, in the Greek East as in the Roman West.

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much desire to learn Latin.202 Pliny the Younger was egocentric enough to boast that the Greeks would master Latin to read and sing his poetry, but Artemidoros is clear in his warnings: if you dream about learning Latin, slavery is knocking on the door.203 Being Greek, Stratocles and Demetrius probably performed Greek New Comedy, and Menander remains a strong possibility.204 Two ‘foremost comic actors’, as Quintilian calls them, popular enough to stand for Greek comic actors in Juvenal’s satire, may well have included ‘classic’ plays in their repertoire. Perhaps we may also guess where they performed. Quintilian’s handbook was probably published before Domitian’s death in ad 96 and Juvenal’s satires are generally dated to the second or third decade of the second century ad. By then, the Capitolia had already been entertaining the Romans for a while.205 Next to the anonymous actor recorded by Crinagoras, we know of at least a second komoidos who made Menander his forte: Kuintos Markios Straton from the deme of Cholleidai. The inscription that commemorates him tells us that Straton, who was duly buried by the ‘servants of heart-cheering Dionysus’, successfully competed in the most distinguished festivals, the ones making up the periodos (circuit), and earned the prestigious title of periodonikes. ‘Famous on the holy stages’, Straton stood out for his expertise in ‘all the clever tricks of Menander’s words’.206 What I translated as ‘clever tricks’, τύξιας, is a very rare word here emphatically placed at the beginning of the line in enjambement. This word, which goes well with the epic-sounding phrasing of the epigram, possibly refers to Straton’s mastery over one of the hallmarks of Menander’s comedy, the use of speech within speech.207 Consider the long messenger speech in Sikyonioi relating the assembly at Eleusis (176–271). Eager to reclaim her status as an Athenian citizen, Philoumene has fled to the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Eleusis, where an assembly takes place to adjudicate the dispute between her and Stratophanes, the Sikyonian (and newly discovered Athenian) commander who raised her and now wants to settle down with her.208 The actor performing as Eleusinios needs to reproduce in his narrative 202

203 205 206

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On Romans learning Greek, see Momigliano 1975: 38. Swain 1996: 41–2 notes that educated Greeks resisted Latin, but concedes that their knowledge of Latin might have been better than we think. Plin. Ep. 7.4.9, Artem. 1.53. 204 Pace Fantham 1984: 308. On the Capitolia, see p. 100. IG II2 12664, ll. 1–4 (Men. T 59 K-A): τῆιδε Μενανδρείων ὲπέων δεδαηκότα πάσας / τύξιας εὐιέροις ἀγλαὸν ὲν θυμέλαις / ἐκτέρισαν ϑεράποντες άερσίφρονος Διονύσον / αὐτῶι κισσοφόρωι τοῦτο χαριζόμενοι. For Menander’s use of speech within speech, see Bers 1997: 117–18, Handley 2002 and 2011b: 146–7, Nünlist 2002. Traill 2008: 16–25 helpfully discusses Philoumene’s situation and the dispute about legal authority over her.

Menander and New Comedy under the Empire

the words of a number of characters: the cries of the crowd and individual bystanders, the intervention of the slave Dromon as well as those of Moschion and Stratophanes. With the nasty exchanges between the participants in the assembly and Moschion, Dromon cutting in, and then Dromon, Stratophanes and the assembly all answering at once, the pace also quickens towards the end of the speech.209 Performing passages like this one was a serious test of an actor’s skill and could earn him the criticism of a Quintilian, who makes a point of complaining about actors’ excessive mimicry when performing Menander.210 Straton, who apparently excelled in this kind of tour de force, is also, in all likelihood, the homonymous komoidos whom Plutarch mentions in one of his Convivial Questions, commenting that his victory in Athens had made him the talk of the town.211 The notoriety of Plutarch’s Straton chimes well with what we read on Straton’s epigram. Plutarch, after all, does refer to Menander as ubiquitous in theatres, schools and dinner parties, the only good reason why a pepaideumenos goes to the theatre to watch comedy. Comic performances, he implies, are not the standard fare of men of learning, yet these fill the theatre when Menander’s plays are on.212 Other ancient writers also contribute to sketching Menander’s afterlife on the public stage. Menander, the Emperor Claudius and his freedman Polybius all figure in an episode preserved by Cassius Dio (60.29.3), one of the several anecdotes revolving around an Emperor sitting in the theatre and some politically charged line delivered by a performer: Once, an actor in the theatre recited the well-known line ‘a successful scoundrel is unbearable’ and everybody there looked at [Claudius’] freedman Polybius. [Polybius] shouted that the same poet said that ‘even those who were goatherds became kings’, yet [Claudius] did him no harm.

Polybius quotes from Syriskos’ speech in the arbitration scene of Menander’s Epitrepontes, a standard school passage and a suitable choice for someone working as the ‘cultural advisor’ (a studiis) to the Emperor. By ascribing his line to the ‘same poet’ as the actor’s, Polybius indicates that the play on the stage was by Menander.213 Dio cites this episode as an example of Claudius’ lenient behaviour towards his freedmen, but interestingly 209 210 211

212 213

Men. Sik. 264–9 with Arnott’s note (2000: 259). Quint. Inst. 11.3.91 (Men. T 60 K-A) with Csapo 2010: 127. See also p. 234. Plut. Mor. 673c: ἐν Ἀθήναις . . . ὅτε Στράτων ὁ κωμῳδὸς εὐημέρησεν (ἦν γὰρ αὐτοῦ πολὺς λόγος). So also Stephanis 1988, on no. 2312. Plut. Mor. 854a–b (Men. T 103 K-A), on which see also pp. 1–2, 49–50. Men. Epit. 333 (cited by Cassius Dio in a slightly altered form; see Furley 2009: 156) and Men. F 441 K-A. For Polybius’ training and his role in Claudius’ administration of the Empire, see Hurley 2001: 193–4 with references. For Menandrean excerpts used in schools, see pp. 213–17.

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perhaps he places it among the events of the year ad 47. Earlier on, probably in ad 42, Claudius had found yet another way to honour the memory of his older brother Germanicus, then dead for over twenty years: he ‘produced (docuit) . . . a Greek comedy in the contest at Naples and awarded it the crown in accordance with the judges’ decision’ (Suet. Claud. 11.2). This contest in Naples is that of the prestigious Sebasta. Since the play that Claudius produced was very probably by Germanicus, who ‘among other literary works, also left Greek comedies’ (Suet. Calig. 3.2), the Sebasta must have featured competitions of brand-new comedies. This squares with our epigraphic record for these games, which includes komoidoi and tragoidoi as well as hypokritai, thus pointing to both revived and new plays.214 Menander also finds his way to Naples in the Latin poetry of a Greek poet in the Flavian period, Statius. In the letter to his wife Claudia at the end of the third book of his Silvae, Statius announces his decision to leave Rome. Ovid longs for Rome in his Tristia, but Statius has great nostalgia for his home town of Naples, which he rhetorically celebrates by saying he will pass in silence over its sights and amenities, its covered and open theatres, its games and its mixture of Greek and Roman culture.215 ‘Why should I praise’, we read at 94, ‘the shows and the freedom of Menander (libertatemque Menandri)?’, a line which most probably originally read, ‘Why should I praise the shows and the freedom of jest (libertatemque iocandi)?’216 Statius does not seem to have coupled the games in Naples with Menander, but it is still fascinating that at one point textual corruption made room for Menander’s name in this context. Statius’ line remains problematic and Dio’s anecdote on Claudius watching a play by Menander may be simply built on two maxims lifted from an anthology and used to make a point, but it is significant that when we hear about an ‘old’ comedy on the stage or about comic actors’ performances, the name attached to them is invariably Menander’s. Although Diphilus and Philemon were familiar to Roman Republican audiences, there is no later actor specializing in their plays, no Emperor sitting among their audiences, no author watching or even envisaging their drama on a public or private 214

215 216

Komoidoi and tragoidoi appear on I. Olympia 56 (probably dated to the Early Empire), which details the festival programme and mentions, among other things, a mysterious κλῆρος κωμῳδῶν ἐν πλάσματι. A hypokrites who performed in Naples is recorded on IG XIV 755e, fr. a, dated to the first century ad (Stephanis 1988: no. 2734, Miranda 1990, n. 63). See Caldelli 1993: 29–31 with references. Stat. Silv. 3.5.89–94. See Newlands 2002: 37–8 with earlier literature. Menandri is the reading preserved by M, the only manuscript authority for Statius’ Silvae and the copy of a manuscript probably dating to the ninth or tenth century. The reading Menandri is almost unanimously rejected by modern scholars.

Menander and New Comedy under the Empire

stage.217 Nor is it easy to trace the circulation of their plays. Given that Hellenistic scholars show familiarity with his name and his works, Philemon seems to have fared better than Diphilus. A treatise on poetry and poetic diction which may be of Peripatetic derivation mentions Philemon and apparently quotes his lines. Since the papyrus preserving it is dated to the third century bc, this text may even go back to Philemon’s lifetime, predating his death sometime between c. 267 and 263/2.218 That Philemon’s plays were in circulation is clearly attested by Demetrius’ On Style (193), a rhetorical work generally dated to the Hellenistic period that also dwells on the difference between Philemon’s and Menander’s style. Philemon’s mention of Aristomedes found its way into Didymus’ commentary on Demosthenes.219 Euripides, Philemon writes, ‘is the only one who knows how to speak’, so beloved a poet that a comic character would be ready to die just to see him, if the dead still had their senses. Later scholars writing Euripides’ biography quickly appropriated Philemon’s lines to show Euripides’ influence on later comic poets and their fondness for him.220 In the Roman period too, we do not hear much about Philemon and Diphilus, even from authors such as Plutarch and Lucian, who are very well versed in Greek drama. A key figure for our knowledge of the ancient reception of Greek drama and dramatists, Plutarch names Diphilus and Philemon only once each, at least in the comic citations that he identifies by author’s name. The ‘Sicilian fat’ in a line by Diphilus entered Plutarch’s biography of Nicias to describe the historian Timaeus, who hailed from Tauromenion, while Philemon’s ridicule of King Magas gives Plutarch the chance to praise Magas for his restraint.221 Lucian seems to ignore Diphilus but resorts to a two-line quotation from Philemon (incidentally presented under the heading of ‘archaic comedy’) when noting that the word ‘health’ often opens one’s greetings.222 There is very little of Diphilus’ and Philemon’s drama outside Stobaeus’ Anthology and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai. Diphilus owes twice as much to Athenaeus, 217 218 219

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On Philemon, Diphilus and Roman Republican audiences, see pp. 59–60. P.Hib. II 183, 31–3, 37–41; Philemon F 181 K-A. On Philemon’s dates see p. 58. Didymus on Dem. 10.70, col. 9, 43.52, Philemon F 41 K-A. For Aristomedes as a comic butt, see p. 31. Philemon F 153 (Sat. Life of Euripides fr. 39, col. vii 28), 118 K-A (Life of Euripides 6, p. 6.14S; Eur. TrGF T 1.IV.108–12; see also AP 9.450). For later comic poets and Euripides’ reception, see also Diphilus F 60, 2–3 K-A (a comic re-elaboration of a maxim by Euripides, Eur. TrGF F 915), Axionicus’ Philo-Euripides F 3 K-A (two characters can find no match to Euripides’ songs); Nikostratos F 29 K-A (Euripides and his maxims). Plut. Nic. 1.1 (Diphilus F 118 K-A), Mor. 458a (Philemon F 132 K-A), on which see also p. 52. Lucian, A slip of the tongue 6, Philemon F 150 K-A.

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who preserves almost 40 per cent of his 133 secure fragments, as to Stobaeus (almost 20 per cent). Philemon presents an almost opposite case, with over 11 per cent of his quotations (a total of 194 secure fragments) preserved by Athenaeus and about 45 per cent by Stobaeus, an unsurprising scenario given that Philemon enjoyed some popularity as a gnomic author.223 As usual with later authors, it is difficult to determine whether they had first-hand knowledge of the texts they cite and to what extent they relied on anthologies: collections of passages are at the core of Stobaeus’ Anthology and Athenaeus shows familiarity with a number of works on comedy.224 Some of Diphilus’ and Philemon’s plays may be hidden among our unidentified comic fragments, but papyri in general have turned out to be of little help in tracing their afterlife. More interestingly, a recent review of unidentified comic texts on papyri concludes that the rate of non-Menandrean papyri decreases progressively further down in antiquity. The best candidates for preserving texts by other New Comedy poets, most probably Diphilus and Philemon, are the earliest papyri, which are dated to the third century bc.225 Our figures raise at least some doubt of Apuleius’ knowledge of Philemon’s plays and comic style. Introducing his thank-you speech to the Carthaginians for planning to erect a statue in his honour sometime in the late 160s or early 170s ad, Apuleius compares himself to Philemon. Although the facts are not completely clear, the point of the comparison is that they both interrupted their performance because of the rain, although Philemon, found dead the next day, was not to resume his postponed show.226 When Apuleius presents Philemon as ‘recit[ing] a part of his play’ (recitabat partem fabulae, 10), he gives us an anachronistic detail: Philemon wrote for public performance and not for recitals like later authors. He is also unique in labelling Philemon ‘a Middle Comedy poet’. Apuleius, it has been argued, is here expressing a typological-qualitative judgement about Philemon’s style, perhaps more archaic than Menander’s, or is taking part in a cultural debate on Greek comedies and their classification, but both claims rest on the assumption that Apuleius had a direct and very extensive knowledge of Philemon at a time when quotations from his texts are hard to come by.227 Nor does Apuleius 223

224 225 226 227

Philemon as a gnomic author: Conca 1973: esp. 4–5; see also Morgan 2007: 223. Nesselrath 2010 discusses the transmission of comic fragments and notes that, unlike New Comedy, Middle and Old Comedy did not enter gnomic tradition. For a basic discussion of Athenaeus’ sources for fifth-century comedy, see Sidwell 2000b. Nesselrath 2011: 127. See also p. 66, n. 10 for Posidippus’ presence in an early papyrus. Apul. Flor. 16 with Hunink 2001: 153–5. Apul. Flor. 16. 6 (mediae comoediae scriptor) with Nesselrath 1990: 62, May 2007: 61. Hunink 2001: 154 remarks that Apuleius’ knowledge of Philemon ‘seems inexact and second-hand’. For Holford-Strevens 2003: 236, ‘Apuleius has read, if not Philemon, at least a critic.’

Menander and New Comedy under the Empire

make any specific comment on Philemon’s drama: all he lists is a series of New Comedy motifs such as seductions and affairs next to stock characters ranging from the lying pimp to the tricky slave and the shameless whore.228 His remarks on the rivalry between Philemon and Menander also smack of literary tradition.229 Ancient writers were familiar with Diphilus’ and Philemon’s names and used them to show off when needed. The versatile Synesius of Cyrene (c. ad 370–413) was a bishop and a philosopher as well as a playwright who could boast he looked like ‘the contemporary of Cratinus and Crates at one time and of Diphilus and Philemon at another’.230 He could write comedies in different styles and was clever enough to duplicate even their less famous, if not by then rather obscure, representatives. Synesius’ eccentricity aside, the playwright who consistently served as a model for comic poets throughout antiquity is Menander.231 When debating on the best form of dinner entertainment, Plutarch’s friend Diogenianus asks what kind of objections can be raised against New Comedy, only to respond that Menander is, indeed, the sine qua non of drinking parties. Late grammarians like Diomedes kept duly detailing the members of the New Comedy trio, but New Comedy had long been a one-author genre.232 Menander’s is also the name consistently attached to actors: he figures on their epitaphs and on epigrams related to them, be these performers real or fictional.233 The last komoidos who delivers Menander is Paulos, who comes straight from the Palatine Anthology: ‘Standing by the komoidos Paulos in his sleep’, Palladas writes, ‘Menander said: “I did nothing to you and you speak me ill.”’234 Paulos’ existence and dating are unclear, but he is our last komoidos with Menander in his repertoire. Even more interestingly, Paulos is the latest identifiable komoidos to be attested in our records. As a school teacher, Palladas was a representative of Greek culture and literature in late fourth-century ad Alexandria. Perhaps he did not know any komoidos named Paulos who publicly butchered Menander with his poor delivery skills, but he was familiar with Menander and the long performance tradition of his 228 229 230 231 232

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Apul. Flor. 16 7–9 with Hunink 2001: esp. 154, 157. Apul. Flor. 6. On Menander and Philemon, see pp. 14–15, 56–8. Synesius, Dio 18, p. 278, 10 T; Diphilus T 17, Philemon T 33 K-A. On Menander and later playwrights, see further below. Plut. Mor. 712b, Diom. Ars Grammatica 3 (Prolegomena XXIV, p. 121 K); Men. T 104, 148 K-A. In addition to Crinagoras, AP 9.513 and IG II2 12664, see AP 12.233 (Men. T 112 K-A), an epigram attributed to Fronto and addressed to a komoidos that toys with Menander’s play-titles, Thesauros, Phasma, Misoumenos, Georgos and Perikeiromene. AP 11.263 (Stephanis 1988: no. 2026); Men. T 61 K-A.

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plays – a tradition that turned actors delivering Menander into some sort of a literary topos.235

Euripides, Menander and ‘common’ Greek In public theatres as in other venues, Euripides and not a New Comedy poet or comic poet in general offers the best term of comparison for Menander. Consistently painted on South Italian vases, staged and restaged by actors such as the now anonymous tragoidos from Tegea active in the Hellenistic period, first in the list of Greek tragedies that Ennius adapted for Roman theatre-goers in the late third and early second centuries bc, Euripides’ plays were still entertaining public audiences in the imperial period.236 Some plays were particularly successful. Ancient scholars took care to record that Orestes was the ‘most popular in the theatre’, at the hands of ‘modern actors’.237 Not that these contemporary productions satisfied the textual critics. Scholars noted that Helen and the booty, evidently added for pompous staging, were brought early in the day rather than at night as the text has it, with the modern Orestes simply miming the bow-giving and the shooting to fend off the Furies. Keen on looking like a beggar, Aristophanes’ Dicaeopolis turns to Euripides for rags and appropriate accessories, explicitly asking for the ‘little Mysian felt cap’ (πιλίδιον). This is the same cap that, to a scholiast’s disapproval, was missing in contemporary productions, where Telephos is brought out without it.238 This scholiast had a revival of Euripides’ Telephos in mind, or rather before his eyes. For Euripides’ Telephos at least, we can reconstruct a long reperformance tradition. First staged in 438 bc, this tragedy had great appeal for audiences. Taplin illustrates three vases related or plausibly related to the play, all showing the hostage scene: having seized the baby Orestes, Telephos threatens to kill him after taking refuge at an altar.239 Aristophanes has a parody of 235

236

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Kaster 1988: 327–9 discusses Palladas and his activities, tentatively setting his birth around ad 320. For statistics on actors in antiquity and Late Antiquity, see p. 189. Taplin 2007: esp. 109; Syll.3 1080 (on which see below); Gloss. Lat. I 568 L: [Ennius] tragoedias autem fere omnes ex Graecis transtulit, plurimas Euripidis, nonnullas Aristarchi. Hyp. Eur. Or. II 42, schol. on Or. 57, 268, 643, 1366. See Revermann 1999/2000: 463 with n. 54. Nünlist 2009: 361–2 discusses these scholia and their interpretation. Ar. Ach. 439 with scholion (πρὸς τοὺς νῦν ὑποκριτάς, ὅτι χωρὶς πίλου εἰσάγουσι τὸν Τήλεφον). See Nünlist 2009: 362. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin VI 3974 (Attic kalyx krater, c. 400–375 bc); Cleveland, Museum of Art 1999.1 (Lucanian kalyx krater, c. 400 bc); San Antonio Museum of Art 86.134.167 (Paestan kalyx krater, c. 340s bc). See Taplin 2007: 205–9.

Euripides, Menander and ‘common’ Greek

this play not only in his Acharnians of 425 bc, but also in his Thesmophoriazusai of 411 bc, two comedies that entered the visual record through their Telephos-parody scene.240 Dicaeopolis-Telephos threatening to kill a charcoal bucket decorates three Apulian relief gutti, apparently from the same mould and dated to 330–320 bc.241 The Würzburg vase illustrating Thesmophoriazusai (about 370 bc) has the suppliant In-Law with a sword and a wineskin decked with baby booties. Add also a fourth-century bc terracotta reproducing a comic Telephos with his cap, sitting on the altar and holding Orestes. This artefact illustrates yet another comedy that recalled Euripides’ tragedy.242 Against this background we can place the anecdote of the fourth-century philosopher Crates driven to Cynic philosophy ‘after seeing Telephos in a tragedy with a little basket (σπυρίδιον) and in a wretched state’. The ‘little basket’ that Crates saw in Telephos’ hands surely points to Euripides’ Telephos, since this is the same basket (σπυρίδιον) that Dicaeopolis requests as a prop from Euripides.243 Telephos’ disguise as a beggar, the hallmark of Euripides’ play, was also appropriated later on by Ennius and Accius, who both seem to have adapted Euripides’ Telephos.244 Next to Orestes and Telephos, Alcestis and Hypsipyle also seem to have fared well with actors. Dated to the first century bc or first century ad, an intriguing papyrus contains a passage from Euripides’ Alcestis (344–82) given in a surprising version. It has only the lines spoken by Admetus, with the omission of the lines delivered by the chorus and Alcestis (even those that Alcestis delivers in a stichomythic passage). In all likelihood, this was the role script of a modern Admetus busy rehearsing his part.245 The tragoidos Leonteus of Argo performed Hypsipyle, most probably Euripides’ Hypsipyle, before the King Juba, who reigned in the years 25 bc to ad 23. Leonteus had, however, traded his voice for his belly: so poor was his show that Juba lampooned it in an epigram that found its way into Athenaeus (8.343e–f) via the work On the Stage by a certain Amarantus. Since actors also entertained select audiences over dinner, references to their performances of Euripides do not unequivocally translate into public shows, but more anecdotes point to actual public revivals.246 A key figure of Jewish 240 241

242 243 244 245 246

On Aristophanes and Euripides’ Telephos, see Roselli 2005: 19–20 with earlier bibliography. On the Würzburg vase (Würzburg H5697), the Apulian gutti reproducing Acharnians and our iconographic evidence for Old Comedy in general, see p. 20 with n. 32. Munich, Antikensammlungen TC 5394 (c. 370–350 bc), MMC3 85, AT 65. Diog. Laert. 6.87 (citing Antisthenes FGrHist 508 F 8), Ar. Ach. 453. Cropp 1995: 25 with earlier bibliography, Fantham 2009: 426–31. P.Oxy. LXVII 4546. See Marshall 2004 and 2006: 29, Revermann 2006: 16, 88–90. On actors’ performances as private shows, see pp. 183–6.

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culture under the Early Empire, Philo was perfectly at home with Greek literary and philosophical tradition. To illustrate his points on the value of freedom, he draws on the audience response to a reportedly recent tragic performance: when the actor performing a tragedy in the theatre delivered lines from Euripides (‘the name of freedom is worth everything / and even if one has little, let him think that he has a lot’), the audience jumped to their feet to shout out and celebrate the maxim and its author. Given that the same passage is also cited by Stobaeus within a longer excerpt and under the heading ‘against tyranny’, we know both that it comes from Euripides’ Auge and that it circulated in anthologies.247 Incidentally, Philo’s anecdote also gives us insight into the ancient reception of Greek tragedy and its political dimension. Modern scholars can debate whether Greek drama is truly a product of democratic Athens and whether the ideas expressed in the plays are distinctively democratic, but Philo, his audiences and his readers at least were sure on this point: tragedy and freedom went hand in hand. Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana offers another example. Philostratus has an actor performing Euripides’ Ino in a theatre in Ephesus and delivering ‘the iambic lines in which Euripides says that tyrants with long-lasting power are overthrown by trifles’ before both Apollonius and the governor of Asia, sometime in the late first century ad. This maxim too has a long tradition: Stobaeus, among other authors, cites it in an extended passage, the same passage given in a reduced form in a third-century bc school book.248 Given that tyranny and tyrants figured in a number of school exercises (the progymnasma of ‘commonplace’, in particular, often centred on them), the unsurprising popularity of these lines may cast some suspicion on Philostratus’ reliability.249 Yet Plutarch too places Ino, most probably Euripides’ Ino, before an audience, introducing a quotation otherwise unattested with the expression ‘as we hear Ino say (λεγούσης) in the theatres’.250 Note how Ino is said to speak her iambic lines, the same mode of delivery which seems to be envisaged by Philo for Euripides’ trimeters and by Dio Chrysostom for tragic iambs (διεξιέναι, ‘to go through’, is the verb they use).251 Here too, tragic actors are 247

248

249 251

Philo, Every good man is free, 141, Stob. 4.8.3 (Eur. TrGF F 275). Morgan 2003: 197–8 briefly discusses Philo’s quotations of tragic texts. Philostr. VA 7.5; Stob. 4.41.1; P.Cair. 65445 (Cribiore 1996: no. 379). More references are given by Kannicht on Eur. TrGF F 420. On progymnasmata, see further on p. 212. 250 Plut. Mor. 556a, Eur. TrGF F**399. Philo, Every good man is free, 141: ὑποκριτῶν . . . τὰ παρ’ Εὐριπίδῃ τρίμετρα διεξιόντων ἐκεῖνα. Dio Chrys. Or. 19.5: τῆς δὲ τραγῳδίας τὰ μὲν ἰσχυρά, ὡς ἔοικε, μένει· λέγω δὲ τὰ ἰαμβεῖα· καὶ τούτων μέρη διεξίασιν ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις. One can perhaps compare the Latin verbs decurrere (used of Glaucias reciting Menander in a school context, Stat. Silv. 2.1.114) and percurrere (used of Fulgentius delivering ‘many passages from Menander’, Ferrandus, Life of Saint Fulgentius 1).

Euripides, Menander and ‘common’ Greek

not singing iambs. Also from Euripides’ drama comes the other tragic heroine whom Plutarch sets twice on the stage to move the audience, Merope in Cresphontes.252 Regardless of the historical value of these anecdotes, the old tragedy, or tragedy for that matter, performed in theatres is consistently by Euripides. Some Sophocles, however, was also to be seen. In one of his speeches, Dio Chrysostom mentions the troubles that befell the house of Pelops, names some famous mythical episodes related to it and adds that ‘these things should not be disbelieved, for they have been written by no ordinary men, Euripides and Sophocles, and are said in the midst of the theatres’ (λέγεται δὲ ἐν μέσοις τοῖς ϑεάτροις).253 Imperial musicians and singers delivering bits and pieces of Euripides’ plays, and mimes such as the Charition mime variously imitating their texts, were not simply adapting literary masterpieces. They were toying with tragedies that kept being copied on papyri and that also entertained generations of theatre-goers.254 An important factor in the fortuna of both Menander and Euripides on public stages (and in other venues) must have been their linguistic accessibility. Relatively easy Greek was one of the criteria determining which authors and plays made it into the repertoire of travelling actors.255 A good counter-example is Aeschylus. As a token of respect for him, sometime after his death in 456 bc, the Athenians decreed that anyone ‘who wanted to produce the work of Aeschylus should receive a chorus’, so that a later theatre-goer like Aristophanes’ Dicaeopolis could expect to enjoy Aeschylus’ tragedies.256 This is the background against which we may place the various echoes and citations of Aeschylus in later drama. There are a few indications for a performance of Libation Bearers in the later fifth century. Aristophanes compares his Clouds looking for clever spectators to Electra looking for her brother’s lock of hair, sure to recognize it after 252 253

254

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256

[Plut.] Mor. 110c, Plut. Mor. 998e; Eur. TrGF F 454, 456. Dio Chrys. Or. 66.6. This is, to my knowledge, a unique reference to the presence of Sophocles in imperial theatres. On Euripides and musicians, see pp. 86–8; on the Charition mime, see also p. 240. The Leuven Database of Ancient Books includes 301 entries for ‘tragedy’, with 249 fragments identifiable as the works of the canonical poets: 176 identified texts for Euripides, 38 for Sophocles and 35 for Aeschylus. See Morgan 2003. For the importance of linguistic accessibility in other contexts, consider the Nachleben of Aristophanes in the Byzantine period. The tradition of Aristophanes’ comedies points to the popularity of three plays, Wealth, Clouds and Frogs, with Wealth occupying a special spot as the play first approached by students and typically coming first in medieval and later manuscripts. As Wilson (forthcoming) notes, this choice is probably to be explained by Wealth’s easier Greek rather than its literary merits. Not incidentally, Wealth was also the comedy picked by Greek adaptors and performers of Aristophanes in the 1800s (see van Steen, forthcoming). Life of Aeschylus 12; Ar. Ach. 9–12 with scholion. See further the references cited above.

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seeing it (534–6). Euripides’ Electra and its recognition scene in particular closely rewrite Aeschylus’ play, and Sophocles’ Electra also sets itself against it, or participates in the ‘debate’.257 We also hear, to give another example, the death-cries of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon in both Clytemnestra’s off-stage death in Sophocles’ Electra and Polymnestor’s blinding in Euripides’ Hecuba.258 Aeschylus’ tragedies were, in all likelihood, also staged by the actors who visited Aeschylus’ tomb in Gela, where Aeschylus earned a hero cult apparently not long after his death.259 Later on, however, he fell out of favour in and out of public theatres: ‘where there is contact with Greek tragedy, it is normally being appropriated in its Euripidean guise’.260 Aeschylus’ hard Greek must have played a role in this process. As Aristophanes’ parody makes clear, his contemporaries already had problems with Aeschylus’ words: they are ‘ox-sized, with crests and bows, formidable monster-like things unfamiliar to the spectators’, so obscure that they keep Dionysus awake at night.261 Later audiences did not fare any better, given that Aeschylus’ plays were reportedly ‘corrected’ and restaged in revised versions.262 With its simplified diction and syntax, Euripides’ Greek is at the opposite pole, as both Aristophanes and Aristotle point out.263 That Euripides could mix tragedy, emotions and common language was indeed a wondrous feat for the philosopher Crantor, a contemporary of Menander.264 By increasing resolved syllables, Euripides’ lines manage to accommodate words and expressions foreign to earlier tragedy and to achieve a prose-like effect, the same effect that can be detected in later tragedy.265 Some plays are easier 257 258 259 260

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On Euripides and the Oresteia, see most recently Torrance 2011. Aesch. Ag. 1343, 1345; Soph. El. 1415–16; Eur. Hec. 1035, 1037. See Easterling 2005: 27, 30–1. Aesch. TrGF T 1.46–7, on which see p. 18. Revermann 1999/2000: 451. There is a tragic actor, a certain Likymnios, whom Alciphron presents as successful with Aeschylus’ Propompoi (Ep. 3.12), but no actor named Likymnios is otherwise attested and his real existence is far from certain. See O’Connor 1908: 105, DFA2 100, n. 4, Stephanis 1988: no. 1552, Le Guen 2004: 81–2. On later actors staging the plays of the three canonical tragedians, see Nervegna (forthcoming, a). Ar. Frogs 924–6, 930–2. See also 1056–8, where Euripides remarks that Aeschylus does not talk as men do. Quint. Inst. 10.1.66, on which see also above. Ar. Frogs 941–2 is a case in point: Euripides has put tragedy on a diet, making it slim with his little words and walks. Arist. Rh. 1404 b18–25 singles out Euripides as the author who can best conceal his art by coating it in ordinary language. Diog. Laert. 4.26: Ἐθαύμαζε δὲ ὁ Κράντωρ πάντων δὴ μᾶλλον Ὅμηρον καὶ Εὐριπίδην, λέγων ἐργῶδες ἐν τῷ κυρίῳ τραγικῶς ἅμα καὶ συμπαθῶς γράψαι. Prato 1972, Willink 1986: esp. Iiii (Euripides’ language); Stevens 1976 updated by Collard 2005 (colloquial expressions in Euripides). See also Allan 2008: 45: ‘surviving fragments show that it was Euripides’ simpler and plainer dialogue style that became the dramatic koinē of the following centuries’.

Euripides, Menander and ‘common’ Greek

than others: the level of colloquialism in Orestes, for instance, is substantially higher than in any previous tragedy.266 Later authors such as Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom – the cultural elite – also appreciate Menander’s and Euripides’ ordinary language. A linguistic point opens Diogenianus’ passionate praise of Menander: Menander’s ‘diction is pleasant and prose-like’ (ἥ τε γὰρ λέξις ἡδεῖα καὶ πεζή) and it is also ‘spread upon the action in such a way that neither the sober find it too easy nor the tipsy too difficult’.267 After a bath and a light breakfast on a midsummer’s day, Dio Chrysostom is deep in the three Philoctetes plays by the canonical tragedians (Or. 52). He reads them, or rather ‘he feasts his eyes on their spectacle’, thinking of himself as ‘a judge of the premier tragic choruses’ (3) and comments on their authors’ style. Among other things, Aeschylus displays an ‘archaic flavour’ next to surly thoughts and words. An ‘extraordinary and astonishing verbal skill’ makes Euripides stand out: his iambs, Dio Chrysostom adds, are ‘clear, natural and drawn from ordinary language’, while his songs provide both pleasure and moral instruction.268 Interestingly perhaps, Dio Chrysostom singles out Euripides’ iambs for their simplicity while elsewhere attesting to revivals of old tragedies without songs. These two statements suggest perhaps that the harder Greek of the choral songs may have been a factor in these ‘reduced’ revivals.269 In spite of the some five hundred years dividing Dio Chrysostom from Aristophanes and Aristotle, Euripides’ language was still common, ordinary Greek. This is quite a remarkable point if one considers how drastically modern languages like English and Italian have changed since the 1500s. The Greek that Dio Chrysostom and his contemporaries were most familiar with, the ‘common’ Greek or Greek koine, was the language of communication that emerged in the fourth century bc both in the old Greek world and in the new Greek East, where it replaced Aramaic.270 The reason why, centuries later, Euripides and Menander were still ‘modern’ is that the Hellenistic Greek koine found its core in Attic dialect (or rather AtticIonic dialect), a choice that, according to Hall (2007: 285–6), was 266 268

269 270

Stevens 1976: 64–5. 267 Plut. Mor. 712b. This passage is fully cited on p. 120. Dio Chrys. Or. 52.4 (ἥ τε γὰρ τοῦ Αἰσχύλου μεγαλοφροσύνη καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖον, ἔτι δὲ τὸ αὔθαδες τῆς διανοίας καὶ φράσεως), 14 (δι’ ὅλου τοῦ δράματος ἐπιδείκνυται ἀμήχανον δὲ καὶ θαυμαστὴν ἐν τοῖς λόγοις δύναμιν, καὶ τά τε ἰαμβεῖα σαφῶς καὶ κατὰ φύσιν καὶ πολιτικῶς ἔχοντα). Dio’s speech is to be placed within a long critical tradition inaugurated by Aristophanes’ Frogs (see the referenced discussion by Hunter 2009: 39–49), but this does not affect my main point: Aeschylus’ Greek is objectively more difficult than that of Euripides. Dio Chrys. Or. 19.5, on which see above. Swain 1996: 18–19. Dio Chrysostom’s language does, however, display Atticist traits. See Swain 1996: 27.

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determined by theatre and dramatic performances. Theatre was probably the medium, but the Attic dialect prominent in the new ‘common’ Greek was not the Attic dialect of all Greek drama. It was the Greek of Euripides, Menander and the playwrights who wrote like them.271

Menander and comedy writing in antiquity Machon was a writer born in Corinth or Sikyon who worked and died in Alexandria probably around the mid-third century bc. Next to authoring hilarious anecdotes, the chreiai, mostly related to Athenian courtesans and parasites, Machon was also active as a comic poet and is celebrated as such in the epigram apparently inscribed on his tomb in Alexandria.272 The light dust, the epigram reads, should cover Machon’s tomb with agon-loving ivy: for you do not hold and cover a rewashed cloak (κύφωνα παλίμπλυτον), but a worthy remnant of the ancient art (ἀλλά τι τέχνης / ἄξιον ἀρχαίης λείψανον). And the old man will say: ‘O city of Cecrops, sometimes even by the Nile the pungent thyme of poetry grows.’273

Apparently writing for dramatic competitions in Alexandria (the ivy of his tomb is agon-loving), Machon made his comedies special by steering away from the usual stuff and sprinkling them with pungent thyme. The reference here seems to be to the pure Attic speech and aggressive comic tones that he preferred to trite comic motifs. In other words, Machon stood out for choosing to write in the style of Old rather than New Comedy, here significantly referred to as ‘a rewashed cloak’.274 In mid-third-century bc Alexandria and beyond, Machon’s Old Comedy style ran counter to the trend. From this point of view, Machon was as atypical as a dabbling Roman playwright, Vergilius Romanus. A friend of Pliny the Younger and a versatile writer, Vergilius Romanus is presented to us while delivering to a small audience a superb comedy modelled after Old Comedy (ad exemplar veteris comoediae). Although he had already composed comedies that imitated Menander and his fellow playwrights and that could proudly stand next to those of Plautus and Terence, this 271 272

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On Menander’s Greek, see also pp. 257–8. Ath. 6.241e–f; Machon T 2 K-A. The introduction in Gow 1965 discusses Machon’s life and works. AP 7.708 (as edited by Gow and Page 1965.1: 89, Dioscorides xxiv); Machon T 3 K-A. See also Ath. 6.241f, who preserves this epigram in a better version. Gow and Page 1965: II.257–8 on AP 7.708, Fantuzzi 2007: 494.

Menander and comedy writing in antiquity

was his first experiment with Old Comedy.275 Not that it looked like it: Pliny found much to praise about Vergilius’ Old Comedy, including its grace, exposé of vice and good use of characters. ‘Fictional names’, he comments, ‘were used fittingly and the real ones skilfully’, a remark which reminds us that writing comic abuse when living under a central rule was not a small challenge. With the Twelve Tables exceptionally decreeing the death penalty for public abuse, and with Naevius, his ‘pillared face’ and the guardians watching him as a constant reminder of how serious matters were, this was a challenge that comic poets avoided.276 Not that they needed to pick it up: comedy, after all, had become something different from abuse and Old Comedy had turned into a different genre. In Horace’s words, Old Comedy was the time-honoured predecessor of Lucilius’ satires, which followed Eupolis, Cratinus, Aristophanes and those who wrote like them.277 Machon and Vergilius aside, the many ancient writers who had a flair for comedy and kept writing plays followed in Menander’s footsteps, be these poets Afranius, the celebrated author of togatae, or Apuleius, who left behind a (partial?) Latin adaptation of Menander’s Anechomenos.278 Even after the Romans had their own comic poets including a ‘half-Menander’, Terence, and even after comedy lost ground to mime in the theatres of the Roman West, Menander remained the undisputed comic model.279 A politician active under Trajan or Hadrian, Marcus Pomponius Bassulus hailed from Aeclanum and took care to write his own epitaph. Here, he carefully mentioned that he had both adapted some of Menander’s plays and composed original ones, not spent his leisure hours ‘like a sheep’.280 No doubt Menander’s name was a ‘buzz-word’ that immediately advertised Bassulus’ cultural standing. Even more interesting is the case of the fourthcentury ad grammarian Apollinarios of Laodicea, in Syria. When the 275

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Plin. Ep. 6.21 (Men. T 68 K-A), on which see also Hunter 2009: 97. See also Synesius of Cyrene, Dio 18, p. 278, 10, discussed above. Cic. Rep. 4.11–12 (this passage, which is now fragmentary, is of difficult interpretation; see Manuwald 2011: 293–4), Plaut. Mil. 211–12 (without naming Naevius), Gell. NA 3.3.15. The tradition that Naevius was politically outspoken has been recently challenged (see Manuwald 2011: 199–200 with references), but its existence is still interesting. Hor. Sat. 1.4.1–8, on which see Hunter 2009: 99–106. Political commentary is also to be found in some mimes. Two mimes are on record as abusing ‘by name’ (nominatim) Accius and Lucilius (Rhet. Her. 1.24, 2.19), and Cicero (Fam. 7.11.2) was anxious about mimes targeting his politically active friend. See further Manuwald 2011: 181–2. See also Reynolds 1943. Afranius: Macrob. Sat. 6.1.4, Cic. Fin. 1.7; Hor. Epist. 2.1.57 (Men. T 66–7 K-A). Apuleius: Anth. Lat. 712 R (Men. F 431 K-A), on which see May 2007: 63–71. See also above. Terence was defined as a ‘half-Menander’ by Caesar (Donat. Life of Terence 7; Men. T 64 K-A). Note also Quintilian’s negative comments on Roman comedy: ‘in comedy we are most weak’ (Inst. 10.1.99). CIL IX 1164; Men. T 69 K-A. On this inscription see also Csapo 2010: 187.

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Emperor Julian discriminated in favour of pagans and tried to marginalize Christians by banning them from public schools and by forbidding Christian professors to teach Classical studies, Apollinarios became a new Homer and composed his own epic on the Hebrews. Keen on replacing the basic school works of Greek poetry with adaptations of Christian content, he also wrote imitations of Euripides’ tragedy, Pindar’s lyric and Menander’s comedy.281 Modern scholars can debate how Christianity affected the survival of Menander’s plays but Apollinarios had no doubt: Menander’s comedy was the model to follow. Of the brand-new comedies staged in Greek festivals well into the Roman period we know very little: their titles and texts have left almost no trace in our records and only rarely do their authors’ names appear. Yet time and again, we hear of plays resembling New Comedies. Astronomers like Manilius, who wrote his Astronomica probably in the last years of Augustus’ reign, could foresee one’s inclinations by reading the stars.282 In his fifth book, Manilius discusses the constellations that rise with the zodiacal signs, and he explains that those who are born when Cepheus rises beside Aquarius will have a serious demeanour and a talent for writing tragedy. They may also display an interest in composing ‘in a lighter vein’; if so, they will stage comedies with ‘burning young men and maidens abducted and loved, tricked old men and all-resourceful slaves’. These are, of course, New Comedy plots, as Manilius makes clear by mentioning Menander and the reputation that he gained through this kind of drama.283 An epigram by Callimachus provides another example. The mask that speaks it claims to have been dedicated as ‘a truly comic witness of the victory of Agoranax of Rhodes in the theatre’. It is unclear why this mask, which is ‘not love-burnt’, compares itself to a dried fig and to the lamps of Isis – is this a pun on the mask’s poor quality? – but Pamphilos is a name familiar from New Comedy and the play Agoranax successfully competed with was either a revived New Comedy or a newly composed one.284 Centuries later, another New Comedy name, Geta, was apparently still 281 282 283

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Sozomenos, History of the Church 5.18.4; Men. T 131 K-A. On the historical and political context of Manilius’ Astronomica, see Volk 2009: esp. ch. 4. Man. Astron. 5.470–6; Men. T 94 K-A. Volk 2009: 108 with n. 109 notes that, since Manilius only exceptionally names earlier poets and talks about anyone’s horoscope, his mention of Menander is meant to draw attention. For later poets writing palliatae, see also Hor. Sat. 1.10.40–2: Fundanius’ libelli deal with New Comedy characters and plots (arguta meretrice potes Davoque Chremeta / eludente senem comis garrire libellos / unus vivorum, Fundani). AP 6.311, on which see Gow and Page 1965: II.183–5, Fantuzzi 2007: 480, Petrides 2009: 495 with n. 4, 499–500. Pamphilos is attested as the name of a comic character already in Eubulus, who authored a play titled Pamphilos. See further Hunter 1983: 174.

Menander and comedy writing in antiquity

familiar to comic poets, at least until the reign of Caracalla. Caracalla killed his brother Geta, erased his name from all records by the damnatio memoriae and put enough fear into playwrights to make them avoid any Geta in their dramas (Dio Cass. 78.12.5). Artemidoros also has something to add to this picture. If your dreams involve old comedies, he warns, expect abuse and problems, but if they involve ‘our comedies’, good things are ahead, as in the comic plots.285 Incidentally, for Artemidoros there were only two types of comedies: one with personal abuse (‘old comedy’) and the other with a happy ending (‘contemporary comedy’). A different story seems to come from second-century ad Smyrna. This is the city that Aelius Aristides lectures on the dangers of allowing comic abuse in and out of theatres. Thundering against setting prizes for this kind of contests and dwelling on the danger of abusive songs picked up by women and children to be chanted ‘in the baths, on the streets, in every market-place and in their homes’, Aristides explains that modern comedies are simply the works of charlatans, a far cry from the time-honoured Old Comedies with the edifying advice of their parabases.286 That Smyrna must guard against Old Comedy-style plays, presented here as a real and concrete danger, can find a place only in the world of declamations. Aristides’ need to speak against this likelihood is just as real as the need to write his Sicilian speeches for and against sending reinforcement to the Sicilian expedition of 415–413 bc, or to debate in his Leuctran speeches what the Athenians should do in the aftermath of the battle of Leuctra in 371 bc.287 Outside rhetorical schools, the comedies presented in public theatres smacked of Menander. In and out of theatres, Menander’s plays and plays like Menander’s were well suited for subjects to an empire. Moralizing and family affairs made up a well-tested recipe for good comedies, good enough to keep entertaining public audiences for centuries after Menander’s death and for setting the unsurpassed example of comic playwriting. They were also good enough to become the stock in trade of teachers and students and the perfect form of dinner entertainment for gentlemen such as Plutarch and his friends. As appropriate for gentlemen, they went for refinement and moral edification even when relaxing on a couch with a drink in their hands.

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Artem. 1.56: τὸ δὲ κωμῳδεῖν ἢ κωμῳδῶν ἀκούειν ἢ κωμικὰ ἔχειν ἀναπλάσματα ἢ βιβλία, τὰ μὲν τῆς παλαιᾶς κωμῳδίας σκώμματα καὶ στάσεις σημαίνει, τὰ δὲ τῆς καθ’ ἡμᾶς κωμῳδίας τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ἴσα τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ σημαίνει, τὰ δὲ τέλη χρηστὰ καὶ ἀγαθὰ ὑπαγορεύει· τοιαῦται γάρ εἰσιν αἱ ὑποθέσεις τῶν κωμικῶν δραμάτων. Aristid. Or. 29.13, 30, 28. On this declamation, see also pp. 51–2. 287 Aristid. Or. 5–6, 11–15.

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What, however, could anyone object to New Comedy? It has become so mixed up with symposia that one could better chart out the drinking without the wine than without Menander. Pleasant and prose-like, his style is spread upon the action in such a way that neither the sober find it too easy nor the tipsy too difficult. The good and simple maxims which run through it melt even the hardest hearts with the wine, like a smith with the fire, and shape them up for the better. The mixture of serious and funny would seem to have no other aim but to entertain and improve tipsy men on their couches. In Menander, even love affairs are appropriate for men who, after the wine, are soon to leave and rest beside their wives. In these plays, there is no homosexual love-story and rapes of virgins end suitably with a marriage. If hetairai are greedy and shameless, affairs with them are cut short by some act of self-control or change of heart on the part of the young men, but if they are good and loving back, a legitimate father is found for them, or their romance is given extra time, with human indulgence towards the disgrace. For men busy with something else, perhaps this is not worth any attention, but I cannot find it surprising if over the wine the refined charm of Menander’s plays has a moulding and reforming effect which leads morals to fairness and kindness.1

Put into the mouth of Diogenianus of Pergamon, an Academic philosopher and a close friend of Plutarch, this passage details the features that make Menander’s plays a perfect form of private entertainment: relatively easy language, ‘clean’ subject-matter, edifying maxims and plots. So well do they go with dinner parties that one would think that Menander wrote them only for that reason. So integral are they to symposia that wine can be dispensed with – perhaps one of the few genuinely hilarious statements from Plutarch’s pen. To translate this passage into an image, we can leave Plutarch’s elegant soirée for one of the many reception rooms of the House of Menander in Daphne, a wealthy suburb of Antioch, in Syria. This house is named after its finest mosaic, which is dated to the late third century ad and reproduces Menander and Glykera, the hetaira who was supposedly Menander’s lover and source of inspiration. The couple are 1

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Plut. Mor. 712b–d (Men. T 104 K-A). Gilula 1987 and Traill 2008: 3–9 discuss this passage as evidence for Menander’s playwriting. For its value for reconstructing the format of private shows, see further below.

Menander at dinner parties

reclining on a couch with a female figure standing nearby as their attendant. Dressed in actor’s costume, with a staff in her right hand and the mask of an old man or a slave in her left hand, this figure is labelled ‘Comedy’ (frontispiece).2 Here Menander is young and athletic, with a crown on his head and perhaps a cup, now lost, in his left hand: Menander at the dinner party has slid into Menander the symposiast. Although conveniently assimilating the Greek symposion and its Roman counterpart, the convivium, the word ‘dinner party’ also erases the differences marking one institution from the other. As fundamental social events comparable to the Western Sunday lunch or the Japanese tea-drinking ceremony, both the symposion and the convivium have left behind a wealth of sources, from literary descriptions to images, vessels and couches, which shed important light on their constitutive features, underlying ideologies and changing practices.3 A partying group in fourth-century bc Olynth, for instance, did not behave like one in Late-Republican Pompeii or lateantique Antioch. The Greeks of the Archaic and Classical periods centred their parties on drinking, mixed their wine in a communal krater, an action that reinforced their sense of common fellowship, and banned respectable women from their dining room, the andron. Possibly adopting trends and practices already anticipated in the convivial behaviour of the LateHellenistic period, partying Romans focused on food rather than drinks and reduplicated status differences in their seating arrangement, also uniquely welcoming the fair sex into the triclinium (dining room). Not that the Roman convivia remained static either: diners in the later Empire, for instance, reclined on a different type of couch and interacted in a different way.4 From intimate gatherings to fully fledged banquets, all dinner parties, however, called for some kind of entertainment. Sober or elaborate, simple or extravagant, this was an asset, over time and place. As an entertainment venue, dinner parties also played a role in the ancient reception of Menander and drama in general. Widely recognized in its general formulation, this point becomes much more complicated in its specific application: the extent to which diners contributed to the survival of Greek plays and of Menander in particular is largely uncharted territory. 2

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Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum 1940–435 (Men T 37b K-A), MNC3 6HM 4. On this mosaic, see Friend 1941, Levi 1947: 202–3, Kondoleon 2000a, Huskinson 2002/3: 151–2, Csapo 2010: 144–6. See also further below. Surprisingly, ancient dinner parties came on the scholarly radar only in the 1970s. Important contributions include the essays edited by Murray 1990 and Slater 1991b. See also Dunbabin 2003. Dunbabin (2003: chs. 1, 2, 5) provides a very helpful and updated review of the changing behavioural patterns of ancient diners.

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There is no broad and comprehensive overview of the formats in which drama entered dining rooms and of the dynamics involved in having drama over dinner.5 In its absence, Plutarch’s lavish praise of Menander at symposia, coupled with our rich visual record for both Menander and his drama in domestic settings, has made Menander’s comedy virtually ubiquitous among ancient diners, from the Vesuvian towns of the Late Republic and Early Empire to late-antique Mytilene, rushing through Ephesus and Daphne. This chapter considers the presence of Menander at dinner parties by first reviewing our iconographic record for Menander and his plays. In spite of the many interpretative problems it raises, this tradition is almost invariably part of the decorative programme of private houses, thus claiming a place in any discussion of the privatization of Menander. But it also claims a place within a larger discussion of drama over dinner, which means going beyond our information on the convivial use of Menander made by Plutarch and his friends to set the visual record against our knowledge of the private use of drama in general. The resulting picture, which is sketched out in the second part of this chapter, is made up by literary sources and inscriptions as well as documentary papyri: although varied and scattered, they are all consistent in presenting both dramatic readings and dramatic performances as confined to the top of the political, social and cultural pyramid. Unlike drama, portraits and dramatic illustrations can find their way indoors with relative ease. This is not to say that the gulf between a dining room’s decoration and the entertainment activities that were more or less likely to take place in it is not in itself an interesting phenomenon, but its offshoots are of greater interest for writing social history than for reconstructing ancient viewers’ exposure to Greek drama.

Reproducing Menander in Athens and beyond Paradoxical as it may seem, Menander’s overwhelming popularity in ancient art turned out to be a great disadvantage for modern scholars trying to identify his portrait. In spite of our many Menander portraits in a variety of media, from heads to paintings and mosaics, only a couple of exemplars bear an identifying label. Unlike modern viewers, one surmises, the ancient ones did not need a tag: as a distinctive and widely reproduced image, Menander was easily recognizable, like the Hellenistic Blind Homer and

5

But see now Csapo 2010: ch. 6.

Reproducing Menander in Athens and beyond

Socrates.6 The Menander type was first identified and fully discussed by Studniczka in 1918 on the basis of two inscribed portraits: the medallion formerly in Marbury Hall, Cheshire, and now in the Sackler Gallery at Harvard University, and the so-called Ursinus medallion found outside Porta Aurelia, in Rome, and now preserved only in several drawings made in the late 1500s.7 As Studniczka described it, the Menander type is an unusually consistent one, reproduced in over forty copies: a clean-shaven and charming middle-aged man characterized by a ‘casually elegant hairstyle’, with locks of hair framing his face and swinging both before his temples and onto his forehead. Not that Studniczka won unanimous approval. The high number of replicas, along with the alleged Augustan hairstyle and the inconsistency of the Ursinus medallion drawings, lent some authority to the claim that this type reproduced Virgil rather than Menander. This claim led to a full-blown scholarly controversy, finally settled in favour of Studniczka and Menander with the recovery of an inscribed Menander bust in the J. P. Getty Museum dated to the early first century ad (Figure 5).8 Next to the Marbury Hall medallion and the inscribed Menander mosaic from the House of Menander at Mytilene (Figure 6), probably dated to the later fourth century ad and first published in 1970, this miniature bronze bust is our best evidence for the identification of Menander.9 The Mytilene mosaic is a more generalized representation that does not quite replicate the same hairstyle as the other two portraits, but it does agree with the Getty bust in the wrinkles running across the forehead (also shown on the younger Menander of the Marbury Hall medallion) and around the mouth. Along with the Getty bust, the Mytilene Menander also conveys the impression that Menander squinted, as the Suda remarks. All three portraits also feature the same attire, a chiton and a mantle.10 6

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10

There are over twenty portraits in the round of the Hellenistic Blind Homer, none of which is named (Richter 1965: I.50–2 and 1984: 147), and some forty portraits in the round of Socrates, derived from two chief types and with only two inscribed exemplars (Richter 1965: I.110–15 and 1984: 199–203). Graziosi 2002: 128–30 discusses the Hellenistic Blind Homer and his popularity, and Dillon 2006: 3–4 deals with inscriptions and ancient viewers. Studniczka 1918 (1988): 191–7, Richter 1965: II.227, nos. 1–2, Fittschen 1991: no. 26 (the Marbury Hall medallion, now Fogg Art Museum inv. no. 1991.63); Men. T 28a-b K-A. Summary of the Menander–Virgil controversy in Richter 1965: II. 235–6 and 1984: 160; see also Fittschen 1991: 257–8. On the inscribed Menander bust at the J. P. Getty Museum (72.AB.108; Men. T 27 K-A), see Ashmole 1973, Richter 1984: 161, no. 1, Fittschen 1991: no. 24. Fittschen 1991: 256–7; see also Richter 1984: 162. On the mosaics from Mytilene see also further below. Two bone tokens from the Roman period, found one in Pergamon and the other in Alexandria (Richter 1965: II.228, nos. 4–5; Men. T 33a-b K-A), show a crowned poet with a mask inscribed ‘Menander’, but the bald figure they reproduce has nothing to do with the Menander type. On the chiton worn by Menander on the Mytilene mosaic, see further below.

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Figure 5 Inscribed portrait bust of Menander, dated to the first quarter of the first century ad. Bronze, h. 17, d. (of base) 8 to 8.1 cm (6 11/16 × 3 1/8 to 3 3/16 in.).

That the image of Menander was widely reproduced in antiquity is an understatement. For no other Greek author do we have as many portraits as for him. With some fifty securely identified portraits of the same type, Demosthenes is a distant second.11 Richter (1965: II.229–34) collected over fifty Menander portraits in a variety of media and formats, while the updated list by Fittschen (1991: 245–53) includes 71 exemplars identifiable as replicas of the same portrait, the Early-Hellenistic statue of Menander set in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Figures 1, 2 and 3). Two points need clarification. First, these 71 exemplars are not all the surviving Menander portraits, but only those reproducing this particular archetype; second, the word ‘replica’ is not strictly applied. The portraits that Fittschen lists are replicas to the extent that they agree in the hair treatment, the clue whereby

11

For Demosthenes’ portraits, see Richter 1965: II.216–23 and 1984: 109–12.

Reproducing Menander in Athens and beyond

Figure 6 Menander mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

Menander is most easily recognized: the locks on the forehead are arranged in the shape of the letter S while those on the sides are combed from the back to the front and then directed downward. Hair aside, these exemplars present a wide range of variations that make the Kopienkritik difficult.12 A major distinction can be drawn between the Menander portraits with veristic renderings such as extra wrinkles and a more emphatic expression, and those characterized by smoother and younger features.13 Although this stylistic differentiation is often used as a dating criterion, with the realistic portraits traditionally assigned to the Late Republic and the idealized ones to the 12

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Fittschen 1991: 253–4. Both Fittschen 1991: esp. 254 and Zanker 1995: 78–80 refer to and build on a (still unpublished) Munich thesis by R. Röwer, ‘Studien zur Kopienkritik frühhellenistischer Porträts’ (1980). Goette 2011: 59–61 identified and published a new replica of the Menander portrait, a first- or second-century ad head set on a toga statue in modern times and now preserved in Virginia (Norfolk, Chrysler Museum inv. 78.416). For new discussions on already published Menander portraits, see Goette 2011: 60, n. 18. These two stylistic versions are perhaps best exemplified by the head in Corfu (Richter 1965: II.233, no. 43; Fittschen 1991: no. 61), an older Menander with deep-set wrinkles, and the herm in Boston (Museum of the Fine Arts, 97.288; Richter 1965: II.233, no. 38; Fittschen 1991: no. 2), a much younger Menander with a smooth physiognomy.

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Julio-Claudian period, the coexistence of these two artistic trends complicates matters.14 The Menander replicas also vary in their attire: while a number of exemplars, including the inscribed portraits, have the chiton and the mantle, others have the chiton alone or the chest bare.15 The late-antique Menander bust from Ephesus is given a tunic which looks more Roman than Greek, a feature all the more remarkable given the provenance of this portrait.16 One also notes the purple band, the clavus, decorating the tunic that Menander wears on the Mytilene mosaic, the typical sign of the Roman tunica which was usually worn by Roman citizens with the toga (Figure 6).17 Given the wide geographic and chronological range of our Menander portraits, variance in detail is surely unsurprising. Dated from the first century bc to the third, fourth or even fifth century ad, these portraits come from Italy, Greece, the Southern Balkans, Asia Minor and Egypt. As copies of copies, they are at a great distance from their archetype. In spite of a handful of exemplars that depart from their model in presenting a different hairstyle, the Menander type is, however, remarkable for both its longevity and its consistency.18 Only in the late-antique portraits such as the Ephesus bust does this type undergo some changes, by acquiring larger eyes, rigid and simplified features and a smoother physiognomy. Menander has now become the visionary sage of Late Antiquity.19 The vast majority of our Menander portraits come in heads, herms and busts, formats which were all very fashionable among the Romans. Apart from the 14

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17 18

19

For the traditional view, see Zanker 1995: 13, Fittschen 1991: 254. Contra Stewart 2004: 19–22 (who also explains the theory behind the ‘period faces’), Dillon 2006: 48–9. The patron’s wishes surely played an important role: when commissioning paintings for the library of ‘the most learned’ Herennius Severus, Pliny (Ep. 4.28) explicitly requests copies as exact as possible that would alter their model ‘not even for the better’. See Perry 2005: 95. Chiton alone: the Menander bust now in the Museum of Konya (Richter 1965: II.233, no. 46; Fittschen 1991: no. 67). Naked chest: e.g., the Menander herms in Boston, Museum of the Fine Arts, 97.288, and in the collection of T. J. B. Hoff in Oslo (Richter 1965: II.232, no. 33; Fittschen 1991: no. 36). Selçuk Museum 755 (on which see below). See Inan and Rosenbaum 1966: 147 and especially Goette 1990: 62–3, 146–7: Menander’s dress on this bust recalls Goette’s type E, the toga with a triangular or fan-shaped umbo of Late Antiquity (‘Magistrats-Typus’). I owe this point to Hans R. Goette (Berlin). Fittschen 1991: 245, n. 6, excludes from his list of replicas a number of exemplars: a head preserved in Ince Blundell Hall (Richter 1965: II.232, no. 28) and one in Wilton House (Richter 1965: II.232, no. 30), a herm from the Casa degli Amorini Dorati in Pompeii (Richter 1965: II.230–1, no. 14; on this herm see also below), an unfinished marble head in Aquileia (Museo Archeologico 479; Richter 1965: II.234) and the terracotta head identified as Menander by Bernabò-Brea 1981: 245–6, fig. 415 (see also Tav. I; Lipari, Museo Eoliano 6921). Selçuk Museum 755 (Richter 1965: II.233, no. 47; Fittschen 1991: no. 69) with Bassett 2008. Menander’s changed typology is also evident on the medallion formerly at Marbury Hall (on which see above) and possibly a herm, Welschbilling Herm 35, inv. 19123 (though its identification is debated; see Bassett 2008: 205). Another three portraits are now known only from the photographic record: a medallion formerly in the Evangelical School in Smyrna, a bust from Konya and one of unknown provenance and location (Richter 1965: II.227, 233–4, nos. 3, 46, 53).

Reproducing Menander in Athens and beyond

obvious financial and space-related advantages of commissioning and displaying a bust rather than a full-length statue, choosing these sculptural types was also ideologically motivated. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans attached a great deal of importance to an individual’s face, making it the vehicle for his entire personality.20 Of particular importance in reconstructing the statue from which our Menander portraits derive is a fine exemplar originally from Athens and currently preserved in the Seminario Patriarcale in Venice. This work is not a bust, as often claimed, but a much rarer format, an inset bust. Despite their herm-like appearance, inset busts were meant to be placed in the chest of a statue and, as a result, their sides and backs are not smoothly finished but more roughly worked, forming a sort of ‘plug’ to facilitate the insetting.21 Only very few portraits survive along with their bodies, and this is mostly the case of the truly famous such as Demosthenes, Epicurus and, of course, Menander. If Fittschen’s identification of the Capitol-Naples type as reproducing Menander and not the Greek playwright Moschion is right, we have to add to the 71 Menander replicas an additional 7 artefacts: 5 life-size torsos and 2 exemplars in statuette format.22 Menander’s Early-Hellenistic statue in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens was surely the main model in his iconographic tradition, but it was not the only one. There are a number of other portraits that, although identified as Menander either by their label or by a number of details, do not replicate the features of the Menander type. These portraits presumably go back to different archetypes, most of which, if they actually existed, can no longer be identified. We know that in the third century bc, Cratinus depicted comoedi in the Athenian Pompeion, the ‘procession house’ which functioned both as a rallying place for the Panathenaia and as a venue for feasting.23 Since a plinth reading ‘Menander’ was discovered in the site of the Pompeion in 1928, Menander was among these comoedi, although the plinth itself is a later addition generally thought to have replaced the original inscription that Cratinus executed in paint.24 Lost when Sulla destroyed the Pompeion in 86 bc, Cratinus’ portrait 20 21

22

23

24

Zanker 1995: 9–12. Richter 1965: II.231, no. 15; Fittschen 1991: no. 65 (see also pp. 255–67). On inset busts, see Dillon 2006: 36. Fittschen 1991: 259–60. Life-size torsos: (1) a torso found in the sea near Kythnos and now preserved in Chora`s Demarcheion; (2) Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale; (3) Petworth, Leconfield Collection; (4) Rome, Museo Capitolino, Sala dei Filosofi 75, inv. 603; (5) Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano (Collezione Ludovisi) 8641. Torsos in statuette format: (6) Florence, Uffizi 1914.244; (7) Liverpool, Merseyside County Museum, formerly Ince Blundell Hall. Plin. HN 35.140. The Pompeion also hosted a bronze statue of Socrates made by Lysippos (Diog. Laert. 2.43) and a statue of Isocrates ([Plut.] X orat. 839c). See further Hoepfner 1976: 113–14, 124. IG II2 4256 (Men. T 31 K-A) with Brueckner 1931: 12–14, who first edited the inscription.

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Figure 7 Menander wall painting from the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii, dated to the first century ad.

may be preserved in the inscribed Menander wall painting (Figure 7) that gives its name to the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii.25 As a painted portrait of a specific literary figure, this painting is unparalleled on Pompeian walls.26 Here Menander is seated just as in his early Athenian statue, but his chest is naked 25

26

On the Pompeian Menander as possibly imitating Cratinus’ painting, see Fittschen 1991: 277–8, Schefold 1997: 220, Linderski 2003: 93–4. The discussion of the Pompeian wall painting of Menander by Ling and Ling 2005: 85–8 does not touch upon the question of its Greek original. Ling and Ling 2005: 87.

Reproducing Menander in Athens and beyond

Figure 8 Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy, first century bc to early first century ad. White marble, probably Italian, h. 48.5 cm, w. 59.5 cm, d. 8.5 cm (17 7/16 × 23 7/16 × 3 3/8 in.).

and his body wrapped in a mantle; with his right hand supporting his head, he holds in his left hand a roll with an inscription only partially legible, ‘Menander. He first of all wrote (New) Comedy.’27 The ivy crown on his head does not allow us to identify the hairstyle typical of the Menander type, but the facial features are those of a young man, with a roundish face and full cheeks. These seem to be the same characteristics as in another inscribed portrait that is unfortunately much damaged, the Menander bust in the Monnus mosaic in Trier made in the third century ad.28 The Menander type and the Menander wall painting from Pompeii share some elements with two famous reliefs of a seated poet contemplating a mask, one preserved in Princeton (Figure 8) and the other in the

27

28

This inscription (CIL IV Supp. III 1, 7350, Men. T 35b K-A) is no longer legible. Linderski 2007: 51–2 offers two options for the first four lines: Menander / hic primus (possibly primu[s]) / om[nium nova]ṃ como / ediam scripsit or Menander / hic primu[s]/ om[niu]ṃ como / ediam scripsit. No sense can be made of the remaining text. Trier, Landesmuseum; Men. T 38 K-A. See Parlasca 1970: 41–3, Richter 1965: II.228, no. 6. This mosaic is a complex composition with six groups of images in its main field: Muses, literary figures, masks, personifications of months, signs of the zodiac and seasons. Only seven of the eight Greek and Roman authors originally depicted can be identified: Menander, Ennius, Hesiod, Livy, Virgil, Cicero and most probably Epicharmus (so Koller 1973, Daniel 1996).

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Vatican.29 The head of the Vatican relief (the Princeton one is damaged and the part of the head above the mouth has been restored after the Vatican’s) preserves the hairstyle and facial lines typical of the Menander portrait, but the poet’s attire, a mantle leaving his chest naked, is reminiscent of the Pompeian Menander. The table with two masks set in front of the poet further strengthens the connection between the two reliefs and the wall painting from Pompeii, if indeed the Pompeian Menander was also accompanied by a table with comic masks – a pendant to the table with three tragic masks accompanying a now anonymous author, most probably Euripides, painted on the wall opposite to Menander.30 The Princeton and Vatican reliefs are too similar not to belong to the same archetype that ‘eclectically quoted’ the honorary statue that the Athenians set up for Menander, but it is hard to tell whether this archetype also included the draped female figure variously identified as Comedy, Skene or Glykera present in the Vatican relief.31 Finally, the inscribed Menander mosaic from Daphne (frontispiece) cannot be reconciled with any of the early archetypes. As a convivial scene of a wellknown type with two lovers taken from the literary world, this mosaic follows an entirely different tradition, and it is also the first secure visual counterpart of the various stories associating Menander with Glykera. The floor of another house in Daphne, the House of Aion, was also graced with a mosaic reproducing this couple, a mosaic now preserving only parts of Menander’s and Glykera’s heads, both wreathed and inscribed. Set back to back to a panel with another couple of lovers, Briseis and Achilles, so that the two monuments faced two opposite directions, this mosaic is yet another piece of evidence for Menander’s recurrent association with Homer in antiquity.32

The Menander portraits and their display contexts Numerous as they are across time, place and media, in only a few instances can our Menander portraits, especially those in the round, be 29

30

31 32

Princeton University Art Museum, Vatican 9985; MNC3 3AS 5a, b. Note also a third relief from Aquileia (Berlin SK 951, MNC3 3AS 5c) that shows only the seated poet. See further Knoblauch 1994. On the possibility of a table with comic masks accompanying Menander, see Schefold 1957: 41–2, 1972: 218, 1997: 220; Linderski 2003: 93; Ling and Ling 2005: 86. On Euripides as the now obliterated author, see Maiuri 1933: 107, Schefold 1957: 41 and 1997: 220, Ling and Ling 2005: 85 (with more references to earlier literature). See also further below on the decorative programme of this exedra. Fittschen 1991: 277. Richter 1965: II.228, no. 8 (Men. T 37a K-A). See also Levi 1947: 196–7, Huskinson 2002/3: 152. On Menander and Homer, see pp. 9, 56, 133–4, 201–2.

The Menander portraits and their display contexts

placed in their original display context. Certainty is possible only in a handful of cases, but at least some exemplars were set in public buildings like their early models. In the fourth century ad, both the Emperor Constantine and a Christian woman named Skolastikia were busy rebuilding baths, one in the newly founded Constantinople and the other in Ephesus. Menander was included in the decorative programme of both complexes: his bust from Ephesus is now in the local museum, while his statue from the Baths of Zeuxippos, which was probably burnt in the Nika riots in ad 532, is mentioned in Christodorus’ Ekphrasis, a series of epigrams that later became Book II of the Greek Anthology.33 Following the tradition of bath decoration, the statuary in the Baths of Zeuxippos reproduced gods and mythological figures, especially those from the Trojan epic, as well as portraits. Among them, there also stood Menander, ‘the bright star of later comedy’ (Ekphr. 361–2; Men. T 39 K-A). A small and peripheral Greek settlement such as late-antique HerakleiaLynkestis, in the north-western region of the kingdom of Macedon, could also boast its own Menander. Originally placed in the forum, this now fragmentary Menander head later found its way into the Large Basilica built in the Early-Byzantine period – one of the many examples of the Christian reuse of pagan culture and symbols.34 There was also a Menander portrait in Hellenistic Pergamon, in all likelihood publicly displayed. All we have of it is the epigram recording that this portrait was erected by a man apparently called Menander.35 Moving from the Greek East to the Roman West, a building generally identified as a school hosted the marble Menander head from Insula II of Velia, a small town in Campania. A source of inspiration for teachers and students alike, this head originally stood either in the crypto-portico or in the school garden.36 To judge from their find-spot, another two Menander portraits, both from Rome, might have graced public places. One of them, now in a fragmentary condition, turned up in the Area Sacra del Largo Argentina, a vast area whose ancient level includes not only four Republican temples built and rebuilt in different periods, but also part of the structure surrounding the Theatre of Pompey. It is tempting to associate this portrait 33

34 35 36

On the Menander bust from Ephesus see above. Kaldellis 2007 discusses Christodorus’ Ekphrasis as a source of information for reconstructing the Baths of Zeuxippos; Bassett 2004: 160–87 provides a catalogue of the monuments placed in them. Sammlung Herakleja Bitola; Janakievski 1988: 114, no. 114; Fittschen 1991: no. 60. IPergamon I, no. 184; Merkelbach and Stauber 1998: 599. Marina di Ascea, Storage Room of the Soprintendenza, Fittschen 1991: no. 32. See Fabbri and Trotta 1989: 97, 101–2.

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with the statues that crowded the porticoes of this theatre.37 A second Menander head was found during the excavations near the Forum Pacis, a complex dedicated by Vespasian in ad 75 and containing the treasures from the temple of Jerusalem, art-works as well as a library.38 Aside from this handful of exemplars and the small Menander tondo from a necropolis near Hadrianotherae, in north-west Asia Minor, all the Menander portraits whose provenance can be identified belong to private settings.39 Often accompanied by the Muses, the portraits of the authors who came to be considered the ‘best’ in their field – the so-called imagines illustrium – make up one of the eight categories into which Neudecker (1988: ch. 3) divides the sculptural statuary of Roman villas in Italy. Along with a number of other themes ranging from gods and goddesses to mythical characters, athletes and art-works, cultural heroes are the subjects that villa owners would routinely pick for their sculptural decorations. There were, of course, varying degrees of preference. Sculptures related to the religious sphere statistically outnumber those related to other themes, with gods and goddesses and especially the Olympian deities being the favourites. Also common are satyrs, hermaphrodites, nymphs and other members of the Dionysian entourage, whose presence helped create the appropriate atmosphere for a country estate. By contrast, portraits of intellectuals are surprisingly few: they decorate less than a quarter of the extant Italian villas. They are also almost invariably concerned with Greek rather than Roman authors.40 From the minimal galleries made up by just a handful of pieces to the elaborate collections of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum or the Villa di Cassio at Tivoli, which comprise dozens of pieces, the number of portraits set in individual villas varies considerably but their display context seems consistent.41 Although placed throughout the Villa dei Papiri, the portraits found here were mostly concentrated in the large peristyle garden to the west; likewise, those in the Villa di Cassio apparently occupied the villa’s middle terrace, which was also adorned with 37

38 39

40 41

Rome, Museo Capitolino, Storage room; Fittschen 1991: no. 39. For the suggestion that this portrait decorated the porticoes of the Theatre of Pompey, see Slavazzi 1999: 445, 448. On this theatre and its porticoes, see Sear 2006: 61. Rome, Museo Capitolino, Storage room; Fittschen 1991: no. 40. This tondo (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 64.701; Fittschen 1991: no. 66) was found with at least five similar ones reproducing the god Sarapis, a satyr and theatre masks. It is described and discussed by Vermeule 1965: 363–5, who, however, identifies it as reproducing Augustus. Neudecker 1988: 64–5. Villa dei Papiri: Mattusch 2005: chs. 4–5; see also Dillon 2006: 42–9, Neudecker 1988: ch. IV, Lorenz 1965: IV–VII (‘Villa der Pisonen’). Villa di Cassio at Tivoli: Dillon 2006: 49–54, Neudecker 1988, no. 66, Lorenz 1965: XVI–XIX.

The Menander portraits and their display contexts

a fountain. As is the case for at least another five villas, whenever the original setting of the imagines illustrium can be identified or reconstructed, it invariably coincides with garden areas.42 This was apparently an old practice, dating back at least to the Late Republic. The gardener who landscaped Quintus’ villa, Cicero notes, made such a skilful use of ivy that ‘the Greek statues (palliati) look as though they are gardening and selling their ivy’.43 As a major figure in Greek drama, Menander holds a firm spot among the imagines illustrium: his portrait turned up in at least four villas, with the villa of the Volusii Saturnini in the Tiber valley, near Lucus Feroniae, as the most famous example. An old praetorian family that came to the forefront during the Early Empire, the Volusii Saturnini counted among their members a number of consuls and close associates of the Emperors.44 Their villa at Lucus Feroniae dates back to the mid-first century bc but was significantly enlarged in the Augustan period when, among other construction works, a new complex sprang up in the garden area south-east of the villa. In a large room of this complex, a Menander head was set on display along with a herm of Heracles and one of Euripides.45 Like the Volusii Saturnini, the owners of a less well-preserved villa in Genazzano, near the Cloister of St Pius, included only select pieces in their gallery: Menander, PseudoSeneca and an athlete, all in head format.46 A larger collection of sculptural decorations (at least nine items, although they are not all identifiable) was hosted in the villa in Montecelio, where Menander was in the company of an Eros, a satyr in head format and a torso of Apollo. The subject-matter of these pieces, along with their find-spot, a ‘kind of basin’, points again to the garden area as their original setting.47 In his villa in Rome, the Greek sophist Aelian apparently also had his own Menander, the now headless herm 42

43 44

45

46

47

Neudecker 1988: nos. 15, 26 (Villa dei Volusii and Villa di Montecelio, on which see also below), 17 (Villa di Frattocchie, six items including a herm of Socrates and one of Cato), 35 (Villa dei Bruttii at Rieti, thirty-five items including Muses and Anacreon, probably set in the garden area: see Neudecker 1988: 69), 64 (Villa di Pisone at Tivoli, twenty-five sculptures, most reproducing Greek statesmen, poets, philosophers and orators). Cic. Q Fr. 3.1.5, with Dillon 2006: 55 and Neudecker 1988: 27. Volusius Saturninus was the first member of this family to become consul, in 12 bc. His son, L. Volusius Satuninus, held important posts and, as a close friend of several Emperors, from Augustus to Nero, was given public burial and honoured with nine statues. This Menander head (Fittschen 1991: no. 46; Neudecker 1988: 157, 15.1; see also Zevi 1998: 57–9) is currently preserved in the Museo Nazionale in Lucus Feroniae. Sgubini Moretti 1998a and 1998b provides maps and a description of this villa. Neudecker 1988: 160. The Menander head is now in Rome, Terme inv. 58703 (Richter 1965: II.230, no. 4, Fittschen 1991: no. 43, Neudecker 1988: 159, 18.2). This Menander head is now preserved in Philadelphia, University Museum (Richter 1965: II.233, no. 40, Fittschen 1991: no. 33, Neudecker 1988: 171, 26.1). On the garden area as its original display context, see Neudecker 1988: 171.

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recording that Aristophanes of Byzantium ranked Menander second only to Homer.48 Appropriately, this herm was coupled with that of Homer. Since at least another seven Menander portraits come from areas crowded with luxury villas such as Torre Gaia, Tusculum, Torre Annunziata, Tarquinia and Nemi, they may have also graced country estates owned by wealthy Romans.49 This is not to say that only villa-owners appropriated Menander: in their efforts to imitate the trends and fashion of aristocratic families, house-owners too managed to set up his image. Carved on a small herm of poor quality and local manufacture, an almost unrecognizable Menander decorated the Casa degli Amorini Dorati in Pompeii, standing in the small peristyle garden studiously decorated as a sanctuary of Dionysus.50 Although named after its finest fresco, the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii probably had more than one Menander portrait. Since one of the columns in its peristyle is inscribed ‘Menander’, perhaps the poet greeted visitors both inside and outside this luxurious house.51 Also from a private setting comes the Menander herm discovered in the vestibule of the Suburban Baths of Herculaneum in 1958. Despite its find-spot, this herm seems to come from an unidentified house located above them.52 Greek cultural heroes carved in busts, herms and heads were to be seen not only in garden areas: their image also entered indoor areas, reproduced in paintings and mosaics. It comes as a surprise not to find Menander in the private libraries so often mentioned by literary sources but hard to be identified in archaeological remains. That his extant miniature portraits were used as decorations in book collections seems a reasonable guess, corroborated by a remark by Pliny the Elder. He comments on the ‘new’ practice of adorning private libraries with ‘the likenesses . . . of those people whose immortal souls speak in the same places’, a trend which he claims to 48

49

50

51 52

IG XIV 1183 (with Kaibel’s note on its find-spot; see also Lorenz 1965: XXIII). This herm is now at the University of Turin (Richter 1965: II.226, no. 4). Milan, Soprintendenza Archeologica della Lombardia (Fittschen 1991: no. 23; from Torre Gaia); Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 3 (Fittschen 1991: no. 1; from Tusculum); Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 97.288 (Fittschen 1991: no. 2; from Torre Annunziata), Washington, Dumbarton Oaks Collection 46.2 (Fittschen 1991: no. 57; from Tarquinia); Oxford, Mississippi University Museum (Fittschen 1991: no. 31; from Nemi). Add an inscribed herm also from Nemi and now lost (Richter 1965: II.226, no. 5) and the portrait found along Via Appia Nuova (Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano 124490, Fittschen 1991: no. 44). See Slavazzi 1999: 446–7. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 20526; Richter 1965: II.229, no. 13. Fittschen 1991: 245, n. 6 (see also 1977: 27), excludes this herm from his list of replicas of the Menander type, followed by Seiler 1992: 126. This house and its findings are described and discussed by Seiler 1992 (for the Menander herm see pp. 125–6, no. 21); on its garden, see also Zanker 1998: 168–72. CIL IV Supp. III 2, 8338, Men. T 36 K-A. Herculaneum, Antiquario inv. 2169, Fittschen 1991: no. 5. See De Franciscis 1971.

The Menander portraits and their display contexts

be a recent import from public libraries.53 Yet in the same way as portraits of Roman authors are hard to come by in garden areas, which, with very few exceptions, have a generally Hellenizing outlook, libraries seem to have been the domain of Roman, contemporary authors.54 Menander portraits in indoor settings were placed elsewhere, in areas situated just off the peristyle and often identifiable as dining or reception rooms. This is the case of all the three ancient houses named after Menander. In Pompeii as in Daphne and Mytilene, the Menander portrait had a prime position within the domestic arrangement. The exedra decorated with the Menander wall painting in the Casa del Menandro in Pompeii occupies the central area on the south side of the peristyle. Since the column space widens opposite to it, viewers could gaze into the garden from the exedra and into the exedra itself from the opposite side of the garden. Moreover, whenever the tablinum was not protected by the screen, viewers peeking into the house would have a direct axial view from the fauces of the house to the rear wall of the exedra.55 The large and complex House of Menander in Daphne is made up of three dining suites and possibly one living area. It boasts a remarkable number of reception suites, one of which includes the room with the floor mosaic of Menander, Glykera and Comedy. Situated off a portico with columns and possibly a courtyard eventually covered by the late pool built north of the portico, this area is unanimously considered a triclinium on account of its location, the overall composition of its pavement and its decoration.56 Also a triclinium is the room with the Menander mosaic in the House of Menander in Mytilene, as the T + U decoration pattern clearly shows. The bar of the T included the illustration of Plokion and a scene from Plato’s Phaedo framed by Menander on the left and Thalia on the right. Given that these mosaics are opposite the middle couch, the guest of honour would have had a particularly good view of Menander’s portrait.57 From walls and floor, Greek cultural heroes also found their way directly into the diners’ hands, gracing cups such as the elegant silver pair from the Boscoreale Treasure. One of them lines up four jolly skeletons, all of intellectual stamp: Menander, Archilochus, Euripides and the Cynic 53 54

55 56

57

Plin. HN 35.9.10 with Fittschen 1991: 267. Neudecker 1988: 70. For portraits of Roman authors in private libraries, see Plin. Ep. 3.7.8, 4.28; Mart. 9 proem. This exedra is room 23, on which see Ling 1997: 59 with pl. 22. Kondoleon 2000b: 74, Dobbins 2000: 57 (with plan of the house on p. 50), Huskinson 2002/3: 151. On the Roman triclinium and its layout, see most recently Dunbabin 2003: 38–42, with fig. 21.

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philosopher Monimos of Athens. Menander is reproduced next to a small aulos player, holding a mask and a torch inscribed ‘life’– a visual and literary reminder that life goes by very quickly.58 So common is Menander in ancient art that we may suspect that he is also the subject of other portraits lacking an identifying label or all the features typical of the Menander type. Consider a mosaic excavated from a large Roman site in Northern Tunisia, Thuburbo Majus, and dated to the third quarter of the second century ad. One of the very few representations of authors found on mosaics from North Africa, this wreathed figure seats with a scroll in his left hand and his right hand to his chin while he attentively contemplates two comic masks placed on a stand before him.59 Another example comes from the Villa Farnesina in Rome, where a painting shows a seated man with a mask on his knees accompanied by two women: he is a comic poet paired with a tragic poet reproduced on the painting next to it.60 They are not securely identifiable as Menander and Euripides, but these are, indeed, the two playwrights that ancient viewers would have associated with Greek comedy and Greek tragedy. Ancient patrons were eager to display their Menander and their Greek cultural heroes in general to the public gaze, in their gardens, reception rooms, dining rooms and even on their sympotic furniture, but the owner of the Villa Farnesina chose otherwise. Uniquely, it seems, he had them in his bedroom.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies and its interpretative problems Ancient patrons were not crazy for Menander alone. Menander’s comedies fared very well too: for ancient viewers as for ancient pupils, Menander was the Greek comic poet and his plays Greek comic theatre. Our figures leave no doubt. Green and Seeberg (MNC3 1: 85–98) identify the archetypes of 52 New Comedy scenes reproduced and variously adjusted by over 180 artefacts in different 58

59

60

Boscoreale Treasure, Paris Louvre, Bj 1923, Men. T 34 K-A. Dunbabin (1986: 226–8) discusses both this cup and its companion, which also shows Greek intellectuals as skeletons. Tunis, Bardo Museum 1396, MNC3 6FM 6. Unlike Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès (1970: 29), Green and Seeberg (MNC3) are cautious about identifying this poet with Menander. On this mosaic, see also Dunbabin 1978: 132, Linderski 2003: 94, n. 53. Rome Terme 1128 (MNC3 4RP 1), balanced by MTS2 95, IP2, from cubiculum B of this villa. These two paintings, which are dated to around 20 bc, are symmetrically placed on either side of an aedicula. See Bragantini and de Vos 1982: 130 with tables 41–2. The masked actor on the tragedy-related painting has no high soles, something which led Webster to suggest an EarlyHellenistic original.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

media and formats and dated throughout antiquity. All the scenes identified by inscription – 22 secure cases so far – are illustrations of Menander’s plays; moreover, none of the remaining scenes can be argued, let alone demonstrated, to be from a play by another New Comedy poet. With its formulaic and repetitive plots, New Comedy was a highly prolific genre that kept very many playwrights busy, yet Menander’s comedies virtually monopolize our visual record of New Comedy and Greek drama in general. They are unrivalled even by Euripides, whose tragedies were often illustrated next to them. From Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, comes the centre-piece of this rich iconographic tradition, the eleven inscribed mosaics excavated in the so-called House of Menander, which is also our largest and best-preserved assemblage of monuments related to Greek drama.61 Variously dated to the late third or, most likely, to the later fourth century ad, they graced both the triclinium – Plokion (Figure 9a), Samia (Figure 10a), Synaristosai (Figure 11a), Epitrepontes (Figure 12), Theophoroumene (Figure 13a), Encheiridion (Figure 14) and Messenia (Figure 15) – and the portico – Kybernetai, Leukadia, Misoumenos (Figure 16a) and Phasma – of this house.62 The play-title identifies all mosaics, but while those gracing the triclinium also include the act number and the characters’ names, the illustrations in the portico have only the act number, with the exception of Leukadia.63 These mosaics share some basic features. They reproduce the full dramatic cast, sometimes also including smaller, unmasked figures marginally positioned within the scene.64 Differentiated by costumes and props rather than masks, the actors are invariably set against a white background with minimal details. For instance, except for Phasma, where the inclusion of a doorway is justified by its importance in the scene, the Mytilene mosaics do not show the doors so heavily used in New Comedy, even when earlier exemplars of these illustrations do include them, as in the case of Theophoroumene.65 61

62

63

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MNC3 6DM 2.1–11, now preserved in the Chorapha Museum. They were first published by Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès 1970. See also Green 1994: 164, Csapo 1999 and 2010: ch. 5. The first editors of these mosaics dated them to around ad 270, but stylistic analysis suggests a date in the later fourth century ad. See Csapo 2010: 143 with n. 13. On the inscription on the Theophoroumene mosaic, see further below. The character’s name is replaced by its professional title in two cases: the cook (μάγειρος) of Samia, also unnamed in the play, and the charcoal-burner (ἀνθρακεύς) Syriskos, of Epitrepontes. On the labels of the Epitrepontes mosaic see further below. The assistants helped the mise-en-scène by serving drinks (Synaristosai) and carrying props (Theophoroumene). The tiny figure in the Epitrepontes mosaic is Syriskos’ wife, holding the baby whose trinkets are the cause of the arbitration. More difficult to make out is the small character in the Leukadia mosaic who stands on a base (an altar?) and holds an unidentified object. For two different interpretations, see Webster on MNC2 299, YM 2; Green and Seeberg on MNC3 6DM 2.9. On this point, see further below.

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Figure 9a Plokion mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

The same schematic rendering characterizes the other inscribed illustrations of Menander’s comedies: the Sikyonioi and Perikeiromene wall paintings in Apartment 1 of a terrace house in Ephesus (Figures 17a and 18a), the Plokion mosaic from the House of Dionysus and Ariadne in Chania on the island of Crete (Figure 9b), the Synaristosai mosaic gracing the House of the Synaristosai in Zeugma (Figure 11b) and the Achaioi mosaic discovered in a still unidentified building in the Roman colony of Ulpia Oescus, in modern Bulgaria (Figure 19).66 From Daphne 66

Wall paintings from Ephesus (MNC3 6DP 1. 1–2, apparently in situ; note also a third dramatic panel now much damaged, MNC3 6DP 1.3): Strocka 1977; see also Erdemgil et al. 1989: 15–31, Parrish 1995. Chania mosaics, currently preserved in the Chania Museum (MNC3 6DM 3.1–2): Markoulaki et al. 1990. Zeugma Synaristosai: Abadie-Reynal, Darmon and Manière-Lévêque 2003; Achaioi mosaic from Ulpia Oescus (now in the Pleven Museum, MNC3 6DM 1): Ivanov 1954, in Bulgarian with French summary.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 9b Plokion mosaic from Chania, probably dated to the fourth century ad.

comes another fascinating set of Menander mosaics, Synaristosai, Theophoroumene, Philadelphoi and Perikeiromene (Figures 11c, 13b, 20 and 18b). Since these illustrations have received only a preliminary publication, they are surrounded by much mystery – their find-spot is unclear, just like the relationship between these four scenes – but contextual findings apparently date them to the second or third century ad.67 With the wall paintings from Ephesus as perhaps the earliest exemplars (later second or first half of the third century ad) and the Achaioi mosaic as perhaps the latest one (fourth or fifth century ad), all the inscribed scenes belong to Late Antiquity.68 Although the Zeugma Synaristosai cannot be dated with certainty, a date in the first half of the

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The preliminary publication of these mosaics is by Çelik 2009 (I owe this reference to Kathryn Gutzwiller). The drawings reproduced here are based on the black-and-white photographs published by Çelik 2009, but readers should consult the colour photographs published by Gutzwiller and Çelik 2012. Frescoes from Ephesus: Strocka 1977: 49–52, Green and Seeberg on MNC3 6DP 1.1–3 (later second century ad), Parrish 1995: 153–4 (first half of the third century ad). For the fourth or fifth century ad as the date of the Achaioi mosaic, see Green 1994: 164, Green and Seeberg on MNC3 6DM 1 (Ivanov 1954 suggested an earlier date).

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Figure 10a Samia mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

third century ad seems likely. Probably later is the Chania Plokion: the soldier on the (now fragmentary and unlabelled) mosaic found with it, the Sikyonioi in all likelihood (Figure 17b), wears the so-called Pannonian cap, an item that entered the attire of Roman soldiers in the later Empire.69 As suggested by both the characters’ costumes and the letter forms of its inscription, a date in the fourth if not fifth century ad is

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Zeugma Synaristosai: Abadie-Reynal, Darmon and Manière-Lévêque 2003: 87, 95, 99; see also Dunbabin 2008: 14. Chania mosaics (MNC3 6DM 3.1–2): Green 1994: 164 (proposing a date in the fourth century ad), Green and Seeberg MNC3 1.75. Markoulaki 1990 dated them to the mid-third century ad.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 10b Wall painting probably reproducing Samia from the viridarium area of the Casa dei Dioscuri in Pompeii (VI 9, 6.7).

perhaps to be supposed for the newly excavated and still unpublished Theophoroumene mosaic from Kastelli-Kissamou in Crete, which was discovered with another mosaic inscribed Sikyonios.70 This last monument is yet another element in the puzzling issue of the title of this comedy: typically cited as Sikyonios by ancient writers, this play figures as Sikyonioi both on the colophon of the Sorbonne papyrus and on the 70

Markoulaki, Christoudoulakos and Phragkonikolaki 2004: 370–1 (who suggest an earlier date). My warmest thanks to Stavroula Markoulaki for most generously sending me pictures of the Theophoroumene mosaic.

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Figure 10c Fragmentary mosaic from Avenches, possibly related to the Mytilene mosaic of Samia and dated to around ad 200–50.

Ephesus wall painting. Whatever its original name, it came to circulate under both titles.71 When placed side by side, these illustrations vary in the number of characters depicted and background details as well as representation technique. The Sikyonioi fresco from Ephesus stands out in featuring only two rather than three actors and so does the Theophoroumene from KastelliKissamou in including four actors plus a mute. Zosimos, the artist who signed the Synaristosai mosaic in Zeugma, set the scene against an architectural relief recalling a scaenae frons, an addition that can also be traced in other comic illustrations.72 In the Achaioi mosaic, the scene is represented as if seen from above, or with figures standing on a sharply sloping ground. This representation technique, which is typical of Late Antiquity, accounts 71

72

Scholarly discussions of this play-title: Belardinelli 1994: 56–9, Arnott 2000: 196–8, Blanchard 2009: xxiv–xxxiii. Earlier examples of an architectural background in a comic scene include the battered Theophoroumene mosaic from the Vesuvian area (Ufficio Scavi di Pompei 17735; earlier than ad 79, Figure 13f) and the Naples relief (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 6687, MNC3 4XS 1; first century ad).

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 11a Synaristosai mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

for the size of the mute at the back who, although still unmasked, is now taller than the actors.73 Also striking here is the use of baselines apparently meant to indicate the stage.74 Unparalleled in our visual record for Menander’s drama, these baselines perhaps find a counterpart in the illuminated manuscripts of Terence, whose archetype is roughly contemporary with the Achaioi mosaic.75 Next to being important discoveries on their own, inscribed illustrations have also allowed us to identify a number of other scenes that are somehow related to them. Although accompanied by identifying inscriptions only from the later second or early third century ad onwards, our visual record for Menander’s plays is as rich as long-lasting. Since the earliest artefact depicting a New

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Green 1994: 164, Green and Seeberg on MNC3 6DM 1. Alternatively, these lines could be corrupted shadows. See Green and Seeberg on MNC3 6DM 1. On illustrated Terence manuscripts (MNC3 6XP 1), see pp. 243–5.

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Figure 11b Synaristosai mosaic from Zeugma by Zosimos and probably dated to the first half of the third century ad.

Figure 11c Synaristosai mosaic from Daphne, apparently dated to the second or third century ad.

Comedy scene, or rather an excerpt from a scene, is a terracotta figurine from Halai, in Boeotia, and dated to before 300 bc, New Comedy iconographic tradition began within Menander’s lifetime and soon spread far and wide.76 Menander’s plays are the referent of at least some of the actors’ figurines 76

This terracotta is preserved in Thebes (MNC3 1BT 1). See further Green 1985. Green and Seeberg (MNC3 1: 95, xz 41) collect another five excerpts from this scene and Vanaria 2001 adds another one, a terracotta group from Lipari. The Logie collection at Canterbury University in New Zealand includes a modern reproduction of this excerpt (inv. 165/78, discussed by Green 2009: 258–60).

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 11d Synaristosai mosaic signed by Dioscurides of Samos, dated to around 125–100 bc.

discovered in tombs at Myrina, in Asia Minor.77 Among the many actors’ figurines yielded by Tomb C, there is a Late-Hellenistic figurine reproducing a young man moving from the right, holding a writing tablet in his left arm and with his right arm raised (Figure 17c). In spite of the different position of his 77

The tombs in Myrina were excavated in the years 1880–3 and yielded over 1,700 items including figurines, reliefs and fragments. The exact chronology of these findings is not completely clear but the artists’ signatures date the earliest artefact, a Victory statuette by Aglaophon (Paris, Louvre Myr 1076), to 230–175 bc, while the latest items seem to go back to the first century bc. See Mollard-Besques 1963: esp. xiii–xv. See also Green 1994: 132–4 on actors’ figurines.

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Figure 12 Epitrepontes mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

head, now turned as if he was looking at a character to his left, he seems to recall the young man on the Sikyonioi wall painting from Ephesus and the soldier on the fragmentary Chania mosaic (Figures 17a and 17b). He may also be compared with the young man holding some kind of object depicted on a mosaic from Sousse, the ancient Hadrumetum, dated to around ad 190–210 (Figure 17d).78 Unfortunately, the details on the 78

Paris, Louvre Myr 321 (94), MNC3 4DT 6; Sousse 57.010, MNC3 6FM 1. On tomb C see Mollard-Besques 1963: ix. As Green and Seeberg (MNC3) note, a second statuette (Paris, Louvre Myr 322 [383], MNC3 4DT 5) may also be relevant: the young man it reproduces has a similar stance and position, although his left arm is inside his cloak and there is no sign of the writing tablet. Any discussion of the iconographic tradition of Menander’s Sikyonioi is particularly tentative as we wait for Markoulaki’s publication of the new mosaic from Kastelli-Kissamou.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 13a Theophoroumene mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

Ephesus wall painting are hard to make out, but the young man here seems to be holding an object that can be identified as a writing tablet. This seems to be the letter that Stratophanes received from his mother through his slave Pyrrhias at the end of the third act of the play, the important letter that makes him an Athenian citizen (Sik. 141– 3).79 Incidentally, this is not the most common scenario in Menander’s plays, where citizenship typically, although not always, awaits long-lost daughters rather than sons.80 Even more interesting is another group of statuettes, three figurines reproducing a young man playing a tympanon (minus the tympanon) and two

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Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès 1970: 100, following a suggestion by Handley; see also Arnott 2000: 295–6. For a different interpretation of this painting as possibly illustrating Dromon and either Moschion or Stratophanes, see Blanchard 2009: xxxi–xxxii with earlier literature. Traill 2008: 74 reviews Menander’s ‘lost’ men.

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Figure 13b Theophoroumene mosaic from Daphne, apparently dated to the second or third century ad.

reproducing a young man playing the cymbals.81 Now extant as single items because placed as such in the tombs, these artefacts were originally meant to be displayed as a set. One of the statuettes of the cymbal player, which is possibly dated to the later second century bc, has a vent-hole cut in his left hip, a clear sign that he was meant to be seen from the right (Figure 13c).82 This is exactly the same position in which a cymbal player, accompanied by a tympanon player and a female aulos player with an assistant next to her, figures in a New Comedy scene reproduced on a number of artefacts: a mosaic signed by Dioscurides of Samos (c. 125–100 bc; Figure 13d), a wall painting

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Tympanon player: Berlin TK 7969; Lyons E-272–43; formerly Collection Bommeville (MNC3 3DT 16a–c). Cymbal player: Athens 5060 (Misthos 543); Paris, Louvre CA 5474 (MNC3 3DT 17a–b). Except for the last statuette, which comes from Smyrna, all the other ones are from Myrina. Another two statuettes are now to be added to the list, one reproducing the tympanon player (Château de Chantilly, Musée Condé; see Laugier 2002: 54, no. 59) and one reproducing the cymbal player (published in the 2008 art sale catalogue of the exhibition held in Paris on 29 May 2008 by Pierre Bergé & Associés, p. 250, no. 806). I owe these references to J. Richard Green. Athens 5060 (Misthos 543). See Green 1994: 132, Green and Seeberg (MNC3) on MNC3 3DT 17, Csapo 1999: 167.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 13c Terracotta figurine from Myrina (Asia Minor) reproducing the cymbal player from Dioscurides’ Theophoroumene and related monuments. Possibly dated to the later second century bc, h. 19 cm (7 1/2 in.).

from Stabiae (first century ad; Figure 13e) and a battered mosaic also from the Vesuvian area which now preserves only the cymbal player’s feet and the lower part of his dress (earlier than ad 79; Figure 13f).83 By comparison with the inscribed Theophoroumene mosaic from Mytilene (Figure 13a), these 83

Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9985 (MNC3 3DM 2), Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9034 (MNC3 5NP 1). The second mosaic from the Vesuvian area (Ufficio Scavi di Pompei 17735) has been published by Stefani 2000.

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Figure 13d Theophoroumene mosaic signed by Dioscurides of Samos, dated to around 125–100 bc.

artefacts are commonly placed within the iconographic tradition of this play despite the clear gap dividing the Mytilene mosaic from earlier monuments. To begin with, the characters’ identities are different: in lieu of two comic youths, the female aulos player and her assistant, the Mytilene mosaic features two slaves – or rather one slave, ‘Parmenon’, and a character with the name of a free person, ‘Lysias’, but a slave costume – and one youth, ‘Kleinias’, accompanied by a mute. Also different are their position within the composition, their props and the scene background, with the Mytilene mosaic omitting the doorway visible on the right both in Dioscurides’ mosaic and in the Stabian wall painting. More discrepancies come up with the newly discovered monuments. Figures multiply on the Theophoroumene mosaic

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 13e Theophoroumene wall painting from Stabiae, dated to the first century ad.

from Kastelli-Kissamou: they are now five, arranged around the inscription in an arch- or pi-shaped composition. With its two ‘women’, a slave and a piping mute, the Daphne Theophoroumene further complicates things (Figure 13b). Similarly if not equally problematic are the variations between illustrations that, although not identical, are too close not to be related to one another. With the exception of the Theophoroumene wall painting from Stabiae that clearly reproduces the same scene depicted by Dioscurides, our record for identifiable comedies has no exact replicas but includes several examples of variously altered illustrations.84 Consider the four Synaristosai mosaics from Mytilene, Zeugma, Daphne and Pompeii, Dioscurides’ companion piece to his Theophoroumene (Figures 11a, 11b, 11c and 11d).85 The same three characters, two maidens and an old woman, are invariably reproduced but differently arranged: the old woman, ‘Philainis’, sits on 84

85

For another example of comic replicas, see the painting on the eastern wall in the atrium of the Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali in Pompeii and the one originally from Herculaneum and now in Naples (Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9037; MNC3 5NP 5a–b, xz 44). They feature an unidentified comic scene with an old slave hurrying and a young woman apparently held by a young man. On the Mytilene, Zeugma and Daphne Synaristosai, see above. Dioscurides’ Synaristosai: Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9987; MNC3 3DM 1.

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Figure 13f Fragmentary Theophoroumene mosaic from the Vesuvian area, earlier than 79 ad.

the right in Pompeii and Zeugma, and on the left in Mytilene and Daphne.86 Whichever her position in the scene, she invariably has an assistant close by. Although Zosimos introduces an architectural relief that stresses the theatrical character of this scene, he apparently gets rid of the characters’ masks (to me, their mouths are not obviously open). The servants duplicate in Zeugma and triplicate in Daphne. In Zeugma, the chairs are updated and the composition loses its compact arrangement, to open up even more in

86

The scene is mirror-inverted: Green 1985: 465, MNC3 I.94 on xz 37. See also Csapo 1999: 165–6, who points out that the Mytilene Synaristosai has been redesigned rather than reversed, in order to direct the viewers’ gaze to the right. The characters on the Daphne Synaristosai are described by Çelik 2009, who writes that the woman seated on the left has white and grey hair.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 13g Fragmentary wall painting from Pompeii reproducing an excerpt from Theophoroumene, probably dated to the first century ad.

Daphne, where the table is moved to the far right. Variously adjusted and rearranged, the scene is visibly always the same one. Note also how the young woman in the centre is gesturing with her right hand on three out of four mosaics. She is the one doing the talking.

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Figure 14 Encheiridion mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

Plokion, Samia and Misoumenos offer more examples of variations within similar illustrations. The three figures reproduced on the Mytilene Plokion, a young man, ‘Moschion’, an old man, ‘Laches’, and a woman, ‘Krobyle’, also come up on the Chania mosaic (Figures 9a and 9b). In Chania, however, Moschion is sitting on a chair at the centre rather than standing on the left as he witnesses Laches’ outburst against Krobyle. Add their altered body language, with the Chania Laches no longer aggressively gesturing against Krobyle. Strikingly similar among the Mytilene mosaics, Plokion and Samia (Figures 9a and 10a) reproduce the same tableau, an old man flying out at a mature woman, with the twin differences that in Samia the hetaira Chrysis is holding a baby to her breast and the third on-stage character is a cook. As the child Chrysis allegedly had with Demeas’ adopted son, Moschion, the baby is

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 15 Messenia mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

the triggering factor of Demeas’ anger and an important ‘prop’ in the scene. Yet he is not visible on the wall painting from the Casa dei Dioscuri in Pompeii which probably illustrates Samia, although the woman reproduced here is clearly holding something to her breast (Figure 10b).87 Also significantly perhaps, this painting decorated the same area adorned with a tragic scene including two characters, a woman with a baby against her breast and a male figure with a jug in his right hand (Figure 21). They are, in all likelihood, Hypsipyle and Amphiaraos in the key moment of Euripides’ Hypsipyle: Hypsipyle’s willingness to show Amphiaraos where he can fetch water 87

Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum E 108, MNC3 5NP 9 with Csapo 1999: 173–4. Note that on the right there is a doorway, omitted in its counterpart from Mytilene. Although noting the similarity between this scene and Samia, Green and Seeberg (on MNC3 xz 30) assign it to Plokion.

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Figure 16a Misoumenos mosaic from the House of Menander in Mytilene, probably dated to the later fourth century ad.

Figure 16b Mould from Ostia (formerly in the Ostia Museum, now lost) reproducing Misoumenos and dated to the third century ad.

for his libation eventually leads to the death of Opheltes, bitten by a snake right by the spring.88 Also possibly related to Samia as we see it illustrated in Mytilene is a fragmentary mosaic from Avenches dated to around ad 200–50 (Figure 10c). A hetaira with her hair in a double topknot, 88

Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9039; MTS2 87, NP 9, with Webster’s comments.

The iconographic tradition of Menander’s comedies

Figure 17a Sikyonioi wall painting from Ephesus, dated to the later second or the first half of the third century ad.

here placed on the left, seems to be threatened by a now lost figure with outstretched arm and open hand.89 As the first editors of the House of Menander in Mytilene already noted, the Misoumenos mosaic surely has something to do with the scene reproduced on a few third-century ad moulds from Ostia which were used to make figurines of some unknown material (Figures 16a and 16b).90 On both artefacts, there is the same slave slinging his mantle or scarf around his neck. The young woman in 89

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The composition on the Avenches mosaic could also be compared with the Mytilene Plokion, but according to our fragments of Plokion Krobyle is an uxor dotata, not a hetaira. J. Richard Green (pers. comm.) notes that the hetaira on the Avenches mosaic is younger than her counterpart in Mytilene. The mould reproduced here was formerly in the Ostia Museum and is now lost. On the moulds from Ostia and their purpose, see Floriani Squarciapino 1954: esp. 95–8 and Dunbabin 1982: 77, who briefly discusses the moulds reproducing charioteers. See further Green and Seeberg on MNC3 6FL 1.

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Figure 17b Fragmentary mosaic from Chania, probably reproducing Sikyonioi and probably dated to the fourth century ad.

Mytilene is also to be found on the mould with her right arm still raised, but she is now centrally positioned, ‘acting up’ with her gaze directed towards the audience. More problematic is the third on-stage character, a young man: centrally depicted while addressing the slave on the inscribed mosaic, he has recoiled to the right on the mould, now kneeling and wiping off his tears with his mantle.

Archetypes and iconographic corruption For all the interpretative problems they raise, our illustrations of Menander’s plays shed important light on their archetypes. As Green observes, New Comedy scenes show ‘qualities of composition and painterly technique which belong to a larger scale and a full palette’, and their treatment of masks is also very good and accurate. These features point to a model in the major arts, most probably paintings, rather than enlarged pictures from a papyrus roll as previously thought.91 Given that New Comedy illustrations were already reproduced 91

Green 1994: 112, MNC3 1.85, Csapo 1999: esp. 163–4. The first editors of the Mytilene mosaics argued for their derivation from illustrated manuscripts, but papyri preserving literary texts with

Archetypes and iconographic corruption

Figure 17c Figurine from Tomb C in Myrina, possibly reproducing the protagonist of Sikyonioi and probably dated to the second half of the first century bc.

in a variety of media within Menander’s lifetime, the Early-Hellenistic paintings from which they derive must have had a conspicuous setting in a public place. What exactly these paintings reproduced is a trickier question, the answer to which is closely tied to our interpretation of the extant illustrations and the illustrations are first attested in Roman times, from the second century ad onwards. See further Nervegna 2010: 32 with n. 16.

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Figure 17d Comic mosaic from North Africa, possibly reproducing Sikyonioi and dated to around ad 190–210.

Figure 18a Perikeiromene wall painting from Ephesus, dated to the later second or the first half of the third century ad.

Archetypes and iconographic corruption

Figure 18b Perikeiromene mosaic from Daphne, apparently dated to the second or third century ad.

Figure 19 Achaioi mosaic from Ulpia Oescus, Bulgaria, dated to the fourth or fifth century ad.

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Figure 20 Philadelphoi mosaic from Daphne, apparently dated to the second or third century ad.

variations they feature. If closely related scenes are taken as different scenes from the same comedy, the conclusion is that each comedy was originally represented by multiple scenes or moments within the same scene. Another set of problems is raised by the updating process that our record betrays. Consider the Pannonian cap on the Chania mosaic probably related to Sikyonioi or the hourglass ornaments included on old men’s costumes only in late illustrations. To what extent they depend on contemporary theatre practice and to what extent they can be accounted for by iconographic or style-related reasons are issues of no little importance in charting the ancient afterlife of Menander’s comedies. Let us start with the archetypes. Judging from the plays that we have or that we can somehow reconstruct, the scene illustrated in our record is either the opening scene (Perikeiromene, Synaristosai, Philadelphoi and in all likelihood Leukadia) or the key scene (Epitrepontes, Phasma, Theophoroumene, Sikyonioi, Samia and in all likelihood Misoumenos).92 Rather than being ‘important’ in the dramatic action – in Menander’s very economic and tightly built plays every single moment is important – these

92

See Arnott 1996b: 221, 227 (Leukadia). See already Arnott 1988 for Perikeiromene.

Archetypes and iconographic corruption

Figure 21 Wall painting reproducing Euripides’ Hypsipyle, from the viridarium of the Casa dei Dioscuri in Pompeii (VI 9, 6.7).

scenes were selected because of their visual impact on the audience. Violence on the stage seems to have been particularly impressive. The aggressive gestures that we find on the Mytilene Samia and Plokion also characterize both the Encheiridion mosaic, which reproduces two old men each holding a dagger with a slave between them, and the illustration of Messenia, where a young man seizes two reluctant slaves by their wrists (Figures 14 and 15). By having a slave apparently restaging an act of (most probably) fake self-violence, Misoumenos varies this motif and Perikeiromene is also concerned with a violent act, Polemon’s rape of the locks.

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Indoor scenes also made good spectacle. It is not completely clear whether Perikeiromene opened with an indoor or an outdoor tableau but Philadelphoi, just like Synaristosai, has an indoor setting with its characters rolled out onto the ekkyklema.93 If the Philadelphoi mosaic can be used to reconstruct how Menander opened his now almost completely lost play, Plautus operated a few staging-related changes in his Stichus. Plautus opens his Stichus with the two sisters on the stage getting ready for their father’s visit, in the second scene of the first act. He has their father, Antipho, sitting on a bench generously strewn with cushions by his cunning daughters, but Menander has him standing as he delivers his speech (note the speaking gesture). Unlike Plautus’ sisters, Menander’s are busy wool working, the quintessential expression of women’s domestic labour.94 At least occasionally, the scene’s visual impact was also coupled with an acoustic one. The first-century ad Naples relief, which it has been suggested reproduces Menander’s Methe, includes a female piper positioned between two pairs of characters, an angered old man restrained by a friend and a drunken young man supported by a slave.95 The aulos player’s presence here is probably not a coincidence: the inebriated young man is most probably singing. The closest parallel to this scene is the singing entrance of the drunken Callidamates, supported by the courtesan Delphium, towards the end of the first act of Plautus’ Mostellaria. A change of meter, from the usual iambic trimeters to trochaic tetrameters, marks the key scene of Sikyonioi, while the musical test of Theophoroumene puts together tympanon, cymbals and aulos.96 Note that musical instruments, which are not common accessories in our visual record for Greek New Comedy, are typically put in the hands of slaves or hetairai.97 Their presence here may have contributed to making this scene memorable and it may also help explain why the two 93

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The use of the ekkyklema in Greek drama is often debated, but Menander was familiar with this machine. See Cnemon’s appearance in the final act of Dyskolos (after Dys. 690, with Arnott’s comments 1997a: 295) and Dys. 758. Incidentally, the Philadelphoi mosaic shows that Menander’s First Adelphoi was also known by this title, thus confirming a suggestion made by Webster 1974: 112 and other scholars. Wool working is the most common image on Greek vases from the late sixth to the late fifth century bc. The two sisters on this mosaic can be compared to the seated woman who is lifting yarn from the kalathos (wool basket) on a red-figure lekythos ascribed to the Brygos Painter (Boston, Museum of the Fine Arts, 13.18; ARV2 384.214). More parallels can be found in Ferrari 2002: 220. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 6687; MNC3 4XS 1. The same scene is reproduced on a cameo now in Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire 1974/ 21133 (MNC3 4XJ 1), dated to around 100 bc. See also the terracotta group from Halai mentioned above with references. Men. Sik. 110–49 are in trochaic tetrameters, although the fragmentary state of the Sorbonne papyrus makes it impossible to determine exactly when the meter changed. The evidence is conveniently gathered in MNC3 I.250.

Archetypes and iconographic corruption

young men of the original illustration later became slaves and even ‘women’. This is a point to which I will return. In each case, however, the scene selected for illustration is both distinct and easy to recognize. For no play does our record illustrate both the opening and climactic scene. In most cases, the scene reproduced is also the title one: we can better speak of illustrations of plays than illustrations of scenes. This squares well with the hypothesis that their Early-Hellenistic archetypes were conceived as a set, in which case one would expect only one scene per play and not a sequence of scenes or moments. Rather than assuming the existence of multiple Early-Hellenistic archetypes, the differences between illustrations that are too similar not to be related to each other can be explained by a number of factors including iconographic corruption, choices made by individual artists, the copybooks they used and the wishes of the commissioning patrons.98 Reversing and redesigning the image (Theophoroumene, Synaristosai and probably Sikyonioi), changing characters’ stance and position within the scene (Plokion, Misoumenos), reinterpreting and manipulating the image when set within a larger scheme (Mytilene mosaics) are all part of the stock in trade of ancient artists and their copybooks. Csapo has already fully made this case by focusing especially on the Mytilene mosaics which have been invariably identified as illustrating ‘second scenes’ taking place shortly before or shortly after the scenes reproduced on earlier artefacts. As the most problematic case, the Theophoroumene serves as an excellent case-study. As Csapo explains (1999: 167–70), in spite of the massive and profound corruption undergone by the Mytilene Theophoroumene, both the scene’s basic scheme and some specific details are still recognizable. The arrangement of the characters, three on one side turning their attention to a fourth one who stands slightly apart, is still there: the characters have simply changed sides, with the three figures grouped together on the left on the Vesuvian monuments and on the right on the mosaic from Mytilene. Also comparable is the stance of three out of four characters: Lysias has a cymbal-sized tympanon that he is playing like a tympanon, Parmenon relates to Dioscurides’ cymbal player in both his crouched position and his hand movements, and the piper’s assistant is still there although the aulos player is not. The slave costume that Lysias and Parmenon are wearing in Mytilene may well have something to do with the two young men’s attire and stance on 98

The use of copybooks by mosaicists can no longer be doubted. See Donderer 2008, who discusses, among other things, the identification of copybooks in our papyri.

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the original model, most faithfully reproduced by Dioscurides. On Dioscurides’ mosaic, they both have tied their himatia around their waists so that their arms might be free for dance. At one point in the transmission process, the hanging himation of the tympanon player might have appeared like a scarf, a common feature for slaves in the Mytilene mosaics, while the crouched position of the cymbal player might have associated him with the running slave often reproduced in comic scenes. As part of the massive corruption undergone by this illustration, the aulos player of Dioscurides’ mosaic and related monuments has given way to a young man called Kleinias. His name and mask are those of a young man, yet his costume finds no parallel in the Mytilene mosaics.99 Newly discovered monuments add extra chapters, both early and late, to the process of corruption and manipulation of this image. The damaged mosaic from the Vesuvian area has a different background, with columns framing the scene and new items added on the stage, but a wealth of details points to exactly the same scene as Dioscurides’: the mute on the left, the female aulos player next to him, the central characters’ feet and their position, the tympanon fragment visible on the right. Note also that in Dioscurides’ mosaic the tympanon player casts a shadow against the back wall: already misunderstood by the Stabian painter as a mound-altar, this shadow becomes a fully fledged altar on the battered mosaic.100 This clearly indicates that the scene was already misinterpreted before ad 79. Even more interesting is a fragmentary Pompeian fresco (Figure 13g) whose subject-matter, two actors performing as musicians, is a re-elaborated and ‘Romanized’ excerpt from this scene. When compared to Dioscurides’ mosaic and related monuments, the tympanon and the aulos player have both altered their stance and position within the scene, sharing the right-to-left inversion with the Mytilene Theophoroumene. On this fragment, the piper is also given a Roman tibia rather than a Greek aulos.101 Unique elements such as a fourth actor and a full-sized piper’s assistant now playing a single aulos crop up on the Theophoroumene mosaic from Kastelli-Kissamou. The actor-musicians are invariably the core of the scene. With its piping mute, a figure playing a small tympanon at the centre and one playing the cymbals on the right, the Daphne Theophoroumene is no exception to the rule. At first sight, this mosaic, which is labelled ‘act three’, is something 99

100 101

Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès 1970: 78 identify Kleinias’ cloak as the Roman lacerna, which literary sources apparently first attest under the Republic. Charitonidis et al. also note that, against common use, the lacerna is here fastened on the left rather than the right shoulder. Green 2008: 231. Ufficio Scavi di Pompei 20545, first published by Mastroroberto 1997. See Nervegna 2010.

Archetypes and iconographic corruption

different from the Mytilene mosaic, which reproduces an unidentified act.102 One would be tempted to identify it as a sequential scene showing the comic heroine and her entrance onto the stage. Before commenting on the Daphne actor-musicians, I hasten to add that the most interesting figure here is the slave on the left. His hands are now clasped and bereft of their instrument, but he is the (not too distant) cousin of the cymbal player from Myrina and from the Vesuvian area. He is related to the Mytilene Parmenon and has a spot in Kastelli-Kissamou too, always with the slave costume that late monuments reserve for him. The two figures set next to him in Daphne seem female at first – but only at first. That these are not real female characters is soon signalled by their costume: rather than being the anklelength dresses worn by female characters, they reach only mid-calf, like the costumes of young men and slaves. The instruments they are playing, tympanon and cymbals, are traditionally associated with women and they may have triggered the iconographic confusion that I have traced here. But the process that turned the original young men into females was never perfected. In the case of Perikeiromene, iconographic corruption may provide the answer to the disparity between text and image. Precious clues for the now lost first scene come from the divine prologue delivered by Agnoia, ‘Misapprehension’. On the stage have already appeared the soldier’s mistress, Glykera, and probably the soldier too, given that he is referred to as ‘this violent young man’ (128–9).103 By the time the curtain goes up, as we would say, all the good ingredients for a fine comedy have been mixed up in a recent incident. With the complicity of the evening dusk, Glykera and her neighbour Moschion, whom she knows to be her twin brother, have hugged and kissed before the eyes of a third character now obliterated by an infuriating lacuna in the text.104 This character, Agnoia continues (157– 62), has related the events himself, taking care to repeat Moschion’s words and Glykera’s sobbing and crying. Scholars unanimously conclude that this person must be Polemon’s slave Sosias: used to following his “master” (359) in his campaigns (371; see also 182), he was probably sent ahead to announce Polemon’s return, like Sosia in Plautus’ Amphitruo.105 When he 102

103 104

105

Following the first editors of the Menander mosaics from Mytilene, the inscription accompanying the Theophoroumene mosaic has been unanimously read as ΘΕΟΦΟΡΟΥΜΕΝΗΣ Μ(ΕΡΟΣ) Β ʹ, but the inscription actually reads ΘΕΟΦΟΡΟΥΜΕΝΗΣ ΜΕ, with the act number never added to the label. I owe this point to Eric Csapo. See Arnott 1996b: 375. Pk. 157–8. Both Arnott 1996b and Ferrari 2001: 999 follow Kuiper in reading προσιών δ̓’ [ὁ ϑεράπων] / ὁρᾷ. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 468, Arnott 1996b: 374–7, Lamagna 1994: 174, Traill 2008: 112.

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appears on the stage straight after the divine prologue, Sosias does not present himself to the audience, the implication being that they are already familiar with him. The opening scene that we can reconstruct from our text agrees only in part with the visual record. In both the Ephesus wall painting and the Daphne mosaic, we find three figures: Glykera turning away in desolation (with identical stance and posture), Polemon sitting at the centre (with different body language) and a third figure with a raised arm on the right. Badly faded in Ephesus, he is fully preserved on the Daphne mosaic, where he is surprisingly depicted as a young man. There is, indeed, a young man in the play, Moschion, but his appearance in the opening scene cannot be reconciled with the plot details. Shown as a slave in the original, Sosias apparently turned into a young man, thus providing yet another instance of corruption on the Daphne mosaics. Reinterpreted and variously updated, our illustrations of Menander’s plays and Greek drama in general are invariably to be found in private settings, with social domestic areas such as dining rooms (Mytilene, Zeugma) and reception areas (Ephesus) as their favourite display contexts, along with the several atria (entrance halls) where the Vesuvian houseowners set their dramatic panels (see Appendixes 2 and 3). While the connection between the extant illustrations, especially the inscribed ones, and theatrical performances involves issues of tricky chronology and lack of specific evidence, identifying sympotic entertainment as the driver of the visual record seems a more viable claim.106 With Plutarch’s praise of Menander at dinner parties as their centre-piece, scholarly discussions often turn our iconographic evidence into a faithful record of social practices. We read, for instance, of guests looking at both illustrations of Menander’s comedies and Menander portraits as they listen to recitations or performances of his texts.107 We even read of guests of honour pointing to specific illustrations and requesting a servant to recite the corresponding texts.108 If, indeed, Menander’s drama was used in private entertainment as often as the iconographic tradition is generally thought to indicate, the role that dinner parties played in Menander’s afterlife could not be overestimated. But this is a very hard case to make. The relationship often established between visual record and convivial entertainment is based on misleading assumptions of how commonly hosts and guests would enjoy Menander’s plays and drama in general. These assumptions, in turn, are 106

107

On theatrical revivals of Menander’s comedies in the Roman period, see pp. 99–106, 109–10. Ferrari 2004 speaks of the iconographic and textual tradition of Menander as ‘tradizioni parallele’. On this point, see further below. Parrish 1995: 155–8, Kondoleon 2000a, Huskinson 2002/3: 152. 108 Harrison 2000: 142–3.

Guests and Greek drama at dinner parties

ultimately based on a misunderstanding of the formats in which plays entered ancient houses. Literary sources, along with inscriptions and documentary papyri, tell us a different story.

Guests and Greek drama at dinner parties The protagonist of Aristophanes’ Clouds is a cash-strapped farmer named Strepsiades. After spending sleepless nights tossing and turning in his bed, Strepsiades comes up with a brilliant plan to get out of debt: he sends his son Pheidippides to Socrates’ school, hoping that Pheidippides would eventually swindle his creditors with fancy words and rhetorical tricks. But the Socratestrained Pheidippides soon turns against his father and his values, with a curious incident marking the beginning of all the problems (1364–72). During a symposion, Strepsiades asked his son first to sing a victory ode by Simonides and then, at his refusal to sing, to ‘recite something from the works of Aeschylus’. But Pheidippides, after insulting Aeschylus’ poetry, ‘soon sang (ᾖσʾ) a rhesis (dramatic speech) from Euripides’ – a speech about a brother having sex with his sister ‘from the same mother’ taken from Euripides’ Aiolos.109 Next to framing two different tragic styles and their appeal within a generational conflict, Aristophanes’ little sketch of a father and his son arguing over Aeschylus and Euripides is also the standard example of symposiasts performing dramatic excerpts. This is a practice that predates Menander’s lifetime: first attested in Classical Athens, it quickly spread elsewhere to be kept alive, although sporadically, well into the Roman period.110 Memorizing rheseis only to recite them unsuccessfully ‘over the wine’ is one of the characteristics of Theophrastus’ late learner, a character-type surely more 109

110

The scholia to this passage (Eur. Aiolos TrGF T iva) make it clear that Aristophanes is here referring to Euripides’ Aiolos. The text translated (1371) is the transmitted reading, retained by Wilson in his OCT edition (see also Wilson 2007: 79). Since ‘singing a speech’ is a problematic expression and Pheidippides has earlier spoken against convivial singing (1357–8), this verb has been interpreted as ‘recited’ or variously emended. This oddity, however, can perhaps be explained by Pheidippides’ militant anti-conformism, which goes beyond the choice of the author to perform to extend also to the mode of delivery. Prauscello 2006: esp. 103 argues that Pheidippides is here giving ‘not a lyric performance of a tragic rhesis, but at the most, and not without some problems, a chanted delivery of an iambic speech’. Also relevant may be Ar. Frogs 151: ‘the one who copied out for himself (ἐξεγράψατο) a rhesis from Morsimos’ thus deserving to be in the underworld, may have done so for convivial entertainment (so Mastromarco 2006: 141, although school practices cannot be ruled out). See also Ar. Gerytades F 161 K-A (ἐν τοῑς συνδεῑπνοις ἐπαινῶν Aἰσχὐλον): as Lai 1997: 148 notes, ἐπαινεῑν also means ‘to recite, declaim publicly’ in relationship to rhapsodes’ activities (e.g., Pl. Ion 536d, 541e; more references in Lai 1997: 148, n. 28).

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easygoing than the self-centred man, who is always unwilling ‘to sing, recite a rhesis or dance’ at symposia.111 Ephippus suggests that an actor too can perform dramatic poetry at symposia. A character from one of his comedies calls down upon himself a number of literary-oriented penalties should he not stick to his word: listening to Theodoros reciting rheseis over dinner comes straight after learning the plays by Dionysius the Elder and Demophon’s speeches against Cotys.112 Even over drinks, Theodoros’ speeches are the ultimate torture, something which is probably to be explained by Theodoros’ belief that making spectators ‘weep and wail’ was the ultimate skill.113 Not that tragic rheseis only entered the andrones: next to them, we also hear of dramatic songs, from both comedy and tragedy. When complaining about audiences’ fickleness and poets’ rapid change of fortunes, Aristophanes explicitly mentions playwrights’ reception at symposia. For the chorus of Knights, a comedy staged in 424 bc, Cratinus is heading in the same direction as Magnes, a poet beloved in his heyday but forgotten in his old age. As a token of Cratinus’ success, the chorus adds that ‘there was no singing at a symposion (ᾆσαι δ' οὐκ ἦν ἐν συμποσίῳ) except for “Doro with fig-sandal” and “Artists of well-put hymns”. So popular he was.’114 Comic distortion and exaggeration aside (Cratinus’ Satyrs was competing against Aristophanes’ Knights!), the symposion here becomes the ground where a dramatist’s popularity is measured. Great, indeed, is the power of convivial drama-singing: it can make poets and even save cities. In the sad aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, the parodos of Euripides’ Electra sung at a drinking party organized by the Spartans and their allies apparently rescued Athens from being razed to the ground. It seemed a cruelty, Plutarch (Lys. 15.1– 3) notes, to destroy a city so outstanding for its fame and fine poets. Already in the fourth century bc, Greek drama had made its way into dinner parties outside Athens, both in Syracuse and in Macedon. What to perform after dinner triggered quite a nasty quarrel among the envoys of Dionysius the Elder, the ruler of Syracuse in the years 405–367 bc. As the parasite Democles explained to the tyrant in a successful report worthy of a first-rate flatterer, some ambassadors started singing the works of Phrynichus, Stesichorus and Pindar, while he and other volunteers went for those composed by Dionysius.115 Early Greek lyric and tragedy are apparently the choice of 111

112 113 114 115

Theophr. Char. 27.2; 15.10. At 15.10 the text does not specify the symposion as the setting of these activities, but this is the likely and commonly accepted explanation. See Diggle 2004: 347–8. Ephippus, Homoioi or Obeliaphoroi F 16, 1–3 K-A. Plut. Mor. 545f. See Lada-Richards 2002: 414. Ar. Knights 529–30 citing Cratinus, Eumenides F 70 K-A. See Imperio 2004: 197–203. Timaeus, FGrH 566 F 32 (preserved by Ath. 6.250b); 3 Phrynichus TrGF T 11. As printed in TrGF, the text is partially corrupted and it is unclear what type of works the ambassadors were chanting (Olson prints ‘paeans’ in his edition of Athenaeus).

Guests and Greek drama at dinner parties

Democles’ fellow ambassadors. Famous for their beauty, Phrynichus’ songs were still to be heard on the streets of Aristophanes’ Athens in the early 420s.116 Although he never entered a dramatic competition as Dionysius did, Alexander the Great was notoriously very fond of Greek drama. Next to holding a Dionysia festival when campaigning in India, for instance, he also called actors to his palace and delivered dramatic texts himself.117 Interestingly, symposia and tragedy are the background of both Alexander’s first and his last appearance in our sources. The first time we hear of him is in 346 bc, when the 10year-old Alexander played the cithara and recited rheseis at the party organized by Philip for the Second Embassy. By the time of his last banquet, Alexander could master much more, since he ‘performed from memory an episode of Euripides’ Andromeda’.118 I have dwelled upon our sources for guests performing Greek drama in the fifth and fourth centuries bc because they make up the bulk of our evidence. With very few exceptions mostly limited to scholarly gatherings, this practice wanes later on.119 One of these exceptions comes from the dinner party described by Plutarch that I quoted above: as a response to Diogenianus’ passionate praise of Menander and New Comedy as the best form of dinner entertainment, another guest, an unnamed sophist, ‘thought it necessary to recite from beginning to end some rheseis from Aristophanes’ (Plut. Mor. 712d). Extraordinary in the gatherings of Plutarch and his friends, who preferred to enjoy plays in a different way, dramatic recitals seem to be quite at home in the rendezvous of a slightly later Roman author, the judge and antiquarian Aulus Gellius. I say ‘seem’ because Gellius’ phrasing is not unambiguous when he presents himself and his fellow connoisseurs with Greek and Roman comedies (literally) always on their tables. They ‘often read’ Roman comedies, we are told, at least occasionally setting them side by side with their Greek originals. This exercise preserved for us select excerpts from Caecilius’ Plocium and its model by Menander: Gellius and his friends have the two comedies before them and compare their texts, as usual to the detriment of the Roman 116

117

118 119

Aristophanes tells us that both Phrynichus’ songs and elements of his choreography were remembered later on: Wasps 219–20, 298–9, 1525–7. See further Nervegna (forthcoming, a). Dionysia on the River Hydaspes: Ath. 13.595e. Actors at Alexander’s palace: Ath. 538f–9a, Ael. VH 8.7. See further below. Aeschin. In Tim. 167–8; Nikoboule, FGrH 127 F2 (cited by Ath. 12.537d). I leave aside Julian’s Symposion or The Caesars 310b, which mentions the last known (and wholly fictional) guest who sings Greek drama, Silenus. During the banquet he organized for gods and Emperors, Silenus makes a point of commenting on every Emperor as they walk in and, as soon as Claudius enters, he ‘starts singing Aristophanes’ Knights toadying Claudius instead of Demos’.

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work.120 Gellius, however, soon forgets the main narrative to speak in the first person singular, with comments on the passages ‘recently’ read (2.23.4) given in the present tense (2.23.11, 22). The initial tableau with the learned meetings centred on Greek and Roman comedies disappears, leaving us with the impression that it might have been an ‘artistic device rather than factual report’.121 In Attic Nights, Greek drama crops up only sporadically and is also largely known at second hand: in addition to Menander’s Plokion, Gellius seems to have direct knowledge of only one other Greek comedy, Aristophanes’ Frogs.122 In other instances, he limits himself to dramatic lines or excerpts, cited either to comment on some obscure words or to compare them with their Latin adaptations.123 All these quotations smack of anthologies. Note also how Gellius presents himself and his friends as reading comedies, a departure from the convivial practice of reciting dramatic excerpts from memory. This is not to say that ancient diners were all as scholarly minded as Gellius and his friends, apparently always eager to turn their gatherings into fully fledged rhetorical classes. Dinner parties could also make room for innovation and creativity; as such, they were perhaps the venue of the variously altered versions of Menander’s and Aristophanes’ lines preserved by two of our comic texts. A third-century ad papyrus has half a line from Menander’s Perikeiromene (796) with four different settings indicating how the line could be spoken. Its informal production – Menander’s half-line was copied on the back of a roll used for a document written along the fibres and later turned 90 degrees and reused – suggests that it was meant for a non-professional performer such as a diner or a student.124 Some words from the hoopoe’s song in Aristophanes’ Birds with musical notation are apparently inscribed on a still unpublished 120

121 122 123

124

Gell. NA 2.23.1: Comoedias lectitamus nostrorum poetarum sumptas ac versas de Graecis Menandro aut Posidippo aut Apollodoro aut Alexide et quibusdam item aliis comicis . . . 4. Nuper adeo usus huius rei nobis venit. 5. Caecilii Plocium legebamus; hautquaquam mihi et qui aderant displicebat. 6. Libitum et Menandri Plocium legere, a quo istam comoediam verterat . . . 22. Itaque, ut supra dixi, cum haec Caecilii seorsum lego, neutiquam videntur ingrata ignavaque, cum autem Graeca comparo et contendo, non puto Caecilum sequi debuisse quod assequi nequiret. Holford-Strevens 2003: 67, who also notes the structural similarity to Gell. NA 9.9.1–11. Holford-Strevens 2003: 236. Gamberale 1969 lists and discusses Gellius’ comparisons between Greek and Roman authors. P.Oxy. LIII 3705 with Pöhlmann and West 2001: 184–7 and Perusino 1995. Pernigotti 2005 is sceptical that this text was meant for symposiasts and inclines to its being a school-related product. Technically speaking, this text is a transversa charta: for examples of this practice, see Turner 1978: 51. On this papyrus, see also p. 83.

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ostrakon from Upper Egypt, another text which might have circulated in dining rooms.125 In the review of ancient guests performing Greek drama, Poplios Klaudios Thrasyboulos possibly occupies the last spot. A man of military and literary talent, he is known to us via two inscriptions probably from the territory of Saittai, in North East Lydia.126 The first record was set by Thrasyboulos himself in ad 195/6 to commemorate his wife, Lukia Amatia Prosdokia, the daughter of a man called Lukios Amatios Didymos and qualified as a ‘distinguished comic actor’ (κωμῳδὸς παράδοξος) from Alexandria. The second inscription was set up by Thrasyboulos’ daughter to commemorate his death at the age of 72, in 235/6. Written in dactylic hexameters, this record celebrates Thrasyboulos for his ‘universal wisdom’, the glory he achieved in his military campaigns and the exceptional honours granted to him by the most powerful Emperors (1–3). This is, one suspects, all in line with the rhetoric of a funerary inscription celebrating a man who was, and apparently remained all along, an ‘orderly’ (στρατιώτης ὀπτίων), as Thrasyboulos called himself on the grave stele for his wife. An orderly was a modest official who assisted the leader of a maniple, the centurion, and helped him train troops, keep discipline, convey orders and lead the soldiers in battle. The grave stele for Thrasyboulos describes his military career as an extraordinary achievement, adding that he was also a ‘poet who performed the wise man Menander, a noble producer of poetry’.127 Unlike his father-in-law, Thrasyboulos is nowhere called a komoidos:128 he was a soldier and not a comic actor, that is, a highly trained stage performer. If Thrasyboulos’ performances of Menander do not commemorate Thrasyboulos’ days as a schoolboy (with Statius’ Glaucias as one parallel), dinner parties are their most likely venue.129

Actors at dinner parties: who they were, where they were and what they did If our evidence for the use of drama in convivial settings was limited to these sources, we could safely conclude that, after all, dinner parties contributed 125 126

127 128

129

This ostrakon is mentioned by E. Hall 2007: 8. They are both edited by Petzl in Epigraphica Anatolica (2002) and in Merkelbach and Stauber 2002: 464. Lines 4–5: ποιητὴν, ὑποκρινάμενον σοφὸν ἄνδρα Mένανδρον, / εὐγενέτην μουσηγενέτην. I see no reason to claim that Thrasyboulos staged Menander in Lydia, or that he even abandoned his military career for acting, as Petzl 2004: esp. 291, 293 (see also Austin 2004: 80) would have it. Stat. Silv. 2.1.114; see further on p. 201. Petzl 2004: 293 considers dinner parties a possibility; see also Green 2008: 107.

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very little, if anything, to keeping Greek drama alive. But this is not so. Guests reciting, chanting or reading dramatic excerpts generally dwindle under the Empire, but another practice forcefully comes to the forefront: private performances. Spanning from the late Classical period to the High Empire and centred on kings’ palaces, Emperors’ villas and the majestic houses of the elite in the Roman West as in the Greek East, this trend, like many others, takes its move from the palace of Alexander the Great in Sousa. In March 324 bc, back from a ten-year campaign that saw him take over the Persian Empire and reach as far as North India, Alexander celebrated a soon-to-become legendary mass wedding to provide himself and some eighty members of his entourage with prominent Persian brides. Chares of Mytilene, Alexander’s chamberlain and in all likelihood an eyewitness to this event, describes it in detail.130 Decorated with costly draperies and rugs interwoven with gold, the palace hosted 100 couches made of silver (and with golden feet for Alexander’s couch) for the newly weds and Alexander’s friends visiting from abroad. Along with ambassadors and visitors, Alexander’s soldiers were received in a courtyard whose perimeter measured 4 stadia. The wedding lasted five days and boasted a varied and sophisticated entertainment programme, with artists coming from all over the known world. After the jugglers’ shows, we read (Ath. 12.538e–539), the rhapsode Alexis of Taras gave a recital. There were also the kithara players Kratinos of Methymna, Aristonymos of Athens and Athenodoros of Teos. Herakleitos from Taras and Aristokrates from Thebes performed as kitharodoi [citharodes]. There were also the singers to the aulos Dionysios of Heracleia and Hyperbolos of Cyzicus, and the aulos players, who first played the pythikos nomos and then performed with choruses: Timotheos, Phrynichos, Kaphisias, Diophantos and then Euios from Chalkis . . . The tragoidoi Thessalos, Athenodoros and Aristokritos, and the komoidoi Lykon, Phormion and Ariston, also performed. The harper Phasimelos was also present.

Rhapsode and psaltes (harper) aside, there is here more than one performer in each category. We have here three tragic troupes and three comic ones: Alexander is not simply entertaining his guests with various performers but probably staging competitions among them, thus duplicating in his palace the programme of Greek public festivals. These were Alexander’s private games.131 A musical precedent comes from 130

131

Chares’ account is preserved by Ath. 12.538b–9b; see also Ael. VH 8.7, who gives an abbreviated version. On Alexander, actors and theatre, see Csapo 2010: esp. 173–7 and Le Guen forthcoming. For private dramatic competitions, see also Arr. Epict. diss. 3.4, discussed below.

Actors at dinner parties

fourth-century bc Sidon, where not only did King Straton fill his parties with female aulos players, harpers and cithara players, but he also ‘used to summon many courtesans from the Peloponnese, many artists from Ionia and other girls, both singers and dancers, from all over Greece, setting up contests (agones) between them in the company of his friends’. In the Late-Hellenistic period, King Ptolemy XII went even further. Appropriately though vaguely nicknamed ‘the auletes’, he was a practising piper to the chorus, a khoraules, who would organize musical competitions in his palace and enter them too.132 Performers staging drama in private settings for select audiences reached Rome with relative speed: when it comes to picking up trends and fashions, the step from the palaces of the Hellenistic kings to the houses of the wealthy Romans under the Republic is a short one.133 These wealthy Romans, it is important to note, are the very elite, the upper crust aping Hellenistic luxury and calling down upon themselves the suspicion and contempt of an old-fashioned Roman like Marius, who gives us a good picture of them. Addressing the assembly of the people as the newly appointed consul in 107 bc, Marius presents himself for what he is: unlike the ‘arrogant nobles’, he is a homo novus with ‘no ancestors’ masks, family triumphs or consulships to display’ or knowledge of Greek letters to show off (Jug. 85.13, 29, 32). Bent both on levying troops and on ‘baiting the nobles’ (Jug. 84.5), he astutely shows up the aristocrats’ extravagance by reiterating their own disparaging remarks against him. Among other things, Marius claims, ‘they say that I am rude and uncouth because my dinner parties are not sophisticated enough, I do not have any actor nor a cook more expensive than the slave who runs my farm’.134 One specific man in all likelihood lies behind Marius’ targeting the nobles as a category: Metellus Numidicus, the soon-to-be superseded leader of the campaign against Jugurtha who had insulted Marius by slighting his consular ambitions. Metellus Numidicus was a member of one of the most powerful families in the Late Republic. With an elephant on their heraldic badge to commemorate their victory over the Carthaginians, the Metelli held more than twelve consulships, censorships and triumphs in about as many years (Vell. Pat. 2.11.3). They were thwarted by Marius only to rise again as the core of Sulla’s oligarchy: not only did Sulla take a Metella as his wife, but in 132 133

134

Theopompus, FGrH 115 F 114; Strabo 17 C 796. Note also P.Cair.Zen. III 59417, 11 (Vandoni 1964: no. 63): the accounts of the chief minister of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Apollonios, include a payment made to the komoidos Mikion in 251 bc. Sall. Iug. 85.39: sordidum me et incultis moribus aiunt, quia parum scite convivium exorno neque histrionem ullum neque pluris preti coquom quam vilicum habeo.

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80 bc he also shared his consulship with Metellus Numidicus’ son, Metellus Pius.135 Had Marius lived long enough to see Metellus Pius’ career, he would probably have used him as a prime example in his invective against the nobles’ lifestyle. Notorious for both his luxuria (extravagance) and his superbia (arrogance), Metellus Pius was particularly famous for participating in a dinner party that provoked the bitter disapproval of a number of ancient writers, from Sallust to Macrobius, centuries after the facts.136 This dinner party took place in Spain, where Metellus Pius was fighting against Sertorius. Its exact date is debated, but the order of the events is clear: after defeating Sertorius on the battlefield, Metellus Pius headed back to his winter quarters in Further Spain to be greeted and acclaimed and to be invited for dinner by the quaestor C. Urbinus and others in his retinue ‘who knew his desires’.137 The highlights of this soirée, which went ‘beyond the Roman practice and indeed beyond the human too’, included saffronstrewn floors and other temple-like decorations, an automated statue of Victory to crown Metellus Pius to the crash of thunder, incense and a menu with the most recherché courses. There were also actors: ‘the house was embellished with tapestries and decorations and stages were set up for the actors’ shows’ (scenisque ad ostentationem histrionum fabricatis). The crossover between private/domestic and public/religious is a significant one. Set against this background, Plutarch’s account of another party which took place some twenty years later in remote Parthia, the betrothal banquet for King Hyrodes’ son, Pacoros, and Artavasdes’ sister, acquires more credibility (Crass. 33.2–4). Since the in-laws were both well versed in Greek culture and literature, they also introduced ‘many of the shows from Greece’ (πολλὰ τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἀκουσμάτων), one of them being the performance of Euripides’ Bacchae by Jason of Tralles, an ‘actor of tragedies’ (τραγῳδιῶν . . . ὑποκριτής). The choice of the only Greek play featuring a human head as the background for the delivery of Crassus’ head surely 135 136

137

On the Metelli, see Syme 2002: 20–3 and passim, with Table 1 (the family tree of the Metelli). The fullest description of this dinner party is provided by Sall. Hist. 2.70 Maurenbrecher [2.59 McGushin], quoted by Macrob. 3.13.7–9 as an example of luxuria; see also Val. Max. 9.1.5 (with reference to its apparatissimi ludi) and Plut. Sert. 22.2. On Metellus Pius’ luxuria, see also Plut. Sert. 13.1, who specifies that this was a trait that Metellus favoured in his later years. McGushin 1992: 53–4; 225–6 translates Sallust’s text and comments on it; D’Arms 1999: 309 cleverly discusses it. Plut. Sert. 22.2 places this dinner ‘after Metellus had defeated Sertorius in battle’: according to Konrad 1994: 183, the battle to which Plutarch dismissively refers is that of Segontia. This dinner is variously dated to 74 (D’Arms 1999: 309 with n. 37, McGushin 1992: 225) or 75 bc (Konrad 1994: 222).

Actors at dinner parties

smacks of fiction, yet this is still good evidence for what Plutarch’s readers and audiences thought possible, at least for kings’ parties – choruses and performers with costumes and props set before spectators ready to spring up from their seats to join the show.138 By the Late Republic, Romans had long been familiar with elaborate forms of private entertainment. Livy dates their being imported into Rome to 187 bc, with the homecoming of the army that Manlius Vulso led against the Gauls in Asia Minor. Vulso’s soldiers brought with them luxury items such as bronze couches, expensive coverlets, one-legged tables and sideboards; ‘then female harpers and sambuca players and other forms of dinner party entertainment were added to banquets; the banquets themselves also began to be prepared with greater care and cost’.139 The twin demons of luxury and corruption came from the East, of course, but they were soon to become Roman, just as extravagant banquets were soon to be hit by a stream of laws. During the final two centuries bc, the number of guests allowed at a single banquet, the permissible expense for a single meal, precise foodstuffs and their price came all to be closely regulated.140 Offering fancy forms of entertainment made wealthy hosts look good. Writing in the first century ad, Silius Italicus harps on Capua as the centre of luxury: ‘the Campanians’, he writes, ‘have no limits to their luxurious and extravagant lifestyle: they pile up and vie with each other to punctuate their banquets with entertainment provided by various kinds of stage performances’.141 Under the Early Empire, the unnamed aristocrats who disparaged Marius for not owning any actor and the competitive hosts mentioned by Silius Italicus acquire an identity for us. This is largely due to the inscriptions from the dovecote-like sepulchral structures used by wealthy patrons to bury their household members, the columbaria, which became particularly popular during the Julio-Claudian period. Next to preserving the names of the servile dependants, freedmen included, belonging to individual families, the records from the columbaria also detail, at least occasionally, their duties within the household. They allow us to trace comic actors in a few of the sixteen known columbaria used by a specific family. To begin from the top of the social pyramid, the columbarium in Vigna Benci on the via Appia contained most though not all of the familia of Livia, the widow of the Emperor Augustus and co-heir of his 138 139 140 141

On this passage, see also below. Livy 39.6.7–9 with Briscoe 2008: 225–7. See also further below. Wallace-Hadrill 2008: ch. 7 reviews Roman sumptuary laws and discusses their aims. Sil. Pun. 11.427–9: nec luxus ullus mersaeque libidine uitae / Campanis modus: accumulant uariasque per artis / scaenarum certant epulas distinguere ludo.

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estate.142 Here we find one comoedus, the slave Atimetus, who along with a reader, Panaenus, seems to have been all that Livia had for entertainment purposes.143 Treggiari (1975: 56) suggests that Livia relied on Augustus and Tiberius in that department; her meagre entertainment resources, however, may be a deliberate sign of restraint in the face of soaring extravagance. This is in keeping with Augustus’ dining ‘with three courses or six at most’, and his exhibiting ‘shows (acroamata) and performers (histriones), or even common entertainers (ludios) from the circus and very often story-tellers (aretalogos)’. Augustus had modest fare in his house on the Palatine, a house that the imperial propaganda was busy celebrating as a symbol of prisca rusticitas, ‘the country manners of former times’.144 Marcella the Elder and Marcella the Younger, the daughters whom Augustus’ sister Octavia had with her husband C. Claudius Marcellus, also possessed their own comoedus, Nedymus, buried in their columbarium in Vigna Codini.145 Another two privately owned actors were Asticus, a first-century ad slave who died at the age of 18 and belonged to a certain Licinia, and Felix, who was buried in a columbarium used from the Late Republic until at least the time of Antoninus Pius.146 Located in the Esquiline region, the columbarium of the Statilii preserves a larger body of inscriptions than any other known columbarium of a private house. It was used throughout the Julio-Claudian period, thus overlapping the careers of the most eminent members of the family, from T. Statilius Taurus, a homo novus of military talent whom Augustus entrusted with supervising Rome and Italy during his absence in 16 bc, to Statilia Messalina, Nero’s third wife. The Statilii counted two comoedi among their slaves, Milanio and Tyrannos.147 This is the same number that we find in the household of Pliny the Younger. Pliny was the proud owner of C. Plinius Zosimus, a performer as accomplished as versatile: a born comoedus, a fine cithara player and ‘so clever in reading speeches, history and poetry as to give the 142 143

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On the columbarium of Livia, see Hasegawa 2005: 22–6 and passim, Treggiari 1975. Atimetus: CIL 6.3926 [2217] (Leppin 1992: 215, Garton 1982: 19); Panaenus: CIL 6.3978. It is possible that Livia’s slave-child Prosopas and her very tiny freedwoman, the smallest female of her time (Plin. HN 7.75), were also used for entertainment purposes. Suet. Aug. 74 with Jones 1991: 193. On Augustus’ house on the Palatine, see Suet. Aug. 72.1–2, 73 with Coarelli 1975: 143–4. CIL 6.4436, Leppin 1992: 264, Garton 1982: 39. On the Monumentum Marcellae, see Hasegawa 2005: 22 and passim. Asticus: AE 1928.10, Leppin 1992: 214–15. Asticus is also included in Sick’s list of entertainers with a woman as their owner or patron (1999: 342). Felix: CIL 6.7013, Leppin 1992: 240. Milanio: CIL 6.6252, Leppin 1992: 260–1, Garton 1982: 38; Tyrannos: CIL 6.6253, Leppin 1992: 308, Garton 1982: 52d, Stephanis 1988: no. 2442.

Actors at dinner parties

impression to have learnt only that skill’.148 Such a valuable slave earned both Pliny’s admiration and all his efforts to keep him in good health. When Zosimus first fell sick after straining his voice, Pliny sent him all the way to Egypt. At the second occurrence of the disease, Pliny made plans for Zosimus to be hosted on a friend’s farm at the Forum Julii, modern Fréjus, in south-eastern France. Milk and fine air, Pliny hoped, would get Zosimus back into shape. In Pliny’s household there was also a second comoedus, C. Plinius Eutychus, recorded as Zosimus’ foster-brother and freedman on a record set up by Zosimus himself.149 To judge from the epigraphic record from the Roman West, the houseowners’ choice was comedy rather than tragedy. The fictional Trimalchio follows this trend too, in his own peculiar ways: true to his type of the vulgar parvenu, Trimalchio bought a troupe of comoedi only to have them perform Atellan farce (Petron. Sat. 53.13). Of course, variation was also allowed. A tragic actor himself (and a publicly acclaimed one too), Nero was the master of the tragoedus Glyco, whom he initially co-owned with the tragoedus Vergilius.150 At his dinner parties, Hadrian offered a wide range of shows including tragedies and comedies, and, in keeping with his passion for Greek culture and his archaizing taste, he could also boast among his freedmen the Athenian Aristomenes, an actor of Old Comedy (‘Attic Partridge’, as the Emperor dubbed him) and the author of a work on sacrifices.151 Tragedy also crops up in the palace of the commander of Dura Europos on the Euphrates, the so-called dux ripae, in the early third century ad. There were two tragoidoi, Elpidophoros and Protos, and one or possibly two hypokritai, Probos and Gorgias, working here. Their names were written on graffiti in a room set next to the dining room where they probably performed.152 House-owners’ general preference for comic actors is not a coincidence. Having highly specialized slaves in one’s household responded to several needs, all framed within the Roman ideal of the household as an independent and self-contained unit – ‘a miniature state’ according to the early Romans (Sen. Ep. 47.14). By the Late Republic and Early Empire, such 148

149 150 151 152

Plin. Ep. 5.19.3. On Zosimus, see Leppin 1992: 312, Stephanis 1988: no. 997. Inscriptions commemorating comic actors often praise their consummate artistic skill. See, for instance, IG XIII.1.84 and Inschriften von Ephesos 5.1606. See further Jones 1987: 208–9. IG XIV.1946 (IGUR 896). See also Leppin’s comments (1992: 312). Pers. 5.9 with scholion; Leppin 1992: 246. SHA Hadr. 26.4, Ath. 3.115a–b. See also Stephanis 1988: no. 361. Dura 945; 948. Gorgias is mentioned on Dura 948, but the inscription is damaged and his qualification is now lost. Both inscriptions were first edited by Rostovtzeff and Bradford Welles 1952: 32–3.

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independence was measured in both material and human resources, with slaves counted in the hundreds if not in the thousands.153 Numbers being one side of the issue, specialization was the other: highly trained slaves brought praise to their masters, as it did to have them trained at home.154 Their versatility made comic actors particularly valuable: next to performing for their masters and his friends, comoedi also worked as teachers. Quintilian, who confines the educational role of the comoedus to the early training of his ideal orator, carefully describes his duties. After emphasizing complete avoidance of staginess and mimicry, he requires the comoedus to teach both pronunciation and voice production, along with correct delivery and coordination of gesture, facial expression and voice.155 Quintilian’s stress on pronunciation recalls Pliny’s praise of Zosimus as a born comoedus for pronouncing ‘with sharpness, knowledge, fitness and even appropriateness’. Zosimus’ pronunciation skills are the yardstick by which Pliny measures his excellence as a comoedus.156 Comedy is here, above all, an ear-pleasing and ear-educating experience, something which helps explain why Pliny claims to ‘listen to comedies and watch mimes’.157 To judge from what we know about other specialized slaves and entertainers, comoedi must also have been quite lucrative. Plutarch’s biography of Cato the Elder, a man very careful with his money, exemplifies well the easy profit that one could make out of highly educated slaves. Cato would lend money to any of his slaves who wanted to purchase young slaves, train them at Cato’s expense for one year and then return them. Cato would keep some of the trainees for himself, crediting to the trainer the highest price for which the trainee could be bought.158 Entering one’s performers in public competitions was another source of income. Ummidia Quadratilla used to have 153

154

155 156

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158

C. Caecilius Isidorus, for instance, left 4,116 slaves upon his death in 8 bc (Plin. HN 33.135), and the city prefect killed in ad 61, L. Pedanius Secundus, had an entourage of 400 slaves (Tac. Ann. 14.43.4). This is the same number attested for Trimalchio, the owner of at least 40 decuriae of slaves (Petron. Sat. 47.64), and for Apuleius’ wife Pudentilla (Apol. 93). See further Bradley 1984: 16 with n. 15. Nep. Att. 13.3–4, Plut. Crass. 2.6–7. On large familiae and specialized slaves, see also Hasegawa 2005: 30–1. Quint. Inst. 1.11.1–14. See also p. 230. Plin. Ep. 5.19.3: Homo probus officiosus litteratus; et ars quidem eius et quasi inscriptio comoedus, in qua plurimum facit. Nam pronuntiat acriter sapienter apte decenter etiam. On Zosimus see also above. Plin. Ep. 5.3.2: comoedias audio et specto mimos. While this claim also implies that mime shows are livelier than comedy, it does not follow that Pliny ‘does not see comedies’, pace Guillemin 1927–47 and Sherwin-White 1966: 316. Plut. Cat. Mai. 21.7; see also 21.5 for Cato’s ‘safe and secure’ financial enterprises. See further Sick 1999: 337–8.

Actors at dinner parties

her pantomimes performing both in her house and on the public stage; it spoke well of her grandson Quadratus that he did not watch them ‘in the theatre nor at home’ (Pliny, Ep. 7.24.4). Her troupe took part in the sacerdotal games mentioned by Pliny (Ep. 7.24.6) and, as Sick suggests (1999: 340–1), they might well have performed in the damaged theatre of Casinum after Quadratilla restored it at her own expense.159 Hadrian, who offered various shows at dinner parties and in the theatre alike, also had his own entertainers, the histriones aulici, performing for public audiences.160 Another possibility was renting out one’s entertainers to other hosts. Given the high income that entertainers could earn, it is not surprising to find several of them pass from slave status to that of freedmen; even as such, however, they kept generating revenues for their former masters. Not only were freedmen bound by oath to give them a number of working days (operae), but Roman law also made further provisions for entertainers. The Digest allowed operae of mimes, pantomimes as well as doctors to be transferred to a third party by recognizing that ‘it is not necessary for the patron always to organize games (ludi) or be sick to use his freedmen’s services’. At the same time, work obligations could also be laid against a freed slave-child when still a child if he was able to provide service: this was the case of histriones, scribes, nomenclatores and providers of some other pleasure.161 Private entertainers may also have come in handy on another occasion: funerals. At the funeral processions of the noble and distinguished Romans, Polybius notes, the ancestors’ masks, the imagines, were carried out of the house where they were stored to be donned by men chosen for their likeness to the deceased and dressed according to the rank of those they represented. The ancestors came to life again, as living and breathing Romans at the zenith of their political career. According to Diodorus, for their funerals the Romans employed ‘imitators (μιμητάς) who have observed a man’s conduct and the characteristics of his individual appearance throughout his whole life’.162 Diodorus does not further qualify these performers but later sources speak of mimes, at least occasionally.163 These funerary mimes, as they have been called, apparently demanded professional performers, ideally, it seems, 159 160 161

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AE 1946.174 revised by Fora 1992: 269–73. See also Sear 2006: 122–3. SHA Hadr. 19.7–6, 26.4. See also above. Dig. 38.1.25, 27; 38.1.7. Treggiari 1969: 68–81, esp. 75–8, reconstructs the relationship between liberti and their patrons; Sick 1999: 339–40 focuses on freed entertainers. Diod. Sic. 31.25.2, see also Polyb. 6. 53.6–9. See Flower 1996: esp. 99–100. On the imagines, see also below. Suet. Vesp. 9.2 (the archimimus Favor impersonates Vespasian at his funeral), Greg. Naz. Or. 5 (Against Julian II) 18.33 (mimes at Julian’s funeral). See also Suet. Iul. 84.4 (tibia players and

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born and trained at home. They may be the same performers, often qualified as mimes, that Roman generals brought with them in their campaigns.164 So far I have traced the presence of comic actors in specific households and their role within them, but our sources also shed light on both the format of drama over dinner and the socio-economic dimension of this practice. Let us start with a negative fact: how drama did not enter private parties whenever poets reciting their own works are not concerned.165 Scholarly discussions often envisage readers – lectores or anagnostai – delivering plays over dinner.166 Lectores and lectrices are well attested in the urban staff of the upper-class Romans: with only one lector in the preChristian period, the epigraphic record shows that this tended to be a female job.167 Also well known are their readings, meant both to recreate and educate refined guests with busy hands. Gellius often mentions texts ‘read’ over dinner, helpfully specifying their content at least occasionally. ‘Early lyric poetry or history, both Greek and Latin’ was the usual fare at Favorinus’ table, although on one occasion a ‘slave standing by the table’ delivered a grammatical treatise, Gavius Bassus’ On the Origin of Verbs and Nouns. The poet Julius Paulus opted instead for neoteric poetry by having Laevius’ Alcestis read to his guests.168 Speeches, history and poetry are the texts that Zosimus reads so cleverly that ‘he gives the impression of having learnt only that skill’. Zosimus is here praised for his performance as a reader, which is different from his performance as a comoedus – the same distinction that Pliny makes when presenting comoedi, a reader or a lyre player cheering up his guests.169 Versatile as readers could be, they are never clearly attested as delivering plays in convivial settings.170 Their

164

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166 167

168 169

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scaenici artifices dressed in Caesar’s triumphal garb take part in the pompa of Caesar’s funeral). See in general Sumi 2002. See, for instance, Plut. Brut. 45.6–9 and Zos. 5.7.2. This practice predates the Romans: Plut. Cleom. 12.3 remarks that in the third century bc the Spartans ‘alone of all the Greek and royal armies had no accompanying mimes, no jugglers, no dancing girls or harp players’. See further Maxwell 1993: 82–3 and passim (mimes and the military); Csapo 2010: 192–3 (actors and the military). See, for instance, Plin. Ep. 6.21.2 (Vergilius Romanus reads his ‘old’ comedy to a select group of people) and Juv. 1.1–6 (complaining of authors reciting works like togatae and tragedies). Zwierlein 1966: 156–66 reviews and discusses Roman authors delivering their dramatic works. Harrison 2000: 142–3 is a case in point. Treggiari 1976: 90, who counts five lectrices. The only pre-Christian male lector is Livia’s Panaenus (CIL 3978), on whom see also above. Gell. NA 2.22.1; 3.19.1–2; 19.7.2. Plin. Ep. 5.19.3; 1.15.2 (addressed to Septicius Clarus, who did not keep his promise to dine with Pliny): audisses comoedos vel lectorem vel lyristen vel (quae mea liberalitas) omnes. See also Ep. 9.17.3, cited below. In De Fer. Als. 3.1 (Van den Hout) Fronto envisages Marcus Aurelius’ daily routine at Alsium: deinde Nigrum vocares, libros introferre iuberes; mox ut te studium legendi incessisset, ut te

Actors at dinner parties

involvement with drama, the province of comoedi and tragoedi, also seems to go counter to the well-documented degree of specialization that existed within the Roman familia. In her discussion of Livia’s household, Treggiari concludes that ‘what is clear is that the staff was relatively large; that the structure was highly organized, though not rigid; that there was . . . a strong emphasis on specialization, enough to satisfy the strictest trade union’.171 Every slave had their own specific role. Contrary to Friedländer’s claim that comoedi in convivial settings declaimed dramatic excerpts, they did more than that: they staged plays. Trimalchio purchases comoedi and Plutarch explicitly mentions ‘men performing Menander’ (τοῖς Μένανδρον ὑποκρινομένοις): the presence of more than one performer makes declamations highly unlikely at best.172 Potentially more problematic is the testimony of Pliny the Younger, who speaks both of comoedi (Ep. 1.15.2, 3.1.9) and of one comoedus performing privately. Comedy is the show that a refined Roman would expect over dinner: only the uncultivated ask for their shoes or recline with boredom written all over their face ‘at the entry of a reader, a lyre player or a comoedus’ (Ep. 9.17.3). It speaks well of Pliny that, unless burdened with impending deadlines, these are the forms of entertainment to which he invariably sticks, regardless of the company, of the season and of the villa in which he is sojourning.173 Pliny could have travelled with his entertainers or he could have had them living on his various estates, given that he owned at least 500 slaves.174 Pliny’s references to one comic actor and comic actors alike become only apparently ambiguous if one considers that he may be speaking the theatrical language. Rather than referring to one comoedus because only one actor performed solo, he may be simply indicating the whole troupe by means of its star performer, as inscriptions and other records for dramatic performances such as documentary papyri commonly do. Since only the troupe-owner had an official existence, he is the only one to be named and only rarely do the actors of minor roles receive a mention.175 Roman law, after all, unequivocally attests that slave comoedi – the same comoedi we met before in privileged Roman households – came in

171 172

173 175

Plauto expolires aut Accio expleres aut Lucretio delenires aut Ennio incenderes. Not only are we ill-informed about Niger’s identity (he is attested only here), but (pace Starr 1990/1: 340–1) it is also unclear whether Marcus Aurelius or Niger does the dramatic reading in this context, which is, in any case, not a convivial one. Treggiari 1975: 60. See also Bradley 1984: 16 with n. 13. Friedländer 1922: II.119–21. Petron. Sat. 53.13, Plut. Mor. 673b. See Jones 1991: 192–3, Csapo 1999: 159. Plin. Ep. 1.15 (cited above), 9.36.4, 9.40. 174 ILS 2927 with Bradley 1994: 11. See above, pp. 81–2.

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troupes. If a comic actor or a chorister is killed, Gaius writes in his Institutiones (3.212), ‘the valuation must cover not only the value of the one who has been killed, but also the depreciation in the value of the survivors.’ Needless to say, this clause would be nonsensical if troupes were not intended here.176 That comoedi staged plays for select audiences is to be taken literally. In Spain, at the infamous dinner party held for Metellus Pius in the mid-70s bc, there were ‘stages set up for the actors’ shows’; so many were the private stages in first-century ad Rome that the whole city resounded with them.177 Note how staging-related concerns also underlie Plutarch’s and his friends’ selection of the best forms of dinner entertainment. Among other things, the Pyladic dance is banned because ‘it requires a large cast’ (πολυπρόσωπον οὖσαν); what makes the mime called hypothesis unsuitable is both ‘its excessive length and its difficulty of staging’ (διὰ τὰ μήκη τῶν δραμάτων καὶ τὸ δυσχορήγητον). Evidently, this mime was even harder to stage than Old Comedy plays, of which Plutarch must be envisaging full performances, since he lists the ‘too intense and outspoken’ parabases of Old Comedy as yet another strike against its convivial use.178 By default, one surmises, Menander’s comedies are integral to and perfect for dinner parties not only because of their morally uplifting character but also because of their easy performance. With their short plots, three-actor cast and minimal staging requirements, they beautifully satisfy ethical and practical concerns alike. Stages, actors, choruses and all their paraphernalia clearly take up some room, too much room for the Roman triclinium of traditional size. Gardens were, at all times, a handy solution to space-related problems. A man who performed before the praetor in his garden (in hortis) figures in a case used by Quintilian (Inst. 3.6.18–19) to discuss the complex theory of issues. Despite the law denying this privilege to performers, this man took a seat in the first fourteen rows of the theatre; since, however, he has never performed on the public stage, the defendant and the plaintiff will need to define ‘what it means to exercise the profession of actor’ (quid sit artem ludicram exercere). Perhaps interestingly, villa gardens also yielded a few artefacts reproducing performers.179 Hosting elaborate shows indoors 176 177

178 179

On this passage see also p. 81. Sall. Hist. 2.59.2 M (on which see above); Sen. Q. Nat. 7.32.3. See also Suet. Dom. 7.1: Domitian banned performers (histriones) from the public stage but allowed them ‘at home’ (intra domum). Plut. Mor. 711e, 712e, 711f. We have at least three performers’ portraits from private settings: (1) a lost portrait from a villa in Monte Cagnolo, near Lanuvio (Neudecker 1988: 162, 21.7); (2) a portrait from Torre Astura (an actor dressed as Papposilenus; Rome, Terme 135769, Neudecker 1988: 242, 72.1);

Actors at dinner parties

became less problematic in Late Antiquity, when the triclinium with its inner-looking pi-shape gave way to the curved sigma couch. As Dunbabin shows, this seating arrangement entered internal domestic architecture towards the late second or third century ad specifically to allow more room for entertainment and serving. Unlike the triclinium, the sigma couch leaves plenty of space before the diners, now busier enjoying the shows offered by their host than interacting among themselves.180 Those who watched performances in the dining room of the palace of the dux ripae most probably did so while relaxing on a sigma couch. The raised apse and the opening onto a broad courtyard at the other end indicate that this room was fitted for this kind of couch. As a troupe set on a stage, comoedi performed, in all likelihood, fulllength plays. Plutarch’s comments on convivial entertainment are, once again, a key source. They include praise of Menander for, among other things, his ‘mixture of serious and funny’ and his edifying plots, and criticism of Aristophanes for his heterogeneity – all comments implying the staging of whole plays.181 We also hear of ‘comedies’ performed over dinner.182 The soirée organized by Spurinna, an ex-consul and a close friend of Pliny the Younger, ‘is punctuated by comoedi’: their continuous performance or performances, one may suggest, is or are interrupted only by the serving of different courses.183 A similar scenario can be reconstructed for the betrothal party in Parthia described by Plutarch, who helpfully points out that Jason delivered Agave’s part ‘when the tables had been removed’. Supposing that the tragic performance started at the beginning of the banquet, Agave’s delirious song at the end of the play is what we would expect at the end of the dinner.184 Full-scale performances, stages and professional entertainers working as a troupe (the same ones involved in public shows) are all important details in the sociology of drama at dinner. They make private dramatic performances much more similar to the public ones than it is generally assumed, especially if one takes into account that these performances could also be staged within a competition.

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and (3) a masked actor’s head from the Villa of Maxentius (currently in Liverpool, Merseyside County Museum, Neudecker 1988: 187, 37.15). Dunbabin 1996 and 2003: 43–6 and passim. 181 Plut. Mor. 712b–c with Jones 1991: 193. SHA Hadr. 26.4 with Csapo 1999: 159. Plin. Ep. 3.1.9 (describing his dinner by Spurinna): frequenter comoedis cena distinguitur ut voluptates quoque studiis condiantur. Rosati 1993: 44–5, n. 35, observes that the two verbs distinguitur and condiantur, ‘appartenenti a due sfere semantiche diverse, sembrano per un attimo scambiarsi reciprocamente le parti: come gli studia . . . fanno da condimento della cena, così questa viene distincta (un verbo, distinguere, frequente nella scrittura e nella pratica testuale) dai brani teatrali’. Plut. Crass. 33.3: ἀπηρμέναι μὲν ἦσαν αἱ τράπεζαι.

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Consider a fascinating anecdote dealing with an unnamed procurator of Epiros, Epictetus and the crown given to the comic actor Sophron in the larger theatre of Nicopolis in the early second century ad. The procurator orchestrated Sophron’s victory by taking his side ‘in an undignified manner’ in the theatre, where he also placed his slaves to shout their support for Sophron – one of the extant examples of corruption and fixed judgements in ancient contests. The procurator was soon targeted by the jeers of the public and the advice of Epictetus. When he insisted with Epictetus that he wanted Sophron to win, the philosopher reminded him not to take advantage of his power in public, but to ‘organize as many contests as you want at home (ἐν οἴκῳ ὅσους θέλεις ἀγῶνας ἄγων) and proclaim him victor at the Nemea, Pythia, Isthmia and Olympia’. Epictetus is envisaging private dramatic competitions organized by the procurator and involving an actor who had won fame in the most renowned public contests. The Sophron mentioned here is possibly the comic actor Marcus Julius Sophron celebrated with a statue in the theatre of Hierapolis in Phrygia. As we read on the accompanying inscription, he was honoured by both the city and ‘the holy synod of victors from all the world in holy and crowned contests’.185 At this point, the only big difference between drama over dinner and drama on the public stage lies just in the nature of the audience, now hand-picked by the host. Having drama over dinner was a very expensive form of entertainment, a high-class and exclusive kind of divertissement confined to the very few who could boast the appropriate financial means and literary interests. The world of Plutarch and his fellow connoisseurs, all members of the political and cultural elite, of the Emperors and their associates was, after all, a very small one.186 Where we find drama is just as significant as where we do not find it. Consider the twenty or so records, both contracts and festival-related documents, which preserve the dealings between artists (or their impresarios) and various hiring parties in the Egyptian khora. Mostly dated to around the second century ad, almost half of these records are contracts drawn up between one or more citizens and one or more entertainers for a ‘private’ party – private only in the sense that its sponsor, when named, does not present himself with an official title or position, given that at times a public celebration is the context for a private one.187 In another set of contracts, the hiring party is a major association, a synodos, represented 185 186 187

Arr. Epict. diss. 3.4, Ritti 1985: 96, no. 11 with Jones 1987. Jones 1971: chs. 5–6 helpfully reviews Plutarch’s circle of friends, both Greek and Roman. Our records do not always preserve the name of the hiring party, but the following contracts seem to involve one or more private citizen: Stud. Pal. XXII 47; P.Lond. II 331, pp. 154–5; P.Col. VIII 226; P.Corn. 9; P.Aberd. 58; P.Hib. I 54; O.Medin.Madin. 73 (Tedeschi 2002: nos. 4, 5, 7, 11,

Actors at dinner parties

by a spokesman: we find here the synodos of priests of Soknopaios and the synodos of the villages of Tanis, Soknopaiou Nesos, Bakchias and Thraso.188 Apparently groups of the village elite, these synodoi were more prestigious than the ‘lesser clubs’ that were led by representatives called prostatai or kliniarchs and that had their own dealings with various artists.189 Progressing from the ‘private’ to the public, at the end of the spectrum there are the city representatives busy organizing events such as the festival in honour of Kronos.190 In the vast majority of cases, the artists hired by the Egyptian villagers are musicians often qualified as pipers and performing individually, with other pipers or with one or more dancers,191 or they are themselves dancers, sometimes castanet dancers.192 Only in one of the privately funded parties is there mime.193 Public festivals, by contrast, have a more varied entertainment programme including musical shows and mime as well as pantomime performances. The issue is clearly a financial one. Calculating how much money artists earned in Egypt and how much they cost their sponsors is a rather tricky issue, not only because our records are often fragmentary but also because compensation included more than cash payment. The entertainers were also provided with means of transportation – a more or less appropriate number of donkeys was reserved for the round trip – food and shelter as well as care for their instruments and equipment. Even so, the figures that our papyri yield are still indicative of the performers’ relative economic standing. Westermann calculates that the daily wage of an aulete working under contract with the manager of a company in ad 8/9 was roughly 2 drachmas, about twice the pay of a weaver and more than a master weaver too.194 The

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15, 21, 27). P.Oxy. III 475 (Tedeschi 2002: no. 23) is also relevant. Dated to ad 182, this letter relates the death of an 8-year-old slave who belonged to Ploution: the child fell down from the terrace when trying to watch the castanet dancers performing in the house of Ploution during the festival at Seneptas. P.Stras. V 341, BGU VII 1648, SB X 10619, P.Grenf. II 67; SB X 10439 (Tedeschi 2002: nos. 3, 8, 10, 14, 16). Contracts between prostatai or kliniarchs and entertainers: P.Gen. 1273, P.Lugd.Bat. VI 54 (with Westermann 1932: 24), P.Oxy. XXXIV 2721, P.Oxy. X 1275 (Tedeschi 2002: nos. 9, 12, 13, 17). The distinction between synodoi and ‘lesser clubs’ is drawn by Westermann 1932: 25. P.Flor. I 74 (pantomimes), P.Oxy. VII 1025 (biologos and homeristes), P.Oxy. III 519 fr. a (mime, homeristes, musicians, dancer). Tedeschi 2002: nos. 6, 19, 25. P.Stras. V 341, Stud. Pal. XXII 47; P.Lond. II 331, pp. 154–5; P.Col. VIII 226; P.Hib. I 54, SB X 10619; SB X 10439; P.Gen. I273; P.Lugd.Bat. VI 54; P.Oxy. XXXIV 2721; P.Oxy. X 1275. P.Aberd. 58; P.Oxy. III 475, P.Corn. 9; BGU VII 1648; P.Grenf. II 67. O.Medin.Madin 73. Ethologi apparently specialized in caricatures of known people (see, e.g., Cic. De or. 2.242, 244; Diod. Sic. 20.63.2 with Maxwell 1993: 31–4); for their presence at symposia, see also Plut. Mor. 673b. Westermann 1924: 142, citing P.Oxy. IV 731 (auletes’ earnings) and P.Oxy. IV 737 (weavers’ earnings).

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three castanet dancers hired by a woman from the village of Philadelphia, Artemisia, in ad 206 fared much better, with a daily wage of some 18 drachmas. Still, this is a long way from the pay recorded on another papyrus which is dated to the second century ad and related to a public festival, where the mime and the homeristes (performer of Homer) received 496 and 448 drachmas, while the dancer earned only 100 and odd drachmas, definitely less than his fellow performers.195 At Dura Europos too entertainment was a socially differentiating activity, with elaborate shows going hand in hand with deep pockets. The graffiti inside the palace of the dux ripae record tragoidoi and hypokritai, but the painted plaster from one of the excavated houses lists artists qualified as mimes and skenikoi who were based further up the Euphrates, in Zeugma, and travelled between Zeugma and Dura. Among them there is also a tragoidos, Asbolis, with a female performer, Theodora, but they are, in all likelihood, singers rather than actors.196 The long years of training that tragoidoi and komoidoi had to undergo made them luxury items, hot commodities beyond the reach of many. The slave Panurgus, who lived in the early first century bc, was originally worth 6,000 HS (quite a bit more than the male slave sold in Herculaneum on 8 May ad 63 for 4,050 HS), but after being trained by Roscius, the greatest of all Roman actors, not only did he earn 100,000 HS per year, but his value also increased exponentially, hitting 600,000 HS.197 Just as expensive was the tragoedus Glyco, who became Nero’s own slave after Nero bought Vergilius’ share for 300,000 HS.198 Panurgus and Glyco were worthy thirty times more than the slow-witted jester who, to Martial’s disapproval, cost his owner 20,000 HS.199 That actors were pricey is, after all, a commonplace in our sources. We hear of a ‘komoidos rented at a high price who butchers Menander over dinner’, of comoedi infibulated to increase their value and of tragoidoi (and kitharodoi) as essential to one’s social standing, like marble palaces and fine clothes.200 The Roman symposion, Plutarch writes, is ‘a procession and a theatre [where] the drama of wealth is brought on’; offering comedies and tragedies looks straight in that direction.201 195 196

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198 199

200 201

P.Corn. 9 (castanet dancers), P.Oxy. III 519 fr. a (public festival). See Westermann 1924: 141–3. Dura 940 (inside wall of House C, section G5), discussed and interpreted by Maxwell 1993: 169–72. On Asbolis and Theodora, see also p. 86. Cic. Rosc. Am. 28, 29 and passim (the exact value of the untrained Roscius is debated: I am here following Sick 1999: 339 with n. 52). For the slave sold in Herculaneum, see Tab. Herc. 61, PP 9 (1954) 55. Schol. on Pers. 5.9. On Vergilius, see Leppin 1992: 310. Mart. 8.13. Note also the exorbitant amount that Calvisius Sabinus paid for his nine slaves trained in Greek poetry (Sen. Ep. 27.6, on which see also below). Plut. Mor. 531b, Mart. 14.215, Arr. Epict. diss. 4.7.37–8. Plut. Mor. 528b, on which see D’Arms 1999.

Texts and images

Texts and images Any attempt to establish a direct link between the iconographic tradition of both Menander and his plays and ancient diners’ exposure to Menander’s comedies meets with problems of all kinds. Consider our few and sparse sources for guests’ recitals and dramatic performances at dinner parties, the socio-economic aspects of this practice and the need for spacious domestic areas. The houses in the Vesuvian towns, for instance, yielded a rich array of New Comedy illustrations and theatre-related monuments in general; yet grander rooms to host dramatic performances are at best hard to find. In her analysis and discussion of convivial spaces, Dunbabin (1996: 70) concludes that ‘even in rich villas, really lavish dining was not the norm in the Late Republic and Early Empire, despite the literary stories. The standard diningroom is still designed for a triclinium of the traditional size and allows only limited space for entertainers: a little music, recitation, a couple of dancers, but nothing really fancy.’ Another issue is chronology, especially for those monuments dated from the late Antonine period well into Late Antiquity. One can debate whether ancient authors mentioning or commenting on Greek plays draw their knowledge from performances or from books, but the number of both tragic and comic actors goes down, and drastically so. Sifting through Stephanis’ prosopographical work (1988), I count 738 artists variously qualified as tragoidoi, komoidoi and hypokritai of old and new plays. Only about 12 per cent of them were active in the Christian period (92 artists). Their number decreased over time. In the fourth century ad we hear of only two komoidoi: Syros and Paulos (if indeed there was a fourthcentury komoidos named Paulos).202 The decrease in their numbers is in line with the decrease in performers in general, a worrying trend that prompted laws binding performers to the stage so that, by the late fourth century ad, children of entertainers, bakers and other professions involved in providing basic services were to take up their parents’ profession. To keep constant the supply of entertainers, laws came to formalize a well-known practice in performing families.203 Kuintos Markios Straton, a contemporary of Plutarch, is the last actor we know to have included Menander in his repertoire. The two inscriptions from the Museia at Thespiae recording ‘old comedy’ prolong Menander’s survival on the public stage until around the mid-second century ad, but they are our latest secure record for 202

203

Stephanis 1988: nos. 2224 (Syros, recorded on PSI III 236, 30; dated to the third to fourth century ad): 2026 (AP 11.263; Paulos). On Paulos, see also pp. 109–10. Webb 2008: 46–7 with n. 10.

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performances in this category.204 When Libanius rants against the theatrical shows that students would go and watch in fourth-century Antioch, the shows he is targeting are surely not performances of the Greek plays he greatly appreciated.205 The shift towards mimes and pantomimes in public theatres – a shift that goes back to the Early Empire and becomes more marked later on, especially in the Roman West – does not leave private stages unaffected. To be sure, mime and pantomime are both popular forms of dinner-table entertainment throughout antiquity, from the show in Callias’ house which ends Xenophon’s Symposion to the Macedonian court, Hellenistic palaces and the guests dancing naked mentioned by Cicero.206 Pylades, one of the fathers of Roman pantomime, danced in both public and private venues, offering the same kind of shows: when he stretched his bow and sent out darts in Augustus’ dining room, ‘the Emperor was not outraged to be treated by Pylades in the same way as the Roman populace’.207 Under the Empire, mimes and pantomimes multiply. Tiberius forbade senators to enter pantomimes’ houses and allowed pantomimes only in the theatre. Domitian, by contrast, had performers (histriones) entertaining only private audiences at home (intra domum).208 Later Emperors from Verus to Carinus filled their palaces with mimes and pantomimes.209 It goes to the credit of Theodoric II, who reigned from ad 453 to 466, that he had mimes performing over dinner only rarely, making sure that none of them mocked his guests.210 Christian authors thundered against citizens’ and priests’ exposure to this kind of shows, vigorously trying to keep citizens away from the theatre and performers away from private houses. In fourth-century ad Antioch, a city with ‘more mimes than citizens’, Julian forbade priests both to attend shows and to open their 204

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207 208 210

IG II2 12664, *IThesp. 178 (Manieri 2009, Thesp. 42; 150–60 ad); *IThesp. 177 (Manieri 2009, Thesp. 43; 150–60 ad or after 169). On Straton and the Museia see also pp. 101, 104–5. Lib. Or. 1.5, 3.12 with Cribiore 2001b: 244. Xen. Symp. 9.2–7 (on which see most recently Webb 2008: 60). A number of kings are on record for their fondness for mimes and /or pantomimes, from Philip (Dem. Ol. 2.19) to Antiochos IV Ephiphanes, who performed with mimes in his victory banquet in 166 bc (Polyb. 30.26, Diod. Sic. 31.16.3 and Ath. 5.195e–f; see also Ath. 1.19c). Cicero (Pis. 22, Deiot. 26) decries Piso for dancing naked over dinner and defends Deiotarus from this charge. See also the anecdote about the ex-consul Munatius Plancus dancing at a banquet the role of the sea-god Glaucus without clothes, painted blue and with a tail (Vell. Pat. 2.83.2). Macrob. Sat. 2.7.17. On Pylades, see Leppin 1992: 284–5. Tac. Ann. 1.77, Suet. Dom. 7.1. 209 SHA Verus 8.7, 10–1; Heliog. 5.4–5; Carinus 16.7. Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.2.9. See also Macrob. Sat. 2.7.1, who talks about Laberius and Publilius and relates some of their witticisms ‘to avoid the lewdness of having mimes over dinner and yet imitate the renown that their presence guarantees’.

Texts and images

houses to entertainers.211 To John Chrysostom’s bitter disapproval, mimes and dancers, the ‘filth of the theatre’, crowded not only dinner parties but also weddings, where brides too could see them.212 Late-antique diners watched this kind of performers, not tragedies and comedies. Similar problems come up when trying to match illustrations and papyri, that is, to identify a direct relationship between our iconographic record for specific plays and the ancient viewers’ familiarity with these plays as indicated by their textual transmission. Even disregarding the (sometimes erroneous) labels included on later artefacts, something that points to the viewers’ decreased familiarity with these images, the iconographic and literary traditions of Menander’s drama do not coincide neatly.213 Once again, Theophoroumene is an excellent case in point. Variously adapted, reinterpreted and manipulated, the key scene of this comedy is illustrated on at least 14 surviving monuments, from figurines (7) to paintings (2) and mosaics (5), spanning from the second century bc to the fourth or even fifth century ad.214 Our sources for the popularity of its text, however, tell us a different story.215 With its one or possibly two papyri and a handful of (mostly very short) fragments preserved by ancient writers, Theophoroumene was surely not among the best known of Menander’s comedies.216 It is also unclear to what extent the viewers of the Synaristosai mosaics in Pompeii, Daphne, Zeugma and Mytilene were familiar with Menander’s comedy. This play is also not too well represented in our records since it is possibly preserved only by three papyri and a few citations.217 If we approach the visual record from the standpoint of textual transmission, the discrepancy between these two strands of tradition widens. 211 212

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Julian. Mis. 342b. See Webb 2008: 35–6. See, for instance, Expositio in Psalmum 41 (PG 55.158) and In illud: Propter fornicationes autem unusquisque suam uxorem habeat I (PG 51.211). See further Leyerle 2001: 18, Webb 2008: esp. 26, 175. On erroneous labels, see below. See above on the visual record for Theophoroumene. A list of our Theophoroumene paintings and mosaics is given in Appendix 2. A few lead tokens with three masks and the inscription Theophoroumene (Athens, National Museum (Numismatic Collection), Athens, Agora IL 1311, 1312, 1313; MNC3 6AC 1a–d) were found during the excavations of the Stoa of Attalos in Athens. Although they are commonly identified as theatre tickets for a public revival of this comedy in mid-third-century ad Athens, their dating and function are far from clear, as is the use of tokens to access dramatic performances. I hope to discuss this issue in a future study. To the Theophoroumene papyri (PSI XII 1280 and *PSI XV 1480, on which see Appendix 4) add also a quotation from this play, identified by title, on PSI XV 1476, an anthology dated to the second century ad. On the textual transmission of this comedy, see further Nervegna 2010: 55–9. *P.Bad. VI 175, *P.Oxy. LXII 4305 and *P.Oxy. inv. 50 4B 30H (5)v, fr. A, on which see Appendix 4. For the ten or possibly twelve fragments preserved by indirect tradition, see Arnott 2000: 344–61.

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I count almost ninety papyri which can be ascribed, with various degrees of confidence, to a specific play by Menander, although stricter criteria would lower their figure to about seventy (see Appendix 4). Over one third of them, at any rate, belong to two comedies, Epitrepontes and Misoumenos. Represented by over ten papyri each and high on the list of citations from Menander by ancient authors, these two plays were classics with both students and the reading public.218 In the face of its rich literary tradition, Epitrepontes is securely illustrated only on the Mytilene mosaic, where the scene was given identifying labels full of confusion.219 Whoever was responsible for them ignored Daos’ name, confused Daos with Syros and also wrote ‘Syros’ instead of ‘Syriskos’. Our papyri suggest that the charcoalburner was called Syriskos, which was turned into Syros probably because that is a very common name in comedy.220 An even more interesting case is the afterlife of Misoumenos. Papyri and ancient writers alike unequivocally point to the popularity of Thrasonides’ monologue at the beginning of the play: written out by a student and heavily mined by ancient writers, this was a ‘well-known anthology piece’.221 Yet the scene illustrated on the monuments is not the opening one but the fifth act, which we can reconstruct only through the visual record. Examples could be multiplied. Aspis and Dyskolos were both school texts, yet they are not prominent on surviving monuments, if they can indeed be identified.222 The criteria underlying the selection of plays and dramatic passages made by ancient authors and ultimately teachers do not neatly match with those of the Early-Hellenistic painter(s) who illustrated Menander’s plays. Convivial practices and ancient viewers’ knowledge of Menander by means of performance, public or private, or reading have little, if anything, to do with the massive presence of Menander and his plays in domestic 218

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221 222

See Appendix 4 for papyri. See also pp. 216–17, 220–1, 255 for the popularity of both plays in school contexts. But see MNC3 xz 8: a lost painting from the Casa del Centenario could also be relevant. For other examples of erroneous labels, see the Mytilene Encheiridion (Figure 14), which reads ‘Dersippos’ for ‘Derkippos’, and the Orestes wall painting in Ephesus, which reads ‘Oresstes’. See Csapo 1999: 157 with n. 11. That the charcoal-burner in this play was called Syriskos is suggested by both l. 270 of the Cairo Codex, which has Ʃύρισκ’, and the interlinear of P.Oxy. LXVIII 4641, l. 19 ( ̣συ̣ριςκ). See Furley 2009: 142, 149–50. The nota personae on P.Oxy. LX 4022, fr. 2, which apparently reads ποι(μὴν) σύρ(ισκος) ‘shepherd Syriskos’, indicates that readers and writers also confused Daos the shepherd with Syriskos the charcoal-burner. See Nünlist 1999, Furley 2009: 164–5. Turner 1973: 18. See further pp. 216–17. For a tentative identification of the illustrations of these two comedies, see MNC3 xz 4, 5. To me, the case seems stronger for Aspis than for Dyskolos. On these two plays as school texts, see pp. 220–1, 254–5.

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settings. The roots of this phenomenon run much deeper. Csapo (1999) has already argued for literary pretensions as the driver behind the large assemblage of the Menander-related mosaics in the House of Menander at Mytilene, noting that by this period Menander illustrations already had their own place in a gentleman’s triclinium. This tendency can be traced further back. I count 64 New Comedy scenes reproduced on mosaics and paintings, but their number rises to 69 if one includes a few illustrations, mostly from Pompeii, which are either faded or lost (Appendix 2). Although we can identify the original display context only for about 76 per cent of these 64 scenes (49 exemplars), their display context almost invariably coincides with a private setting. The exceptions are only two: a scene set in a tomb in Cyrene and one apparently placed in a civil basilica in Grand.223 Not only are illustrations from Greek New Comedy consistently part of the decorative programme of ancient houses, but they are also overwhelmingly found in specific domestic spaces. The exception comes from the cubiculum (bedroom) in the Villa di Piazza Armerina, where we find a mosaic with a range of entertainers depicted as children, in line with other mosaics in this villa.224 Involved in an agon of Greek type, with crowns and bags of money depicted in the frieze, these entertainers also include comic and tragic actors.225 Aside from this case, ancient patrons picked other domestic areas for their comic scenes: dining rooms (at least 14 scenes), reception areas (at least 10 scenes), entrance halls and related spaces (at least 13 scenes). Illustrations of Greek New Comedies were traditionally displayed in domestic spaces devoted to the reception and entertainment of guests and visitors.226 In the same domestic areas house-owners would place not only their Menander portraits, but also illustrations of tragedy (see Appendix 3). Scenes from tragedy reproduced in paintings and mosaics are fewer than the comic ones (I count at least 43 examples, including the notoriously problematic mosaics now in the Vatican), but they were also displayed in domestic areas open to the public. Almost all our tragic illustrations of 223

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The fragmentary mosaic from Avenches could be the third instance, if it was indeed originally placed in a bath-complex. For the identification of this room as a cubiculum, see Lancha 1997: 263 with earlier bibliography. Cubicula hosted various activities and their identification in the archaeological remains depends on a number of elements. See Novello 2003, who focuses on the examples from Roman North Africa. I owe this reference to Katherine Dunbabin. For the interpretation of this mosaic, see Duval 1984: esp. 163–4; Dunbabin 2006: 205–6 and 2010: 317. See also Parrish 1995: 155, who speaks of ‘a tradition of illustrating theatrical subjects in private houses and often within social spaces such as oeci and triclinia’.

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recorded provenance come from domestic settings, with the usual tendency to concentrate in dining rooms (at least 3 scenes), reception areas (6 scenes) and entrance halls and related spaces (at least 4 scenes). Several monuments are seriously damaged and cannot be identified, but the criteria underlying the selection of tragic scenes are the same ones that we find for comedies: opening scenes (Euripides’ Orestes; Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus in all likelihood) and climactic ones (Euripides’ Hypsipyle). Unlike New Comedy scenes, however, tragic illustrations often include only two rather than three actors. Ancient artists tended to depict tragedy as a myth rather than as a performance, but the coupling of comic and tragic illustrations is a trend that survived for quite some time, from the House of the Comedians in Delos to several Pompeian houses and the so-called ‘theatre-room’ in late second- or early third-century ad Ephesus. In other instances, comic scenes are paired with other comic scenes. Grouping dramatic illustrations probably aimed to recreate or evoke a specific space, the original display context of their Early-Hellenistic archetypes. Secure exceptions to this pattern are relatively few. That social and cultural pretensions find their best place of expression in one’s house and especially at dinner parties is a topos in satirical works. Pricey editions of Greek works bought to be displayed and carried around are at the top of the shopping list of the wealthy man who tries to pass as a connoisseur.227 Learned household members are just as good. For a Greek intellectual, a post in a good Roman household, Lucian writes, is an attractive and lucrative prospective, yet a miserable one –ironically around the corner for Lucian, who later accepted a post in Egypt sponsored by the Emperor. Dressed in a Greek mantle, the Greek intellectual will soon find himself following his patron around just to make him look like ‘a devotee of Greek learning and utterly fond of paideia’ (φιλομαθὴς τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν μαθημάτων καὶ ὅλως περὶ παιδείαν φιλόκαλος).228 Seneca adds to the picture by citing the example of Calvisius Sabinus, a wealthy and scatterbrained Roman who ‘made to order’ expensive slaves with different fields of expertise: Homer, Hesiod and the nine lyric poets. It was unfortunate that his guests soon grew tired of seeing them standing at Sabinus’ feet to feed him lines.229 One is also reminded of Varro’s sniping at the practice of dining in picture-galleries. Note the emphasis on things Greek. Only at Juvenal’s low-key dinner, the counter-example to the elite one, are guests recommended to ‘ask in Latin’, and only an unrefined host like

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Lucian, Against an Ignorant Book-Collector, esp. 1–5, 18, 25–7. Lucian, Hirelings in Great Houses 25. On this work and Lucian’s career, see Jones 1986: 78–84. Sen. Ep. 27.5–7. Note that none of these slaves delivers drama: they are neither comoedi nor tragoedi.

Texts and images

Trimalchio can have comic actors staging Atellan farce and a singing khoraules (an oddity in itself) performing in Latin.230 Illustrations of Greek plays can also be framed within the discourse of the self-fashioning of the elite, with the rich array of the Mytilene mosaics as the centre-piece, but equally important is the relationship between the subjectmatter of these images and their display context. The two of them should not be divorced; rather, context helps explain the scene selection. The three women at breakfast in Synaristosai decorate the floor of two triclinia and one tablinum, an area also used for reception purposes.231 In all likelihood, the subject-matter of Theophoroumene is the key to its iconographic success. Actors performing as musicians are good for domestic areas devoted to entertainment and merry-making and it may not be a coincidence that two of our monuments, the Pompeian fragment and the mosaic from KastelliKissamou, stress the musical motif of this illustration. These are, in other words, appropriate images for decorating specific domestic spaces, selected by domestic decor and tradition. Dining rooms and reception rooms in general have the lion’s share as the favourite setting of dramatic illustrations, but atria and related spaces are also well represented. The data necessarily reflect the nature of the evidence, with the Pompeian houses playing a major role. The atrium was the constitutive element of the Italic house and the most important area in the Republican elite town house, but in the imperial age it lost importance to the peristyle and eventually fell out of fashion, resurfacing only rarely.232 For us, New Comedy illustrations first appear in the Vesuvian area in the late second century bc, when Dioscurides seems to have made the two mosaics which graced the tablinum of the Casa di Cicerone, to proliferate during the Early Empire, in the period of the Third and Fourth Style and their imitation of famous Hellenistic paintings. In the Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali, which was renovated in the years ad 35–45, the atrium greeted visitors with some ten panels illustrating both comedy and tragedy. Painted on a blue background, they must have looked somewhat démodé given that blue, a rare colour reserved only for choice areas, was out of fashion by the Third Style.233 The Casa di Marcus Lucretius and the Casa del Centenario are both provided with two atria, the sign of the true rich. In both houses, drama comes up in the area of the public atrium, more important in

230 231 232 233

Varro, Rust. 1.59.2, Juv. Sat. 11.148, Petron. Sat. 53.13. Flower 1996: 203–5 discusses the tablinum and its functions. Flower 1996: esp. 188–95, Wallace-Hadrill 2008: 195–6. Wallace-Hadrill 1988: 75–6 with n. 99.

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function and grander in scale, and it also belongs to a coherent decorative programme. In the Casa di Marcus Lucretius, a comic and a tragic scene were painted in the entrance to the atrium, the vestibulum. Walking through the house, visitors would see more drama in ala 9, while gazing at poets, actors and Muses in ala 8, right across ala 9.234 The lavishly decorated triclinium awaited them, with its large panels reproducing Heracles and Dionysus and smaller ones with cupids and psychae playing music, banqueting and getting ready to join dramatic and lyric choruses. In the Casa del Centenario, dramatic illustrations visually link the atrium and the main triclinium: three scenes from drama grace the atrium while a multi-scene frieze runs around the dining room in a composition similar to the one that we find in the House of the Comedians in Delos. Be they tragic or comic, these are illustrations of Greek plays (with at least some of them also known in their Latin adaptations) placed in an area quintessentially Roman in name, origin and function. The size and decoration of the atrium both reflected and built status, a point stressed by Vitruvius in his sociological reading of the Roman house and well exemplified by the house of Sulla’s stepson, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.235 Scaurus’ house on the Palatine, later sold for the highest sum of money recorded by our sources, had an atrium which measured some 473 m2 and could host up to 2,500 people. Following the example set by the orator Lucius Licinius Crassus, Scaurus had significantly picked the decoration of a public building to decorate his atrium, the gigantic marble columns (over 11 m high) which were part of the scaenae frons he built when aedile in 58 bc. It went to Augustus’ credit that he moved them back to a public building, the regia of the Theatre of Marcellus.236 Closed only as a sign of mourning, Roman doors opened the way not only to the house but also to the family history, with the ancestors’ masks

234

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236

For the dramatic illustrations in this house, see Appendixes 2 and 3. Ala 8 of this house was decorated with a painting showing a poet with an actor (now in Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9038) and another with a poet and a Muse (now in Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9030). Vitr. De arch. 6.5.2 (ed. Krohn): the houses of the nobles are to feature ‘lofty entrance courts in royal style and most spacious atria and peristyles’ along with ‘libraries, picture-galleries and basilicas arranged in a fashion similar to the magnificence of public buildings’. On this oftenquoted passage, see most recently Hales 2003: 27–8. Ascon. Ped. On behalf of Scaurus p. 27 C, Plin. HN 36.5–7, Quint. Inst. 5.13.40. See Coarelli 1996: 348–56. For Crassus’ house, the first to have been adorned with columns also originally meant for a stage, see Plin. HN 36.7, 17.6; see also Val. Max. 9.1.4. The crossover between theatre and domestic architecture is, to my knowledge, first attested for Alcibiades, who forced Agatharchos, apparently a skene-maker (Suda α 109), to adorn his house (Plut. Alc. 16.4).

Drama, houses and identity

dominating the atrium.237 Stored individually in wooden cupboards to be carried out only for the funeral parade, the imagines were identified by labels, with a painted family tree explaining the connection between them.238 In the houses of the wealthy, the ancestors’ vigilant eyes greeted clients eager to get their dole and guests and visitors waiting to be received, next to supervising all the family rituals that took place in the atrium, from coming-of-age ceremonies to wedding and mourning rites. Although Pompeii did not yield imagines, bronze busts of the owner and his father or grandfather were found next to the entrance to the tablinum in several houses, including the Casa di Caecilius Iucundus, where they were set not too far from the tragic scenes reportedly painted in the atrium and now completely faded. The atrium was truly ‘the theatre of memory’, as Romizzi (2006: 120) calls it, and the presence here of illustrations of Greek drama next to imagines, owners’ portraits and various displays of family history and prestige plays into the multi-layered process of identity and selfportrayal with which the Romans were so obsessed, while also bespeaking their complex fascination with things Greek.239 Although subject to Roman updating, in the Vesuvian area of the Late Republic and Early Empire as elsewhere later on, these illustrations are and remain Greek. So are they also when we meet them next, mostly concentrated in the imperial Greek East.

Drama, houses and identity: Menander’s comedy as a cultural symbol Waves of fashions, Pliny the Elder writes, came to Rome on the back of conquests, displayed in triumphal parades passing through the streets of Rome on their way to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. The triumphs of Scipio Asiagenes in 189 bc and Manlius Vulso in 187 bc launched the fashion of chased silver, ‘Attalic’ cloth and dining couches in bronze.240 Mummius’ sack of Corinth in 146 bc made people crazy for Corinthian bronzes and paintings, and, about a century later, Pompey’s victory over Mithradates VI made myrrhine ware very popular.241 Other triumphs were just as trend-setting. Lucullus’ triumph after his campaigns in the East 237

238

239 241

On closed doors, see, e.g., Tac. Ann. 2.82 (more references in Wallace-Hadrill 1988: 46 with n. 12). Flower 1996: ch. 7 discusses the presence of the imagines in the atrium. See, for instance, Livy 8.40.3–5, 10.7.11 (tituli); Plin. HN 35.6 (family trees). See Flower 1996: 207, 211–17, with more references and detailed discussion. On this vast topic, see Gruen 1992: esp. 269–70. 240 On Vulso’s triumph see also above. Plin. HN 37.6–7. On Roman triumphs, see Beard 2007.

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allegedly drove the Romans into luxury; Augustus’ conquest of Egypt ushered in the fashion for Egyptianizing motifs first in court circles and then vertically through society.242 But the importing of fashions and luxury items by means of conquest and booty, Wallace-Hadrill writes, is only part of the story: what is missing, in his perspective, are the other two segments of the ‘three-stage wave pattern’ that he reconstructs in Roman material culture. Once the Italian centres appropriated exotic goods coming especially from the East, they also appropriated their manufacture, initially with the help of foreign craftsmen. Later on, they exported the now transformed end-products to markets all across the Empire, fuelling local reproduction. This three-stage wave pattern maps onto an overarching chronological scheme: importing characterizes the first and early second century bc, home reproduction marks the very Late Republic and Augustan period, while exporting is the mode of the Empire. It also maps onto the hot debate of Hellenization and Romanization, which have now become too tightly interconnected to be treated as separate things. In this scheme, Rome is the big heart which draws blood to itself only to pump it out again, Romanized.243 Illustrations of New Comedy and Greek drama in general are hard to fit into this scheme revolving around Rome. For us, they first appear in Italy, painted on the walls and reproduced on the floors of the houses in the Vesuvian area, with Dioscurides’ Synaristosai and Theophoroumene mosaics as the earliest exemplars. Dioscurides came from Samos and probably had direct knowledge of the models he so skilfully reproduced. This is probably not the case of the painter of the Theophoroumene fresco from Stabiae or of the artist of the now fragmentary Theophoroumene mosaic also from the Vesuvian area. In all likelihood, they were both working with copybooks.244 In the process of home reproduction in Italy as elsewhere, dramatic scenes come to be misinterpreted, re-elaborated, updated and even Romanized. The huge Roman tibia in the Theophoroumene excerpt from Pompeii joins company with the Pannonian cap in the Chania mosaic of (probably) Sikyonioi probably dated to the fourth century ad. Romanization can be detected in the details and is, indeed, part of the transforming process of reproduction. But this does not make illustrations of Greek drama Roman. Consider the chronology and the geography of illustrations reproducing Menander’s drama after the Early Empire: Ephesus (later second or first half of the third century ad), Daphne (apparently second or third), Zeugma (probably 242

243

Ath. 12.543a (Lucullus’ triumph). On ‘Egyptomania’ in Rome, see Wallace-Hadrill 2008: 357–9 with earlier bibliography. Wallace-Hadrill 2008: ch. 8, esp. 360–1. 244 See p. 166.

Drama, houses and identity

first half of the third), Chania (probably fourth), Mytilene (probably later fourth), Kastelli-Kissamou (possibly fourth or fifth) and Ulpia Oescus (fourth or fifth). They outnumber the comic illustrations commissioned by houseowners in the Roman West, the mosaics from Hadrumetum (c. ad 190–210), Brindisi and Baia (second century ad).245 Other illustrations from this part of the Empire are harder to fit into Menander’s iconographic tradition: both the comic character on the Cordoba mosaic and the scene from Villa di Piazza Armerina may illustrate brand-new plays or just stand for ‘comedy’.246 Unlike the Romans, the Greeks identified their scenes by recording play-titles, characters’ names and even act numbers. Their labels turn the general into the specific, keen on advertising comic illustrations as illustrations of Menander’s drama. The evidence is tilted towards the Greek-speaking area, just like that for theatre-related monuments in general. In the years ad 50–180, there is a decrease in their production, a decrease which reaches almost 30 per cent after ad 180. Within this picture of general decline, the Greek-speaking East, along with the peripheral areas of the Roman West, records an increase of interest in comic monuments. Rome played a major role in the years from 50 bc to ad 50, but later on the emphasis shifted elsewhere.247 It is tempting to link this ‘efflorescence’ (or revival?) of Menander mosaics in the imperial East, at least in its initial stage, to the archaizing movement of the Second Sophistic, which spans from the mid-first to the mid-third century ad. In the face of Roman political domination, the conquered Greeks turned to their glorious past, the past declaimed about by the sophists, written about by figures like Plutarch and Pausanias and celebrated in various forms.248 Illustrations of Menander’s drama may also have a spot in the way the imperial Greeks reinforced their cultural identity, firmly rooted in Classical Athens. They question the scholarly claim that imperial Greeks defined themselves by means of their language, with little interest in material culture.249 Imperial Greeks had amphitheatres and 245

246

247

248 249

I leave out the mosaics from Grand and the fragment from Avenches because they graced not a house but apparently a civil basilica and perhaps a bath-complex respectively. See the references given in Appendix 2. Green (forthcoming) convincingly identifies the Brindisi mosaic as illustrating Samia. This may also be the case of the scene on the Patras mosaic and the graffito from the Tomba dei Ludi in Cyrene. See further Appendix 2. MNC3 1.54, fig. 1; 69; 72 (decline in the production of comic monuments); 72; 73, fig. 13 (shift towards the East). Bowie 1970 is still fundamental. See also Swain 1996. So Woolf 1994: 128, who speaks of the ‘very marginal role played by material culture in Greek self-definition’. On the relationship between Greek identity under Roman rule and material culture, see also Ewald 2004, who focuses on the so-called Attic sarcophagi, which were made in second- and early third-century ad Athens and which reproduce a range of mythological

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bath-complexes built around them. Greek-speaking patrons were not unfamiliar with Roman themes in domestic iconography (consider scenes of gladiators, for instance), but they do show a consistent attachment to Menander’s drama.250 Painted on walls or inlaid in floors, these illustrations testify and reaffirm Greekness in the East, to survive, amazingly, the crisis of the third century ad and flourish in Late Antiquity. Rhetors such as Phrynichus could question the Greeks’ obsession with Menander, celebrated ‘throughout the Greek world’. The learned public could opt for Aristophanes and his purer Attic, as the number of our Menander and Aristophanes papyri suggest.251 But house-owners had no doubt: Menander and his drama were part of their glorious Greek past.

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251

themes strikingly different from those in Rome. Ewald relates these differences to the cultural phenomenon of the Second Sophistic, concluding that ‘acquiring an Attic sarcophagus was one cultural practice of many through which one could experience and define oneself as “Greek” in the “Second Sophistic”’ (p. 267). Bruneau 1981 considered the mosaics from imperial Greece impervious to contemporary trends, but his picture has been rightly corrected by both Hellenkemper Salies 1986 and Dunbabin 1999: ch. 12. Phrynichus, Selection of Attic Verbs and Nouns 394 F (Men. T 119 K-A). See further p. 257.

4

Menander in schools

As is standard in ancient biographies, Ferrandus’ Life of Saint Fulgentius also touches upon the education of Fulgentius, the late fifth- and early-sixthcentury bishop of Ruspe, in Tunisia, who was canonized as a Christian saint. Fulgentius learnt Greek before Latin, following the scholastic tradition keenly enforced by his mother, who wanted her son to speak as if he had been raised in Greece, even if he was to live among the Africans. So well did Fulgentius master this language that, as a schoolboy at least, he was able to ‘recite from memory the whole of Homer and also go through many passages of Menander’.1 It is not a coincidence that Ferrandus names Homer and Menander together. These two authors are also coupled in the invective of Christian writers who, in the face of their thorough schooling in the Classical tradition and its authors, often battled against them. Venantius Fortunatus, the priest-poet active in mid- and late fifth-century ad Gaul, and Dadon, the seventh-century ad bishop of Rouen, both mention Homer and Menander in the same breath to exemplify pagan literature, with its futility and corrupting influence.2 It is of little importance that in the Merovingian period there was little of Menander to read: following a trend that runs deep in antiquity, Menander remained associated with Homer even in the memories of those who did not know his drama. Homer and Menander are the ‘basics’ (prima) that Ausonius urges his grandson to learn in the fourth century ad; the two authors whose lines the slave-boy Glaucias declaims for his father and teachers under the Early Empire; two of the poets invariably included in the reading lists prepared by Greek and Roman authors alike, even the briefest and most cursory ones.3 Next to associating Homer and Menander visually, the Menander herm that apparently graced Aelian’s villa in Rome also traces the origins of this 1

2

3

Ferrandus, Life of Saint Fulgentius 1 PL 65, p. 119B (Men. T 136 K-A). On bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe, who is most probably to be identified with the mythographer Fulgentius, see Courcelle 1969: 220–3. Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina 7.12.27; Dadon, Life of Saint Eligius, praef., MGH, Script. rer. Merov., 4, p. 665.8 K (Men. T 137, 138 K-A). Auson. Protrepticus ad nepotem 45–7, Stat. Silv. 2.1.113–9 (Men. T 128, 96 K-A). On ancient reading lists, see below.

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tradition. Addressed to Menander, the epigram inscribed on it claims that ‘the famous grammarian Aristophanes, wise judge of your writings, gave you the second place, straight after him’.4 To be on a par with Homer is no small affair. Homer remained, throughout antiquity, the founding father of Greek literature and culture, the bedrock of ancient education, ‘not a man, but a god’, as a student wrote on his wax tablet during the Roman period.5 That Menander was associated with him powerfully bespeaks the role that Menander played in literary training and culture in general. That this association consistently recurred over time, century after century, from Aristophanes to Dadon, also powerfully bespeaks the inertia that characterizes ancient education. As the works by Morgan (1998) and Cribiore (1996 and 2001a) have stressed, with their detailed review of both elite sources and school-related papyri, ancient education was largely based on a widely approved body of knowledge made up of select authors and select texts. The end-product of the enkyklios paideia, what the Greeks called the pepaideumenos, was an ‘all-round’, thoroughly prepared individual repeatedly exposed to the same material and authors.6 As the product of a process with generally consistent features over time and place, the pepaideumenos too presented similar characteristics over time and place. Schools notoriously played a key role in the survival of Classical and Hellenistic literature. Clinging fast to the Early-Hellenistic curriculum, they kept tradition alive and found new ways to rationalize it too. When Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.69), for instance, sings the praise of Menander’s comedies, going as far as judging them the single texts capable of turning students into orators, he is both rehearsing a rhetorical topos and making sense of a long-standing practice. This chapter gathers and discusses our sources for the school use of Menander at all stages of the educational training, with a twin interest in how pupils approached Menander’s plays and how school practices affected the reception of both Menander and his works. Although entire plays did circulate in ancient classrooms, excerpting was a widespread practice, fuelled by obvious practical reasons and by teachers eager to have ancient authorities legitimizing their own moralizing. In the hands of schoolmasters and pupils rather than actors, Menander’s comedies lost their carefully built plots to become a source for whatever was needed. With the primary teacher, beginners met Menander through his 4 5 6

IG XIV 1183c. On this herm, see p. 63. T.Bodl.Ms.Gr.class d159 (p), JHS 13 (1892–3) 296, Cribiore 1996: no. 200. Cribiore 2001b: 241.

Menander and primary teachers

maxims; under the grammarian, they went on to copy longer passages mostly meant as a model for their own speeches in character. In rhetorical schools, Menander’s characters ended up crowding the art of declamation, the ultimate step of the pedagogical training and the defining skill of ancient intellectuals. Excerpting and copying passages of varying length, however, were not the only ways whereby students engaged with Menander and drama in general. Even off public and private stages, Greek plays and especially Menander’s comedies probably retained their appeal as performance texts: now performed by students eager to foster their delivery skills, they were yet to become classics frozen in discoloured stills.

Menander and primary teachers Maxims (gnomai) are as endemic to Greek literature as they are to Greek education. Their popularity in schools well exemplifies the two principles of repetitiveness and economy underlying ancient educational practices: teachers used maxims across time and place, and students worked on maxims at all stages of their training, revisiting them for different reasons and purposes.7 Commonly defined, from Aristotle onwards, as a general statement that either recommends a specific kind of behaviour or warns against it, maxims have a universal character and an easy-to-digest format (typically one line and less often a prose sentence) that made them handy tools for instructing children and shaping their malleable minds.8 As our sources consistently stress, their function is ethical: ‘we learn poetic gnomai as boys’, Aeschines claims (In Ctes. 135), ‘so that we may use them as men’. Probably under the sophists’ influence, both maxims and longer poetic excerpts found their way into anthologies as early as the Classical period to appear first on our papyri in the Hellenistic period.9 By the Early Empire, Quintilian (Inst. 8.5) could offer a long and sophisticated discussion of maxims, classifying them into subtypes and giving instructions on their 7

8 9

On the use of gnomai in ancient education, see Morgan 1998: ch. 4. See also Barns 1950–1; Cribiore 1996: 44–5 and 2001a: 178–9; Morgan 2007: ch. 4. For students’ use of maxims at different levels, see further below. Arist. Rh. 1394a21–5, on which later definitions of gnome are ultimately based. The locus classicus for the presence of gnomic anthologies in the Classical period is Pl. Laws 811, which mentions collections of both kephalaia and whole rheseis drawn from all poets for students to commit to memory. See also Isocr. Ad Nic. 44, who refers to the educational value of the ‘socalled gnomai from the leading poets’. An interesting fragment by Antiphanes (F 111, l. 4 K-A) mentions someone writing kephalaia (‘plots’ or, perhaps less likely, ‘themes’ or ‘key words’ as Denniston 1927: 115 takes it) of Euripides’ plays.

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use and abuse. Copied in anthologies of various formats and hands that circulated throughout antiquity and beyond, and embedded in all kinds of literary works, from poetic to historical, philosophical and rhetorical texts, maxims have a distinctive literary pedigree which differentiates them from proverbs.10 As the sayings of leading authors and cultural icons, they bring with them the stamp of Greekness, lend authority to their speakers and place them in a shared cultural dimension. Students first encountered gnomai at the very beginning of their schooling, when learning how to write under the primary teacher. Although ancient educational theorists prescribe a specific order of progression, from single letters to syllables, entire words and finally sentences, some of our school exercises show that students who had just learnt letters would go on to write entire lines or maxims which they were apparently unable to read.11 This was an exercise in both penmanship and memory training, given that maxims had also to be committed to memory, just like select passages from poetry.12 Maxims communicate select messages. In the fourth century ad, for instance, a student wrote down in his notebook a small group of maxims alphabetically arranged, three of which read: ‘Letters are the greatest beginning of understanding’, ‘A life in need is no life’ and ‘Women and lionesses are equally savage.’13 These are the same maxims found a couple of centuries later in two collections drafted on an ostrakon probably by a teacher.14 Learning letters, dreaming about money and growing misogynistic like real Greeks: next to old age, virtue, fate, family and friends, these are among the major themes recurring over and over in gnomic collections which circulated in ancient classrooms in Egypt. Maxims and their messages inculcated a well-defined set of ethics: wealth, friendship and education, for instance, have many a benefit, dishonesty is to be shunned, virtue and justice to be pursued, tyche (luck) and its instability always to be reckoned with.15 10

11 12 13 14

15

We have over sixty gnomic texts in school hands ranging from the third century bc to the seventh–eighth century ad (Morgan 1998: app. II, pp. 279–81) and some one hundred gnomic texts in all hands from the first century ad onwards (Morgan 2007: 341–4). As Morgan (2007: 6, 84) notes, in some cases maxims also became proverbs and thus entered the oral tradition. Cribiore 2001a: 169 with nn. 34, 35. Pl. Laws 811, Sen. Ep. 33.7, Quint. Inst. 1.1.36; see also [Plut.] Mor. 9e. P.Bour. 1.1, 2, 9 (Jaekel 1964: pap. II, Cribiore 1996: no. 393). O.Mon.Epiph. II 615, 1–2, 4–5 (sixth or seventh century ad; Jaekel 1964: pap. XIII, Cribiore 1996: no. 319), O.Petr. 449.7 (fifth or sixth century ad; Jaekel 1964: pap. X, Cribiore 1996: no. 311). Morgan 1998: ch. 4 provides a full discussion of maxims and their themes. See also Gruber 2010: esp. 291–2, who focuses on the maxims dealing with marriage and often characterizing it pejoratively.

Menander and primary teachers

It is as a gnomic author that Menander figures largest in our schoolrelated records: maxims culled from his plays or attributed to him, the Menander’s Maxims, granted him a prime position in the ancient curriculum. To generations of pupils who did not go beyond elementary schooling, Menander’s name was likely to be associated only with maxims, all the way into Byzantine times and the Middle Ages. The tradition that turned Menander into the gnomic author par excellence is a complex one, which perhaps can be best reconstructed by starting with its end-product, the forty or so medieval manuscripts entitled Menander’s Maxims.16 Rather than being a single, large collection, these are different and partial redactions that, taken all together, contain 877 lines and 866 maxims extracted from a number of authors: comic and tragic poets, the gnomic author Chares, the epigrammatist Palladas, the Life of Aesop and Isocrates’ To Demonikos and To Nikokles. Translated into Coptic in the Byzantine period as one of the very few secular texts which entered Greek-Coptic classrooms, into Arabic in the ninth century and into Slavic in the eleventh, these collections were extremely malleable, fluid and open to remaniement of all kinds.17 A large number of maxims, perhaps as high as 70 per cent, are the product of manipulations and concoctions of teachers and students alike; at one point, even Christian moralists introduced new material, one-liners clearly derived from the inscriptions on the books held by saints in Byzantine iconography.18 After all, if in Late Antiquity Menander could be represented as a visionary sage with mask-like features and wide-open eyes, eventually to acquire a halo in his portrait on the doors of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin, he could also have fathered upon him a saying such as ‘Pray God that you will achieve the end of troubles.’19 At least some of the one-liners that eventually flowed into the Menander’s Maxims took up a life of their own well before the Middle Ages. Dated from the first century ad onwards, there are at least thirty-five records preserving maxims later ascribed to Menander and, as the handwriting makes clear, 16 17

18 19

Jaekel 1964 is the standard edition, but see now also Liapis 2002 and Pernigotti 2008. Coptic translations: P.Lond. VIII fol. 1a + 3b (fifth–sixth century ad); P.Vat.gr. 17 (Jaekel 1964: pap. XIV) + KHM Wien inv. 8594 a–i + 8587 a–d (sixth–seventh century ad) and the ostrakon Vienna K 674 (sixth–seventh century ad). The two papyri contain the same maxims, in both the Greek and Coptic version; given that these maxims are mostly related to education, these texts are very likely to be school-related (Pernigotti 2003a: 77, Cribiore 1999: 283). For the Slavic version of Menander’s Maxims, see Morani 1996 and 2003; for the Arabic one, see Ullmann 1961 and 1965–6. See also Pernigotti 2008: 53–5. Liapis 2002: ch. 8, 2006: 267–9 and 2008. Mon. 354, which is a simplified version of the inscription on St Isaakios’ book-roll. See Liapis 2006: 267. For the Menander portrait in the Kremlin (Men. T 40 K-A), see Easterling 1995: 159, Howlett 1981: 172; for changes in Menander’s iconography in Late Antiquity, see p. 126.

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several of them can be securely placed in a school context.20 They range from one maxim to a small collection of up to twenty-seven maxims alphabetically arranged and penned mostly on ostraka or papyri, at times on the back of a document or account, by teachers and students alike. While anthologies can often be identified as teachers’ models, several records are students’ attempts to copy one or more maxims.21 Sometimes, students were following the example drafted by their teacher on the same document.22 Significantly smaller than their medieval counterparts, ancient gnomic collections vary in both their arranging criterion and the maxims they include, featuring only sporadically the same ones.23 Some anthologies on papyrus are in alphabetic series like the vast majority of the medieval manuscripts of the Menander’s Maxims, but others group maxims under subject-headings such as ‘on wealth’, ‘on virtue’ or ‘on luck’. Some of these thematic anthologies reference excerpts with the name of their author and the title of the work; others include only the author’s name.24 One of these collections, an anthology dated to the second or third century ad (P.Oxy. XLII 3005), may be entirely Menandrean, as suggested by the titles of two or even three of the plays quoted, Kolax, Synerosa and possibly Boeotia. Anthologies of this kind can be easily related to both the collection of Stobaeus, a thematically arranged ‘proto-encyclopaedia’ to Classical literature probably dated to the fifth century ad, and to a major family of manuscripts of the Menander’s Maxims which goes back to the thirteenthcentury monk Maximus Planudes. Exceptionally and somewhat more

20

21

22

23

24

For papyri preserving one-liners, see Jaekel 1964: 3–25, Mariño Sánchez-Elvira and Garcia Romero 1999: 412–36 and especially Pernigotti 2008: 41–50. Small collections probably or securely put together by teachers: JEA 8 (1922) 156–7; P.Oxy. XLII 3004, O.Petr. 449; O.Mon.Epiph. II 615 (Cribiore 1996: nos. 272 [Jaekel 1964: pap. VIII], 255, 311 [Jaekel 1964: pap. X], 319 [Jaekel 1964: pap. XIII]). Individual maxims or collections of maxims probably or securely penned by students: P.Vindob. G. 19999 B, P. Vindob. G. 19999 A, O.Claud. 1.184–6, ZPE 13 (1974) 97–103, P.Bour. 1, BCH 28 (1904) 208–9 (Cribiore 1996: nos. 257 [Jaekel 1964: pap. V], 262 [Jaekel 1964: pap. IV], 194–6, 216, 393 [Jaekel 1964: pap. II], 159 [Jaekel 1964: pap. XV]). Students copying their teachers’ examples: P.Lond.Lit. 253 + ZPE 86 (1991) 231–2, ZPE 17 (1975) 225–35, Enchoria 14 (1986) 8–9, Enchoria 14 (1986) 11–12, ZPE 52 (1983) 291–2 (Cribiore 1996: nos. 383 [Jaekel 1964: pap. XI], 148, 150, 229, 396). See also P.Berol. 21166 with Brashear 1985. Pernigotti 2000 reviews the relationship between ancient and medieval collections of Menander’s gnomai. For collections including both the author’s name and work-title, see, for example, PSI XV 1476 (second or third century ad). For those including only the author’s name, see, for instance, BKT V 2, pp. 123–8 (second century bc). Pernigotti 2007a offers a general discussion of gnomic anthologies on papyrus and their features.

Menander and primary teachers

accurately, the manuscripts linked with Planudes’ redaction attribute these maxims not to Menander but to ‘various poets’.25 Mining Menander for maxims affected the reception of Menander and his drama, now both turned into sponsors of wisdom. From a reception point of view, the most damaging technique in the anthologist’s toolbox is probably decontextualization, which erases proper names, for instance, for easier understanding. Consider the maxim that a schoolboy penned on a first-century ad papyrus, ‘If you are lazy, Phanias, you will be poor.’ By the fourth century ad, it became ‘If you are lazy when rich, you will be poor’, entering in this format the medieval manuscripts of the Menander’s Maxims.26 Evidently, the reader was no longer able to identify Phanias as the name of a comic character, let alone the protagonist of Menander’s Kitharistes, and conveniently altered the line.27 In their search for morally uplifting maxims, teachers found them, or managed to find them, pretty much everywhere. A notorious example, often mentioned because particularly illuminating, comes from the Dis Exapaton, punctually repeated in its Latin adaptation, Plautus’ Bacchides. Mocking an old man who is to be swindled of his money, a slave says: ‘The one whom the gods love dies young.’ Once surgically lifted from its context, this snide, quick-witted remark that turned age into an index of divine hatred became a beautiful and noble expression variously cited and adapted in antiquity and beyond.28 Complex as the ancient tradition of the maxims attributed to Menander and of his drama in general is, it does give us at least some clues on how he came to dominate gnomic collections. His plays started circulating as reading texts very soon. Just a couple of generations after Menander’s death, the Sikyonioi reached Egypt to be penned on a papyrus roll heavily used and glued, a private copy written on commission (P.Sorb. 72 + 2272 + 2273). Not only were Menander’s plays being collected, selected and closely scrutinized by the scholars working in the Library of Alexandria, but they also quickly gained the favour of the broader reading public. A passage from Menander’s Nomothetes, now unfortunately very fragmentary, was included in an anthology dated to about 100 bc.29 Although the 25 26 27

28

29

Jaekel 1964: x–xiii, Pernigotti 2003b: 134–5. P.Vindob. G. 19999 A at 8; P.Bour. 1.17; Mon. 698 [Men. Kitharistes fr. 11 Arnott]. The name Phanias also appears on P.Vindob. G. 19999 A at 1 [Men. Kitharistes fr. 10 Arnott]. P.Oxy. XLII 3004 at 3–4 (first century ad) also contains a proper name, Klitophon. See Pernigotti 2000: 214–15. Dis Exapaton fr. 4 Arnott, Plaut. Bacch. 816–17. Byron put this line into the mouth of his Don Juan (4.12.1) and Oscar Wilde turned it into ‘Those whom the gods love grow young.’ See Arnott 1997a: 169–70, Liapis 2006: 264. P.Giess.r 152, Men. F 253 K-A.

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maxims eventually attributed to Menander are attested only on papyri dated to the Roman period, starting in the first century ad, they were possibly known earlier. Some of them, at any rate, seem to have provided the model for the maxims of Publilius Syrus, a mime writer active in Rome in the mid-first century bc and already heavily quoted in the first century ad.30 From late second- or early third-century ad Fayum comes an ancient though much tinier ‘equivalent’ of the medieval Menander’s Maxims, put together by a student. After penning ten gnomai all starting with omega and so beautifully drafted as to deserve the teacher’s approval (‘well done!’), this student added at the bottom of the papyrus, ‘Menander’s gnomai’.31 Given that one of these one-liners, ‘How beautiful a mind is in a good character’, is by Diphilus, this papyrus is our earliest record for both the attribution and misattribution of maxims to Menander. The two of them went, evidently, hand in hand to become a well-established practice as early as during the Empire. The switch from the thematic to the alphabetic arranging criterion, scholarly theories hold, played a crucial role in foisting gnomic collections on Menander. The ‘proto-collection’ often envisaged as originating the extant collections was a thematic one, referenced with the original authors’ names, which dropped out when the alphabetical arrangement took over.32 Regardless of whether such an Ur-collection can actually be postulated, it is intriguing that Menander was the author who at one point came to provide a name-label for collections of maxims drawn from multiple sources that had already long been in circulation. Morgan (2007: 223–4) identifies two main requirements for an ancient author to become gnomic, linguistic accessibility and general popularity, although neither criterion is set in stone. When compared with their original, Classical version, the language of a number of the Menander’s Maxims has been clearly simplified and streamlined not to tax young students’ reading skills, a process which could make reader-friendly even an author as hard as Aeschylus.33 Moreover, if popularity alone was sufficient to turn an author into a source for maxims, the largest role would be played by Homer, who is, however, surprisingly little attested in gnomic collections. .

30

31

32

33

Jaekel 1964: xviii, Liapis 2008; but see also Lucarini 2003. On Publilius Syrus’ maxims, see Panagiotakes 1998, Morgan 2007: esp. 87–8. P.Giss. 348 [Jaekel 1964: pap. III], on which see Kalbfleisch 1928. Brashear 1985 suggests that the student and teacher who drafted this papyrus were the same ones who penned P.Berol. 21166. Görler 1963: 119–47, Liapis 2002: 73–6. Pernigotti 2000: esp. 228 seriously doubts the existence of a proto-collection in the ancient textual transmission. See Liapis 2006: 266–7 with examples.

Menander and primary teachers

The Menander’s Maxims include many lines lifted from Euripides and often variously adjusted, many more than those by Aeschylus and Sophocles.34 Given that Euripides is also the author ancient sources consistently typecast as ‘sententious’, a feature related to the rhetorical stamp of his drama, he could have been a serious contender for the authorship of these gnomic collections. Already in the mid-fourth century bc, Aeschines could rank Euripides second to no poet in wisdom, citing Euripides’ lines to invite his audience to examine his maxims – maxims Aristotle cites and draws on in his scholarly discussion of gnome.35 In the basic reading list that he drafts for his late learner, Dio Chrysostom names, among others, both Menander and Euripides, but he specifically comments on Euripides’ gnomai, ‘useful for all occasions’ (Or. 18.7). For Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.68), Euripides is ‘full of maxims’, a characteristic he perhaps best displays in Phoenician Women, an everpopular text with grammarians and their pupils.36 A maxim from Euripides’ Phoenix, along with one from Menander’s Plokion (‘no man lives a life without pain’, the most popular of Menander’s maxims), is routinely cited in handbooks’ treatment of gnomai.37 Euripides and his maxims often open the thematic chapters of Stobaeus’ collection, where Euripides is also the best-represented author: Stobaeus cites him some 850 times, significantly more than Menander (some 330 times), who holds the second position in his list of favourite poets.38 When it comes to boasting a solid and long-standing reputation as a gnomic author, Menander can hardly compete with Euripides. One has to wait for Theon’s explanation of gnomai and their use in narrative for a scholarly comment on maxims in Menander’s drama, used ‘often and elsewhere’

34

35

36

37

38

Jaekel 1964: xviii, 143–8. Early anthologies with excerpts from Euripides include P.Berol. inv. 12319, P.Petrie I 3 and P.Yale I 20, all dated to the third century bc. More references in Carrara 2009: 100–31. Aeschin. In Tim. 151, 153. On Aristotle and Euripides’ maxims, see Most 2003: 145 with n. 7. Quotations from Euripides often crop up in fourth-century bc orators (see, in general, Wilson 1996) and Euripides is also the only author to be named in the Rhetoric to Alexander, a fourthcentury rhetorical work that has come down to us under Aristotle’s name. Here, a citation from Euripides’ Philoctetes illustrates how to refute your opponent’s arguments (Rhet. Alex. 1433b 11–14; Eur. Philoctetes TrGF F 797). On gnomai in Euripides’ Phoenician Women, see the author of the second hypothesis, Thomas Magister (Teubner edition, p. 14) and schol. on PW 388. See further Cribiore 2001b: 248–50. Eur. Phoenix TrGF F 812.7–9 and Men. Plokion F 304 K-A (Mon. 570) are variously cited by [Hermogenes], Progymnasmata 4, p. 9 R; Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 4, p. 25 S; and Nikolaos, Progymnasmata 4, p. 26 F. Piccione 2003: 247. On Menander’s presence in Stobaeus, see also Easterling 1995: 158.

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(πoλλαχoῦ μὲν ἀλλαχόϑι).39 Plutarch (Mor. 712b) adds to the picture by singling out the ‘good and simple gnomologiai’ that run through Menander’s plays as yet another reason why they go so well with the wine. Yet collections of maxims culled from various sources ended up circulating under the name of Menander and not that of Euripides. This can perhaps be explained by reasons related to the nature of Menander’s plays as much as to the function of gnomologies. As Liapis (2008) notes, the obvious starting point is Menander’s texts and their tendency to cite tragedy, more or less verbatim. The best example comes from Aspis, where, as part of the ‘tragedy’ he is staging, the pedagogue Daos recites a string of tragic quotations, several of them duly accompanied by their author’s name: Aeschylus, Euripides, Chaeremon and Carcinus.40 Daos does not include play-titles, but some of these lines were popular enough in fourth-century bc Athens for audiences to recognize them immediately. Tragedy-like situations, often highlighted by tragic-sounding lines, also abound in Menander: the messenger speech in Sikyonioi, for instance, and the arbitration scene in Epitrepontes have Euripides written all over them.41 As easy mines for anthologists looking for gnomai, passages like these facilitated the attribution of alien material to Menander. Consider one of the maxims dished out by Daos, ‘there is no man who is blessed in every way’. Said by Bellerophon, this is the opening line of Euripides’ Stheneboea, but it is hard to tell whether this verse owed its popularity to Euripides or to those who variously cited it. From Aristophanes to Philippides, comic poets eagerly stole it: one of Nikostratos’ characters, for instance, cites it to praise Euripides for ‘concisely . . . fitt[ing] life into one line’. Aristotle also makes it one of his examples when discussing the use of gnomai. This line was bound to have a long-lasting popularity as a maxim, but under the name of Menander and as one of Menander’s maxims.42 Scholarly literature may also have helped the case. Both Aristophanes of Byzantium and a certain Latinus documented Menander’s ‘thefts’ from other authors: once Menander had been typecast as freely borrowing 39

40

41 42

Theon, Progymnasmata 4, p. 91 S; see also on p. 92. I am here following the traditional dating of Theon and his work to the first century ad (see Patillon and Bolognesi 1997: viii–xvi), although the fifth century ad remains a possibility (see Heath 2002–3). Men. Aspis 407–32. Here is Daos’ anthology of tragic quotations: Eur. Stheneboea F 661, 1 (407); 71 Chaeremon TrGF F 2 (411); Aesch. Niobe TrGF F 154a, 15–16 (412–13); a line attributed to Carcinus (416); an unidentified tragic maxim (417–18); the opening of Euripides’ Orestes (424– 5); a line ascribed to Chaeremon (425–6) and another from Orestes (232; Men. Aspis 432). For a detailed analysis, see Katsouris 1975: 29–54, 147–50 with references. Eur. Stheneboea TrGF F 661.1, Ar. Frogs 1217, Philippides F 18 K-A, Nikostratos F 29 K-A, Arist. Rh. 1394b2; Mon. 596.

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other poets’ lines, the lines by other poets could more easily have been passed off as Menander’s.43 More broadly, there is a general affinity between gnomic collections and New Comedy, of which Menander was turned into the founding father early on. Making little if any room for government or politics in general, they both focus on the private and the small-scale.44 Unlike Euripides, Menander has no kings and little divine presence. Unlike mythical figures from the distant past, Menander’s characters and their speaking mode, typically the prose-like iambic trimeter, probably provided a closer and more ‘realistic’ vehicle to inform and shape the narrow ethical world of beginner students.

Menander, grammarians and rhetors ‘Grammar’, Dionysius Thrax writes around 100 bc, ‘is the expertise in the general use of poets and prose writers’ and is made up of six parts: accurate reading, explanation of literary devices, comments on diction and subjectmatter, etymologies, analogy and finally the critical study of literature.45 Quickly borrowed by the Romans via Varro’s translation, this definition also found its way into Quintilian’s handbook, where, through some editing, grammar becomes ‘knowledge of proper speaking and interpretation of the poets’.46 Focus on poetry is the feature that remained stable in the study of grammar: with the exception of fables and didactic works ascribed to Isocrates, prose was confined to higher studies under the rhetor.47 A ‘typical’ student attending the grammarian’s school had mastered writing but had yet to develop a fluent, experienced hand, something which allows us to identify the records produced at this stage. But we also hear of students working under a grammarian and a rhetor at the same time: although advanced enough to move onto the last stage of their school training, at least some pupils kept joining the grammarian’s lectures. A practice recommended by Quintilian, co-schooling of these two teachers was common

43 44 45

46

47

Porphyr. 408, 62 F Smith, Euseb. Praep. evang. 10.3.12, Men. T 76, 81 K-A. On this aspect of gnomic collections, see Morgan 1998: 141. Dionysius Thrax, GrGr 1.1, p. 5–6, ch. 1. This is the only part of Dionysius’ treatise to be unanimously considered genuine. Varro, Gramm. Rom. Frag. 234 F, Quint. Inst. 1.4.2. On grammar and grammarians, see Bonner 1977: ch. 16; Morgan 1998: ch. 5; Cribiore 2001a: ch. 7; McNelis 2007. Kaster 1988 focuses on the grammarians’ social role in Late Antiquity. Poetry, however, also had a place on the rhetors’ agenda: Cribiore 2007: 157–65 collects and discusses the evidence. See also below.

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enough among the Greeks to be still part of the training of Libanius (and possibly of some of his students too) in fourth-century ad Antioch.48 The ‘field of action’ of the grammarian and the rhetor was also blurred by the progymnasmata, the ‘preliminary exercises’ devised to build up students’ writing skills by exposing them to carefully graded drills and compositions. The progymnasmata were known already in the fourth century bc and were part of the curriculum in both Greek and Roman schools, but the Greeks seem to have generally regarded these exercises more highly. This is most clearly indicated by the scholarly attention they devoted to them: from the first to the fifth century ad, several Greek rhetors – Theon, [Hermogenes], Aphthonios and Nikolaos – wrote on progymnasmata, detailing the content and scope of each exercise.49 In the order that became standard in school handbooks, the fable (mythos) was among the first exercises students would practise along with the narrative (diegema or diegesis), the anecdote involving a famous man (chreia) and the closely related maxim (gnome).50 Next came confirming or refuting a statement (kataskeue and anaskeue), elaborating on a commonplace (topos or koinos topos), praise (enkomion), invective (psogos) and comparison (synkrisis). Later on, students engaged with the ‘speech in character’ (prosopoiia or ethopoiia), the description of a person, object, event or place (ekphrasis), the elaboration on a broad question (thesis) and the introduction of a law (nomos). While in Greek schools the progymnasmata were the province of the rhetor (although Libanius had assistants to help him out, for instance, he supervised them himself), the Romans allowed more flexibility.51 Rhetors who confine their duties to declaiming alone annoy Quintilian (Inst. 2.1–12) as much as grammarians who take on more than they should, breaking into the most advanced progymnasmata. Since the earliest exercises such as maxim and anecdote were basic ones, revolving around verb inflection and word declension, Quintilian suggests leaving them to the grammarian, with the rhetor

48 49

50

51

Quint. Inst. 2.1.12–3, Cribiore 2007: 32. There is only one Latin handbook on progymnasmata, written by Priscian in the sixth century ad. On progymnasmata, see Webb 2001, Morgan 1998: 191–2, Cribiore 2001a: 221–30. The authorship of the short work on progymnasmata traditionally attributed to Hermogenes is debated, just like its date. See Kennedy 2003: 73. The order followed here is from Aphthonios’ most influential handbook, which is also provided with examples. There are some slight changes in the order of these exercises, as summarized by Kennedy 2003: xiii; see also Webb 2001: 296–8. Quint. Inst. 2.1.1–2, Lib. Or. 34.15; but see also Theon, Progymnasmata 1, p. 59 S, who complains about contemporary rhetors skipping progymnasmata. Libanius also wrote model compositions for his students, which are translated into English by Gibson 2008. See also Schouler 1984: 51–138, Cribiore 2007: 143–7.

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stepping in as soon as the student reaches the narrative.52 By the time of Suetonius, however, the grammarian had apparently taken over all the preparation for declamation.53 ‘Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Euripides, Menander, and the rest’: these are, Sextus Empiricus writes, the poets whose works the grammarian seems to interpret. More than interpreting them, Lucian points out in a graphic expression, there are many people who ‘pick [them] to pieces’ (κατακνίζουσι).54 Since close reading of the texts went hand in hand with the selection of specific passages, ‘picking to pieces’ makes good sense both figuratively and practically.55 It should come as no surprise that moralizing played an important role as an excerpting criterion for one-liners and longer passages alike, and that at least sometimes maxims can be traced back to longer passages concerned with ethics and etiquette and meant to impart some kind of instruction to pupils. Consider this speech from Menander’s Kitharistes, all focused on wealth, rich and poor, and the hardships of human life:56 ᾤμην ἐγὼ τοὺς πλουσίους, ὦ Φανία, οἷς μὴ τὸ δανείζεσϑαι πρόσεστιν, οὐ στένειν τὰς νύκτας οὐδὲ στρεφομένους ἄνω κάτω ‘οἴμοι’ λέγειν, ἡδὺν δὲ καὶ πρᾷιόν τινα ὕπνον καθεύδειν, ἀλλὰ τῶν πτωχῶν τινα κακοπαϑίαν ταύτην ἰδίαν [ἐ]λογιζό [μ]ην. νυνὶ δὲ καὶ τοὺς μακαρίους καλουμένους ὑμᾶς ὁρῶ πονοῦντας ἡμῖν ἐμφερῆ. ἆρ’ ἐστὶ συγγενές τι λύπη καὶ βίος; τρυφερῷ βίῳ σύνεστιν, ἐνδόξῳ βίῳ πάρεστιν, ἀπόρῳ συγκαταγηράσκει βίῳ. οὐδεὶς [ἀλύπως γἀρ] βεβίωκ’ ἄν[ϑρωπος ὤν I used to think, Phanias, that rich people who never need to borrow money, not in anxiety spent their nights, turning this way and that with sighs, but in a sweet and easy sleep they slept. I thought that this 52

53 54

55 56

1

5 5A

10

1

5

Quint. Inst. 2.1.8–12. On the easiest progymnasmata, see Theon Progymnasmata 5, pp. 101–2 (chreia), 3, p. 74 S (fable). See also Theon’s discussion of narrative (4, p. 85 S), which is, however, a more elaborate exercise. See further Webb 2001: 298–9. Suet. De grammaticis et rhetoribus 25.4 with Kaster 1995: 279–80; see also Webb 2001: 296. Sext. Emp. Against the Professors 1.58; Luc. Hesiod 5 (said by Hesiod about his and Homer’s works). But see below for the circulation of entire plays in schools. Men. Kitharistes fr. 1.1–11 Arnott. The last two lines of this excerpt are badly damaged.

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was a trouble of the poor only. But now I see that even the so-called happy ones have worries just like us, the poor. Can pain and life be brothers? Pain lives in a life of luxury, sits by a life of fame and grows old inside a life with no means. No man has ever lived without pain.

5A

10

Both Plutarch and Stobaeus knew this passage and variously cited it.57 Extracted from this context, line 8, ‘Can pain and life be brothers?’, enjoyed quite some popularity as a maxim: written by a schoolboy on a papyrus in the second century ad, it was also included in later gnomic collections, cited by Diogenes Laertius and parodied by John of Gaza.58 The longest version of this speech comes from a third-century ad papyrus that writes out the text without verse division, as if it were prose, adding a few new lines and condensing others. Given its format and general character, this was an excerpt rather than a longer text, almost certainly meant for school purposes.59 Another excerpt generally ascribed to Menander well exemplifies both teachers’ concerns in reading and excerpting their sources and ancient authors’ practice of recycling lines learnt as schoolboys. Worried about his (probably love-struck) young master and trying to gain his confidence, a slave defends the value of his advice by noting that an enslaved body is often the seat of a free mind. Familiar to a few ancient authors such as Cicero and Lucian, this little speech also entered a student’s anthology in the second or first century bc.60 Philosophizing passages like this one, centred on the distinction between right and wrong, slaves and free, or wealth and poverty, are the flesh and blood of the anthology that Stobaeus wrote for his son Septimius. Across time and place, dramatic speeches rather than dialogues were the anthologists’ choice. This is the tendency that guides Stobaeus, for instance, 57

58

59

60

Plut. Mor. 466a cites 1–5 and 8–10 and paraphrases 6–7. Stob. 4.33.13 cites 1–7 (omitting 5A) under the heading ‘Comparison between poverty and wealth’. P.Schub. 29.5 (Jaekel 1964: pap. VI.5); P.Mil.Vogl. 1241.15; Mon. 54 (also included in the Slavic translation of Menander’s gnomai). See also Stob. 4.34.54, Diog. Laert. 7.68, John of Gaza, Ecphrasis, Proem. 1. P.Turner 5 with Handley’s comments (1981). Pernigotti 2007b: 906–7 notes that the three main versions of this speech, P.Turner 5, Plutarch and Stobaeus, cannot derive from the same source. P.Freib. III 12, Adespota F 1027 K-A, Fabula Incerta 4 Arnott. Lucian (Zeus tragoedus 1) quotes with slight variation lines 1 and 3–4 and paraphrases 2; Cicero (Att. 13.42.1) echoes the beginning of the opening line. Lines 7–8 made their way into the Comparison between Menander and Philistion 2.131–2 J.

Menander, grammarians and rhetors

and that can be traced back at least to our earliest school anthology with an excerpt probably by Menander: the collection put together by a teenager, Apollonios son of Glaukias. Schooled in the temple of Sarapis at Memphis in the mid-second century bc, Apollonios set two tragic fragments from Euripides’ Medea (5–12) and Aeschylus’ Cares or Europe (TrGF F 99, 1–23) next to an entrance speech delivered by a comic man, probably a young man, who has experienced some kind of philosophical conversion and is now a born-again thinker.61 Arnott suggests that this entrance speech came from the very beginning of the play, something which is in line with the overall popularity of opening scenes. They have pride of place among our excerpts from Menander. In discussing the progymnasma of narrative, Theon cites the beginning of a few of Menander’s plays, Dardanos, Xenologos and probably also Epikleros.62 By giving a quick account of the background action, these passages conveniently taught students how to structure their own narratives. Cited by school manuals as an example of an invented character and speaker (prosopopoiia), Menander’s personification of elenchos, ‘disproof’, may offer another instance of the independent circulation of opening scenes. Menander’s elenchos was a prologue speaker and prologues often, though not invariably, coincide with opening scenes.63 The tendency to concentrate on the beginning of Menander’s comedies, a tendency which holds true of literary works in general, has a good, practical motivation. The physical structure of a papyrus is delicate and needs care in rolling and unrolling; unlike the codex, the papyrus did not facilitate a reader’s perusal through a text.64 Of course, excerpts could also be lifted from elsewhere in a play. Consider the extracts from Menander’s Kolax on two second-century ad papyri which, as their footnotes make clear, were used in schools. Three of them preserve a speech.65 The last passage is delivered by a pimp envisaging the problems that he will have with the play’s young man in love: the young man, he suspects, will come in with his mates, yell and take the girl away, forcing him to resort to legal ways, to witnesses and the nuisance that comes with a law-suit. This pimp, like New Comedy characters in general, is aware 61

62 63

64 65

P.Didot 2 (P.Louvre 7172), Adespota F 1001 K-A, Men. Fabula Incerta 2 Arnott, Cribiore 1996: no. 244. Theon, Progymnasmata 4, pp. 91–2 S; Men. F 105, 255, 129 K-A. [Hermogenes], Progymnasmata 9, p. 20 R, Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 11, p. 45 S; Luc. Pseudolog. 4 (Men. F 507 K-A). See also below on Thrasonides’ speech in Misoumenos. Morgan 2007: 265 with n. 20. P.Oxy. III 409 + P.Oxy. XXXIII 2655, on which see also p. 80. Speeches are found on excerpts A (apparently ‘an expository entrance monologue from early in the play’, according to Arnott 1996b: 162), C (a slave addressing his master) and E (a pimp’s speech).

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of legal rules and institutions and is familiar with disputes. As Scafuro (1997) has shown, Greek and Roman New Comedy revolve around disputes, with their complications and their resolutions, and they are populated by characters who display a ‘forensic disposition’. They show the degree to which law filtered into the world of the plays and the interest audiences evidently had in this kind of scenarios. The same interest in debates was shared by ancient teachers training future speakers. When Quintilian comments on the benefits of reading Menander, he helpfully indicates where Menander best displays his rhetorical skills: ‘the forensic pleadings (iudicia) of Epitrepontes, Epikleros and Locrians and the practice speeches (meditationes) of Psophodees, Nomothetes and Hypobolimaios are not devoid of all the constituent parts of rhetorical speeches’. Two of the passages that he singles out, the forensic speeches of Epitrepontes and Epikleros, also come up in a second-century ad treatise, Art of Political Speech, where they are cited as examples of speeches without a preamble.66 These fictional court cases were evidently common anthology pieces, dissected into bits and pieces to serve as a training ground for ancient wouldbe-lawyers. Against this background, it is not surprising that in antiquity Menander came to be credited with the speeches composed by Charisios, a contemporary of Demosthenes.67 At least occasionally, dialogues also made their way into anthologies. Consider another well-known Menandrean excerpt, the beginning of Misoumenos. Walking up and down the alley in the middle of the winter, the soldier Thrasonides opens the play with a love-troubled address to the Night. He is an exclusus amator, one of the shut-out lovers who will become so dear to Roman elegy with a clear comic twist. Thrasonides has not been locked out, but has locked himself out to test the affection of his slave-girl Krateia, a failed ruse which throws him right into the world of the lonely and desperate heroes of tragedy. Interestingly, Thrasonides also departs from the typical shut-out lover by speaking rather than singing his paraklausithyron.68 Here, Menander has passed up a good opportunity to write a song. This is a point Thrasonides’ slave, Getas, perhaps refers to when he walks onto the stage and comments on the unconventional behaviour of his

66

67 68

Quint. Inst. 10.1.70 (Men. T 101 K-A); Anonymous Seguerianus, Art of Political Speech 33–4. The speeches of Epikleros, the Anonymous mentions (33), were indicated as speeches without a preamble by Alexander, a rhetor often cited in this work. On both authors, see Dilts and Kennedy 1997: x–xii. Quint. Inst. 10.1.70. See, for instance, Ar. Eccl. 960–75 (with Olson 1988), Plaut. Cur. 147–54, Plut. Mor. 753a–b.

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master, who ‘walks around doing all this philosophizing’.69 Quoted in bits and pieces by a number of authors, Thrasonides’ speech is preserved in its entirety by a school papyrus that also goes on to include his exchange with Getas.70 The great popularity of this excerpt, one suspects, may also have something to do with the second title of the play, Thrasonides. As often, the name of the main character provides an alternative title for plays; in the case of Misoumenos, this tendency could have been further fostered by the fact that Thrasonides is also the speaker of its most famous excerpt.71 The soldier in love who opens Misoumenos, the faithful slave who tries to discover his master’s secrets in an unidentified comedy, the poor man of Kitharistes who convinces himself that, after all, the rich do not live any better than him – the Menandrean excerpts that students copied in their anthologies and that literary sources kept citing can also be classified under the heading of ‘character portrayal’. Menander’s skill in drawing his characters is part of the life-likeness that ancient rhetors so often praise about his drama, from Aristophanes of Byzantium, who notoriously wondered whether Menander imitated life or life imitated Menander, to later authors.72 ‘Full representation of life, rich invention, style and adaptation to every circumstance, character and emotion’ are the reasons why Quintilian’s budding orator should carefully study Menander – the same qualities (‘mimesis of every character and charming style’) that Dio Chrysostom singles out when prescribing a helpful reading list to his mature student.73 The pupils who wrote and memorized excerpts from Menander used them as a model of character portrayal when working on their own ‘speeches in character’ (ethopoiiai or prosopopoiiai), an elaborate progymnasma requiring students to compose and deliver speeches according to their context, content and the speaker’s persona.74 The last point was a particularly important one. Theon (10, pp. 115–16 S) details a total of six 69 70

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Men. Mis. 17–18: περιπατεῖ φιλοσο[φῶν / τοσαῦτ(α). I owe this suggestion to Craig Maynes. P.IFAO inv. 89 (Cribiore 1996: no. 290) + P.Köln VII 282, second or third century ad; see also Arnott 1996b: 251–2. On Misoumenos as a school text, see also below. The title Thrasonides is preserved at the end of P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656, on which see below. On alternative titles in Greek and Roman drama, see pp. 93–8. Aristophanes’ famous judgement is preserved by Syrianus’ commentary on Hermogenes’ On Stases 1 (p. 29, 18 R), 2 (p. 22, 25 R); Men. T 83 K-A. Quint. Inst. 10.1.69, Dio Chrys. Or. 18.7; see also Dion. Hal. De imit. II fr. 6.2 (2, p. 207.1 U-R); Men. T 101, 102, 87 K-A. Technically speaking, late handbooks divide this exercise into three types, according to the speaker: ethopoiia (a living person), eidolopoiia (a dead speaker) and prosopopoiia (a personified thing). Whether they emphasize character or emotion more, ethopoiiai are also classified as ethical, pathetical and mixed. Ventrella 2005 collects in Italian translation the definitions of ethopoiia given by the ancient rhetors. On delivering ethopoiiai, see further below.

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criteria to be considered when composing a speech in character: speaker’s age, gender, social status, professional activity, state of mind and origin. Not everybody speaks in the same way. It makes a difference, for instance, whether the speaking character is young or old, man or woman, farmer or soldier, in love or not; unlike an Athenian, moreover, a Spartan will pick few, clear words. Given the importance of language as a characterizing tool, it comes as no surprise that Theon names Menander’s drama as an unsurpassed model of speeches in character, next to Homer’s poetry and the dialogues of Plato and other Socratics.75 The dictum ‘as a man lives, so he speaks’, a mainstay of ancient rhetoric, made Menander’s linguistic characterization particularly appealing, as Plutarch did not fail to note in contrasting Aristophanes and Menander.76 Linguistically speaking, Aristophanes thinks in bipolar terms, Athenians and non-Athenians, be they from Sparta or Persia; his characters lack the individualizing speech patterns of Menander’s, with their socially differentiating words and expressions. Consider Gorgias in his confrontation with another young man, Sostratos, in the second act of Dyskolos. After opening with a maxim on the instability of human fortunes, a thought passed as his own with an emphatic ‘I’ at end of the line, Gorgias goes on to elaborate on the arrogant rich with their shaky prospects and on the earnest poor with their promising future. But good fortune soon turns into a permanent possession that Sostratos, Gorgias recommends, should behave so as to seem to deserve. Sprinkled with logical incoherence and embellished with maxims, antithesis, and old-fashioned and bookish expressions, Gorgias’ rhesis is an appropriate speech for a young man living in the countryside with little exposure to people and speech making.77 Writing in character was a key skill to master, central not only to the speeches in character that students would write under the grammarian or the rhetor but also, of course, to declamations and even to letter writing: ‘the letter, like the dialogue, should abound in characterization’.78 This is, however, a grey area in ancient school practices. Attested in professional schools such as chancery and business schools, letter writing was perhaps first learnt 75

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Theon, Progymnasmata 2, p. 68 S (Men. T 108 K-A). For Menander as a model of prosopopoiia, see also [Hermogenes], Progymnasmata 9, p. 20 R and Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 11, p. 45 S, who both mention Menander’s personification of ‘disproof’ (elenchos). See also above. Quint. Inst. 11.1.3; Plut. Mor. 853c–e. On linguistic characterization in Greek comedy, see Willi 2002: 29–31. Men. Dys. 271–87 with Sandbach 1970: 116–19. Demetr. Eloc. 227 (πλεῖστον δὲ ἐχέτω τὸ ἠϑικὸν ἡ ἐπιστολή, ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ διάλογος); see also Theon, Progymnasmata 10, p. 115 S, Nikolaos, Progymnasmata 10, p. 67 F. On ethopoiia and fictional letters, see Malosse 2005.

Menander, grammarians and rhetors

with the grammarian and later perfected with the rhetor, but it remained always on the fringe of formal training.79 Exceptional as they are in our school records, letters are well preserved in the elegant and refined works from the Second Sophistic, Alciphron’s Letters and Aelian’s Rustic Letters.80 Alciphron and Aelian are roughly contemporary and, being exemplary pepaideumenoi, they are both steeped in the Classical past, as their epistolary fictions show. Drawing heavily from a number of literary sources both to create their characters and to sketch their settings, their letters are tiny rhetorical pieces and formally accomplished compositions admired by the cultural elite. Alciphron and Aelian engage with Menander and his plays on different levels. On the most obvious one, Alciphron writes a correspondence for Menander and Glykera, an example of Alciphron’s infrequent use of paired letters and a sort of ‘miniature romantic novel in the compass of two letters’.81 Their letters are triggered by another, the one sent to Menander by King Ptolemy, with an invitation to join his court in Egypt. Alciphron skilfully uses this detail, which is an historical one, to voice the fears of two lovers facing the horrible prospect of separation.82 He throws into the mix mysterious Egypt with its mighty rivers and renowned monuments and the beauty of Athens with its democratic institutions and festivals. Other letters turn Menander’s characters into correspondents, often mentioning specific plot details with verbal echoes. One of Alciphron’s letters is penned by ‘Leafy’, who urges her son Thrasonides to give up his shield and helmet, harping on a theme familiar to all students: farming and its blessings.83 Two characters from Dyskolos who do not actually meet on the stage, Callippides and Cnemon, correspond in Aelian’s epistles.84 After scolding Cnemon for being a bad neighbour who hurls ‘clods of earth and 79

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81 82 83

84

Cribiore 2001a: 216–19, Rosenmeyer 2001: 32–4, Stowers 1986: 32–4. Letter composition is first treated as part of rhetorical education by the fourth-century ad author Julius Victor, whose treatise Ars Rhetorica features an appendix On Letters. P.Rain.Unterricht 73, dated to the third or fourth century ad, is apparently the only school papyrus related to this exercise: its writer copied the initial part of a letter several times. See Cribiore 1999: 280. On both authors and their works, see Rosenmeyer 2001: chs. 10–11. Philostratus’ Love Letters are sent by anonymous writers to anonymous addressees (see Rosenmeyer 2001: ch. 12); for references to Menander in Philostratus’ Love Letters, see 16 (Polemon’s shaving of Glykera’s hair and his regret), 38 (a prostitute is compared to Menander’s Glykerion) and 47 (a woman from Attica would not ignore Menander’s drama). Alciph. Ep. 4.18–19 (Men. T 20 K-A) with Anderson 1997: 2203. On Menander and Ptolemy, see p. 36. Alciph. Ep. 2.13. On the blessing of farming as a school theme, see Lib. Progymnasmata, Comparison 4, 5 (‘Comparison between sailing and farming’, ‘Comparison between the country and the city’), Themist. Or. 30 (‘Should one engage in farming?’ with Penella 2000: 33–4) and the school tablet (Ms. graec. qu. 36, Pack2 1883) discussed by Cribiore 1992. Ael. Ep. 13–16. On these letters see Thyresson 1964, Hodkinson 2007: 293–4.

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wild pears’ at his neighbours and ‘cries fortissimo when he sees a man’, Callippides invites him to join his sacrifice to Pan. Cnemon’s replies are not hard to imagine: Aelian’s Cnemon, just like Menander’s, envies Perseus, shuns sacrifices and, as far as Pan is concerned, just greets him when he passes by his shrine. Surely, Aelian’s choice of correspondents is a not a coincidental one: writing a letter saves Callippides from Cnemon’s threats and Cnemon from physical contact with his neighbour. Incidents and details taken from the play are punctually repeated (Cnemon’s first letter is all modelled after his entrance speech), with the difference that Aelian’s misanthrope is not forced to join the party at the end of the play. Cnemon the letter writer is frozen in his stereotypical behaviour as a misanthrope. In other letters from the Second Sophistic, debts to Menander and New Comedy in general are vaguer and harder to tie to a specific comedy, but when the widow Epiphyllis is raped by Moschion, a certain Hemeron has gashed his leg just like Kleainetos in Georgos and Chremes complains to Parmenon about the soldier Thrasyleon, the subtext is clearly New Comedy, if not always Menander.85

Plays and summaries The maxims and speeches culled from Menander’s plays, to forge students’ morals and instruct them on how to write a speech in character or a letter, were not the only vehicle whereby Menander entered classrooms. Although excerpting was a consistent and widespread school practice, whole dramas – and entire texts in general– also circulated among pupils. There are at least a few examples for Menander’s comedies. A fourth-century papyrus codex which preserves extensive remains from Misoumenos has a table of fractions on it, a clear indication that this was a school product.86 From a similar context, and not from a monastic library as previously thought, come also the Bodmer papyri of Menander preserving the triad Samia, Dyskolos and Aspis. The discovery of an ethopoiia of Christian content in another codex of the Bodmer Foundation, the Codex of Visions, makes it virtually certain that these papyri belonged to a Christian school in Panopolis.87 Dated to the third or fourth century ad, they were part of a codex of sixty-four pages put together, 85

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Alciph. Ep. 2.35, Ael. Ep. 2, 9. See also Alciph. Ep. 1.15 (the soft and rich young man Pamphilos rents a boat). P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656. See Blanchard 1991: 213, Cribiore 2001a: 200. Fournet 1992. On the school origin of the Bodmer papyri, see also Blanchard 1991, Cribiore 2001a: 200–1.

Plays and summaries

often with various mistakes, by students and teachers alike. Unable to afford a luxury edition, the students and teachers in Panopolis were forced to use, reuse and even rebind this book. Interestingly, two contemporary word lists, one probably also from Panopolis, include some of the names of the characters from Samia, Dyskolos and Aspis (and Epitrepontes too, in one case) – another example of the use and reuse of the same texts at different educational stages.88 Choricius, who writes in the sixth century ad, adds to this picture. Keen on defending mimes from various charges, he plays up the ties that they share with Menander’s comedies to argue against the morally corrupting influence foisted on them. ‘Of Menander’s characters,’ he asks, ‘does Moschion train us to rape girls and Chairestratos to love music-girls? Does Cnemon make us grouchy? Does Smikrines make us greedy, with his fears that smoke could take something away from his house?’89 Choricius is drawing his examples from the comedies that his audiences and readers were more likely to know: Samia, Epitrepontes, Dyskolos and Aspis.90 Not that reading whole texts was the only way for students and readers in general to familiarize themselves with their basic content: summaries or introductions (hypotheses) were a handy short cut at all times and for all works in prose as in poetry. A codex found in Kellis and most probably produced by a grammarian, for instance, contains two favourite school speeches, Isocrates’ To Demonikos and To Nikokles, both prefaced by a fairly short and simplistic hypothesis.91 On a more advanced level, Libanius composed hypotheses to Demosthenes’ speeches to help his students approach these standard school texts.92 More material for summaries came, of course, from the Homeric poems, as shown, for instance, by two school-hand papyri dated to the Roman period: their long and articulated sentence structure and the scholia minora to which they are attached suggest that these were not students’ original compositions but copying exercises.93 88

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P.Chester Beatty (Cribiore 1996: no. 390; Men. T 44 K-A) and P.Bour. 1 (Cribiore 1996: no. 393; Men. T 45 K-A). See Blanchard 1991: 216, who argues that the author of the first papyrus, probably a teacher, also had direct or indirect access to a triad preserving Epitrepontes. Chor. On Defense of Mimes 73 (Men. T 141 K-A): ἢ καὶ τῶν Μενάνδρῳ πεποιημένων προσώπων Μοσχίων μὲν ἡμᾶς παρεσκεύασε παρϑένους βιάζεσϑαι, Χαιρέστρατος δὲ ψαλτρίας ἐρᾶν, Κνήμων δὲ δυσκόλους ἐποίησεν εἶναι, Σμικρίνης δὲ φιλαργύρους ὁ δεδιώς, μή τι τῶν ἔνδον ὁ καπνὸς οἴχοιτο φέρων. On this passage and other references to Menander in Choricius’ speech, see Puppini 1999. For Epitrepontes as a school text, see further below. P.Kell. III Gr. 95 (early or mid-fourth century ad), edited by Worp and Rijksbaron 1997. This codex also contains elementary notes to the beginning of To Demonikos. On its school use, see Worp and Rijksbaron 1997: 28, Cribiore 2001a: 203–4. On Libanius’ hypotheses to Demosthenes, see Gibson 1999. P.Oxy. XLIV 3159 (Cribiore 1996: no. 336: part of the hypothesis of Iliad 7 and of scholia minora); ZPE 4 (1969) 175–6 + P.Oxy. XLIV 3160 (Cribiore 1996: no. 335: remains of scholia minora to

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Papyri have also preserved a significant number of dramatic hypotheses, related above all to Euripides’ tragedies and Menander’s comedies. Euripides figures so largely that hypotheses to Greek tragedies in general go by the name of ‘Tales from Euripides’, even if they are not all by Euripides. Renamed ‘narrative hypotheses’ by van Rossum-Steenbeek, they usually include the play-title, the first line and then the hypothesis itself, a brief prose summary with no didascalic information.94 The surviving exemplars are all dated to the first four centuries ad and about a quarter of them more or less securely belong to a school context. Students took care to write down the content of Euripides’ First Autolykos or Hippolytus Veiled, for instance, or to elaborate rhetorically on Euripides’ Electra.95 Like those of other works, summaries of Menander’s plays circulated in different formats, gathered in collections and prefixed to comedies as well as copied individually. We know of three collections of Menander’s hypotheses, all roughly in alphabetical series. Composed in prose, these are scholarly works interested in more than the précis of the comedy: although they are now fragmentary, in its most complete form each hypothesis included play-title, first line, didascalic comment, plot summary and critical evaluation of the play.96 Also presented as a scholarly work is the hypothesis attached to the Bodmer papyrus of Dyskolos and written in verse like the one prefixed to Heros in the Cairo Codex. The hypothesis to Dyskolos is attributed to Aristophanes of Byzantium, who did write hypotheses for both tragedies and comedies, but its diction, meter and accuracy in plot details surely point to a different author, probably one of the students who copied the text.97 Of a different kind is perhaps the extant prose summary of Epitrepontes. Dated to the second century ad, it was penned on a papyrus scrap later reused to write down an account. This text may have been a short copying exercise

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Od. 1.441–4, hypothesis and some scholia minora of 2, part of the hypothesis of 3) with Morgan 1998: 215–16. See also P.Bon. 1.6 (Cribiore 1996: no. 352), P.Pis. 1 inv. A (Cribiore 1996: no. 356) and JHS 28 (1908) 129 XII, XIII + 43 (1923) 42–3 (Cribiore 1996: no. 274), which are most recently surveyed by van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998: 57–8, 61–2. Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998: 2. See also Zuntz 1955: ch. 5, Barns and Coles 1965, Pfeiffer 1968: 195. Van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998: 1–32. Here are the narrative hypotheses more or less securely belonging to a school context: P.Vindob. G 19766 (Cribiore 1996: no. 192; Euripides’ satyr-play First Autolykos), P.Mich. inv. 1319 (Cribiore 1996: no. 301; a narrative based on Euripides’ Temenos or Temenidae), P.Oxy. III 420 (apparently a rhetorically elaborated hypothesis of Euripides’ Electra) and P.Mil.Vogl. II 44 (end of one hypothesis and beginning of another, Euripides’ Hippolytus Veiled). P.Oxy. X 1235, second century ad (Hiereia, Imbrians), P.Oxy. XXXI 2534, end of first century ad (? HT), P.IFAO inv. 337, second century ad (Dis Exapaton, ? Demiourgos). On the format of these hypotheses, see Parsons on P.Oxy. LX 4020 and van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998: 39–43. P.Oxy. X 1235 is often ascribed to Sellius, who wrote periochae of Menander’s plays. See K-A on Men. T 80 K-A. Handley 1965: 121–2. For Aristophanes of Byzantium’s hypotheses, see Pfeiffer 1968: 192–4.

Declaiming with Menander

rather than part of a collection of hypotheses or a copy of the play.98 Despite their different features, at least some of our Menandrean summaries present the same characteristic: they replace the characters’ names with their roles. This is an element that they share with Menander’s prologue speeches, which also lack names or use them very sparingly, limiting them to those of the main characters.99 The reader of these summaries took from them only a basic and easy-to-remember outline, given in a simplified form that is tempting to associate with the function that Plutarch assigns to ‘poetic hypotheses’. Just like Aesop’s fables and similar works, Plutarch writes, poetic hypotheses are meant to inspire and delight young minds.100 Typically, Menander’s plays are stories of kidnapped babies later reunited with their families and raped girls who find themselves married to their offenders. Invariably full of romance and invariably given a happy ending, they are not too far from fairy tales.

Declaiming with Menander Helpful as they are in training would-be lawyers, Quintilian writes, Menander’s plays are better suited to another category of speakers, at least in his opinion. As he explains, I think, however, that he [sc. Menander] will be more helpful to declaimers because they have to impersonate more characters according to the nature of their controversiae: fathers and sons, bachelors and husbands, soldiers and farmers, the rich and the poor, the angry and the suppliant, the kind and the harsh. This poet portrays them all in an admirably appropriate fashion.101

Declamations are at the core of rhetorical education, the bread and butter of aspiring orators and the pastime of learned Greeks and Romans.102 Unlike 98

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P.Oxy. XL 4020, with Parsons’ comments on ‘the ineptness of the ornamental script’ and ‘the enlarged initial in l. 2, documentary style’. But see also Handley 2011a: esp. 52. P.Oxy. XL 4020, P.Oxy. X 1235, P.Cair. 43227. For names in prologue speeches, see Men. Dys. 6 (Cnemon) and Aspis 110 (Cleostratos). [Plut.] Mor. 14e with Marrou 1948: 229. But see also van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998: 73, n. 50, who is sceptical about the nature of the hypotheses mentioned by Plutarch. Quint. Inst. 10.1.71 (Men. T 101 K-A): ego tamen plus adhuc quiddam conlaturum eum declamatoribus puto, quoniam his necesse est secundum condicionem controversiarum plures subire personas, patrum filiorum, maritorum, militum rusticorum, divitum pauperum, irascentium deprecantium, mitium asperorum. in quibus mire custoditur ab hoc poeta decor. The text given here is the one edited by Winterbottom 1970, who accepts Spalding’s supplement of caelibum before maritorum, which would otherwise be left without a counterpart. The fullest discussion of Greek declamations is Russell 1983. For a general account on declamations in Rome, see Bonner 1977 and 1949. Important recent works include Beard 1993, Bloomer 1997 and Gunderson 2003.

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the Greek meletai, which were differentiated by the characters involved, historical or fictional, Roman declamations were divided according to their nature, deliberative (suasoriae) or juridical (controversiae). Drawn from Greek and Roman history as well as myth, suasoriae asked students to advise, for instance, Alexander to cross the ocean, Cato to marry and Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia.103 As the easiest exercise, they functioned as a transitional stage to the controversiae, the practice speeches that featured some kind of conflict leading to a law-suit.104 The Minor Declamations ascribed to Quintilian, which are variously considered a teacher’s manual or notes taken at Quintilian’s school, well illustrate how students handled a controversia. In its most complete form, each declamation has a title, a brief account of the facts that may also detail the law(s) involved and then excerpts from declamations, sometimes from both sides of the argument, coupled with the teacher’s comments and suggestions. Given that different themes require different strategies of argument to be devised according to the issue of the dispute, identifying the issues generating the conflict (divisio) was a crucial part of the exercise and the subject of increasingly sophisticated theorization from the second century ad onwards.105 Students were also trained to determine the proper persona and narrative background (color) and to punctuate their speeches with earcatching maxims. Managing all these techniques was key to a declaimer’s success. As character sketches provided with a legal case, the controversiae and declamations in general were also, of course, ‘schooling in persona’, as Bloomer (1997) calls them, speeches to be delivered in someone else’s voice or rather in someone else’s voices, since students had to be able to argue both sides of an issue.106 To form his own speech, the budding orator had to master the speech of a range of social roles and social types: as Quintilian points out, declaimers and comic actors shared the number and variety of characters they impersonated.107 Menander, and Greek and Roman New Comedy in general, offered declaimers a repertoire of conventional personae and motifs probably felt more ‘realistic’ than the stepmothers, magicians and plagues often criticized as too fanciful and distant 103

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Sen. Suas. 1.1, Quint. Inst. 3.5.13, Sen. Suas. 3. On suasoriae, see Bonner 1949: 277–87, Clark 1957: 220 (with a list of their themes), Bloomer 2007: 302–4. Tac. Dial. 35.4; see also Quint. Inst. 2.10.1 with Heath 2004: 246. Heath 2004: esp. 305–8 (importance of techniques and strategies of argument in declamations), 3–23 (issue theory in the second century ad). Sen. Controv. 10.5.12, Quint. Inst. 5.13.50. Quint. Inst. 3.8.51. Technically, the declaimer did not impersonate women and slaves but imagined their speech. See Bloomer 1997: 60, n. 5.

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from actual court speeches.108 Comic situations also came in handy to declaimers: of the five themes that Corbeill (2007: 76–81) identifies in Roman declamations under the Empire, only one, the unjust tyrant, finds no place in Greek and Roman comedies. The remaining four – the allpowerful fathers and their sons, the rapist, the slave and the free, as well as the rich and the poor – are all familiar to both comedy and popular philosophy. The declaimers’ audiences, just like those of a New Comedy play, listened to formulaic stories spiced up by the ‘spin’ that declaimers put on them. Although none of our declamations is fashioned after an extant play or closely echoes it, some of them make up first-rate dramatic material.109 Declaimers toyed with fictional mythology, drummed up pseudo-history and competed with comic poets in inventiveness.110 After all, playwriting was among the activities pursued by Greek and Roman men of letters such as Philostratus, the biographer’s father, and Seneca the Younger.111 Consider two cases from the Minor Declamations: two sons are both disowned by their father, one for taking up the ‘profession’ of parasite and the other for using the money he was given to buy his own sweetheart rather than his father’s.112 Greek declamations in general show a preference for figures and themes drawn especially from fifth- and fourth-century bc Athenian history, but more material for potentially fine comedies comes up in Libanius’ ethical declamations.113 These declamations are populated by grouchy and greedy men, for instance, often cast in genuinely comic situations. A grouchy man (δύσκολος) pleads his case to get rid of his talkative wife. A money-loving man (φιλάργυρος) who has fallen for a hetaira makes his case for not paying her fee: he cannot compete with his rivals, 108

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112 113

Tac. Dial. 31.1, 35.4–5, are topical. See also, for instance, Sen. Controv. 3 pr. 12–15; Petron. Sat. 1–4. There is also a Greek instance, Synesius, On Dreams 20, pp. 187–8 T, discussed by Russell 1983: 14, n. 59; 21–2. Quintilian (Inst. 2.10) is aware of the problems related to the selection of declamatory themes and characters but defends this exercise. Kaster 2001 reviews both ancient and modern views on declamations. Russell 1983: 89, n. 7, on Libanius’ declamations; see also Schouler 1984: 503–4. Bonner 1949: 137 comments on the surprising absence of references to both Plautus and Terence in Seneca’s declamations. Rhet. Her. 1.18, Min. Decl. 323. See Winterbottom 1983: 65–6. Philostratus is credited with forty-three tragedies and fourteen comedies (Suda φ 422). As Jones points out (1993: 48), given the continued production of new drama in Athens at this time, ‘these plays were not necessarily recital- or cabinet-dramas’. Quint. Min. Decl. 298, 356; see also Calp. 37. Lib. Decl. 26–51. On history and declamations, see Kennedy 1974, Russell 1983: ch. 6, Cribiore 2001a: 231–8. But see also Heath 2004: 251–3, who notes the few historical themes in Sopatros’ Division of Questions (16 per cent), Hermogenes’ On Stases (about 17 per cent) and Zeno (only one).

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Thrasyleon, Polemon and the young Moschion. Another money-loving man discovers a treasure, a dream come true that, however, soon disappears before his eyes when he finds out that he is now facing a fine twice the value of the treasure. This is another good reason to ask for poison.114 Death looms large in declamations: akin as they are to comedies in their characters and situations, declamations part company with them in the outcome of the conflict that generated them. The necessary background for both genres is a break-up in the social order. Present in comedy only because necessary for the happy ending, social disorder comes at great expense in the world of declamations, where resolutions and twists of circumstances are impossible. Rape is perhaps the best example of how the same motif straddles comedy and fictional speeches alike only to trigger different responses. In comedy, it invariably ends with a pregnancy and with the marriage or reconciliation of raped and rapist; in declamations, it powerfully teaches Roman teenagers the dangers of losing self-control. Rape creates a topsy-turvy world with empowered women having the right of life or death over their offender and rapists left to plead, endlessly, their own case.115 The line between comedy and tragedy is a fine one. When Quintilian recommends Menander to declaimers and when declaimers recycle New Comedy characters and situations, they are all following a long-standing tradition: fictional characters, stock themes and declamations are apparently closely linked from early on. According to Philostratus (V S 481), the Second Sophistic, which ‘represented poor and rich men, heroes and tyrants as well as the named subjects that we draw from history’, was founded by the orator Aeschines, when, exiled from Athens, he was teaching rhetoric in Caria and Rhodes in the years 330– 315 bc. To the same time-frame points Quintilian (Inst. 2.4.41–2): ‘it is generally agreed that speaking on themes invented in imitations of law courts and public councils was a practice instituted among the Greeks around the time of Demetrius of Phaleron’. Following the views current in his day, Quintilian had no doubt that this practice went back to the fourth century bc and specifically to the lifetime of Demetrius of Phaleron, but he could not find out whether it had been invented by Demetrius himself. Although Quintilian challenged with lack of appropriate evidence even those who most forcefully claimed this tradition, it was alive and well, probably also fostering Demetrius’ reputation for ushering in the decline 114

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Lib. Decl. 26, 32 (the reference to Thrasyleon, Polemon and Moschion, who are all well-known Menandrean characters, is at paragraph 38), 31. On these declamations, see also Russell 1996. Quint. Decl. Min. 247, Calp. 25, Sen. Controv. 7.8 (see also Quint. Decl. Min. 309) with Kaster 2001: esp. 333–4.

Declaiming with Menander

of eloquence.116 Interestingly, this kind of declamation came to the forefront when the comedy of character was the dominant comic style in the theatres. Also interestingly, this is about the same period when Theophrastus composed his Characters, brief character sketches half-way between the ethic theorizing of the Peripatetic school and the comic stage. This is not to say that fictional themes and characters with a comic pedigree always and indisputably had centre-stage in rhetorical training from the fourth century bc onwards. This practice made its way into Rome in the Late Republic and became the rule in the Early Empire; as scholars often note, however, there is a trajectory in the themes of declamations under the Republic and the Empire, with a shift of emphasis from realistic to more imaginative cases.117 According to Suetonius, the ‘old controversiae’ were drawn from works of history or recent events, and included specific geographic settings, even though the cases he mentions are hardly more believable than the later ones, at least for modern readers.118 As examples of legal controversiae, the anonymous Rhetoric for Herennius, which was apparently composed in the late first century bc, includes cases that not only involve real laws, characters and facts, but are also more state-focused and politically oriented, with an emphasis on the relationship between the state and the individual. Treason, for instance, is the charge pressed against the quaestor Quintus Caepio for violently opposing the tribune Saturninus, against his father Quintus Servilius Caepio for losing his army to the German tribes in 105 bc, and against Gaius Popilius, who, hemmed in by the Gauls, traded his baggage to save his army. Cicero’s On Invention moves along the same lines as the Rhetoric for Herennius in including political themes drawn from Greek as well as Roman history.119 At least by the time of Seneca the Elder, however, the fanciful and fabulous dominate, with stock characters replacing historical ones in surreal settings and disputes. Removed from real people, themes and legal practices, imaginary cases have many advantages falling under the heading of convenience in the Greek as in the Roman world.120 Easy to export and never obsolete, they did not require any background knowledge in Greek or Roman history and could be presented to a wide variety of students over time and place. Invented laws, stock characters and unreal scenarios served to keep students interested and to force them to focus on the argument by avoiding 116 117 118 119 120

Quint. Inst. 10.1.80; see also Cic. Brut. 37–8. See Russell 1983: 18–19. Bonner 1949: 18–19, 25; Imber 2001: 206; Corbeill 2007. Suet. De grammaticis et rhetoribus 25.5 with Kaster 1995: 283–90. Rhet. Her. 1.21, 24, 25; Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.11, 17, 72. See Corbeill 2007: 72–3. Imber 2001: 206 with earlier literature.

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unnecessary details, while also providing a practical training in the variety of personae they would take up as lawyers.121 Rhetors also found them safe. When declaiming during the ‘open-house days’ before their students’ parents, the political and social elite, they both avoided any comparison and confrontation with the real lawyers and politicians and marked themselves and their profession as ludicrous.122 Posing as disowned sons, poor men and slaves, rhetors eased their often uncomfortable relationship with the ruling class. Steering away from politics was a good way to tame a politically threatening exercise such as declamation, now turned not to real-life cases but to drama. Plays provided characters and situations that declaimers imitated in a general rather than content-specific way; in turn, by quarrying comedies to write their speeches, rhetors and their trainees also left their stamp on them. Two closely related issues are at work. One is the need to give students character-types whose standard characteristics made them both easy to handle and a good training ground in thinking ‘categorically’. The other is the practice of excerpting speeches which best expressed the traits of specific characters to be used in declamations as stock characters. Declamations have no character development, no twists of plot or unexpected accidents: fathers and sons, the miser, the greedy, the rich and the poor are all frozen in their stereotypical behaviour. Lifted from their carefully built plots, it is probably at this juncture that Menander’s characters fully became stock characters.

Rhetors, orators and performance between Greece and Rome Unlike its modern equivalent, ancient education never lost sight of its oral dimension. Trained in public speaking, its end-products were meant, at least ideally, to be fully equipped with the tools that a speaker needs: correct tone of voice, appropriate gestures and a fitting deportment. Delivery, in one word, was not to be overlooked but studiously keyed into any given composition according to its speaker, nature and constitutive parts, as well as its audience – a point rhetorical works are keen on stressing, although with different degrees of emphasis.123 Of the two elements into which delivery was formally divided, voice and gesture, voice generally has the spotlight in 121 122

123

Winterbottom 1982: 64–5, Bloomer 1997. On the ‘open-house days’, see Suet. De grammaticis et rhetoribus 7.2 with Imber 2001: 206, 210. Quint. Inst. esp. 11.3.149–52.

Rhetors, orators and performance

ancient discussions of delivery while gestures and bodily movement tend to be subordinated to style (elocutio). Aristotle’s dismissal of delivery as a ‘vulgar’ aspect of speech-making left its mark on later scholarship, looming large in Cicero’s works and beyond.124 But there were also exceptions: two of Cicero’s contemporaries, Nigidius Figulus and Plotius Gallus, the scholar who established the first school of Latin rhetoric, both wrote on gesture.125 A desideratum for the author of the Rhetoric for Herennius, ‘instruction in delivery is a product of recent foolishness’ for Philodemus of Gadara, a philosopher perhaps in Italy at about the same time.126 By the late first century ad, delivery claimed a larger role in the classroom and proper scholarly treatment. Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria devotes a large section to it, carefully detailing the orator’s movements and deportment with a particular emphasis on hand gestures (11.3.1–184). Schooling in delivery started early on, with accurate reading. As one of the constitutive parts of grammar, it was the province of the grammarian who built on the work of the primary teacher. Instructing on what to read goes hand in hand with how to read it. Ausonius recommends his grandson to read the ‘basics’, Homer and Menander, and ‘through modulation and stress of voice bring out the measureless measures with a scholarly accent and infuse expression in your reading’. ‘Punctuation’, he explains, ‘increases the meaning and pauses give strength to dull lines.’127 Not that reading was easy for pupils. Since Greek texts lacked word division, scanning entire lines to break them up into words was a taxing exercise, at times facilitated by the production of reader-friendly books with marks separating words or syllables.128 Theon, who treats reading, listening and paraphrase as separate exercises, details the duty of the teacher, who is ‘to show the boy how to think himself into the speaker’s situation, using the appropriate gestures and acting out the text as an utterance in a past time and place’.129 Following Theon’s instructions, the student is also to go through a reading list made up 124

125

126 127 128

129

Arist. Rh. 1403b35–6; see also Quint. Inst. 3.3.4–5. Both the Rhetoric for Herennius and Cicero’s De Oratore focus on elocutio, with only a cursory treatment of delivery: Rhet. Her. 3.19–27 (where recommendations on delivery are under the heading of pronuntiatio, not actio), Cic. De or. 3.213–27. For a general discussion of delivery in ancient works, see Fantham 1982, J. Hall 2007. Quint. Inst. 11.3.143. Quintilian (Inst. 11.3.143, 148) also refers to comments on gestures in the work of Pliny the Elder. Diogenes Laertius (5.48) tells us that Theophrastus wrote a book, now lost, On Delivery; see further Fortenbaugh 1985, who discusses the little we have of it. Rhet. Her. 3.19, Philod. Rh. 1.200–1 S with Corbeill 2004: 125. Auson. Protrepticus ad nepotem 47–50. On this letter see also above. By contrast, Latin texts regularly use (mostly) dots to separate words until the end of the first century ad. See Cribiore 1996: 48 with further references. Theon, Progymnasmata p. 65, 19–25 S; Webb 2001: 308 (quotation).

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of orators and historians, memorizing the best passages and delivering them with appropriate gestures.130 As compositions to be delivered, progymnasmata and declamationes (originally ἀναφωνήσεις, ‘voice exercises’) fostered both writing and performance skills. Centred on role-playing, ethopoiiai and controversiae in particular required impersonation of a variety of characters (even cities or peoples),131 all to be convincingly represented with the appropriate gestures and tone of voice. These exercises could be quite noisy. Getting ready for their class in the middle of the night, Libanius’ students rehearsed their speeches so loudly that some of their neighbours were forced to leave and others to face a nervous breakdown. In fifthcentury ad Constantinople, classes were divided by law so that students did not scream one over the other.132 In the educational system envisaged by Quintilian, the first performance model set before the young orator’s eyes is an actor, a practice in line with the tradition of famous speakers trained by actors. Andronikos, Neoptolemos and Satyros are all credited as Demosthenes’ teachers and Cicero was probably schooled by Roscius in his boyhood.133 Cicero relies on the tragic actor as the alter ego, as it were, of his ideal orator, but Quintilian picks the comoedus to supervise the early schooling of his trainee and to perform a number of carefully detailed tasks. Next to teaching voice production, the comic actor is to correct any faults of pronunciation, making sure that each word and each letter are clearly pronounced. He should also instruct the young speaker on how to deliver a narrative so as to arouse specific emotions and how to harmonize gesture, facial expression and voice. The comoedus shares this last task with the teacher of gymnastics, who is in charge of teaching hand and foot movement and proper stance as well as head and eye coordination.134 All these duties, Quintilian strongly stresses, are to be accomplished with a clearly phrased caveat: complete avoidance of staginess and mimicry. Imitation of comic actors has set boundaries. It steers clear of womanish and old men’s quavering voices, avoids dangerous emotions and borrows from the stage only specific gestures.135 130

131 132 133

134

135

This is what we read in the Armenian text of Theon (section 13), edited and translated by Patillon and Bolognesi 1997: 99–112 at 105. Quint. Inst. 9.2.29–31. See also above. Lib. Ep. 25.7 F; Norman 1992: no. 36.7; Theodosian Code 14.9.3. See Cribiore 2007: 154. [Plut.] X orat. 845a–b, 844f, Plut. Dem. 7. On Cicero as Roscius’ pupil, see Fantham 2002: 365, Goldberg 2005: 57. Nero’s dancer-tutor (Suet. Ner. 6.3, saltator) is a nice variation for an extraordinary Emperor. Quint. Inst. 1.11.1–14 (the comoedus’ educational role), 15–19 (the role of the teacher of gymnastics). See Fantham 2002: esp. 370, May 2007: 26–7. Quint. Inst. 1.11.1–3; see also 11.3.181, 184.

Rhetors, orators and performance

The last point is a crucial one. The budding orator is both to fashion himself after the actor and to differentiate himself from a professional performer as clearly as possible. In this regard too, Quintilian’s remarks can be easily placed in a very long rhetorical tradition including the anonymous author of the Rhetoric for Herennius, Cicero, Seneca the Elder and even Martianus Capella in the fifth century ad. They all worry about theatrical practice infecting rhetorical performances, with speakers sounding or looking too much like actors.136 The consequences of breaching the rules are serious ones, affecting a speaker’s trustworthiness, his masculinity and his social status. Imitation is the actor’s medium, Cicero warns, but truth is the speaker’s; accordingly, the orator must convey sincerity and, being a member of the social elite and ruling class, he must also disassociate himself from both women and performers, who were often of servile status in the Roman world.137 If anything, actors should take lessons from speakers, with Hortensius providing the finest example. His gestures were so graceful that actors borrowed them too (Val. Max. 8.10.2). Busy as Roman rhetors are in drawing a marked line between the stage and the forum, their works sketch the vivid picture of many an orator with little fear of appalling a Cicero or a Quintilian. The constant appeals to moderation which crowd especially Roman rhetorical handbooks and Roman writers’ comments on how an orator should speak, move, gesture and behave helpfully open a window on the world outside them. Sing-song delivery is a case in point. A revolting practice for those rhetors who shaped our views on appropriate public speaking in antiquity, it reached Rome as soon as rhetoric did, to survive for an amazingly long time. Cicero acknowledges that there is, indeed, a place for a restrained, muffled singing even in speaking (with its pathos, the peroration was often ironically labelled tragoediae), but there are set limits to it too: the Roman speaker is not to imitate the rhetors in Lycia and in Caria who come close to singing in their epilogue. Nor is he to become ‘a slave to his voice’ (dicendi studiosus) and, following the example of Greek tragic actors, subject himself to strenuous vocal exercises before and after their performance.138 Yet, a singing orator is already to be found in the second century bc: among his many vices, Cato 136

137

138

Select references: Rhet. Her. 3.24, 26; Cic. De or. 1.251, 3.220, Brut. 203; Sen. Controv. 3, pr. 3; Mar. Cap. 5.543. Cic. De or. 3.214; see also Quint. Inst. 4.2.126–7. On rhetoric as training in masculinity, see especially Richlin 1997; on declaimers, slaves and women, see Connolly 1998. On the social status of performers in the Roman West, see also further below. Cic. Orat. 57 (est autem etiam in dicendo quidam cantus obscurior), De or. 1.251. For peroration as tragoediae, see, for instance, Cic. De or. 1.219, 228 with Fantham 2002: 367, n. 21.

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notes, Marcus Caelius ‘sings whenever he likes it’ and ‘alters his voice’.139 Under Augustus, the declaimer Vibius Gallus had the habit of introducing his descriptions ‘almost like a singer’. So beautiful were the descriptive passages (explicationes) composed by Arellius Fuscus, Ovid’s teacher, that young men including Seneca the Elder ‘used to sing them each with a different lilt of the voice, each to his own tune’.140 Singing in oratorical performances becomes even more common by the late first century ad. This is the practice, ‘now most elaborated in every law-suit and in schools’, to which Quintilian gives first prize in his list of the worst speaking faults, ranking it higher than coughing, hawking up phlegm and even spitting on bystanders.141 Rather than performing a song, Pliny the Younger points out, speakers of his day perform a howling (ululatus) which is perfect for accompaniment with tympana and cymbals.142 In the second century ad, Lucian and Aelius Aristides add their voices to the Roman detractors of singing speakers. Those who burlesque the mysteries of oratory, Aristides thunders, ‘rank themselves among the music girls’, just like one of his rivals who, to court the audience’s favour, started singing, repeating the same clause at the end of each sentence. Unfortunately for him, the audience caught up the refrain, now chanting ahead of him and adding insults; to Aristides’ delight, his performance made up a humiliating show.143 Prime material for Lucian’s satire, the singing orators are simply following the example of the effeminate and perfumereeking guide (‘a true Agathon’) who accompanies them to their bride, Rhetoric, via the easy and attractive access-route. With his swaying gait, languishing eyes and perfect hairstyle, he gives out precious advice such as ‘whenever you think there is an opportunity to sing, sing everything and turn it into a tune’.144 Just like vocal mannerism, unsuitable body movement and histrionic gestures held a spot in the forum and in schools for as long as their detractors criticized them. Caelius’ roaming around earned him the epithet 139

140

141 142

143 144

Macrob. Sat. 3.14.9, Cato fr. 115 M: praeterea cantat, ubi collibuit, interdum Graecos versus agit, iocos dicit, voces demutat, staticulos dat. See Petrone 2004: 120. Sen. Controv. 2.1.26: paene cantantis modo. Sen. Suas. 2.10: recolo nihil fuisse me iuvene tam notum quam has explicationes Fusci, quas nemo nostrum non alius alia inclinatione vocis velut sua quisque modulatione cantabat. See Fairweather 1981: 277; 211–12; Richlin 1997: 96–7. Quint. Inst. 11.3.56–60. See also Tac. Dial. 26.3. Plin. Ep. 2.14.13. Quint. Inst. 11.3.59 also ironically suggests accompanying singing speakers with lyres, pipes and even cymbals. Aristid. Or. 34.56, 47 with Gleason 1995: 123–6. Luc. Teacher of Rhetoric 11, 19 (quotation) with Gleason 1995: 126–8. See also [Plut.] Mor. 6f, who warns against ‘the theatrical and bombastic style’.

Rhetors, orators and performance

of spatiator, ‘promenader’.145 Hortensius’ movements and gestures ‘had more skill (ars) than an orator needed’; as a less gentle critic put it, Hortensius was a ‘Dionysia’, a notorious dancer.146 Possibly worse were the performance skills of Sextus Titius, ‘so loose and enervated’ that he launched a dance, ‘the Titius’, and of Gaius Scribonius Curio, whose swaying and gesturing got him compared to a speaker delivering his speech from a wave-tossed boat.147 The two-way traffic between acting and oratory was something performers and their advocates also noted, a card they tried to use in their favour. The comparison between these two activities was the subject-matter of a book authored by Roscius. Writing in defence of dance, Lucian associates pantomimes with rhetoric and declamation in particular, noting that both dancers and declaimers need to take up a variety of characters.148 The Roman orators who, to the disapproval of authoritative rhetors, overstepped or simply pushed the limits of decorum find a nice parallel in the Greek rhetors under the Empire, the declaimers of the Second Sophistic whose impressive speeches Philostratus so vividly describes in his Lives of the Sophists. Suffering from arthritis, Polemon would go to declaim on a litter and would perform sitting on a chair only to jump up at the key moments of his speech and stamp the ground like a horse in Homer (V S 537). Favorinus was famous for his vocal virtuosity: gifted with a highpitched voice, he would charm even his Greekless audience with, among other things, the rhythm of his words and his speeches’ epilogue. His epilogue, Philostratus writes, went by the name of ‘the ode’, but Philostratus himself called it ‘showing off because it is sung after the argument has been proved’.149 Examples could be multiplied. The sophist Scopelian of Clazomenae used to sway while speaking, at times as in a ‘Bacchic frenzy’: his declaiming style was so animated that one of Polemon’s students compared him to a musician beating a loud drum (V S 520). Hadrian of Tyre, the author of five books on ideas, was also greatly admired for his rhythms, ‘both in prose and in song’. Like Favorinus and Dio Chrysostom, he would attract and fascinate even those without any Greek.150 This is the same skill that Lucian 145 146 147 148 149

150

Macrob. Sat. 3.14.9 (Cato fr. 113 M; see also Festus 466 L) with Petrone 2004: 120. Cic. Brut. 303, Gell. NA 1.5.2–3. Cic. Brut. 225, 216–17. See also Corbeill 2004: 120–1, Aldrete 1999: 68. Macrob. Sat. 3.14.12, Lucian, On Dance 65 with Webb 2008: 148–9. Philostr. V S 491–2 with Gleason 1995: 129; on this passage see also Heath 2004: 308. Favorinus was possibly the target (or rather one of the targets) of both Aristides’ Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries and Lucian’s Teacher of Rhetoric. Philostr. V S 589, 488. On Hadrian’s scholarly works and activities, see Heath 2004: 47 with n. 78.

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records for pantomime dancers.151 With their histrionic mannerism, exuberant style and flamboyant performances, the sophists truly ‘reclaimed the theatrical’, as Connolly (2001a) puts it. The Romans were concerned about hiding the skill that a speaker had mastered over the years; the sophists flaunted it in the face of their audience. The Romans laboured hard to differentiate themselves from women and actors, with Quintilian going to great lengths to describe the exact arrangement of the toga, the orator’s ‘manly dress’, and its folds throughout the oratorical performance (Inst. 11.3.137–49). The sophists proudly went around with perfume and tresses, punctuating their performances with songs and animating them with intense body movements. Moderation was what the Romans advocated, excess the sophists’ byword. The Greek sophists’ approach to performance is at odds with that of the Roman rhetors, although they could both count among themselves some members going in the other direction.

Stages and schools, actors and students The different speaking styles that our sources take care to describe and evaluate can be traced back to school training and to how pupils were schooled in delivery and approached dramatic texts, especially Menander. Consider when a student reading poetry comes across passages requiring character impersonations (prosopopoeiae). He is to inflect his voice to distinguish impersonations from the passages expressed in the poet’s voice, Quintilian (Inst. 1.8.3) advises, but he is not to pronounce them ‘like a comic actor’ (ad comicum morem). This is a rule that Quintilian extends even to actors themselves, eager both to instruct aspiring orators and to correct performers: an actor playing the role of a young man who happens to quote an old man (as in the prologue of Menander’s Hydria) or a woman (as in Menander’s Georgos) should not switch to a tremulous or effeminate voice. Not that these recommendations were a matter of universal agreement. Quintilian points out that there were people, evidently other teachers, who liked speeches in character delivered as in comedy.152 The scholion to Dionysius Thrax’s Art of Grammar attributed to Melampodos or Diomedes goes a step farther. ‘Reading’, Dionysius writes, ‘is the faultless pronunciation of poetry and prose’, a skill which requires attention to hypokrisis, prosody as well as punctuation. After explaining that 151 152

Lucian, On Dance 64 with Webb 2008: 72–3. Quint. Inst. 11.3.91, 1.8.3 (ut quibusdam placet).

Stages and schools, actors and students

‘reading with hypokrisis’ (καθ’ ὑπόκρισιν) means ‘reading with imitation’ (κατὰ μίμησιν), the scholiast elaborates on Dionysius’ recommendations on how to read different genres: ‘for one must read heroic poems (ἡρωικά) with an intense, not loose voice and life-related works (βιωτικά), that is the comic ones, as in life, therefore imitating young and old women, fearful and angry men and all the things befitting the characters staged by Menander, Aristophanes and other comic playwrights’.153 Demetrius’ treatise On Style also touches upon style and delivery, adding an interesting remark on dramatic poetry. Demetrius focuses on a specific kind of style, the disjointed, which is characterized by asyndeton and calls for performance, or rather forces to perform even those who are not willing to. The disjointed style that Menander consistently uses, he explains, is the reason why ‘they perform (ὑποκρίνονται) Menander but read Philemon’. Here, performing Menander apparently equals ‘reading with hypokrisis’.154 Singled out for students to act out in their ethopoiiai, emotional heroines in a crisis routinely come up in Greek rhetorical handbooks. Pupils were to compose and deliver a speech for Andromache over Hector’s dead body, for Hecuba in the aftermath of Troy’s destruction or for Niobe lamenting her children’s death.155 Libanius’ model compositions add a few extra examples: Medea on the eve of her children’s murder and of Jason’s wedding with another woman, and Polixena as she is about to be taken by the Greeks to become Achilles’ bride.156 The Division of Questions by Sopatros, a rhetor who possibly lived in the late fourth century ad, puts so much emphasis on pathos that he ‘may give the impression of a hysterical declaimer’.157 Often illustrated with excerpts, this work is a series of introductions to declamations that students would write after practising their progymnasmata. They are, as it were, the Greek equivalent of the Minor Declamations attributed to Quintilian. One case is about a war hero found killed by poison, with the hero’s stepmother and his war-captive accusing each other of his murder.158 Sopatros explains that the issue is a pathetic one (28.8; see also 28.10) that 153

154 155

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157

GrGr 1.1, p. 6, 5–14 (Dionysius); GrGr 1.3, p. 16, 11–12, 21–5 (Melampodos or Diomedes; Men. T 152 K-A). Interestingly, the scholion ascribed to Melampodos or Diomedes also recommends that readers sing the lyric poetry of Anacreon, Pindar and Sappho, for instance, even if they do not know the tune (GrGr 1.3, p. 21, 19–21). Demetr. Eloc. 193–4 (Men. T 84 K-A) with Rutherford 1905: 98, n. 5. [Hermogenes], Progymnasmata 9, pp. 20–1 R (Andromache); Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 11, pp. 45–6 S (Hecuba, Niobe). Lib. Progymnasmata, Speech in Character 1, 17, 16; see also 2 (Andromache), 8 (Niobe). On Libanius’ ethopoiiai, see Schouler 2005. Amato and Ventrella 2005 provide a full list of characters impersonated in Greek and Latin ethopoiiai of all kinds, in verse and prose, schoolrelated and literary. Innes and Winterbottom 1988: 11. 158 Sopatros, Division of Questions, Case 5, RG 8.28–32.

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calls for pathos in the introduction (28.13), with the character of the stepmother ‘add[ing] seriousness to the drama’ (τῷ δράματι, 28.12). The declamation that he offers is the war-captive’s defence speech, a piece built, among other points, on her feelings towards the war hero. At the sight of his dead body, the war captive delivers a ‘pathetic threnos’ (ἐλεεινὸς . . . θρῆνος) that runs for several lines (32.10–25), a fitting coda for what Sopatros labels ‘epilogue with increased pathos’ (31.22–3). In another case, an allegedly adulterous wife is accused of being an accomplice in the murder of her husband, killed by her paramour, a slave.159 This situation is also labelled a ‘drama’ (69.13) and the prosecutor’s speech that Sopatros gives us consciously plays on the characters involved as tragic figures. Consumed by her devastating passion for another man, the wife on trial ‘[made up] a tragedy in her mind, having filled her head with the things from the stage’ and ‘orchestrat[ing] the murder with a public slave as a second actor’ (70.27–8; 74.5–7). Unlike Quintilian and many others, Sopatros, the authors of manuals on progymnasmata, Demetrius and the scholiast to Dionysius Thrax had little if any fear of womanish mimicry and dangerous emotions making their way into pupils’ souls to corrupt them. Not that drama was good only for students. Plays were just as useful outside schools, as suitable declaiming material for anyone interested in taking good care of their health and in particular of their chest, vocal organ and body’s vital heat. The secondcentury ad physician Antyllus articulates this point very clearly: as a valuable exercise for a number of people, from pregnant women craving unusual foods to convalescents, declamation should be part of one’s daily routine.160 After the morning toilette, Antyllus advises, the best thing to do is to go for a short walk before declaiming. Educated people should pick a passage in epic hexameter, dramatic, elegiac or lyric poetry (in this order), and declaim it from memory, which is more effective than reading. They should start from the lowest notes and, drawing their voice as low as possible, they should raise it to the highest notes and back down again. The exercise that Antyllus recommends to anyone concerned about fitness is the same one that a couple of centuries earlier Cicero ascribed to Greek tragic actors and promptly dismissed for Roman orators.161

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Sopatros, Division of Questions, Case 10, RG 8.67–75. Book Four of Antyllus’ work on therapeutics is preserved by Oribasius (6.7–9), in the digest of medical texts he put together for the Emperor Julian. See further Gleason 1995: 88–91, who also discusses other works on vocal exercises. Oribasius 6.9, Cic. De or. 1.251 (on which see also above).

Stages and schools, actors and students

Rhetorical works and school practice make large use both of actors’ delivery and of dramatic texts to foster performance skills. Speakers need to convey different emotions – from anger to compassion, sorrow, fear, forcefulness, joy and dejection, according to Cicero – each calling for different looks and gestures as well as vocal nuances. This last element is the concern of Cicero, who carefully describes a range of modulations for each emotion, illustrating them with an example from Roman tragedy (De or. 3.215–19). Quintilian’s ideal orator is under the tutelage of a comic actor only as a child, but a mature student like Dio Chrysostom’s late learner can also benefit from an experienced performer. The select reading list that Dio draws up for him is the usual one: it includes Menander and Euripides, makes Homer ‘first, middle and last’, goes on to Herodotus and Thucydides along with several orators and a few minor authors and genres, and ends with Xenophon (Or. 18. 6–17). Dio also adds his tip on how to enjoy drama: plays should not be read by oneself but ‘by other people who know very well how to deliver lines with pleasure or at any rate without displeasure’.162 Having other people (note the plural!) delivering drama is not what the scholion to Dionysius Thrax or Demetrius have in mind, since they both have readers delivering drama themselves. Some of our dramatic texts may also attest to the practice that they describe. Consider the second-century ad papyrus scrap preserving the now fragmentary exchange between Pamphile and Smikrines towards the end of Epitrepontes.163 Apparently worried about his daughter’s dowry as much as her well-being, Smikrines details the reasons why Pamphile should leave her delinquent husband. Although compelling, Smikrines’ arguments fail to persuade Pamphile, who not only magisterially rejects them one by one, but also turns her own family situation into a debate over paternal authority. This is an agon between two passionate and skilled speakers, a formally accomplished piece whose rhetorical appeal probably explains why it was copied here and elsewhere.164 Drafted on the back of a document, this text was in all likelihood meant for 162

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Dio Chrys. Or. 18.6 (Men. T 102 K-A): τῶν μὲν δὴ ποιητῶν συμβουλεύσαιμ’ ἄν σοι Μενάνδρῳ τε τῶν κωμικῶν μὴ παρέργως ἐντυγχάνειν καὶ Εὐριπίδῃ τῶν τραγικῶν, καὶ τούτοις μὴ οὕτως, αὐτὸν ἀναγιγνώσκοντα, ἑτέρων ἐπισταμένων μάλιστα μὲν καὶ ἡδέως, εἰ δ’ οὖν, ἀλύπως ὑποκρίνασθαι· πλείων γὰρ ἡ αἴσθησις ἀπαλλαγέντι τῆς περὶ τὸ ἀναγιγνώσκειν ἀσχολίας. P.Oxy. L 3533. See also below on Libanius’ drama class. This papyrus overlaps another papyrus scrap, P.Oxy. L 3532, fr. 3. Their attribution to the debate between Smikrines and Pamphile is granted by indirect tradition: Pall. Dialogus de vita S. Ioannis Chrysostomi, p. 94 C–N cites four lines from Smikrines’ speech, two of which are repeated by Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Iulianum 7.229 (Epit. fr. 7 Koerte). On the rhetorical features of this dialogue, see Traill 2008: 179–88.

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private use, possibly by a student.165 The lines are remarkably widely spaced and they feature oblique strokes marking clauses, not words or syllables like the strokes found on well-written texts to facilitate reading in the early educational stages. Since these strokes are followed by a space, they were apparently already included in the model.166 Although they are traditionally called ‘reading marks’, these strokes were probably used to help performance rather than simple reading: they signal a pause and, one may suggest, the gesture which went with it too.167 The clause division in this papyrus can be compared with the sub-units that Quintilian identifies and discusses in the beginning of Cicero’s speech On Behalf of Quintus Ligarius to exemplify how the speaker’s gestures should conform to the stress of language. So great was students’ concern with bodily movement that, to Quintilian’s disapproval, they planned their gestures ahead of time, fitting their sentences to them (Inst. 11.3.108–9). Marking them on their texts may have been a useful visual device. More elaborate dramatic performances possibly come from Libanius’ rhetorical school in Antioch. In a letter addressed to his former student Firminus, Libanius gives us a glimpse of how he teaches drama: important as it is in attesting the continued role of poetry among rhetorical trainees, his testimony is also unique in describing a drama lecture. He is busy with his class, the khoros as he often calls it, when he receives the letter sent by Firminus: I had in my hands the usual texts and I was considering who could be the proper actor for the plays. And he was found and turned out to be a young man nurtured by my efforts and everybody picked him as soon as they heard him. Your messenger stood by pressuring me and demanding that you should have a letter before the reading.168

Libanius does with drama what Quintilian recommends for history and oratory, the two genres that he instructs rhetors to read with their classes,

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The overall quality of this papyrus scrap speaks against its use by a professional actor as suggested by Turner, its first editor. Cribiore 1996: 49 with n. 109 and 2001a: 134. The expression ‘reading marks’, which is more appropriate than ‘word dividers’ because these strokes separate sound groups rather than words, is used by Kenyon 1937: ix. For references to their use in other papyri, see Turner’s introduction to his edition of P.Oxy. L 3533. Lib. Ep. 1066.2 F; Norman 1992: no. 190: ἦν οὖν ἐν χερσὶν ἡμῶν τὰ εἰωθότα σκοπουμένοις ἅμα, τίς ἂν ὑποκριτὴς πρέπων γένοιτο τοῖς δράμασι, καὶ ὁ μὲν εὕρητο καὶ ἐφαίνετο νέος ἀπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν ἀρδευόμενος πόνων πάντων, ὡς ἤκουσαν, τὸν αὐτὸν ἑλομένων· ὁ δὲ τὰ γράμματα κομίσας ἐφειστήκει βαρὺς ἀξιῶν πρὸ τῆς ἀναγνώσεως γενέσθαι σοὶ τὴν ἐπιστολήν. On this passage see Cribiore 2001a: 227 and 2007: 165.

Stages and schools, actors and students

thus imitating the grammarian’s work with poetry. According to Quintilian (Inst. 2.5.1–6), the rhetor should not simply provide a model of delivery for his students, but also take care to supervise their reading. This exercise, which Quintilian knew to be practised in Greek schools with the help of assistants, is best done by appointing one pupil as a reader or, even better, by asking pupils to alternate, so that they can all become familiar with public speaking. Although Libanius does confess to have been often ridiculed for being ‘more of an actor than a rhetor’ (ὑποκριτὴς μᾶλλον ἢ ῥήτωρ),169 turning pupils into actors may not be a peculiar trait of his own teaching methods but a practice possibly related to the interest in performance cultivated by the Greek rhetors of the Second Sophistic and the Greek manuals on progymnasmata. It can also be found far beyond fourth-century ad Antioch if indeed the so-called ‘actors’ papyri’ can be rightly argued to belong to a school context. The actors’ papyri are a series of texts almost exclusively preserved on papyri that are characterized by the use of so-called ‘algebraic notations’, special sigla such as α and β, with or without a surmounting stroke. These notations, which also recur in some manuscripts of Roman comedy, are numbers considered to indicate not the speaking character (they are generally fewer than the speaking roles), but the rank of the performing actor.170 Since these sigla are obviously inconvenient for readers, they are thought to be performance-related; as such, scholarly discussions generally use them as direct or indirect evidence for theatrical practice.171 Dated from the third century bc to the third century ad, the actors’ papyri contain mime (four papyri and one ostrakon) and drama (seven papyri), apparently with a preference for New Comedy and Menander.172 With only one or possibly two exceptions, a papyrus preserving Euripides’ Cresphontes and another apparently with tragic lines, the dramatic texts are all considered to be from

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Lib. Ep. 127.5 F; Norman 1992: no. 58. Andrieu 1954: ch. 12; Jory 1963, Harder 1985: 22–4. The earlier claim that these sigla could be abbreviations for proper names has no basis. See CGFP 255 (p. 277). Andrieu 1954: 248–9; Jory 1963: esp. 72, 73, 75; Harder 1985: 24 (on P.Oxy. XXVII 2458). Handley 2002: 170–1 considers these texts ‘apt for less scholarly occasions’ such as sympotic performances, assuming that these were different in format from the public ones (on this point, see pp. 182–6). Actors’ papyri are most recently reviewed by Gammacurta 2006 (with the omission of O.Rein. 1 and P.Oxy. XLV 3218), who concludes that the large majority of these texts are reading texts but maintains that their archetype was an actor’s copy. See also below. Mime texts: O.Rein. 1 (Cunningham 1987: no. 3; Page 1942: no. 74); P.Oxy. III 413 (Cunningham 1987: no. 6; Page 1942: no. 76); P.Varsov. 2; P.Lit.Lond. 97; P.Berol. 13876. With the exception of O.Rein. 1, which is dated to the second or first century bc, all these texts belong to the second century ad.

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New Comedy.173 Menander is credited with two of them, although with different degrees of probability.174 These records all share the same feature in the presence of algebraic notations, or rather of notations more or less unanimously considered to be algebraic, but they vary in the number of elements they include. Two of the mime texts, the Charition mime and, to a lesser extent, the Berlin mime, also have notations indicating various sounds, from farting to instrumental music by tympana and crotala as well as, apparently, an aulos.175 Next to symbols indicating musical accompaniment, the Berlin mime also includes a scenic note, all features that, when considered together, suggest the use of these texts as scripts for performance.176 In all likelihood, the Charition mime was jotted down by a mime-writer who also used the back of this papyrus, as he indicated in a note. Here, he penned a second mime usually referred to as ‘Moicheutria’, the ‘Adulteress’, along with a revised version of part of the Charition text. This drastically reduced version has been thought to accommodate a smaller cast.177 By comparison with these two mime papyri, the dramatic texts with algebraic notations inspire less confidence in their use by practising actors, as scholarly views traditionally hold. This is due to a number of factors related to the overall production of these texts. Consider the first-century ad papyrus with the remains of three columns of text that Arnott ascribes to an unidentified play by Menander, PSI X 1176 (Figure 22). This text, which uses the algebraic notations α, β and γ, with one stroke above the siglum or 173

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Tragic texts: P.Oxy. XXVII 2458 (Euripides’ Cresphontes; third century ad) and possibly P. Hibeh II 180 (Adespota TrGF F 631; third century bc), although many attribute this text to New Comedy (discussion and references in Gammacurta 2006: 35). New Comedy texts: P.Rain. III 22 (Adespota F 1081 K-A; third century bc), P.Oxy. XLV 3218 (Adespota F 1125 K-A; first or second century ad), P.Ryl. III 484 (Adespota F 1076 K-A; first or second century ad), PSI X 1176 (Adespota F 1063 K-A; first half of the first century ad), BKT IX 19 (Adespota F 1118 K-A; second century ad). PSI X 1176 is included in Men. Fabula Incerta 1 Arnott, but see also Gammacurta 2006: 51, who follows Corbato’s 1974 attribution of this text to Menander’s Plokion. P.Rain. III 22 has been variously ascribed to Menander’s Heros by its first editor, Oellacher (Oellacher et al. 1939), and to Paidion by Webster 1974: 168, n. 80. Sound-related annotations in P.Oxy. III 413: κροῦσ(ις) ‘striking’, πορδ(ή) ‘fart’ and related verb, two curved strokes for crotala and apparently a simple dash for aulos. The abbreviation τ (with various other notations) stands for τυμπανισμός and is also used in P.Berol. 13876. For detailed discussion, see Gammacurta 2006: 24–9, 72. At 33, ‘pursues’ referred to Γ, who apparently punishes three slaves and chases them out of the stage. See further Gammacurta 2006: 64–5. On both the Charition mime and the ‘Moicheutria’, apparently a monologue written in a documentary style full of abbreviations, see Webb 2008: 98, 109–12 with earlier literature. P. Oxy. III 413 and P.Berol. 13876 are the only two actors’ papyri that Gammacurta 2006 securely defines as ‘copioni teatrali’.

Stages and schools, actors and students

Figure 22 First-century ad papyrus probably preserving an unidentified comedy by Menander.

with one stroke both above and below it, was written on the back of a papyrus already used to record administrative accounts. In the space left blank by the dramatic lines, both above the columns and between the first and second column, one hand wrote the date (‘the sixth year of Nero’s Empire’, that is, ad 59/60), repeated several times. Between the first and second column there is also a name, ‘Sarapias Orou’, perhaps the person to whom the accounts on the recto refer.178 This name was written by another hand, similar to the one that drafted the accounts. The first part of this text is a speech by a slave uniquely named Megas who has promised Moschion his unflagging support and tries to steel himself to face the task at hand: ‘Now be a man, Megas,’ he says, ‘do not abandon Moschion’ (μὴ ἐγκ]αταλίπῃς Mοσχίωνα, ll. 3–4). But here the scribe misunderstood the accusative Mοσχίωνα, turning its final alpha into an algebraic notation.179 Further down the text, during a dialogue scene, there seem to be other problems in part attribution. Under line 26 there is a paragraphos whose function is 178 179

Gammacurta 2006: 51. Gammacurta 2006: 53–5 would rather consider this passage as a dialogue, but even so there is an attribution mistake. She emends the siglum A misunderstood in the text into Δ, something which creates extra problems. See further below.

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unclear; at line 28 there is a dicolon which may or may not indicate change of speaker within the line.180 P.Rain. III 22 is another good example warning against the professional use of these texts. Dated to the third century bc, this papyrus uses a couple of abbreviations of difficult interpretation along with the siglum Δ, placed on the margin of line 15.181 Towards the end of the column, the abbreviation XO[POU], ‘(song) of the chorus’, marks a choral interlude, thus associating this papyrus with the many New Comedy texts where this heading invariably appears. Although isolated, Δ is apparently an algebraic notation meant to mark a change of speaker; this being clear, it has been variously interpreted either as the abbreviation for Daos or δοῦλος (‘slave’), which is in itself odd since algebraic notations do not stand for names or roles, or as the siglum indicating the fourth actor.182 The siglum Δ, this time surmounted by a stroke, also recurs in another highly fragmentary text thought to preserve New Comedy, BKT IX 19. But if these records are identified as scripts for actors performing New Comedy, the presence of this notation raises a major problem. On the New Comedy stage there are only three speaking characters and, as far as we know, this convention never changed in formal Greek theatre, at any time in antiquity. The use of notations indicating speakers makes actors’ papyri more likely to be meant for performance than for reading, but the overall production of some of these texts, which are written on the back of accounts, fraught with mistakes in part attributions and featuring a fourth speaker in New Comedy, does not point to actors as their users. Students practising their delivery skills such as Libanius’ rhetorical trainees could better fit the bill: actors’ papyri with dramatic texts could be at the crossroads between theatre and school practices. They may help explain why later sophists and the Church fathers ‘speak about all forms of drama . . . in terms of performance’ at a time when drama no longer entertained public audiences.183 This suggestion is also in keeping with the presence of breathings, accents and various lectional signs on the Cresphontes papyrus: for a third-century ad 180

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Gammacurta 2006: 56 and Arnott 2000: 458 have a change of speaker in the text; K-A do not (Adespota F 1063). CIo (17) and apparently CKON, written on the same line as XO[POU] (22). On possible interpretations of these abbreviations, see further Gammacurta 2006: 42–6. Δ = Daos or δοῦλος (Oellacher 1939: 31–3, Koerte 1941: 119–21); tetragonistes (Austin on CGFP no. 261, p. 295). Römer 2008: 1 with n. 3 identifies it with a stichometric figure, 400, on the grounds that the siglum is apparently followed by a dot. See Easterling and Miles 1999: 97 (their italics) Note also that one of the mime texts, P.Lit.Lond. 97, which preserves an arbitration/recognition scene, at one point found its way into a library. A note on this papyrus tells us that ‘Heracleides copied (it) from Prasios’ library.’

Describing and illustrating performance

pupil, reading Classical Greek was loaded with extra difficulties. First attested in the Greek world in the Hellenistic period, the ‘actors’ sigla’ also entered the manuscripts of both Plautus and Terence around the fifth century ad, the date of the archetypes of our manuscripts of Roman comedy with algebraic notations.184 Here the algebraic notation system was adopted, innovated and often also misunderstood: symbols multiply, for instance, with Roman letters sometimes replacing the Greek ones.185 Although slight in editions of Plautus, the evidence is substantial for Terence, an all-time favourite school author.186

Describing and illustrating performance for students The picture I have been sketching so far, with students engaging with Greek and Roman drama in school settings, may also include the performancerelated directions in Donatus’ commentary on Terence (fourth century ad) and the illustrated editions of Terence.187 We have more than a dozen illustrated manuscripts of Terence, with three key editions, all from the ninth century: our best exemplar, the Vatican Terence, which includes painted miniatures of generally careful execution, and two editions both preserved in Paris and both decorated with ink drawings.188 Our Terence illustrated editions preserve in several places the name of Calliopius, placed at the beginning and the end of the book, as well as (generally) at the end of each comedy, normally in the formula Calliopius recensui. We gather from these notes that Calliopius supervised the quality of the text: the original edition was produced at his scriptorium, probably in Rome and probably 184

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Manuscripts of Plautus with algebraic notations: Ambrosianus (G.82 sup., fifth century; but the evidence for algebraic notations is slim), Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 1615 (eleventh century). Manuscripts of Terence: Bembinus, Vaticanus Latinus 3226 (fifth century); Laurentianus XXXVIII 24 (tenth century), Parisinus (Par. Lat. 10304, tenth century). The archetype of the Palatine recension of Plautus (PA) is, presumably, roughly contemporary with the Ambrosian Palimpsest (third to fifth century), ‘thus the notation in Plautus is contemporary with the notation of the Bembinus MS of Terence’. Jory 1963 (see p. 69 for quotation) provides a full description of these manuscripts and the dating of their algebraic notations. Jory 1963: esp. 73, 75. For Terence’s popularity in schools, see Marti 1974, Villa 1984 passim. Leo 1883: 330–2 had already suggested that the directions for gestures and pronunciation which sprinkle Donatus’ commentary are related to school recitations. See also Reeve 1983: 412. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 3868 (also known as C); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 7900 (also known as J or Y); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 7899 (also known as P). Note also another edition (F) dated to the second half of the tenth century and preserved in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana H. 75 inf. (S.P. 4bis). For a full description of these and other relevant manuscripts, see Wright 2006: 183–205; Jones and Morey 1931. See also Grant 1973.

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around ad 400, as indicated by features like the style of its illustrations, which can be best reconstructed through its best copy, C.189 The lost illustrated manuscript of Terence was a wonderfully imaginative work of art and a pioneer of its kind. Scholars have variously assessed the relationship between Terence illustrated editions, Donatus’ commentary and theatrical performances of Terence’s plays. In the most optimistic view, the original performances of Terence’s comedies or later revivals are at the core of both types of sources, which would therefore open a window on Roman theatrical practice. Lack of solid evidence for these revivals in Late Antiquity, however, complicates matters. The latest possible clue to the restaging of Republican palliatae dates to the reign of Hadrian (ad 117–38), who ‘gave plays of every kind in the ancient fashion in the theatre’.190 Donatus’ comments on how actors move and deliver their lines are inferred from the texts.191 The only passage where Donatus refers to contemporary stage production is controversial at best: when he comments on Mysis’ role in Andria as ‘played by masked males, as happened in the old days, or by a woman, as we see it now’ (on An. 716: sive haec personatis viris agitur, ut apud veteres, sive per mulierem, ut nunc videmus), the performances he has in mind are probably mimes.192 At least some mimes drew their material from comedies, sharing with them

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Wright 2006: esp. 208–9. Dodwell 2000: ch. 1, however, lowers the date of the original to the third century ad mostly because of the hairstyle of the Terence portrait included in our editions and the use of ground-lines in our miniatures. Since ground-lines are also found in North African mosaics dated to the second and third century ad, Dodwell suggests that the original manuscript was produced in North Africa. The Pannonian cap in Eunuchus, if present in the original, leads Green and Seeberg (MNC3 6XP 1) to suggest a dating between ad 275 and 400. SHA Hadr. 19.6 (fabulas omnis generis more antiquo in theatro dedit) with Wright 2006: 212. See also Jones’ comments on the difficulty of identifying the kinds of shows mentioned here (1993: 45). Jakobi 1996: 13. Kragelund 2012 is more positive (‘at least sometimes Donatus combines the words of the script with very specific knowledge of the workings of the stage’; p. 417, n. 13, his italics). Basore 1908: esp. 4–5 concluded that Donatus’ performance-related comments derived from actors’ copies of the plays either directly or through earlier scholarly works. On Donatus’ lost original and its transmission, see Jakobi 1996: 5–6. See the doubts expressed by Reeve 1983: 412, n. 5, and especially Jakobi’s comments (1996: 12–13). Female comic performers are otherwise unattested (Leppin 1992: 43). Kragelund 2012 argues for contemporary performances of Terence by reading this statement by Donatus against the late theatre-related monuments including a mysterious disk with knobs discussed by Dunbabin 2006. Regardless of whether these monuments have a connection with contemporary theatrical production, it seems to me that their referent is Greek and not Roman drama. Both the relief of Flavius Valerianus (second quarter of the third century ad) and the Piazza Armerina mosaic (probably second quarter of the fourth century ad) can be linked to the Capitolia (Dunbabin 2006: 199–200, 209). Indeed, Dunbabin 2006: 209 suggests that ‘the disk may . . . have been something characteristic of the games in Rome’.

Describing and illustrating performance

titles and situations.193 The format and some impossible staging scenarios in our Terence miniatures speak against their dependence on theatrical production.194 These illustrations follow the late and arbitrary division of Terence’s comedies into scenes and are a pictorial rendering of the cast-lists that the artists found in their textual archetype. The miniaturists invented illustrations that read from left to right, arranging the figures according to their order of speaking, and they generally chose to illustrate the opening episode of each scene.195 They were familiar with comic iconographic tradition but this does not translate into familiarity with stage practice. What is more interesting for my purposes is to stress two main things. First, Donatus’ commentary includes a number of performance-related comments that are not all simply descriptive. Early in Terence’s Adelphoe, for instance, Demea chastises Micio for the way he brought up Aeschinus, comparing the latter with his brother Ctesipho: ‘None of [Ctesipho’s] action is similar to [Aeschinus’] . . . You stop spoiling him!’ Both remarks, Donatus points out, need special delivery: the first one ‘must be delivered with the surprise which goes with indignation and with fiery eyes fixed on Micio’, while the second needs to stress ‘you’ and ‘stop’, ‘pointing with the finger and with hostile eyes against Micio’.196 Later in the same play, the slave Syrus reassures Ctesipho that he will ‘cover’ for him with his father Demea, taming the old man with an old trick of his. ‘He likes’, Syrus explains, ‘to hear you praised: I turn you into a god and list your virtues.’ ‘Mine?’ Ctesipho asks; ‘yours’, Syrus replies (535–6). In order to express fully the mocking tone of these words, Donatus adds, ‘we must pronounce [mine and yours] with a gesture’.197 Examples could be multiplied but the point is that the whole commentary is punctuated by remarks on which tone of voice, gestures and bodily movements one should adopt when delivering lines.198 These performance-related comments are, in other words, not descriptive but prescriptive.199 193

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See, among others, Fantham 1989: 156, who notes too that an entry monologue from Laberius’ Restio, which is also the longest extant fragment from Laberius, ‘is lifted straight from New Comedy’. Jones and Morey 1931: 203–4 summarize what is still the communis opinio: the miniatures ‘are essentially literary creations’, ‘the product of literary rather than theatrical usage’. See also Wright 2006: 212–13. Dodwell 2000 and Dutsch 2007 have recently defended the miniatures’ dependence on performances contemporary with or earlier than their archetype. Some illustrations include indoor scenes that can be related to actual staging only through some complicated reasoning. Dutsch 2007: 52–4 is an example. Wright 2006: esp. 213. 196 Donat. on Ad. 96, 97. 197 Donat. on Ad. 536. See, for instance, Donat. on Ad. 134, 265; Eun. 530, 859; Hec. 748. More references can be found in Leo 1883: 330–2 and especially Basore 1908. Compare with Donatus’ remarks the scholion on Aesch. Seven 165, ‘it has to be read with hypokrisis’, cited by Rutherford 1905: 134, n. 22.

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If describing facial expressions and gestures, for instance, is difficult for a writer – this is the reason why, the Rhetoric for Herennius (3.19) points out, nobody has given delivery (pronuntiatio) a full scholarly treatment – illustrations hit the target quite easily. This brings me to my second suggestion: no connection with actual theatrical performance can be proven for illustrated Terence manuscripts, but the inclusion of these miniatures is in itself an interesting phenomenon. If they were not simple decorations, they could have served as a quick visual aid for those interested in delivery. Despite various changes in the miniatures, ‘gestures remain constant’. They are also an important element in the illustrations: some of our manuscripts show actors’ hands quite exaggerated in size, making them in addition the most carefully executed part of the drawing.200 A couple of miniatures in our Paris Terence (P) make up a good case in point. Consider the miniature illustrating Demea and Syrus talking to each other towards the end of Adelphoe (882–8), when the now kind and gentle old man tries his new attitude on the slave (Figure 23). As is common in the miniatures, both characters gesticulate with their right hand, which is here hugely disproportionate to the rest of their bodies.201 The same feature is also conspicuous in the drawing reproducing the exchange between Ctesipho and Syrus earlier in the play (517–39; Figure 24), an exchange that Donatus recommends be accompanied by gestures.202 Donatus was possibly familiar with these miniatures, which could be considered the pictorial equivalent of some of his performance-related directions. I conclude with a general observation on the different approaches to drama and performance in the Greek and Roman world. Why, one wonders, did the Romans of Late Antiquity and beyond finally welcome acting techniques in school training, the same techniques so forcefully condemned by an authority such as Quintilian? Connolly (2001a: esp. 77) argues that the sophists ‘reclaimed the theatrical’ as a cultural defence mechanism against the political reality of Roman rule, at a time when the Greeks and their conquerors were engaging in a cultural dialogue involving issues of

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Aldrete 1999: 55 with reference to the miniatures in P, F and O (Bodleianus Auc. F. 2, 13; probably twelfth century). Aldrete 1999: 54–67 considers Terence illustrations side by side with Quintilian’s description of gestures. There is indeed one miniature depicting characters gesticulating with their left hands, an entirely original drawing included in the Ambrosian Terence (F fol. 36v) and illustrating the exchange between Chremes and Syrus in the Heauton Timoroumenos. See Wright 2006: 200 with fig. 10. Donat. on Ad. 536, on which see above.

Describing and illustrating performance

Figure 23 Miniature from an illustrated manuscript of Terence, dated to the second half of the ninth century ad.

self-definition. Such a historically specific answer may be only part of the story. Performers’ social standing is also at work here. Imitating actors carried a different set of associations depending on whether you were in Rome or in Athens. Greek actors were free men. Not only did they enjoy full

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Figure 24 Miniature from an illustrated manuscript of Terence, dated to the second half of the ninth century ad.

civil rights, but they were also highly respected and granted privileges and honours of all kinds, including high political positions. That performing on the stage ‘carried no shame’ was a feature of Greek society that Roman authors from Cornelius Nepos to Augustine kept mentioning to exemplify

Menander, moralism and ancient education

the divide between the two cultures.203 Cicero (Rep. 4.13), for instance, names Aeschines and Aristodemos as examples of performers with an active political career. Granted honours and privileges, Greek actors fared just as well later on, whether operating on a regional level as in the Hellenistic period or on a world-wide scale as in imperial times.204 Making a public spectacle of oneself had nothing Roman about it. Some performers were free-born citizens who made a fortune, and Roscius is the actor who first comes to mind. His dealings with Sulla made him a knight; his contacts with Cicero gave him a formidable defendant in court; his acting skill turned his name into a byword for excellence.205 Many, if not the vast majority of, Roman performers were, however, slaves or freedmen.206 Either way, they all faced a reduction of civil rights (infamia) and were liable to corporal punishment. Magistrates could flog them anywhere and anytime, at least until Augustus restricted this ‘ancient law’ to the festivals and to the theatre (Suet. Aug. 45). Granted special privileges or branded with infamia, actors were acknowledged as having a special, even formidable power – the power that comes with mass communication. To the educated, wealthy, male Roman citizens, they were intrinsically un-Roman. But after dramatic performances died out, burying their slave performers with them, the Romans might have felt more comfortable appropriating their techniques and approaching drama as performance texts. By then, imitating actors was no longer a dangerous matter.

Menander, moralism and the conservative stamp of ancient education The fisherman of Plautus’ Rudens, Gripus, has fished a box out of the sea, a heavy trunk which he fantasizes will soon end his days of being poor by getting him a house, slaves, a yacht and even his own city, Gripusburg – all 203

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Nepos, introduction to his Lives 5 (quotation); Livy 24.24.3; Augustine, De civ. dei 2.11, 13. See Edwards 1993: ch. 3, esp. 98–100. Le Guen 2001a and Aneziri 2003 are the standard works on the Artists of Dionysus in the Hellenistic period. See also CAD 239–55. For their privileges and honours, see, for instance, Le Guen 2001a T 2, 6, 10; Aneziri 2003, esp. 243–52. In the imperial period, we hear of a worldwide association, ‘the sacred synodos of sacred wreath-crowned victors of the oikoumene . . . and of their fellow competitors’, whose members kept enjoying the same privileges. See Aneziri 2009. On Roscius see, most recently, Manuwald 2011: 88–9; see also above. Edwards 1993: 128 notes that ‘Roscius does seem to have been in some respects exceptional.’ Leppin 1992: esp. 71–7. On performers and their status in the Roman West, see also Edwards 1993: 123–6; Slater 1994; CAD 275–85; Marshall 2006: 87; Manuwald 2011: 85.

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Menander in schools

dreams soon to be cut short by Trachalio, the slave owned by the young man in love of this comedy. Gripus soon finds himself surrendering to his master Daemones the trunk with the tokens and the money in it, so that Palaestra can be reunited with her family and the pimp with his gold. Not that Gripus gives up his treasure without a fight; indeed, he recommends Daemones to keep the money for himself and ultimately for his fisherman. His words earn him only a nice lecture: lucky findings, Daemones preaches (1235–48), are just some of the traps and baits awaiting the greedy, one of the dangers that the honest man must avoid, taking pride only in well-deserved earnings. Daemones talks exactly as the old man of comedy should do and Gripus responds by playing on the metatheatrical: ‘I have already seen’, he grumbles, ‘comic actors say good things like this before and get applause for teaching good things to the people. But when people left and each of them went home his own way, none of them behaved as those actors told them.’207 Sitting in the theatre, Gripus has experienced at first hand how moralizing wins over audiences and earns poets approval. This is a point that a literary critic like Horace notes too: ‘a play attractive for its moral passages and with well-drawn characters’ (speciosa locis morataque recte / fabula) is well received even if it lacks charm, weight and skill.208 As long as the morals are sound, art can be dispensed with. Maxims, to put it as does Quintilian (Inst. 5.13.42, 8.3.12), are populares, just like the speeches of comic old men that they often punctuate. Outside theatres, comedies and their rules of wisdom were just as good, especially when framed within the conservative tendency of ancient education. As Connolly argues (2001a), during the Empire teachers found themselves making citizens, that is, subjects of a central rule, with texts written and delivered in democratic Athens and expressing its core values. Consider Aristophanes’ plays, for instance, and their ‘freedom of speech’ (parrhesia), already a source of anxiety in Classical Athens, or fiery speeches of political resistance like Demosthenes’ Philippics. How do you form good subjects by training them in democratic values at a time when oratory can be profitably practised at home, as Aelius Aristides concludes, and when Greece has no room for political and military leadership but only for public law-suits and

207

208

Plaut. Rud. 1249–53: Spectavi ego pridem comicos ad istunc modum / sapienter dicta dicere atque eis plaudier, cum illos sapientis mores monstrabant poplo: / sed cum inde suam quisque ibant divorsi domum, / nullus erat illo pacto ut illi iusserant. For comic poets and comedies as teaching good values, see also the address possibly delivered by the troupe at the end of Plautus’ Captivi (1029–34). Hor. Ars P. 319–22 with Rudd’s notes (1989: 203).

Menander, moralism and ancient education

embassies to the Emperors, as Plutarch pointedly writes?209 Selecting, revising and editing provided an easy way out, a practical response to the need to match the ethical system in schools with that outside schools. The Classical past came to be refined and revisited, scoured, for instance, for uplifting exempla celebrating self-constraint like Socrates, with the whole of Greece turned into ‘a model of grace under submission’.210 In this Greek past there were also authors and texts that were not only more congenial and attuned to the needs of imperial paideia but also beautifully fulfilled these needs, stamping them with the authority of tradition. With his domestic plots, politics-free plays and moralizing, Menander had, of course, a firm spot among them. 209 210

Aristid. Or. 2, esp. 428; Plut. Mor. 805a–b with Connolly 2001b: esp. 358–60. [Plut.] Mor. 10c–d with Connolly 2001b: esp. 361.

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Conclusion Menander, survival and loss

Penned on papyrus rolls and books in various hands and formats, approached by generations of students and readers, sometimes annotated and excerpted, Menander’s plays come to us straight from antiquity. Important as they are in preserving his texts, our Menander papyri also make up a key body of evidence to chart their ancient survival and its trends, working as a guide to their diffusion and their eventual loss. There are almost ninety records, mostly papyri, which can be assigned to a specific play by Menander (Appendix 4). This figure, I hasten to say, is a rough estimate. While including a number of records only tentatively attributed to a specific comedy, it excludes both the several anthologies with passages from Menander and the very many records with maxims eventually ascribed to him. Regardless of their exact number, our Menander papyri span some ten centuries, from the Ptolemaic period well into Byzantine times. Dated to around 230 bc, the Sorbonne papyrus with Sikyonioi is our earliest record and it also seems to be our first exemplar of a papyrus roll with title and number of lines at the end. This was a copy of handy format and cheap production, written by a hasty scribe who made several mistakes and corrections, taking care to remind the reader not to mock his work.1 The Sikyonioi papyrus shows that Menander’s texts travelled just as fast as New Comedy illustrations and masks, and that they also became private copies a couple of generations after Menander’s death, before Aristophanes of Byzantium apparently edited them.2 At the other end of the spectrum, books preserving Aspis, Dyskolos, Samia and possibly Georgos were still available in the sixth or even seventh century ad.3 In antiquity, works were collected and selected. With his over a hundred plays all too closely resembling each other, Menander was no exception to 1

2

3

252

P.Sorb. 72 + 2272 + 2273 with Blanchard 2009: cx–cxxii. See also Belardinelli’s introduction to her edition of the play (1994) and Pfeiffer 1968: 127. Examples of the early spread of New Comedy monuments are the terracotta from Halai (MNC3 1BT 1), which is no later than around 300 bc, and the terracottas from Lipari (MNC3 1: 56, 2: 60–79) dated to before 252 bc. See Green 1985: esp. 468; Bernabò-Brea 1981. P.Oxy. LXI 4094 (sixth century ad, Aspis); BKT IX 103 (sixth or seventh century ad, Dyskolos); P.Bingen 23 (sixth or seventh century ad, Samia); *P.Oxy. LXXIII 4937 (sixth or seventh century ad, Georgos).

Conclusion: Menander, survival and loss

the rule and his comedies met with various degrees of success. It would be very hard to tell how much Menander there was in circulation at any given time without relying on the extant Menander papyri and a handful of references from literary sources. Citations from Menander’s comedies or various allusions to them sprinkle Greek and Latin literature alike, but determining how ancient writers were exposed to Menander’s drama is all too often impossible. Even when they were likely to have Menander’s texts before them, anthologies are a notorious wild card.4 Consider also records such as the so-called ‘book lists’.5 One of them, a fragmentary list drafted on the back of a land register and dated to the second century ad, contains the titles of eighteen comedies by Menander alphabetically arranged, from alpha to delta.6 According to optimistic views, this record shows that the plays included were still around and that an almost complete corpus of Menander could still be accessed in the imperial period, even if the impression that this document may be a school exercise is hard to dismiss.7 We do have at least another two word lists including Menander’s play-titles and characters, both drafted by students.8 A better case can be made for a second list, dated to the third century ad.9 Penned on the back of a list of plots of land and their measurements, this document includes a number of works by Plato (1–22) and Xenophon (23–7). In a second section divided by a blank line, it also adds a common formula, ‘all that can be found’ – ὅσα εὑρίσ(κεται) – of four specific authors: Homer, Menander, Euripides and Aristophanes (28–31). Be this the inventory of a book collection or a request for books, Menander and his works have a spot in it; frustratingly, however, 4

5

6

7

8

9

This is particularly frustrating when trying to assess the circulation of Menander’s drama in Late Antiquity. The seventh-century ad author Theophylact Simocatta, for instance, has often been considered one of the last readers of Menander, but Barbieri’s 2003 review of his assumed ‘citations’ shows that they can all be explained through the use of anthologies. It is equally tricky to identify direct knowledge of Menander in a late rhetor such as Choricius. See Puppini 1999. Unfortunately, little can be made of the titles preserved on IG II2 2363, an inscription found in Piraeus and dated to around 100 bc. This list is fragmentary, but some of its titles can be restored as those of Menander’s comedies. See K-A on Men. Daktylion. P.Oxy. XXVII 2462, Men. T 41 K-A. The initial line of the list reads τά[δε, which the first editor restored as [Μενάνδρου] / τά[δε σώιζετσι or τὰ δρ[άματα. Otranto 2000: 47–8 is aware that this text may be a school exercise, but she still takes it as evidence for the survival of the works listed. Pernigotti 2007b: 902, n. 9, rightly notes that ‘la fortuna di un nome non presuppone . . . la conoscenza diretta delle sue opere’; Houston 2009: 234 excludes this text from his discussion of lists of books preserved on papyrus. Similar doubts surround P.Oxy. XXVII 2456 (second century ad), a list of Euripides’ tragedies in alphabetical order drafted on the back of a tax register. P.Chester Beatty and P.Bour. 1 (Men. T 44, 45 K-A), discussed on p. 221. Also interesting is the inclusion of Menandrean play-titles on a Greek shorthand manual dated to the third or fourth century ad (P.Brit.Museum 2562, Men. T 42 K-A with references). PSI Laur. inv. 19662v, Men. T 43 K-A. See Otranto 2000: 89–95; Houston 2009: 234–7.

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we do not know what could be found by him at this time. More helpful are the two surviving collections that include Menander’s plays, the one owned by Dioscorus of Aphrodito and the one from House B17 at Karanis.10 Papyrus rolls did not evidently contain more than one play but the more capacious codex, which came to be used for pagan literature between the second and the fourth century ad, could gather a collection of selected dramas. Given that Menander successfully went from the roll to the codex, the first ‘bottleneck’ for Classical works, Menander books helpfully provide evidence for the choice of specific plays.11 Sifting through our records, a few comedies figure more largely, with two plays, Dyskolos and Georgos, blessed with a warm reception in the earliest as in the latest period.12 An all-time favourite, Dyskolos was the middle play in the Bodmer Codex: the teachers and students who worked in an advanced Christian school in third- or fourth-century ad Panopolis copied it along with Samia and Aspis. A fifthcentury parchment codex paired Aspis and Misoumenos, while Samia entered the Cairo Codex owned by Dioscorus. A local dignitary with a poetic vein active in sixth-century ad Egypt, Dioscorus had several other plays by Menander at his disposal, including Heros, Epitrepontes and Perikeiromene. As far as we can tell, Dioscorus had a select knowledge of Greek authors and works: Homer’s Iliad, a life of Isocrates, several comedies by Menander and Eupolis’ Demes.13 Scholars working in the Latin-speaking West add other bits of information on Menander’s drama and its circulation. Commenting on Terence’s comedies in the fourth century ad, Donatus cites at least occasionally from their Menandrean models.14 A century later, Sidonius Apollinaris could hold Menander’s Epitrepontes in his hands and compare it to Terence’s Hecyra (Ep. 4.12.1). Next to being part of Sidonius’ library, Epitrepontes figures in both the Cairo Codex and a parchment codex dated to the fourth

10

11

12

13 14

On Dioscorus’ library see further below. The collection from Karanis, which is dated to the midsecond century ad, includes two grammatical works, Callimachus’ Aitia, the Acta Alexandrinorum and Menander’s Epitrepontes [P.Mich. 4733 + 4800 [b] + 4801 j + 4807 g]. See van Minnen 1998: 132–3, Houston 2009: 249. Reynolds and Wilson 1991: 35. On books and the selection of Greek plays, see Blanchard 1989. See also Pernigotti 2007b: 906 with n. 18, who comments on the different grouping of Menander’s comedies in the Bodmer Codex, the Cairo Codex and the Membrana Petropolitana. On these collections, see Appendix 4. Dyskolos: P.Oslo III 168 (second half of the third century bc) and BKT IX 103 (sixth or seventh century ad). Georgos: BKT IX 6 (first century bc) and *P.Oxy. LXXIII 4937 (sixth or seventh century ad). On Dioscorus and his cultural profile, see Fournet 1999: esp. 669–80. See Puppini 1983: 61–72 with references.

Conclusion: Menander, survival and loss

century ad, where it was copied with Phasma.15 The fourteen or so papyri preserving Epitrepontes show that this comedy enjoyed an overwhelming popularity, rivalled only by Misoumenos. Given that at least some of our records are school-related and that ancient rhetors often mention these plays, especially Epitrepontes, both comedies were common fare in classrooms.16 For Epitrepontes at least one can guess some of the reasons behind its selection. The obvious starting point is the rhetorical appeal of its two debates, the one in the arbitration scene which names the play and the agon between Pamphile and Smikrines towards the end of the comedy. A summary of Epitrepontes possibly drafted by a student adds more points. ‘This drama’, it reads, ‘is one of the best because it excels through the display of all character-types’, two slaves with different pleading skills, a good wife, a good hetaira, a stingy old man and a vindictive slave.17 The text breaks off at this point, but one would guess that it went on to name the remaining characters too. That Menander is good to read for his character drawing is, of course, nothing new, but this summary interestingly notes that the cast of this play is a rich one. Epitrepontes does not have more characters than Menander’s comedies typically have – about ten, give or take – but it gives some good stage time to all of them, including the females ones, Habrotonon and Pamphile. After all, this play seems to have been significantly longer than other Menandrean comedies.18 In addition to Epitrepontes, Misoumenos and the plays included in the Bodmer Codex, others of Menander’s comedies also entered schools and scholarly activities. We hear of commentaries, hypomnemata, on selected comedies: Timachides worked on Kolax, both Nikadios and Harmatios apparently studied Theophoroumene.19 Annotations, which point to scholarly activities by either professional scholars or students, crop up in our records preserving Aspis, Georgos, Dyskolos, Encheiridion, (possibly) Theophoroumene, Karkhedonios, Kitharistes, Kolax, Koneiazomenai and Samia.20 Their functions are the usual ones: explaining uncommon words, clarifying the sense of a 15 16 17 18

19

20

St Petersburg, Russian National Library Gr. 388 (P); Mnemosyne 4 (1876) 285–93. For the school reception of both comedies, see also pp. 216–17, 220. P.Oxy. LX 4020, on which see also pp. 222–3. Arnott 1997a: 383 estimates a total length of from 1,200 to 1,300 lines, well beyond that of Aspis, Dyskolos or Samia. Et. magn. p. 490, 39; 388, 38; 782, 8 with Theodoridis 1978 (Men. T 77, 82 K-A). Both Didymos and Soteridas are credited with hypomnemata on Menander (Men. T 78, 79 K-A). P.Oxy. LXI 4094; P.Oxy. IV 678 + P.Oxy. LXII 4302; P.Bodm. XXVI + P.Köln I 3 + P.Duk. inv. 775 (Aspis); Brit. Libr. inv. 2823A (Georgos); P.Bodm. IV (Dyskolos); PSI I 99 (Encheiridion); PSI XV 1480 (? Theophoroumene); P.Oxy. XXXIII 2654 + VI 866 + P.Köln I 4, inv. 5031 (Karkhedonios), P.Turner 5 (Kitharistes); P.Oxy. III 409 + XXXIII 2655 (Kolax); P.Ross.Georg. I 10 (Koneiazomenai); P.Bodm. XXV (Samia). The Menander papyri with annotations are listed

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sentence and, in one instance, identifying a historical figure mentioned in the play. Being linguistically accessible and only rarely including real names, Menander’s plays do not need much explanation. The Bodmer Codex has only few notes, but one of them, from Samia, is of particular interest. Convinced that his son Moschion has had a baby with his own mistress, Chrysis, Demeas voices his outrage in an emotional speech, invoking the ‘citadel of Cecrops’ land’ and the ‘outstretched firmament’. These words, the annotation explains, come from Euripides’ Oedipus (Sam. 325–6, Eur. TrGF F 554b). By putting Demeas all alone on the stage with Euripides’ words in his mouth, Menander has truly plunged him into a tragic dimension, a situation that later teachers and students duly exploited to review their Euripides as they went through Menander. The Early-Byzantine period registered a progressive shrinking in the range of literature typically read.21 With Menander as the glaring exception, after the third century ad the standard pepaideumenos commonly shows himself familiar only with the surviving Classical texts. Here as elsewhere, Euripides’ tragedies provide a good example. As Carrara’s review of our Euripides papyri shows (2009: esp. 585–93), in the third century bc there was more Euripides in circulation, with a balance between the tragedies that were to be preserved and those that were to be lost. Dating our records with precision is often impossible but this balance is apparently in place throughout the Hellenistic period, with the tendency towards a selection emerging in the early Roman period, to become more marked later on. In the first and second century ad, the preserved tragedies increase in our records and Hecuba, Phoenician Women and Orestes – the three plays which will enter the Byzantine curriculum – take the lead. In the fifth to seventh centuries ad, not only is the Byzantine triad very well represented along with the selected plays, but, interestingly, we also have only one record for a non-selected tragedy, a parchment codex preserving Phaethon. The continuity we find between the Roman and the Byzantine period suggests that, if Menander had survived beyond the sixth or seventh century ad, the date of our latest Menander papyri, scribes would have been copying the texts best represented in the earlier period. Dyskolos, Epitrepontes, Misoumenos, Georgos, Aspis, Samia and Perikeiromene come up as the most likely candidates.22

21 22

and discussed by McNamee 2007: 297–300, who also includes a papyrus tentatively ascribed to Menander, P.Berol. inv. 13892. Reynolds and Wilson 1991: 53. As always with Menander, caution is needed. The twice-palimpsested manuscript in the Vatican Library, which is dated to the fourth century ad, is yet to be fully deciphered but it seems to promise surprises. We have parts of Dyskolos and of another comedy (? Titthe) and the economical format of this manuscript makes room for other plays. See Handley 2011b: 140–1.

Conclusion: Menander, survival and loss

When compared to the favour Menander’s comedies enjoyed in antiquity, their loss is, indeed, ‘something of a puzzle’ accounted for by several explanations.23 At least one of them can be safely ruled out: that the church doomed Menander’s comedy to oblivion is quite unlikely.24 Unsuitable as they were to Christian principles, pagan texts were not banished by priests and bishops. In late-antique Panopolis, Menander’s plays were read and reread alongside Christian texts, and they even provided the model for comedies of Christian content. When the Emperor Julian banned Christians from Greek studies, the bishop Apollinarios of Laodicea used Menander’s drama to fashion his Christian comedies.25 Not that the concern for ‘good’ school texts was a Christian product. Quintilian has some qualms about students approaching comedy, but they are age-related: what matters to him is the student’s maturity.26 With Phrynichus and his claims invested with great importance, Atticism and its activities also made their way into scholarly explanations of Menander’s loss.27 In his thesaurus of good Greek, Phrynichus notoriously rejected Menander as a poor linguistic source, preferring to him the Old Comedy trio. There is also an interesting chronological coincidence between Atticism, Menander’s decreased popularity and Aristophanes’ more prominent presence in our records from the second century ad onwards. Menander’s decline does parallel Aristophanes’ rise. The Atticists and their search for pure Attic speech may have had a weight in this phenomenon but the complete loss of Menander’s drama is perhaps too big an affair to be reduced to them. Phrynichus himself makes it clear that his lack of appreciation of Menander goes counter to the trend by expressing amazement at ‘the best of Greeks full of mad enthusiasm over this comic poet’.28 To his disapproval, one of the Menander supporters, Balbos of Tralles, ranked Menander even above Demosthenes. Given also 23 24

25 26

27

28

Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 2, n. 5. The church’s unfavourable attitude towards Menander was most influentially maintained by Lefebvre 1907: viii, and this position still finds some advocates, even if the church made no attempt to change the school curriculum by getting rid of Classical authors. See especially Reynolds and Wilson 1991: 48–54. Sozomenos, History of the Church 5.18.4; Men. T 131 K-A. Quint. Inst. 1.8.7 (Men. T 100 K-A): Comoediae, quae plurimum conferre ad eloquentiam potest, cum per omnis et personas et adfectus eat, quem usum in pueris putem paulo post suo loco dicam: nam cum mores in tuto fuerint, inter praecipua legenda erit. De Menandro loquor, nec tamen excluserim alios. See especially Blanchard 1997. See also, most recently, Handley 2011b: 146: ‘[the Atticists’] canons of purism may well have contributed to a reduced circulation of the plays in circles aspiring to correct literary usage’. Phrynichus, Selection of Attic Verbs and Nouns 394 F (Men. T 119 K-A) with Easterling’s comments (1995: 154).

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that Menander’s vocabulary and syntax have more in common with late Classical Greek than with koine Greek, Phrynichus’ position was not a moderate one.29 Indeed, Phrynichus did not struggle only with Menander: for him, Homeric language with its mixture of dialects was just as unacceptable.30 Unlike his plays, Menander’s maxims, or rather maxims ascribed to him, survived long enough to enter medieval classrooms. The relationship between these two strands of Menander’s afterlife leads Easterling to explain the one with the other: using as a term of comparison Caesar’s Gallic War and British schools, Easterling (1995:156) suggests that, once considered an elementary author, Menander lost appeal at a more advanced stage. Certainly, ancient authors had different views on how Menander could best foster speaking skills. Quintilian conceded that lawyers could benefit from reading Menander, but he specifically recommended him to declaimers.31 Writing in the late second century ad, Hermogenes mentions Menander under the heading of ‘simplicity’ (ἀφέλεια), a sub-type of ethos, noting that in Menander ‘women . . . young men in love, cooks and other characters’ offer countless examples of a simple style.32 Next to betraying familiarity with Menander’s linguistic characterization, Hermogenes’ observation also justifies his qualms about Menander’s comedy and its use: simple thoughts are necessary and appropriate in character impersonation, Hermogenes writes, but they are otherwise unsuitable to political oratory. Menander’s Greek is, indeed, simple Greek, but fundamental school texts and their authors ‘cut across’ educational stages. Rather than being confined to one specific level, they were periodically revisited by students: school products were trained ‘all-round’ because their education (enkyklios paideia) was an ‘all-round’ process.33 Maxims were the bread and butter of schoolboys but just as important for advanced pupils, who would resort to them to invest their speeches with cultural authority and to reach out to their audiences.34 This is not to say that Menander the gnomic author has necessarily nothing to do with the loss of Menander the playwright: Menander’s maxims may have come to be considered a sort of epitome of Menander’s plays and, as such, they might have replaced the original. There are a few examples of summaries that eventually superseded the ‘master copy’. Excerpted by Florus, some of Livy survived only in that format. The 29 31 32 33

Willi 2002: 21–3. 30 Swain 1996: 55–6 with references. Quint. Inst. 10.1.69–71 (Men. T 101 K-A) on which see pp. 223–8. Hermogenes, On Types of Style 2.3, p. 323 R (codd. Pa Pc, Vc Ac Ba); Men. T 116 K-A. See above, p. 202. 34 Cribiore 2001b: 248–9. On maxims and students, see pp. 203–4.

Conclusion: Menander, survival and loss

historian Trogus was less lucky, given that Justinus’ summary of his work is all we have of him. Other cases suggest themselves – the beginning of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai, Plutarch’s comparative essay on Aristophanes and Menander – but none of these authors or works can stand next to Menander. His plays were a mainstay of Greek literature and a symbol of Greek culture, and there is perhaps some uneasiness in having textual transmission and its dynamics account for their complete loss. Given that the taste of the reading public was shaped by their experience as students,35 once an author fell out of the curriculum, he also fell out of general favour. Schools seem indeed to be the place where one should look for Menander’s loss of ground, and a possible starting point is his slight presence in our ethopoiiai, the speeches in character that make up one of the progymnasmata students would ideally write in rhetorical school.36 On the one hand, ancient scholars passing judgement on Menander and his style kept harping on his skill at sketching all characters and situations, recommending his comedy to budding speakers as a storehouse of characters and motifs.37 On the other hand, our records for ancient ethopoiiai show little that can be traced directly to Menander. We have over 180 speeches in character both in Greek and in Latin: drawn from accomplished rhetorical compositions as from school exercises, they make up a good sample of the topics commonly approached across the board.38 Mythical figures like Clytemnestra, Odysseus and Achilles populate a large part of them, giving the impression that it was hard, for example, not to have to impersonate Achilles in the aftermath of Patroclus’ death. Rhetorical handbooks consistently include prose ethopoiiai but those on papyri are almost all in verse, in epic hexameter and, more rarely, iambic trimeter. The choice of verse further underlines the importance of Homer and tragedy as their models: the content influenced the form.39 Characters that are not mythical, historical or biblical figures – that is, the kind of figures that can be associated with Menander’s comedies – crop up only in about 17 per cent of our ethopoiiai and, even within these speeches, a number of ‘common’ characters have little to do with Menander. Consider, for instance, the many generals addressing their soldiers or the various people seeing the sea for the very first time. Judging from our sources, teachers training students in character impersonation tested above all their knowledge of myth and mythical figures, a point well exemplified by the 35 36 37 39

Cribiore 2001a: esp. 197–9, and 2001b: 242. On progymnasmata and scholarly discussion of them, see further on pp. 212–13. See pp. 217–18. 38 These speeches are collected by Amato and Ventrella 2005. Fournet 1992.

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great popularity of Euripides’ Phoenician Women. This is the tragedy through which students (and the general public) tended to approach Euripides, the most famous Greek tragedian of all. With its wealth of gnomic material, its themes and its treatment of the myth, Phoenician Women was an ideal training ground for pupils, ‘a grammarian’s choice’, to put it as does Cribiore (2001b). Among other things, this tragedy offers a bird’s-eye view of the whole story of the royal house of Thebes: in addition to having Oedipus and Jocasta living long enough to see their sons kill each other, Euripides makes room for Cadmus and the founding of Thebes, for the city’s glory under Oedipus and its subsequent reversal of fortune. Such rich material gave grammarians many an opportunity to expound on people, places and events, preparing students for rhetorical school. Beyond the common claims that entered rhetorical works throughout antiquity, Menander’s plays have little that could specifically come in handy to students writing their speeches in character. The plays’ repertoire is limited, just like the number of situations they feature. Nor did Menander have much to offer as a source for Hellenistic Athens. His comedies have little if any topicality, their characters are fictional and their stories repetitive and just too similar to one another. In other words, Menander had little to tell later Greeks about their glorious past. Ancient education was not just training in good writing and speaking but worked as a means for putting students in touch with cultural tradition and thus keep it alive. Being culturally non-specific, Menander’s plays were easily adjustable to varying contexts across time and place. They could be adapted into Latin to entertain Republican audiences and were to be seen on public stages well into the Roman period. They could amuse drinkers without taxing their knowledge of Greek politicians and historical events. They also made up ‘easy’ and edifying texts for generations of students across centuries. Lack of topicality was one of the features to which Menander’s comedies owed their popularity in antiquity and perhaps it also had some weight in their loss later on.40 Menander’s comedies are, after all, just too close to fairy tales.

40

See Pernigotti 2007b: esp. 904–5, 908: Menander’s readers were keen on enjoying his comedies but little interested in preserving their texts.

Appendix 1 Roman palliatae and their Greek models

261

This appendix lists Roman palliatae and their Greek models. It also includes relevant references and/or bibliography. Roman playwright Naevius Plautus

Menander

Philemon

Diphilus

Apollodoros of Karystos

Kolax (Ter. Eun. 25) Thesauros/Trinummus Rudens (Plaut. Rud. Kolax (Ter. Eun. 25) 32–3) (Plaut. Trin. 18–20) Dis Exapaton/ Kleroumenoi/Casina Emporos/Mercator Bacchides (P.Oxy. (Plaut. Cas. 30–4) (Plaut. Merc. 9–10) LXIV 4407; Bacch. Synapothneskontes/ Phasma/Mostellaria 494–562) Commorientes (Ter. (see K-A on Phil. Synaristosai/Cistellaria Ad. 6–7) Phasma) (*P.Bad. VI 175, Cist. Schedia/Vidularia 95–103) (Plaut. Vid. 6–7) First Adelphoi/Stichus (didascalic notice to Plautus’ Stichus) Boiotia/Boeotia (see Gratwick 1979)

Unidentified author preceding Terence Caecilius Statius Plokion/Plocium (Gell. NA 2.23) Synepheboi/Synephebi (Cic. Fin. 1.4) Terence Andria/Andria (Ter. An. 9–14) Perinthia/Andria (Ter. An. 9–14) Second Adelphoi/ Adelphoe

Synapothneskontes/ Adelphoe (Ter. Ad. 6–11)

Epidikazomenos/ Phormio (didascalic note to Terence’s Phormio) Hekyra/Hecyra

Alexis

Demophilus

? Karkhedonios/Poenolus (see Arnott 1996a: 284–7) ? Lebes/Aulularia (see Arnott 1996a: 859–64)

Onagos / Asinaria (Plaut. Asin. 10–2)

Luscius Turpilius

(didascalic note to Terence’s Adelphoe) Heauton Timoroumenos/ Heauton Timoroumenos (didascalic note to Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos) Eunuchus/Eunuchus (Ter. Eun. 19–20) Kolax/Eunuchus (Ter. Eun. 30–3) Phasma/Phasma (Ter. Eun. 9) Leukadia/Leucadia (see Arnott 1996b: esp. 223–4) Epikleros/Epicleros (Men. F 129 K-A, Turpilius, Epicleros F I R)

(Donatus on Ter. Hec. praef. 1.1)

Demetrios or Philetairos/ Demetrius (Alexis F 47 K-A, Turpilius, Demetrius F V R. see further Arnott 1996a: 157–9)

Appendix 2 Paintings and mosaics illustrating New Comedy

This appendix lists paintings and mosaics reproducing New Comedy scenes by their original display context. Entries on each monument include: current location, original location with reference(s), reference in MNC3 (if available) and number of scenes the monument reproduces. I name the play illustrated only when identification is given by inscription or comparison with inscribed scenes. An asterix indicates that the comic scene(s) was (or were) found with a tragic one. This appendix is an updated version of the one I published in AJP 131. Scenes from public buildings (1) Vosges (Grand), in situ (Lancha 1997: 128–31 with earlier literature): fragmentary scene on mosaic decorating a large room in a building said to be a civil basilica. Scenes from tombs (1) Cyrene; Tomba dei Ludi, in situ (see most recently Bacchielli 2002); MNC3 6EP 2: 1 scene. Scenes from triclinia (14 or 15)

264

*Pompeii, Casa del Centenario (IX 8, 3.7); in situ, triclinium (PPM IX.2: 1049–50, Figs. 277–8a–d); MNC3 4NP 2.1–6: 6 scenes apparently comic, now badly faded if not completely lost. (?) Pompeii, Casa della Fontana Grande (VI 8, 22); in situ, triclinium (PPM IV: 613); MNC3 5NP 10: 1 scene. Mytilene, Museum; House of Menander in Mytilene, triclinium (Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès 1970: 26–7); MNC3 6DM 2.1–7: 7 scenes, Plokion, Samia, Synaristosai, Epitrepontes, Theophoroumene, Encheiridion, Messenia. Gaziantep, Archaeology Museum; Zeugma, Maison des Synaristosai, triclinium (Abadie-Reynal, Darmon and Manière-Lévêque 2003, esp. 85): 1 scene, Synaristosai.

Paintings and mosaics illustrating New Comedy

Scenes from reception areas (10 or 11) *Delos, House of the Comedians, in situ; oecus maior (Bruneau et al. 1970: 36, 168–72); MNC3 3DP 2.3, 4, 5, 6, 8: 5 scenes more or less certainly comic. *Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum E 108; Pompeii, Casa dei Dioscuri (VI 9, 6.7), viridarium area (PPM IV: 946, fig. 167, see also 944–5, fig. 164); MNC3 5NP 9: 1 scene, probably reproducing Samia. *Selçuk/Ephesus, Apartment I, Insula 2, in situ; reception room (Parrish 1995, esp. 153–5); MNC3 6DP 1.1–2: 2 (possibly 3) scenes, Sikyonioi, Perikeiromene. Baia, in situ, from the so-called Terme di Baia (Settore Sosandra; see Esposito and Miniero 2000: 253–6): mosaic with 1 comic scene. In antiquity, this mosaic underwent renovations which cut out the third figure originally included. It graced a space in the ample terrace with garden in the complex underneath the Terme di Baia, often identified as the Emperors’ residence in Baia. Brindisi, from a villa underneath Palazzo Nervegna (Cocchiaro 2002 with Green 2008: 231): fragmentary mosaic with comic scene. The room decorated with this mosaic (‘vano I’) apparently belongs to the social area of this villa and is located west of a room tentatively identified as a triclinium (‘vano III’). See Palazzo 2010: 169–70. Green (forthcoming) convincingly identifies this mosaic as illustrating Samia. Scenes from porticos, atria and related areas such as vestibulum, tablinum and ala (13 or 15) *Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11); in situ, atrium, West Wall (PPM I.1: 371–3, fig. 21); MNC3 5NP 7: 1 scene. *Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11); in situ, atrium, North Wall (PPM I.1: 373, fig. 22); MNC3 5NP 8: 1 scene. *(?) Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11); in situ, atrium, North Wall (PPM I.1: 374, fig. 23): 1 scene, almost completely faded. *Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11); in situ, atrium, East Wall (PPM I.1: 380, fig. 33); MNC3 5NP 5a: 1 scene. *Pompeii, Casa di Marcus Lucretius (IX 3, 5.24); in situ, vestibulum, South Wall (PPM IX.2: 145, fig. 6; 148, fig. 10; see also 149, fig. 11, which is a later reproduction of this panel); MNC3 5NP 3: 1 scene. *Pompeii, Casa di Marcus Lucretius (IX 3, 5.24); in situ, ala 9, North Wall (PPM IX.2: 241, fig. 148; 243, fig. 152): 1 scene.

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*(?) Pompeii, Casa di Marcus Lucretius (IX 3, 5.24); in situ, vestibulum, North Wall (PPM IX.2: 144, figs. 3–4; also mentioned on MNC3 5NP 3): 1 scene, only the lower part of which has been preserved. *Pompeii, Casa del Centenario (IX 8, 3.7); in situ, atrium, East Wall (PPM IX.2: 911, fig. 13 and 912, fig. 14 [an early photograph taken when the monument was better preserved]); MNC3 5NP 2: 1 scene, now lost. *Pompeii, Casa del Centenario (IX 8, 3.7); in situ, atrium, West Wall (PPM IX.2: 914, fig. 18); MNC3 5NP 4: 1 scene, now lost. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9987; Pompeii, Casa di Cicerone, tablinum (Bieber and Rodenwaldt 1911: 1 with n. 1); MNC3 3DM 1: 1 scene, Synaristosai. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9985; Pompeii, Casa di Cicerone, tablinum (Bieber and Rodenwaldt 1911: 1 with n. 1); MNC3 3DM 2: 1 scene, Theophoroumene. Mytilene, Museum; House of Menander in Mytilene, portico (Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès 1970: 53); MNC3 6DM 2.8–11: 4 scenes, Kybernetai, Leukadia, Misoumenos, Phasma. Scenes from private domestic areas (1) *Villa di Piazza Armerina, in situ. This mosaic shows entertainers of various kinds, including two comic actors. The comic scene does not seem to be drawn from a specific play. The room graced with this mosaic (room 34) has been identified as a cubiculum (Lancha 1997: 263 with earlier bibliography). Scenes from unidentified domestic areas (9) Pompeii, Casa del Camillo (VII 12, 22–23–24); in situ, room m, South Wall (PPM VII.2: 563, fig. 49; see also the drawing in Barbet and Allag 1972: 1041, fig. 56, with erroneous house reference); MNC3 5NP 6b: 1 scene. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9034; Stabiae, Villa in Campo Varano; MNC3 5NP 1: 1 scene, Theophoroumene. *Palermo, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 2304; Torre del Greco, Villa Sora; MNC3 5NP 11: 1 scene. Sousse 57.010; Sousse (Hadrumetum), Maison de l’Oued Blibane; MNC3 6FM 1: 1 scene, possibly reproducing Sikyonioi. Sfax, Museum; Acholla, House of M. Asinius Rufinus; MNC3 6FP 1: 1 fragmentary scene. Chania, Museum; Chania, House of Dionysus and Ariadne; MNC3 6DM 3.1–2: 2 scenes, (probably) Sikyonios or Sikyonioi, Plokion.

Paintings and mosaics illustrating New Comedy

Aix-en-Provence, now at the Musée Granet 821–1–66 (see Lancha 1997: 109–10): fragmentary mosaic. Cordoba, Plaza de la Corredera, now at Alcázar de Cordoue (MNC3 6WM 1; see Blázquez 1981: 18–9 with earlier literature; Lancha 1997: 200): 1 scene (excerpt). Scenes from unidentified buildings (5 or 6) Pleven, Museum; Ulpia Oescus, unidentified building (Hoddinott 1975: 117, 121); MNC3 6DM 1: 1 scene, Achaioi. *Patras, Archaeological Museum; Patras, Psila Alonia Square, unidentified building (Waywell 1979: 301, no. 38; Dunbabin 2006: fig. 5); MNC3 6CM 1: 1 scene.1 Avenches, Roman Museum (see Lancha 1997: 271–2): 1 fragmentary scene on mosaic. The original display context of this mosaic is tentatively identified as public baths or a house. This scene is possibly related to the Mytilene mosaic of Samia. (?) Pola, Arch. Museum, 11003/A, from Val Catena, Komplex R, Raum XIII (see Donderer 1986: 212–13 no. 18): Fragmentary mosaic with a theatre-related scene. It is unclear whether this scene is comic or tragic. Kastelli-Kissamou (preliminary report by Markoulaki, Christoudoulakos and Phragkonikolaki 2004): 2 scenes, Theophoroumene and Sikyonios. Scenes of unknown provenance (10) Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9037; ‘found in grotto of Moscardillo’ (McIlwaine 1988: II.868 with refs); MNC3 5NP 5b: 1 scene. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9035; ‘found in grotto of Moscardillo’ (McIlwaine 1988: II. 868 with refs); MNC3 5NP 6a: 1 scene. Pompeii, Deposito dell’ Ufficio Scavi 20545: 1 scene, Theophoroumene (excerpt). Volterra, Museo Guarnacci; (?) Volterra (no references are given); MNC3 5RP 1: 1 scene (excerpt). Pompeii, Deposito dell’ Ufficio Scavi 17735: 1 scene, Theophoroumene. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 6146; MNC3 3NM 1: 1 scene. Daphne (preliminary publication by Çelik 2009): 4 scenes, Synaristosai, Theophoroumene, Perikeiromene, Philadelphoi. 1

But see MNC3 6CM 1: ‘[this scene is] part of a frieze showing entertainers of various categories . . . Perhaps, therefore, not a scene from a play, but comparable to composite pictures as 6EP 2, 6RS 1 etc.’

267

Appendix 3 Paintings and mosaics illustrating tragedy

This appendix lists paintings and mosaics reproducing tragic scenes by their original display context. Entries on each monument include: current location, original location with reference(s), reference in MTS2 (if available) and number of scenes the monument reproduces. I name the play illustrated only when identification is given by inscription or can be reasonably guessed. An asterix indicates that the tragic scene(s) was (or were) found with a comic one. Scenes from tombs (2) *Cyrene, Tomba dei Ludi, in situ; MTS2 69 FP 1: 1 scene with no identifiable iconographic tradition. Rome, Museo Nazionale delle Terme; Columbarium of Villa Doria Pamphili; MTS2 95, IP 1: 1 scene with figures in tragic costumes. Scenes from triclinia (3 or 4) *Pompeii, Casa del Centenario (IX 8, 3.7), in situ, triclinium (PPM IX.2: 1049–50, figs. 277–278a–d); MTS2 88 NP 14, 15A–B: apparently 3 scenes, now lost. (?) Seleucia, House of Iphigenia, in situ, triclinium (see Huskinson 2002/3: 141–4): 1 scene set against an architectural background resembling a scaenae frons. Scenes from reception areas (6) *Delos, House of the Comedians; in situ, frieze from the oecus maior (Bruneau et al. 1970: 36, 168–72); Metope 7: MTS2 119 DP 1; see also MNC3 3DP 2.1, 7: apparently 3 tragic scenes. One of them is likely to illustrate Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. *Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9039; Pompeii, Casa dei Dioscuri, viridarium (PPM IV: 945, fig. 166); MTS2 87 NP 9: 1 scene, Euripides’ Hypsipyle. 268

Paintings and mosaics illustrating tragedy

*Selçuk/Ephesus; Insula 2, apartment 1, in situ, reception room (Parrish 1995, esp. 153–5): at least 2 scenes, Orestes (inscribed ‘Oresstes’) and Iphigenia. Scenes from porticoes, atria and related areas such as vestibulum, tablinum and ala (4 or 8) *Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11), in situ, atrium, East Wall (PPM I: 374–6, figs. 24–6); MTS2 87 NP 6: 1 scene, replica of the Heracles scene described below minus Heracles. *(?) Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11), in situ, atrium, East Wall (PPM I: 381, fig. 35); MTS2 87 NP 7: 1 fragmentary scene apparently tragic. *(?) Pompeii, Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali (I 6, 11), in situ, atrium, West Wall (PPM I: 372, fig. 19a–b): 1 lost scene apparently tragic. *Pompeii, Casa di Marcus Lucretius, in situ, vestibulum, North Wall (PPM IX.2: 144, figs 3–4): 1 fragmentary scene. *Pompeii, Casa di Marcus Lucretius, in situ, ala 9, West Wall (PPM IX.2: 246, fig. 157): 1 scene, now preserved only in drawings. This scene has been identified as illustrating Medea and her children. *Pompeii, Casa del Centenario, in situ, atrium, West Wall (PPM IX 2: 913, fig. 16); MTS2 88 NP 16: 1 scene (Heracles, old man, woman and reclining figure with crook), now lost. (?) Pompeii, Casa di Caecilius Iucundus (V 1, 26), in situ, atrium (PPM III: 580, fig. 7): two lost scenes apparently tragic. See Dexter (1975: 15), quoting the description given by Mau in the late 1800s. Scenes from private domestic areas (1) *Villa di Piazza Armerina, in situ, room 34, apparently a cubiculum (Lancha 1997: 263 with earlier bibliography): mosaic showing entertainers of various kinds, including two comic actors and apparently three tragic actors. The tragic scene, like the comic one, does not seem to be drawn from a specific play. Scenes from unidentified domestic areas (1) *Palermo ?; Torre del Greco, Villa Sora, MTS2 89 NP 22 (companion piece of MNC2 5 NP 11): 1 scene, king and messenger.

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Scenes from unidentified buildings (1) *Patras, Archaeological Museum; Patras, Psila Alonia Square, unidentified building (Dunbabin 2006: fig. 5): 1 scene. Scenes of unknown provenance (25?) (?) Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 9563; originally from Herculaneum; MTS2 91 NP 34: painting on marble apparently reproducing a tragic scene. (?) Vatican, Ambulacro dell’Ingresso Superiore e Vestibolo dell’Ingresso, inv. 75–98; originally from the Tenuta Porcareccia where they were discovered in 1779; MTS2 95 IM 5: 24 hexagons reproducing two characters each. Most of these figures are in tragic attire, with high boots, but not all scenes can be related to performed tragedy. Dated to the late second or early third century ad, these mosaics have been heavily restored. See most recently Werner 1998: 99–111.

Appendix 4 Menander papyri

This appendix lists our Menander papyri, or rather items that are mostly papyri, which can be more or less securely ascribed to a specific play by Menander, arranged by the play they preserve. An asterisk indicates that the attribution is tentative. This list excludes anthologies on papyrus which include passages or maxims by Menander or attributed to him. Entries for each record also include their reference number in the Leuven Database of the Ancient Book (LDAB) and in the database by Mertens and Pack (MP3). Both databases are available online, at www.trismegistos.org/ldab and http://promethee.philo. ulg.ac.be/cedopal/index.htm respectively. Unless otherwise stated, dates are given according to the LDAB database. Aspis (3 or 5) P.Bodm. XXVI; LDAB 2743, MP31298: from a papyrus codex of the third or fourth century ad preserving Aspis after Samia and Dyskolos. The text contains annotations. To P.Bodm. XXVI also belong P.Köln I 3 (inv. 904) and P.Duk. inv. 775 (formerly P.Rob. inv. 38). PSI II 126+ P.Schub. 22, fr. II (P.Berol. inv. 13932); LDAB 2715, MP3 1318: remains from a parchment codex from Panopolis or Hermopolis dated to the fifth century ad.This codex has also lines from Misoumenos. P.Oxy. LXI 4094; LDAB 2721, MP31297.01: fragment from a papyrus codex dated to the sixth century ad, originally including Aspis and other plays. It contains annotations. *BKT IX 47 (P.Berol. inv. 21145; Adespota 1128 K-A); LDAB 2633, MP31297.1: papyrus fragment dated to the second century ad. *P.Oxy. IV 678 + LXII 4302 (Adespota 1152 K-A); LDAB 2662, MP3 1297.2: fragments of a papyrus roll dated to the second or third century ad. This text is annotated. Dis Exapaton (1 or 4) P.Oxy. LXIV 4407; LDAB 2704, MP3 1297.91: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the second half of the third or the early fourth century ad. The text was written on the back of a document dated to ad 241/2.

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*P.Oxy. LXI 4093 (Adespota 1149); LDAB 2669, MP3 1667.23: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the second half of the second century ad. It was written on the back of a document. *P.Köln Gr. 5 203 + P.Köln Gr. 6 243 [Adespota 1147 K-A; ZPE 99 (1993) 245–78]; LDAB 2732, MP3 1645.01: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third or second century bc. *P.Ant. III 122; LDAB 2685, MP3 1672.1: two tiny scraps of a papyrus codex dated to the third century ad. Note also P.IFAO inv. 337 [ZPE 6 (1970) 5–7, no. 2; LDAB 2634, MP3 1321.2]: papyrus scrap dated to the second century ad. It comes from a work almost certainly containing plot summaries. Dyskolos (8) P.Bodm. IV; LDAB 2743, MP3 1298: from a papyrus codex of the third or fourth century ad preserving Dyskolos between Samia and Aspis. It contains the text of the play virtually complete, with hypothesis, beginning and end title. The text contains annotations. P.Bodl. inv. Gr. class. g. 50 (P); LDAB 2699, MP3 1299: fragment of a parchment codex from Hermopolis dated to the third century ad. P.Oxy. XXVII 2467 (Brit.Libr. inv. 3050); LDAB 2660, MP3 1300: two papyrus fragments dated to the second or third century ad. BKT IX 103 [P.Berol. inv. 21199; ZPE 4 (1969) 113 no. 7]; LDAB 2722, MP3 1300.1: fragment from a papyrus codex from Hermopolis dated to the sixth or seventh century ad. P.Oxy. LX 4018; LDAB 2716, MP3 1300.11: fragment from a parchment codex dated to the fourth or fifth century ad. P.Oxy. LX 4019; LDAB 2687, MP3 1300.12: scrap of a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. The text is written on the back of a document. P.Oslo III 168; LDAB 2737, MP3 1300.2: papyrus fragment dated to the second half of the third century bc. Vat. Sir. 623; LDAB 10072: a parchment codex (twice palimpsested, primary script) heavily used and reused. Fol. 211+218, 212+217 are the remains of a late-antique codex of Menander dated to the fourth century ad. They preserve about 200 lines from Dyskolos and lines from another comedy, apparently Titthe. See Handley 2011b: 140, n. 10. A preliminary description of this manuscript is given by D’Aiuto 2003: 266–73.

Menander papyri

Encheiridion (1) PSI I 99; LDAB 2658, MP31300.4: scrap of a papyrus codex found in Oxyrhynchus and dated to the second or third century ad. The text is annotated. Epitrepontes (13 or 14) St Petersburg, Russian National Library Gr. 388 (P) [Mnemosyne 4 (1876) 285–93]; LDAB 2713, MP31300.5: fragments of three leaves from a parchment codex (palimpsest, primary script) dated to the fourth century ad. The same codex also included Phasma. P.Cair. 43227; LDAB 2745, MP3 1301 + 0375: papyrus codex from Aphrodito dated to the fifth century ad and preserving several plays by Menander. It has extensive parts of Epitrepontes. P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2829; LDAB 2705, MP3 1300.6: fragments of a papyrus roll from Oxyrhynchus dated to the third or fourth century ad. P.Oxy. X 1236; LDAB 2702, MP3 1302: part of a leaf from a parchment codex dated to the fourth century ad. P.Mich. 4733+ 4800 [b] + 4801 j + 4807 g; LDAB 2643, MP3 1301.04: fragments of a papyrus roll dated to the second century ad. The text was written on the back of a document. P.Oxy. L 3532; LDAB 2645, MP3 1301.1: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the second century ad. P.Oxy. L 3533, LDAB 2646, MP3 1301.2: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the second half of the second century ad. The text was written on the back of a document apparently in Latin. P.Oxy. LX 4021; LDAB 2688, MP3 1300.51: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. The text was written on the back of a document. P.Oxy. LX 4022; LDAB 2648, MP3 1301.01: two consecutive leaves of a papyrus codex dated to the second century ad. P.Oxy. LX 4023; LDAB 2706, MP3 1301.02 (= SLS 1302.01): scrap from a parchment codex dated to the third or fourth century ad. P.Oxy. LXVIII 4641; LDAB 10220, MP3 1300.52: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the second or third century ad. P.Oxy. LXXIII 4936; LDAB 117815, MP3 1302.01: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the second century ad.

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Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana PL III 310 A [ZPE 124 (1999) 15–16]; LDAB 7125, MP3 1301.03: fragment from a papyrus codex dated to the fifth century ad. *BKT IX 43 (P.Berol. inv. 21142; Adespota 1121 K-A); LDAB 2673, MP3 1302.1: scrap from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. The back of this papyrus was reused to write a document. Note also P.Oxy. LX 4020 (LDAB 2649, MP31321.21), a second-century ad papyrus fragment preserving the title and part of the hypothesis of this play. The back of this papyrus was reused to write a document. Georgos (4 or 5) P.Gen.155; LDAB 2718, MP31302.2: one leaf from a papyrus codex dated to the fifth or sixth century ad. BKT IX 6 [P.Berol. inv. 21106; MH 24 (1967) 77–8 no. 9]; LDAB 2724, MP3 1302.3: scrap of a papyrus roll dated to the first century bc. PSI I 100; LDAB 2709; MP3 1302.4: fragment from a papyrus codex dated to the fourth century ad. Brit.Libr. inv. 2823A [JEA 16 (1930) 192–3]; LDAB 2710, MP31302.5: fragments of a papyrus codex dated to the fourth century ad. The text is annotated. *P.Oxy. LXXIII 4937: scrap from a parchment codex dated to the sixth or seventh century ad. Heros (1) P.Cair. 43227; LDAB 2745, MP3 1301 + 0375: papyrus codex from Aphrodito dated to the fifth century ad and preserving several plays by Menander. P.Cair. 43227 also preserves a metrical hypothesis of Heros and a cast-list. Karkhedonios (1 or 2) P.Oxy. XXXIII 2654 (+ P.Köln I 4, inv. 5031; LDAB 2621, MP3 1297.3) + P. Oxy.VI 866 (LDAB 2611, MP3 1297.3): papyrus fragments dated to the first century ad. The text is annotated. *P.Oxy. LIX 3966; LDAB 2616, MP3 1297.31: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the first century ad. It has also been assigned to Phasma or to an unidentified play (Fabula Incerta 9 Arnott).

Menander papyri

Kitharistes (2 or 4) P.Turner 5; LDAB 2654; MP3 1297.5: papyrus fragment dated to the third century ad. It preserves an extract from the play with annotations. In all likelihood, this was a school product. BKT V.2, pp. 115–22, no. XIX B (P.Berol. inv. 9767); LDAB 2726; MP3 1297.4: fragment from a papyrus roll probably dated to the second or first century bc. *P.Oxy. LXVIII 4642; LDAB 10221, MP3 1297.51: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the first or second century ad. *P.Oxy. LIX 3968; LDAB 2692, MP3 1650.01: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad and ascribed to either Thais or Kitharistes. The text was written on the back of a document preserving a grain account. Kolax (3) P.Oxy. III 409 + P.Oxy. XXXIII 2655; LDAB 2652, MP3 1297.6: remains from a papyrus roll dated to the second century ad. It contains five excerpts from the play. This text is annotated. P.Oxy. X 1237; LDAB 2698, MP3 1297.7: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. P.Oxy. L 3534; LDAB 2679, MP3 1297.8: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. Koneiazomenai (1) P.Ross.Georg. I 10; LDAB 2653, MP3 1297.9: fragment of a papyrus roll dated to the second century ad. This text, which is annotated, was written on the back of a document preserving accounts. Leukadia (1 or 2) P.Oxy. LX 4024; LDAB 2617, MP3 1302.52: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the first century ad. The lines were written on the back of a document. *P.Oxy. inv. 50 4B 30/H (5) [BICS 26 (1979) 81–7]; LDAB 2620, MP3 1308.6: a number of fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the first or second century ad. The text is written on the back of a document. It is variously assigned to Leukadia, or, perhaps less likely, Synaristosai.

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Appendix 4

Misoumenos (12 or 13) P.IFAO inv. 89 [ZPE 6 (1970) 1–5, no. 1] + P.Köln VII 282; LDAB 2657, MP3 1303.2: papyrus fragments dated to the second or third century ad. This text was written on the back of a register and is a school exercise. P.Oxy. XLVIII 3368; LDAB 2680, MP3 1303.3: several papyrus fragments dated to the third century ad. The text was written on the back of a tax register. P.Oxy. XLVIII 3369; LDAB 2681, MP3 1303.4: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. P.Oxy. XLVIII 3370; LDAB 2663, MP3 1303.5: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the second or third century ad. The text was written on the back of an account. P.Oxy. XXXIII 2657; LDAB 2682, MP3 1303.6: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. The text was written on the back of a document recording a lease of land. P.Oxy. XXXIII 2656; LDAB 2711, MP3 1303.7 + 2312.1: fragments from four leaves of a papyrus codex dated to the fourth century ad and preserving the title ‘Menander’s Thrasonides’ at the end. This text was a school product. PSI II 126 + P.Schub. 22, fr. II (P.Berol. inv. 13932); LDAB 2715, MP3 1318: fragment from a parchment codex from Panopolis or Hermopolis dated to the fifth century. This codex also preserves parts of Aspis. P.Schub. 22, fr. 1 (P.Berol. inv. 13281); LDAB 2714, MP3 1303.8: fragment from a papyrus codex dated to the fourth or fifth century ad. P.Oxy. VII 1013; LDAB 2720, MP3 1303.9: fragments of one leaf from a papyrus codex dated to the sixth century ad. P.Oxy. LIX 3967; LDAB 2689, MP3 1304.01: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. The text was written on the back of a document with accounts. P.Oxy. XIII 1605; LDAB 2676, MP3 1304.1: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. P.Oxy. LXIV 4408; LDAB 2670, MP3 1303.71: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the second or third century ad. *P.Oxy. LX 4025; LDAB 2618, MP3 1304.11: papyrus fragment dated to the first century ad. Note also P.Oxy. XLVIII 3371 (LDAB 2647, MP3 1303.1), papyrus fragment dated to the second century ad. It contains the play-title ‘Misoumenos of Menander’.

Menander papyri

Perikeiromene (6) P.Cair. 43227; LDAB 2745, MP3 1301 + 0375: papyrus codex from Aphrodito dated to the fifth century ad and preserving several plays by Menander. It contains extensive parts of Perikeiromene. P.Heid. II 219 + P.Heid. 239h [ZPE 129 (2000) 12]; LDAB 2640, MP3 1305: papyrus fragments dated to the second century ad. P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2830; LDAB 2683, MP3 1305.2: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. P.Lips. inv. 613; LDAB 2677, MP3 1305.1: two pages from a parchment codex dated to the third century ad. This codex originally preserved several plays, with Perikeiromene as the second in order. P.Oxy. LIII 3705; LDAB 2690, MP3 1305.21: papyrus scrap dated to the third century ad. It has half of an iambic line (796) written to four different settings. P.Oxy. II 211; LDAB 2625, MP3 1305.3: fragment from a papyrus roll, dated to the late first century ad. Note also *P.Oxy. XXXII 2652 (LDAB 2665, MP3 1324.1) and *P.Oxy. XXXII 2653 (LDAB 2666, MP3 1324.2): two papyrus fragments dated to the second or third century ad and preserving two ink-drawings, of a woman labelled ‘Agnoia’ and a young man. Perinthia (1) P.Oxy. VI 855; LDAB 2697, MP3 1306.1: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. Phasma (2 or 3) St Petersburg, Russian National Library Gr. 388 (P) [Mnemosyne 4 (1876) 285–93]; LDAB 2713, MP3 1300.5: fragments of three leaves from a parchment codex (palimpsest, primary script) dated to the fourth century ad. This codex also included Epitrepontes. P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2825; LDAB 2727, MP3 1306.3: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the first century bc or first century ad. *P.Oxy. LIX 3966; LDAB 2616, MP3 1297.31: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the first century ad. It has also been assigned to Karkhedonios or to an unidentified play (Fabula Incerta 9 Arnott).

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Samia (5 or 6) P.Bodm. XXV; LDAB 2743, MP3 1298: from a papyrus codex dated to the third or fourth century ad, with Samia as the first play in order, before Dyskolos and Aspis. It preserves extensive parts of the play with end title. The text contains annotations. To the same codex also belongs P. Barc. inv. 45. P.Cair. 43227; LDAB 2745, MP3 1301 + 0375: a papyrus codex from Aphrodito dated to the fifth century ad and preserving several plays by Menander. P.Oxy. XLI 2943; LDAB 2664, MP3 1307.1: fragment from a papyrus roll written in the late second or early third century ad. The text was written on the back of a document. P.Oxy. XXXVIII 2831; LDAB 2628, MP3 1307.2: papyrus fragment dated to the first or second century ad. P.Bingen 23 [P.Ant. inv. 4; APF 47 (2001) 194]; LDAB 8002, MP3 1307.11: fragment from a parchment codex from Antinoopolis dated to the sixth or seventh century ad. *P.Berol. inv. 8450 [Adespota 1131 K-A; APF 29 (1983) 5–7, no. 1]; LDAB 2622, MP3 1320.7: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the first or second century ad. Sikyonios or Sikyonioi (3) P.Sorb. 72 [BCH 30 (1906) 103–23] + 2272 + 2273 [RechPap 3 (1964) 103– 76]; LDAB 2738, MP3 1308.1: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the beginning of the last third of the third century bc (Blanchard 2009: cxiii). It is a personal copy of mediocre quality now preserving extensive parts of the play. The play-title ‘Sikyonioi by Menander’ and stichometry are preserved at the bottom. P.Oxy. X 1238 (LDAB 2612, MP3 1308.2) + P.Oxy. XLV 3217 (LDAB 2614, MP3 1308.3): fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the first century ad. P.Oxy. inv. 33 4B 83/ E (8–11) [BICS 31 (1984) 25–31]: LDAB 2631, MP3 1308.4: papyrus fragment dated to the first or second century ad. Synaristosai (possibly 3) *P.Bad. VI 175 (also known as P.Heid. 175; Adespota 1074 K-A); LDAB 2613, MP3 1308.5: papyrus fragment dated to the first century ad.

Menander papyri

*P.Oxy. LXII 4305 (Adespota 1155 K-A); LDAB 2695, MP3 1308.61: fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. *P.Oxy. inv. 50 4B 30/H (5) [BICS 26 (1979) 81–7]; LDAB 2620, MP3 1308.6: a number of fragments from a papyrus roll dated to the first or second century ad. The text is written on the back of a document. It is variously assigned to Leukadia, or, perhaps less likely, Synaristosai. Thais (possibly 2) *P.Oxy LIX 3968; LDAB 2692, MP3 1650.01: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad and ascribed to either Thais or Kitharistes. The text was written on the back of a document preserving a grain account. *P.Oxy. LXII 4303; LDAB 2694, MP3 1320.02: fragment from a papyrus roll dated to the third century ad. Note also P.Turner 6 (LDAB 2700, MP3 1308.7), a papyrus sheet dated to the third century ad. It reads ‘For Isidoros, Menander’s Thais’. It was written on the back of a document. Theophoroumene (1 or 2) PSI XII 1280; LDAB 2623, MP3 1309: fragment of a papyrus roll dated to the first century ad. *PSI XV 1480; LDAB 2725, MP3 1309.1: fragment of a papyrus roll dated to the first century bc or the first century ad. The text is annotated. Titthe (possibly 1) *Vat. Sir. 623; LDAB 10072: a parchment codex (twice palimpsested, primary script) heavily used and reused. Fol. 211+218, 212+217 are the remains of a late-antique codex of Menander dated to the fourth century. They preserve about 200 lines from Dyskolos and lines from another comedy, apparently Titthe. See Handley 2011b: 140, n. 10. A preliminary description of this manuscript is given by D’Aiuto (2003: 266–73).

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305

Index

306

Accius, 78, 86, 111, 117 Acholla, House of M. Asinius Rufinus, see Appendix 2 actor(s) and orators, 230–9, 246–9 at dinner parties, 170, 174–7, 179, 182, 183–6, 188 cost of, 188 decrease of, 189 ownership of, 175, 177–80 papyri used by, 111 rental of, 188 status of, 247–9 troupes of, 81–2, 183–4 Aelian, 63, 219 and Dyskolos, 219–20 Aelius Aristides on comic ridicule, 51–2, 119 on singing orators, 232 Aemilius Scaurus, Marcus, 196 Aeschines, 28, 249 and comic ridicule, 28 and declamations, 226 on Euripides, 209 use of maxims, 203 Aeschylus, 11, 15, 18, 113, see also Euripides; Sophocles Agamemnon, 114 at dinner parties, 169 Cares or Europe, 215 Eumenides, 25 in schools, 215 in Sicily, 11, 18, 35 Libation Bearers, 113 linguistic difficulty of, 114–15 maxims of, 208, 209, 210 papyri, 113, 215 Persians, 18 reperformances of, 18, 91, 96, 113–14 Seven against Thebes, 96 statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, 13 Women of Aetna, 18 Afranius

and Menander, 117 reperformances of, 99 Agoranax of Rhodes (comic actor), 118 Ailios Themison, Gaios, 87 Alcibiades, 25 Alciphron, 219 and Misoumenos, 219 letters of Menander and Glykera, 43, 219 Alexander Philostratus, 90 Alexander the Great, 31, 42, 44, 224 and Antiphanes, 36, 92 and Euripides, 86 and Greek drama, 171 and private dramatic performances, 174 Alexis, 33, 35, 59 Agonis or Hippiskos, 95 and revisions, 89, 91, 92, 93 as author of Anteia, 91 Karkhedonios, 72 Krateia or Pharmakopoles, 92 Latin adaptations of, 59, 72, 93, 262, see also Appendix 1 Philetairos or Demetrios, 89, 93 Phrygian, 89 plays attributed to, 23 relationship with Menander, 11 Alkaios (comic poet), 33 Amarantus On the Stage, 111 Ambivius Turpio, 73, 74, 82 Ameinias (comic poet), 36 Amphis, 33, 34 honours granted to, 39 Anaxandrides, 26, 33, 35, 36, 91 and revisions, 89 as writer of dithyrambs, 41 popularity, 65–6 reperformances of, 65 Tereus, 15 Andronikos (tragic actor), 230 Andros, 35 Anonymous Seguerianus Art of Political Speech, 216

Index

Antiochos of Alexandria On the Poets Satirised in Middle Comedy, 28 Antipater, 31, 43 Antiphanes, 33, 35, 36, 91, see also Alexander the Great; Demetrius of Phaleron Agroikos or Boutalion, 89 and revisions, 89 Anteia, 91 honours granted to, 39 Oionistes, 92 plays attributed to, 23 Poetry, 24 popularity, 236 Antyllus (physician and writer), 236 Aphthonios Progymnasmata, 212 Apollinarios of Laodicea, 117–18, 257 Apollodoros from Gela, 33, 35 Apollodoros of Karystos, 33, 35, 40 Hekyra, 73 Latin adaptations of, 73, 262, see also Appendix 1 Apollonios, son of Glaukias, 9, 80, 215 Apuleius Anechomenos, 98, 117 knowledge of Philemon, 108–9 on Menander, 15 on Philemon, 15, 50 Araros, 65, 92 Archedikos, 31, 32, 41 and political comedy, 31 Archelaos, 19 Archelaos (tragoidos), 85 Archestratos reperformances of, 67 Archilochus, 135 Arellius Fuscus, 232 Aristagoras Mammakythos, 93 Aristarchos, 55 in Quintilian, 57 Aristarchos (tragic poet) Achilles, 76, 93 Aristodemos, 249 Aristomedes, 31, 107 Aristomenes (actor of Old Comedy), 179 Aristophanes, 11, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, 36, 50, 51, 65, 90, 100, 115, 117, 171, 218, 235, 250, 253, see also Plutarch Acharnians, 110 and Euripides, 19, 86, 110–11, 114, 210 and revisions, 88–9, 91 at dinner parties, 171, 172–3, 185

Birds, 172 Clouds, 52, 88–9, 90, 91, 113, 169 Frogs, 18, 20, 51, 66, 113, 172 Knights, 51, 91, 170 Kokalos, 26, 65 papyri, 200, 257 plays attributed to, 23 reperformances of, 32, 51, 66, 101, 111 Thesmophoriazusai, 20, 86, 111 Wasps, 89 Wealth, 65, 113 Aristophanes of Byzantium, 27, 53, 58, 91, 202, 222, 252 in Quintilian, 57 on Menander, 9, 56, 63, 134, 202, 210, 217 Aristophon of Azenia, 28 Aristotle, 17, 18, 34, 44, 46, 50, 51, 52, 90 and comedy, 18, 27, 28, 47–9 and Euripides, 114, 209, 210 and Menander, 45–6 and the Library of Alexandria, 55, 90 discussion of maxims, 203, 209, 210 on delivery, 229 on metics, 40 relationship with the Macedonian court, 43 Artemidoros, 104, 119 Artists of Dionysus, 67 Athenian association, 67, 69 Egyptian association, 69 in South Italy, 70 Ionian-Hellespontine association, 67, 81 Isthmian-Nemean association, 69 Asbolis (tragoidos), 86, 188 Asticus (comoedus), 178 Astydamas the Younger, 18 statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, 61–2 Athenaeus, 22, 34, 36, 55, 95, 111, 259 and comic targets, 27 and Middle Comedy, 23 and revisions, 89, 91, 92, 93, 96 on Menander, 43 quotations of Diphilus, 60, 107–8 quotations of Philemon, 60, 107–8 Athenion (female tragoidos), 86 Atilius Electra, 87 Atimetus (comoedus), 178 Augustine, 248 Augustus, 44, 95, 100, 101, 118, 177, 178, 190, 198, 232, 249 dinners parties of, 178 shows offered by, 99, 100 writing Ajax, 95

307

308

Index

Ausonius, 9, 201, 229 Avenches, 156, 267, see also Appendix 2 Baia, 265, see also Appendix 2 Balbos of Tralles, 257 Baths of Zeuxippos, 131 Boscoreale cup, 135–6 Caecilius of Calacte, 92 Caecilius Statius, 71 Greek models of, see Appendix 1 Hypobolimaeus, 75 Plocium and Menander’s Plokion, 71, 72 reperformances of, 75 Caesar, 258 shows offered by, 99 Caligula shows offered by, 99 Callimachus, 55, 56, 96, 118 Calliopius, 243–4 Callixeinos, 69 Calvisius Sabinus, 194 canon of New Comedy, 56–60 of tragedy, 18 Caracalla, 119 Carcinus maxims of, 210 Medea, 84, 85 Carinus and entertainers, 190 Cassander, 12, 42, 43 Cato, 180, 231 Chaeremon maxims of, 210 reperformances of, 67 Chalkis, 39 Chamaeleon, 53, 89 Chania Menander mosaics in, 138, 140, 146, 154, 162, 199, 266, see also Appendix 2 Charisios (speech-writer), 216 Charition mime, 113, 240 Chios, 36, 39, 92 Choricius, 221 Christodorus Ekphrasis, 131 Cicero, 51, 74, 75, 78, 133, 190, 230, 231, 237, 238, 249 on delivery, 229 On Invention, 227 on orators and actors, 231 quotations of Menander, 214

Claudius at the Sebasta, 105–6 shows offered by, 99 Cleanthes, 52 Cleon, 27 Constantine, 131 contaminatio, 64, 77, 78 and revisions, 7, 88–99 Cordoba, 199, 267, see also Appendix 2 Cornelius Nepos, 248 Cornelius Scipio Asiagenes, Lucius triumph of, 197 Crantor on Euripides, 114 Crates, 27, 109 Crates (philosopher), 111 Cratinus, 23, 26, 109, 117 at dinner parties, 170 Chirons, 24 plays attributed to, 23 Cratinus (painter), 127 Crete, 20, 138, 141 Crinagoras, 102, 104 Cyrene, Tomba dei Ludi, 264, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Dadon, 201, 202 Daphne Menander mosaics in, 138–9, 151, 152, 166, 167, 168, 191, 198, 267, see also Appendix 2 Menander portraits in, 120–1, 130, 135 declamation(s), 230, 233, 237, see also Libanius; Quintilian; Sopatros and comedy 223, 225–7 types and themes, 223–5, 227–8 Delos, 36 House of the Comedians, 194, 196, 265, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Demades, 27 Demetrius On Style, 107, 235, 236, 237 Demetrius (comic poet), 31, 32 Demetrius (comoedus), 102–4 Demetrius of Phaleron, 17, 43 and Antiphanes, 39, 92 and declamations, 226–7 and the Library of Alexandria, 54 relationship with Menander, 12, 45 rule in Athens, 12, 42 Demetrius the Besieger, 30, 32, 39, 42 and Menander, 45 first rule in Athens, 12

Index

second rule in Athens, 12, 30, 60–1 Demochares, 30, 43, 61 as comic target, 31 Demophilus, 262 Demosthenes, 11, 29, 31, 39, 40, 107, 216, 250 as comic target, 31 early statue, 44 in schools, 221 portraits, 124, 127 ranked below Menander, 257 trained by an actor, 230 Dicaearchus, 90, 94 Dinarchus, 12 Dio Chrysostom, 5, 9, 15, 233 on comic ridicule, 51 on dramatic performances, 82–3, 96–7, 112, 113 on Euripides, 115–16, 209, 237 on Menander, 209, 217, 237 reading list of, 209, 237 Diodoros (comic poet), 33, 34, 35 (?) decree in honour of, 39 granted Athenian citizenship, 39 Diogenes Laertius, 214 and comic targets, 27 on Menander, 12, 45 Diokles (comic poet), 33 Diomedes (grammarian), 109 Diomedes (scholiast), 234 Dion, 36 Dionysiades, 55 Dionysios (comic poet), 33, 34 Dionysius (tyrant of Heracleia), 42 Dionysius of Halicarnassus on Euripides’ Orestes, 87 Dionysius of Syracuse, 40, 42, 65, 170, 171 as comic target, 29, 170 Dionysius Thrax, 211, 234, 236, 237 Dioscorus of Aphrodito, 130, 254 Dioscurides of Samos, 148, 198 Diphilus, 7, 33, 34, 35, 36, 56, 58, 59, 64, 77 and humour, 51 and Menander, 57 and revisions, 89, 96 cited by ancient writers, 60, 107, 109, see also Athenaeus; Lucian; Plutarch; Stobaeus Hairesiteiches, Eunuchos or Stratiotes, 89, 96 Kleroumenoi, 60, 75 Latin adaptations of, 59, 72, 73, 75, 262, see also Appendix 1 life and dates, 39, 58 maxims of, 208

Misanthropoi, 58, 66 papyri, 108 plays attributed to, 23 popularity, 7, 60 reperformances of, 6, 58, 60, 66 Synapothneskontes, 73, 77 Synoris, 89 Domitian, 100, 102, 104, 190 Donatus, 74, 254 and dramatic performances, 244–5 commentary on Terence, 78, 243–6 Drakon, 30 Dura Europos, 179, 188 Echekrates (synagonistes), 81 Elphidephoros (tragoidos), 179 Ennius, 70, 77, 78, 110, 111 Achilles, 76, 93 entertainers, 181, see also actor(s); Carinus; Hadrian; John Chrysostom; Livia, Marcella (the Elder and the Younger); Martial, mime(s); Nero, pantomime(s); Pliny the Younger; Statilii at Dura Europos, 188 hiring of in Egypt, 186–8 rental of, 181 Epagathos (khoraules), 87 Ephesus, 68, 112, 122, 168, 194 Menander portraits in, 126, 131 Menander wall paintings in, 138, 139, 142, 146, 147, 168, 198, 265, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Ephippus, 29, 42, 170 Epicharmus, 35, 98 Hebes Gamos or Muses, 89 Epictetus and private dramatic performances, 186 Epikrates (comic poet), 33, 35 Eratosthenes, 25, 55, 80, 90 Eretria Dionysia and Demetrieia in, 39 Menander in, 37–9 Eubulus, 42 plays attributed to, 23 Eudoxos (comic poet), 33, 35 Eunapius, 85, 86 Euphronios, 55 Eupolis, 24, 91, 117 Autolykos plays, 88, 93 Baptai, 25 Demes, 20, 254 Marikas, 90 plays attributed to, 23

309

310

Index

Euripides, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 22, 35, 36, 55, 97, 102, 211, 253, see also Aeschines; Alexander the Great; Aristophanes; Aristotle; Crantor; Dio Chrysostom; Philemon; Quintilian; Stobaeus Aiolos, 169 Alcestis, 111 Alcmena, 76 and Aeschylus, 114 and Menander, 7, 9–10, 13, 130, 133, 135, 136, 256 and revisions, 90–1 Andromache, 19 Andromeda, 85–6 Archelaos, 67 at dinner parties, 169, 170, 171, 176 Auge, 112 Bacchae, 86–7, 176 Cresphontes, 80, 113, 239, 242 Danae, 79 Electra, 114, 170 First Autolykos, 222 Hecuba, 114, 256 Heracles, 67 Hippolytus, 93, 222 Hippolytus Veiled, 80, 91, 93 hypotheses to, 222 Hypsipyle, 111, 155–6, 194, 268 illustrations of plays by, 137, 155–6, 194, 268, see also Appendix 3 in Macedon, 19 in schools, 79, 80, 118, 213, 215, 222, 260 in Sicily, 18–19 Ino, 112 Iphigenia at Aulis, 80, 83, 84, 85 Latin adaptations of, 86, 110 linguistic accessibility of, 110 maxims of, 209, 210 Medea, 80, 84, 90, 215 musical adaptations of, 86–8 Oedipus, 256 Orestes, 67, 79, 84, 87, 110, 111, 115, 256 papyri, 79, 80, 83, 84, 113, 215, 239, 256 Phaethon, 256 Phoenician Women, 84, 96, 209, 256, 259–60 Phoenix, 209 portraits, 130, 133, 135, 136 reperformances of, 58, 64, 65, 67, 85, 110–13 statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, 13 Stheneboea, 210 Telephos, 80, 110–11

Favorinus, 182, 233 Felix (comoedus), 178 Ferrandus Life of Saint Fulgentius, 112, 201 festivals Agrionia (Thebes), 67 Amphiaraia/Romaia (Oropos), 67, 68 Caesarea (Isthmia), 102 Capitolia (Rome), 100, 104, 244 Charitesia (Orchomenos), 67, 68 City Dionysia (Great Dionysia), 12, 13, 17, 21, 36, 37, 88 old plays at, 57–8, 65–6, 67 Demostheneia (Oenoanda), 102 Dionysia (Delos), 36 Dionysia and Demetrieia (Euboea), 39 Eusebeia (Pozzuoli), 100, 101 Heraia (Argo), 67 Homoloia (Orchomenos), 67, 68 Lenaea, 12, 18, 21, 36, 37, 58 Lysimacheia (Aphrodisias), 101 Museia (Thespiae), 68, 101, 189 Naia (Dodona), 67 Neronia (Rome), 100 Romaia (Magnesia on the Meander), 68 Rural Dionysia, 20–3, 37 Sarapieia (Tanagra), 67, 68–9, 82 Sebasta (Naples), 100–1, 106 Soteria (Akraiphia), 67, 68 Soteria (Delphi), 67, 82 Festus, 75, 93 Fulgentius, 112, 201 Galen, 55 definition of revision, 88 Gellius and dramatic readings, 59, 72, 171–2 on plays attributed to Plautus, 98 Genazzano (villa in), 133 Germanicus, 106 Glaucias (slave-boy), 112, 173, 201 Glyco (tragoedus), 179, 188 Glykera (Menander’s ‘lover’), 43, 51, see also Alciphron portraits, 120, 130, 135 Gnathaina, 51 Gorgias (hypokrites), 179 gynaikonomoi, 42 Hadrian, 117 dinner parties of, 179, 181 entertainers owned by, 97, 179, 181 shows offered by, 99, 181, 244

Index

Hadrian of Tyre, 233 Hadrianotherae, 132 Hegemon, 33, 34 Heniochos and political comedy, 28–9 Herakleia-Lynkestis, 131 Herculaneum, 132, 134, 188, 270, see also Appendix 3 Villa dei Papiri, 56 Hermippos (comic poet) plays attributed to, 23 Hermippus of Smyrna, 55 Hermogenes on Menander, 258 Progymnasmata attributed to, 212 Hesiod, 67, 194 in schools, 213 Homer, 10, 18, 55, 194, 233, 253, 254, 258, see also Library of Alexandria associated with Menander, 9, 56, 63, 130, 134, 201–2 in collections of maxims, 208 in schools, 118, 201–2, 213, 218, 221, 229, 237, 259 papyri, 9 popularity, 9, 122, 202 portraits, 122 Horace, 117, 250 on reperformances, 75 Hortensius Hortalus, Quintus, 231, 233 Hyperides, 28 Hypodikos of Chalkis, 41 Ion of Chios, 41 Isaios, 40 Isocrates and political comedy, 28 Jason of Tralles (tragic actor), 176, 185 John Chrysostom on entertainers, 191 John of Gaza, 214 Juba, 111 Julian, 190, 257 Symposion or The Caesars, 171 Julius Sophron, Marcus (comoedus), 186 Juvenal, 104 dinner parties of, 194 on Greek actors, 103 Kallias of Sphettos, 30, 61 Kanopos (tragoidos), 87 Karystos, 35, 39

Kastelli-Kissamou, 141 Menander mosaics in, 141, 142, 151, 166, 167, 195, 199, 267, see also Appendix 2 Kephisodotos the Younger, 13 Kinesias, 41 Klaudios Thrasyboulos, Poplios, 173 Laberius, 190, 245 Lachares, 12, 13, 31 Lais, 27 Latinus, 92, 210 Leonteus of Argo (tragoidos), 111 Letter of Aristeas, 54 Libanius, 190, 212, 230, 242 declamations, 225–6 drama class, 238–9 Progymnasmata, 235 Library of Alexandria, 6, 54, 70 comedy at, 55–6, 207 establishment of, 54–5 Homer at, 55 tragedy at, 55 Licinius Crassus, Lucius, 196 Licinius Crassus, Marcus, 176 Licinius Lucullus, Lucius triumph of, 197 Livia entertainers owned by, 177–8 Livy Andronicus, 58, 59, 70, 86, 94 Lucian, 54, 102, 213 on Greek intellectuals in Roman houses, 194 on pantomimes, 233 on singing orators, 232 on tragoidoi, 85–6 quotations of Diphilus, 107 quotations of Menander, 214 quotations of Philemon, 107 Lucilius, 117 Lucillius (epigrammatist), 85 Luscius Lanuvinus controversy with Terence, 74, 76–8 Greek models of, 263, see Appendix 1 Lycophron, 55 and revisions, 96 Lynkeus of Samos, 33, 34 and Menander, 11, 53–4 Lysimachos (king of Thrace), 29, 85 Macedon, 12, 19, 20, 35, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45, 131, 170 Machon, 56 as comic poet, 116, 117

311

312

Index

Macrobius, 176, 190 Magas (king of Cyrene), 52 Magnes, 170 Lydians, 97 Manilius, 118 Manlius Vulso, Gnaeus, 177 triumph of, 177, 197 Marcella (the Elder and the Younger) entertainers owned by, 178 Marius, 175–6, 177 Markios Straton, Kuintos (komoidos), 104–5, 189 Martial and Menander, 12, 14 on cost of entertainers, 188 Martianus Capella on orators and actors, 231 medallion(s) Menander on, 123 Melampodos (scholiast), 234 Menander, see also Afranius; Alciphron; Alexis; Apuleius; Aristophanes of Byzantium; Athenaeus; Cicero; Demetrius of Phaleron; Demetrius the Besieger; Demosthenes; Dio Chrysostom; Diogenes Laertius; Diphilus; Eretria; Euripides; Hermogenes; Homer; Lucian; Lynkeus of Samos; Martial; Pausanias; Philemon; Plutarch; poets; progymnasmata; Quintilian; Stobaeus; Theon; Theophrastus Achaioi (illustrations), 138, 139, 142, 267, see also Appendix 2 Adelphoi (Second Adelphoi), 73, 77 Andria, 73 Aspis, 45, 210, 221, 256 Aspis (papyri), 220, 252, 254, 255, 271, see also Appendix 4 chorus in, 221 comic ridicule in, 42–3 Dardanos, 215 Deisidaimon, 92 Dis Exapaton (papyri), 71, 271, see also Appendix 4 Dyskolos, 37, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 256, see also Aelian Dyskolos (papyri), 220, 252, 254, 255, 271, see also Appendix 4 Encheiridion (illustrations), 137, 264, see also Appendix 2 Encheiridion (papyri), 255, 273, see also Appendix 4 Epikleros, 215, 216

Epitrepontes, 37, 45, 210, 216, 221, 256 Epitrepontes (illustrations), 137, 162, 192, 264, see also Appendix 2 Epitrepontes (papyri), 192, 222, 237–8, 254–5, 273, see also Appendix 4 Fisherman or Fishermen, 43 Georgos, 220, 234, 256 Georgos (papyri), 252, 254, 255, 274, see also Appendix 4 Halaeis, 37 Heauton Timoroumenos, 37 Heniochos, 13 Heros, 240, 254, 274 Heros (papyri), 37, 222, see also Appendix 4 humour in, 50 Hydria, 234 Hypobolimaios, 216 Imbrians, 13 Karkhedonios (papyri), 255, 279, see also Appendix 4 Kitharistes, 207, 213–14, 217 Kitharistes (papyri), 213, 255, 275, see also Appendix 4 Kolax, 77, 255 Kolax (papyri), 215–16, 255, 275, see also Appendix 4 Koneiazomenai (papyri), 255, 275, see also Appendix 4 Kybernetai (illustrations), 137, 266, see also Appendix 2 Latin adaptations of, 71–2, 73, 262, see also Appendix 1 Leukadia, 25 Leukadia (illustrations), 137, 162, 266, see also Appendix 2 Leukadia (papyri), 275, see also Appendix 4 life and dates, 11–13 Locrians, 216 Messenia (illustrations), 137, 163, 264, see also Appendix 2 Methe (illustrations), 164 Misoumenos, 216–17, 219, 256, see also Alciphron Misoumenos (illustrations), 137, 154, 157–8, 162, 163, 165, 192, 266, see also Appendix 2 Misoumenos (papyri), 192, 220, 254, 255, 276, see also Appendix 4 Nomothetes, 207, 216 Paidion, 13, 240 Perikeiromene, 42, 45, 256

Index

Perikeiromene (illustrations), 138, 139, 162, 163, 164, 167–8, 265, see also Appendix 2 Perikeiromene (papyri), 172, 254, 277, see also Appendix 4 Perinthia, 73, 77 Perinthia (papyri), 277, see also Appendix 4 Phasma, 25 Phasma (illustrations), 137, 162, 266, see also Appendix 2 Phasma (papyri), 255, 273, see also Appendix 4 Philadelphoi (illustrations), 139, 162, 164, 267, see also Appendix 2 Plokion, 209 Plokion (illustrations), 137, 138, 140, 163, 165, 176, 264, see also Appendix 2 portraits, 122–36 prologues, 215, 223 Psophodees, 216 Samia, 45, 221, 256 Samia (illustrations), 137, 154–7, 162, 163, 264, see also Appendix 2 Samia (papyri), 220, 252, 254, 255, 271, see also Appendix 4 Sikyonioi, 37, 42, 210 Sikyonioi (illustrations), 138, 140, 141, 142, 145–7, 162, 164, 165, 265, see also Appendix 2 Sikyonioi (papyri), 56, 207, 252, 278, see also Appendix 4 songs in, 25, 164, 216 statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, 13, 61–2, 122, see also portraits Synaristosai, 37 Synaristosai (illustrations), 137, 138, 139, 142, 151–3, 162, 164, 165, 191, 195, 198, 264, see also Appendix 2 Synaristosai (papyri), 191, 278, see also Appendix 4 Thais (papyri), 275, see also Appendix 4 Theophoroumene, 25, 255 Theophoroumene (illustrations), 137, 139, 141, 142, 147–51, 162, 164, 165–7, 191, 195, 198, 264, see also Appendix 2 Theophoroumene (papyri), 191, 255, 275, see also Appendix 4 Titthe (papyri), 256, 279, see also Appendix 4 Xenologos, 215 Menander’s Maxims, 205–11 Messenia, 20 Metagenes, 36

Aurai or Mammakythos, 93 Thurio-Persians, 36 Metapontum, 20 Metellus Numidicus, 175–6 Metellus Pius, 176, 184 Milanio (comoedus), 178 mime(s), 113, 117, 180, 187, 221, 244 at dinner parties, 184, 190–1 at Dura Europos, 188 at funerals, 181–2 papyri used by, 79, 239, 240 wages of, 188 Mnesimachos, 29, 42 Monimos, 136 Montecelio (villa in), 133 Mummius Lucius, 197 Myrina comic statuettes from, 145, 148 Mytilene, 33, 102, 122 Menander mosaics in, 135, 137, 149–50, 151–2, 154–8, 165–7, 168, 191, 192, 193, 195, 199, 264, see also Appendix 2 Menander portrait in, 123, 126, 135 Naevius, 70, 77, 86 Colax, 77 comic ridicule in, 117 Greek models of, 262, see Appendix 1 Nedymus (comoedus), 178 Neleus, 55 Neophron Medea, 90 Neoptolemos (tragic actor), 65, 230 Nero, 11, 86, 87, 100, 178 as tragic actor, 81 entertainers owned by, 179 shows offered by, 100 New York Group, 26 Nicophron Sirens, 36 Nigidius Figulus, Publius, 229 Nikokles (archon), 13 Nikolaos Progymnasmata, 212 Nikon of Megalopolis (tragoidos), 81 Nikostratos (comic poet), 210 Nikostratos (tragic actor), 65 Nikostratos II (comic poet), 36 Old Oligarch, 32 Olimpiodoros (archon), 61 Oreos, 39

313

314

Index

Pacuvius, 78 Armorum iudicium, 87, 111 Palazzo Nervegna (Brindisi), see Appendix 2 Palladas, 109–10, 205 Pamphile of Epidauros, 11 Panaenus (lector), 178, 182 pantomime(s), 187, 233, see also Lucian at dinner parties, 180–1, 190–1 Panurgus, 188 Paulos (komoidos), 109–10, 189 Pausanias, 199 and Menander, 13 Pergamon Menander portrait in, 131 token found in, 123 Pherecrates, 27 Automoloi, 89 Philemon, 7, 33, 35, 36, 56, 57, 59, 64, 235 and Euripides, 107 and humour, 50 and Menander, 14–15, 57, 63 and revisions, 92 cited by ancient writers, 60, 107 see also Apuleius; Athenaeus; Lucian; Plutarch; Stobaeus comic ridicule in, 52, 107 granted Athenian citizenship, 39 in Egypt, 36 Latin adaptations of, 59, 262, see also Appendix 1 life and dates, 36, 39, 52, 58 maxims of, 108 papyri, 108 Phokeis, 66 plays attributed to, 23 popularity, 7, 58, 60, 106–7 Ptoche, 58, 66 reperformances of, 6, 58, 66 revised by Straton, 92–3 Philemon the Younger, 33, 35, 36 Philip, 11, 36, 40, 42, 171, 190 as comic target, 29 Philippides, 31, 41, 61, 210 and political comedy, 29–30, 31, 32 plays attributed to, 23 reperformances of, 66 statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, 29, 44, 51 Philippides of Paiania, 61 Philo and dramatic performances, 111–12 Philodemus of Gadara on delivery, 229 Philon (synagonistes), 81

Philostratus, 87 Lives of the Sophists, 233 Love Letters, 219 on declamations, 226 on dramatic performances, 83, 112 Philostratus the Elder as playwright, 225 Phoenicides (comic poet), 33, 35 Phrynichus (grammarian), 89, 200, 257–8 Phrynichus (tragic poet), 18, 19, 170, 171 Capture of Miletus, 66 Phoenician Women, 90 Piazza Armerina (Villa di), 193, 199, 266, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Pindar, 41, 170 in schools, 118, 213 Planudes, Maximus, 206 Plato, 17, 32, 46, 50, 51, 52, 65, 135, 218, 253 and comedy, 28, 46–8 as comic target, 25–6, 27 Plato (comic poet), 24 Odysseis, 26 plays attributed to, 23 Platonius, 25–6 Plautus, 37, 73, 77, 78, 98, 116 Amphitruo, 167 and Alexis, 59 and Diphilus, 60, 72 and Philemon, 60 Aulularia, 98 Bacchides and Menander’s Dis Exapaton, 71, 72, 207 Casina, 59, 60, 74, 76, 176–7 choruses in, 72 Cistellaria, 37, 75, 93 Colax, 77 Commorientes, 77 Greek models of, 72, 262, see also Appendix 1 manuscripts of, 243 Mostellaria, 60, 75, 93, 164 plays attributed to, 59, 97–8 Poenulus, 72, 76 Pseudolus, 75 reperformances of, 74–6 Rudens, 72, 76, 249–50 Stichus and Menander’s Philadelphoi, 233 Pliny the Elder, 197, 229 on libraries, 134 Pliny the Younger, 104, 116, 180, 181, 185 dinner parties of, 29–30, 183 entertainers owned by, 178–9 on singing orators, 232 Plotius Gallus, Lucius, 229

Index

Plutarch, 5, 61, 115, 170, 188, 189, 199, 210, 251 and Plato, 50 Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander, 1–2, 49–51, 218, 259 dinner parties of, 7, 109, 119, 120, 122, 168, 171, 183, 184, 185, 186 Life of Cato the Elder, 180 Life of Crassus, 176–7, 185 Life of Demetrius, 29–30 Life of Nicias, 19, 107 on comic ridicule, 52–3 on poetic hypotheses, 223 on public dramatic performances, 105, 112–13 on tragoidoi, 85 quotations of Diphilus, 107 quotations of Menander, 214 quotations of Philemon, 107 poets adapting New Comedies into Latin, 58–60, 70–6, see also individual poets and Appendix 1 imitating Menander, 117–18 provenance of, 32–5, 41–2 writing new comedies, 118–19 Polemon, Marcus Antonius, 233 Polybius, 31 on Roman funerals, 181–2 Polybius (Claudius’ freedman) and Menander’s Epitrepontes, 105 Pompeii, 121, 193, 198 Casa degli Amorini Dorati, 134 Casa dei Dioscuri, 155, 265, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Casa dei Quadretti Teatrali, 195, 265, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Casa del Camillo, 266, see Appendix 2 Casa del Centenario, 195, 196, 264, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Casa del Menandro, 130 Menander portrait in, 128–30, 134, 135 Casa della Fontana Grande, 264, see Appendix 2 Casa di Caecilius Iucundus, 197, 269, see also Appendix 3 Casa di Cicerone, 195, 266, see also Appendix 2 Casa di Marcus Lucretius, 195, 196, 265, see also Appendixes 2 and 3 Pompey, 197 Theatre of, 131 Pomponius Bassulus, Marcus, 117 Posidippus, 33, 35, 53, 59

Latin adaptations of, 59 papyri, 59, 66 plays attributed to, 23 reperformances of, 66 statue, 44 Probos (hypokrites), 179 progymnasmata, 212–13 and Menander, 215, 217–18, 259 Protos (tragoidos), 179 Ptolemy Euergetes, 55 Ptolemy Philadelphus, 54, 55, 69, 175 Ptolemy Philopator, 86 Ptolemy Soter, 36, 54, 55, 219 Ptolemy XII, 175 Publilius Syrus, 190 maxims of, 208 Pylades, 190 Pyladic dance at dinner parties, 184 Pythagoras as comic target, 27 Querolus or Aulularia, 98 Quintilian, 56, 91, 231, 234, 236, 237, see also Aristophanes of Byzantium definition of grammar, 211 discussion of maxims, 203, 250 Minor Declamations ascribed to, 224, 225, 235 on comedy, 51, 57, 117, 257 on comoedi as teachers, 180, 230–1 on declamations, 224, 225, 226–7 on delivery, 105, 229, 234, 238–9 on duties of grammarians and rhetors, 211, 212–13 on Euripides, 209 on Menander, 14, 202, 216, 217, 223, 226, 258 on orators and actors, 246 on private dramatic performances, 184 on public dramatic performances, 100, 102–4 on singing orators, 232 reader (lector), 178 at dinner parties, 182–3 reperformances (in private settings), 173–81 format, 182–6 reperformances (in public theatres), see also individual authors of Old Comedy in the Classical period, 19–20, 110–11 under the Empire, 97, 101 of old plays format, 81–3

315

316

Index

reperformances (in public theatres) (cont.) in the Hellenistic period, 57–8, 60, 65–70, 82, 93–5, 110 under the Empire, 82–3, 100, 101, 111–13 of Roman comedies under the Empire, 75, 100, 244 under the Republic, 74–5 reperformances (in school settings), 237–46 Rhesus hypothesis to, 91 Rhetoric for Herennius controversiae in, 227 on delivery, 229, 246 on orators and actors, 231 Rome, 55, 59, 70, 71, 72, 75, 87, 103, 106, 177, 178, 184, 197, 198, 208, 227, 231, 247 Area Sacra del Largo Argentina, 131 Forum Pacis, 132 Villa Doria Pamphili (columbarium of), see Appendix 1 Villa Farnesina, 136 Villa of Aelian, 63, 133, 201 Roscius, 188, 230, 233, 249 Samos, 34, 35 Satyros (comic actor), 31 Satyros (tragic actor), 230 Satyros of Samos (aulos player), 86–7 Satyrus (author), 50, 55 Scopelian of Clazomenae, 233 Scribonius Curio, Gaius, 233 Seleucia, House of Iphigenia, see Appendix 3 Seneca the Elder, 227, 232 on orators and actors, 231 Seneca the Younger, 194, 225 Sextus Empiricus on grammarians, 213 Sextus Titius, 233 Sidonius Apollinaris, 254 Silius Italicus, 177 Simonides, 41 Sinope, 27, 34 Skolastikia, 131 Smyrna, 36, 119 comic statuettes from, 148 Socrates, 27, 46, 52, 123, 127, 133, 169, 251, 305 as comic target, 52 portraits, 122 Solon, 30 Sopatros Division of Questions, 235–6

Sophilos (comic poet), 33, 35 Sophocles, 11, 15, 18, 23 Ajax, 93–5 and Aeschylus, 114 Electra, 114 illustrations of plays by, 194, 268, see also Appendix 3 Locrian Ajax, 93 maxims of, 209 musical adaptations of, 87 Oedipus at Colonus, 194, 268 papyri, 113 reperformances of, 57, 93–5, 113 statue in the Theatre of Dionysus, 13 Sophocles of Sunion, 43 Sophocles the Younger Achilleus, 84 Sosigenes (archon), 11 Sousse (Hadrumetum), 266 Maison de l’Oued Blibane, 146, 266, see also Appendix 2 Sparta, 32, 65 Spurinna dinner parties of, 185 Statilii entertainers owned by, 178 Statius, 100, 106, 173 Stephanus (comic poet), 35 Stesichorus, 170 Stobaeus, 29, 206, 214 quotations of Diphilus, 60, 107–8 quotations of Euripides, 112, 209 quotations of Menander, 209, 214 quotations of Philemon, 60, 107–8 Strabo, 35, 55 Stratocles (comoedus), 102–4 Stratocles of Diomeia, 29–30, 31, 61 Straton Phoinikides, 92 Straton (king of Sidon), 175 Straton of Lampsacus, 54 Strattis, 23 Makedones or Pausanias, 96 Suetonius Lives of the Caesars, 99–100 On Grammarians and Rhetors, 213, 227 Synesius of Cyrene, 109 Syracuse, 18, 20, 35, 60, 65, 170 Syros (komoidos), 189 Taras, 20, 35, 70 Terence, 116, 243 Adelphoe, 73, 78, 245, 246

Index

Andria, 73, 76, 77, 78, 244 as ‘half Menander’, 117 Eunuchus, 73, 74, 77, 78, 100 Greek models of, 72–4, 262, see also Appendix 1 Heauton Timoroumenos, 73–4, 75, 77 Hecyra, 73, 254 manuscripts of, 240, 243–6 Phormio, 73 reperformances of, 74–5, 100 Thasos, 34 Theodora (hypotragoidos), 86, 188 Theodoric II dinner parties of, 190 Theodoros (tragic actor), 170 Theon, 210, 217 on delivery, 229–30 on Menander, 209, 215, 218 Theophrastus, 41, 44, 54, 55, 61, 169, 227 and laughter, 170 and Menander, 11, 17 definition of comedy, 48 definition of joke, 48 Theopompos (comic poet), 23 Thessaly, 19, 20 Thuburbo Majus, 243 Thurii, 20 Tiberius, 178, 190 Timaeus of Tauromenion, 31, 107 Timarchos, 28 Timarchos (artist), 13 Timocles, 32, 41 and political comedy, 31 Orestautokleides, 25 Timotheus of Miletus, 87 adaptations of, 87 and revisions, 90 Timotheus of Zakynthos (tragic actor), 94 Tivoli Villa di Cassio, 132–3 Torre del Greco, 266, see also Appendixes 2 and 3

Tractatus Coislinianus, 48 tragoidos, see also individual performers as leader of a troupe, 81 as singer, 85–8 Trimalchio dinner party of, 179, 183, 195 slaves owned by, 180 Turpilius, 59 and Alexis, 59 Greek models of, 93, 263, see also Appendix 1 reperformances of, 75 Tyrannos (comoedus), 178 Ummidia Quadratilla, 180 Varro, 194 on dramatic performances, 75 Velia, 131 Velleius Paterculus, 56 Venantius Fortunatus, 201 Vergilius (tragoedus), 179, 188 Vergilius Romanus, 116–17 Verus and entertainers, 190 Vespasian, 132 shows offered by, 99 Vibius Gallus, 232 Volusii Saturnini (villa of), 133 Xenarchos (comic poet), 89 Xenophon, 253 Symposion, 190 Zenodotos, 55 Zeugma, 188 Synaristosai mosaic in, 138, 139, 142, 151, 152–3, 168, 191, 198, 264, see also Appendix 2 Zosimos (artist), 142, 152 Zosimus (comoedus), 178–9, 180, 182

317