[194] This respect for marriage (if one extends the idea of marriage sufficiently to cover every form of union which is faithfully observed—whether actually legalised by some particular ceremony or not, is, in this connection, not very material) will, I think, be found underlying the whole Greek conception of romance. This is, of course, diametrically opposed to the view of the mediaeval barbarians, who held that the one woman in the world one could not love was one’s wife. Whether Lyde or Isolde be the higher ideal is, perhaps, a matter of taste; magno se iudice quaeque tuetur. That I personally prefer the Greek to the barbarian is perhaps due to prejudice, but it is prejudice for which I am very grateful.
A further illustration may be found in the Latin elegiac poets. Propertius, the “Roman Callimachus,” who is always calling attention to the Greek sources of his inspiration, addresses all his love-poems to the Hetaera Cynthia, to whom he remained faithful to the end. Ovid only invokes the Greeks (Antimachus in Trist. i. 6, 1; Philetas in Trist. i. 6, 2, Pont. iii. 1, 58) when addressing his wife. Tibullus and Catullus, the poets of adultery, never acknowledge in their love-poems their Greek predecessors, and Catullus even goes out of his way to abuse one of them.
[195] The Cleitophon and Leucippe of Achilles Tatius is, of course, an exception (the only extant one) to this rule, but then this late and curious work differs in other respects also from the typical Greek novel.
[196] It is most interesting to note how that, while in the earlier comedy marriage is the one great subject of ridicule, in the new comedy marriage is the hero’s one great ambition.
For φιλεράστου Cod. Vat. gives φερεκάστου, which might also, perhaps, be retained in this sense.
[198] De Compos. Verb. p. 300. He is here, of course, speaking primarily of the literary style; but literary style is in most cases more or less a reflection of literary treatment.
The severe style of Antimachus’ Thebaid is well known. (Vide Quint, x. 1, 53; Anth. Pal. vii. 409, 4.)
[199] Ἀντιμάχου τοῦ Κολοφωνίου καὶ Νικηράτου τινὸς Ἡρακλεώτου ποιήμασι Λυσάνδρια διαγωνισαμένων ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (sc. Λυσάνδρῳ) τὸν Νικήρατον ἐστεφάνωσεν· ὁ δὲ Ἀντίμαχος ἀχθεσθεὶς ἠφάνισε τὸ ποίημα. Πλάτων δὲ νέος ὢν τότε καὶ θαυμάζων τὸν Ἀντίμαχον ἐπὶ τῇ ποιητικῇ, βαρέως φέροντα τὴν ἧτταν ἀνελάμβανεν καὶ παρεμυθεῖτο, τοῖς ἀγνοοῦσι κακὸν εἶναι φάμενος τὴν ἄγνοιαν, ὡς τὴν τυφλότητα τοῖς μὴ βλέπουσιν.—Plut. Lysand. 18.
Nec enim posset idem Demosthenes dicere, quod dixisse Antimachum, Clarium poetam, ferunt; qui cum, convocatis auditoribus, legeret eis magnum illud quod novistis volumen suum, et eum legentem omnes praeter Platonem reliquissent, Legam, inquit, nihilominus; Plato enim mihi unus instar est omnium milium.—Cic. Brutus, 51, 191.
Ἡρακλείδης γοῦν ὁ Ποντικός φησιν ὅτι τῶν Χοιρίλου τότε εὐδοκιμούντων Πλάτων τὰ Ἀντιμάχου προὐτίμησεν, καὶ αὐτὸν ἔπεισε τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐς Κολοφῶνα ἐλθόντα τὰ ποίηματα συλλέξαι τοῦ ἀνδρός.—Proclus, Comm. in Plat. Tim. i. p. 28.
Whether these anecdotes are actually true or not does not much matter. That the friendship between Antimachus and Plato was a well-known fact would be sufficiently proved by their invention; but there is nothing really contradictory or improbable in them, as some have asserted. In the story from Plutarch there is no need to suppose that Plato was actually present at Samos; he may very well have met Antimachus afterwards elsewhere. The evidence of Proclus again merely says that Plato, in opposition to the prevailing opinion of his time, preferred Antimachus to Choerilus, and that he sent Heracleides to Colophon to make a collection of the works of the former, evidently after his death. It is consequently quite possible to reconcile all three narratives. Antimachus was defeated by Niceratus at the Lysandria, an event which, owing to his celebrity at the time (404 B.C.), naturally excited remark. Subsequently he met Plato, who, when the conversation turned on his defeat, complimented him in the way described—a compliment which Antimachus returned on another occasion (that alluded to by Cicero). Lastly, after Antimachus’ death, Plato caused a collection of his works to be made. Where Plato met Antimachus is not quite clear, but the ascription to the former of the epigram in Athen. xiii. 589 C (Anth. Pal. vii. 217) would almost seem to imply that there was, at any rate, a tradition that Plato visited Colophon. If that was actually the case, he would naturally have come across Antimachus there.
[200] Anth. Pal. xii. 168.
[202] I.e. Peloponnesian War, 431-403; Lacedaemonian and Theban Supremacy, 405-336; Macedonian Age, 336 onwards.
[203] Of the sense in which the unfortunate word “romantic” has to be understood we have already spoken elsewhere. [p. 2.]
[204] It may be remarked in passing that this ideal character of the “New” Comedy is not, as a rule, sufficiently recognised. People speak as if they thought that the stories in Menander, for instance, represented the ordinary events of life at Athens at the end of the fourth century. It need hardly, perhaps, be remarked that it would be about as reasonable to endeavour to get an idea of the ordinary life of English people at the present day by studying an Adelphi melodrama. As long as comedy at Athens confined itself to social satire, it is obvious that the social scenes it depicted must have been, even if somewhat burlesqued, yet, on the whole, true to life. When once it had abandoned this object, and began to aim at telling an exciting story, calculated to interest its audience in proportion to the strangeness and novelty of its dénouement, it is equally obvious that it must very soon have been compelled to abandon the ordinary affairs of everyday life. In taking over the business of the Epic, Comedy took with it the license of that form of composition and of its offspring, Tragedy. While no one will deny that incidents like those described by Menander may have occasionally taken place at Athens in the fourth century, just as some of them might conceivably take place in England at the present day, there can be hardly any real doubt that the stories of romantic comedy were as little true to the ordinary life of the time they professed to depict, as, say, the novel of Xenophon was to the ordinary life of the Roman provinces under the Antonines.
[205] It is true, of course, that the “New” Comedy took over from its predecessor certain characters (e.g. the parasite or the cook) and certain other features, practically unchanged; but all this was confined to minor points of detail, and any similarity between the two forms of art which such transference of ready-made specialités may cause is a purely superficial one. The main subject of romantic comedy, and the treatment there of that main subject, are entirely distinct from everything that had gone before.
[206] Thus the Megarian Comedy dates from the expulsion of Theagenes (Arist. Poet. iii. 5), while the Athenian reappears, after a silence of some 70 years, on the expulsion of Hippias.
[207] The titles of the plays attributed to Chionides do not in themselves contradict this view. The Heroes describes life as it would be in a state engaged in war, but there is no reason to believe that the play discussed any real phase of any contemporary war. The Persae, too, to judge by its second title of Assyrii, was devoted rather to ridiculing Persian customs than to dealing with the Persian War. In like manner the Lydi of Magnes introduced the Lydian dances to Athens (cp. Hesych. λυδίζων, χορεύων, διὰ τοὺς Αυδούς sc. Μάγνητος), while the Barbatistae appears to have been equally aimed at the aesthetic tastes of some part of the community. Titles again, like Ornithes, Batrachi, and Psenes, give no suggestion of political motives, any more than does the Satyri of Ecphantides.
[208] τῷ χαρίεντι τῆς κωμῳδίας τὸ ὠφέλιμον προσέθηκε τοὺς κακῶς πράττοντας διαβάλλων καὶ ὥσπερ δημοσίᾳ μάστιγι τῇ κωμῳδίᾳ μαστίζων (Anon. de Com. p. 32). οὐ γὰρ ὥσπερ ὁ Ἀριστοφάνης ἐπιτρέχειν τὲν χάριν τοῖς σκώμμασι ποιεῖ ... ἀλλ’ ἁπλῶς καὶ κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν γυμνῇ κεφαλῇ τίθησι τὰς βλασφημίας κατὰ τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων (Platon. de Com. p. 27).
[209] τοιοῦτος οὖν ἐστὶν ὁ τῆς μέσης κωμῳδίας τύπος, οἷός ἐστιν ... οἱ Ὀδυσσεῖς Κρατίνου (Platon. de Com. p. 34). οἱ γοῦν Ὀδυσσεῖς Κρατίνου οὐδενὸς ἐπιτίμησιν ἔχουσι, διασυρμὸν δὲ τῆς Ὀδυσσείας Ὁμήρου (ibid. p. 35).
The elaborate details as to cookery in the fragments of this play are also very suggestive of one of the features of “Middle” Comedy.
[210] It is further to be observed that, though Cratinus nearly always indulges in personal abuse, this abuse is by no means necessarily directed against political characters. Any person, whatever his capacity, who was sufficiently well known to be recognised by the Athenian audience, was liable to be the butt of his scurrility.
[211] Arist. Poet. v. 5. As Meineke (Com. Fr. i. 59) well expresses it: “Cratetem primum apud Athenienses exstitisse qui Epicharmi exemplo comicae poeseos materiam a singulorum hominum irrisione ad generales morum notationes rerumque descriptiones traduceret.” Crates thus differs from Cratinus in that his plays were not political, while he differs from the earlier comedians in that he avoided personalities and treated of general subjects, and this is the meaning of the word πρῶτος in Aristotle, l.c.
[212] ἐζήλωκε Κράτητα. Anon. de Com. p. 29.
[213] The law of Morychis, during the operation of which this play, like the Odysses of Cratinus and various others, seems to have been brought out, is interesting as an early instance of the influence of political events upon the development of early Athenian comedy, an influence entirely absent in the case of the romantic comedy.
[214] Thus the final disappearance of the parabasis, though an important enough event for the history of the form of Comedy, is but an incident in the real development of the art. This is shown by the fact that, when, under the law of Morychis, the parabasis was temporarily suspended, the result was the immediate appearance, at this date already, of plays which belong, in spirit, entirely to “Middle” Comedy.
[215] This means the school of Cratinus, when unrestricted by legislation, and allowed to take its own course. Prohibitive legislation naturally tended to put the two schools of comedy on much the same footing.
[217] [The author contemplated, but does not seem to have written, an Excursus on “Pericles and Aspasia.”]
[218] In neither of these must it, of course, be supposed that the erotic element was at all the leading motive. Most of the fragments of the Nemesis seem to refer to events which must be supposed to have taken place some time after the erotic incident had been closed, while in the Seriphii the description of Andromeda as δελέαστρα (Fr. 12) is the only allusion to her preserved. Indeed, it is vain in Cratinus to look for any leading motive at all, for, as Platonius says of him (de Com. p. 27), εὔστοχος ὢν ἐν ταῖς ἐπιβολαῖς τῶν δραμάτων καὶ διασκευαῖς, εἶτα προϊὼν καὶ διασπῶν τὰς ὑποθέσεις οὐκ ἀκολούθως πληροῖ τὰ δράματα.
[219] The apparent allusion to the Hetaera Myrrhina in Eupolis, Autolycus, Fr. 10, is too uncertain to be of any value.
[220] The Tyrannis (another suggestive title) also satirised the drunkenness of women (cp. the fragment ap. Athen. xi. 481 B). It may be remembered in this connection, that the introduction of drunken persons on the stage was an invention of his master Crates.
The tone of address will surprise no one who remembers the scene between Diphilus and Gnathaena (ap. Athen. xiii. 583 F), and others like it. [This subject was to have been dealt with further in an Excursus.]
[223] The precise nature of the differences between these early “Hetaera-plays” and those generally in vogue at a later date, will be examined when we come to consider the latter class of composition. [p. 153.]
[224] One can at least gather from Fr. 1, 2, 3, that the coming together of the women was made the occasion of a series of jokes at their expense, something after the manner of Mnesilochus and the baby in Thesmoph. 689 seqq.
[225] This seems to have been one of the main motives of the Lemniae; at any rate, the nature of Aeschylus’ play on the same subject would have afforded an excellent opportunity of the kind—Αἰσχύλος δ’ ἐν Ὑψιπύλῃ ἐν ὅπλοις φησὶν αὐτὰς [τὰς Λημνίας] ἐπελθούσας χειμαζομένοις [τοῖς Ἀργοναύταις] ἀπείργειν, μέχρι λαβεῖν ὅρκον παρ’ αὐτῶν ἀποβάντας μιγήσεσθαι αὐταῖς. Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. I. 773.
[227] Cp. Geras, Fr. 5, 6, 7.
[228] Cp. e.g. the remarks of Phocion to his son: ἐμοῦ μέν, ὦ παῖ, τὴν σὴν μητέρα γαμοῦντος οὐδ’ ὁ γείτων ᾔσθετο. Plutarch. Phoc. 30.
[229] Vide e.g. Nubes, 973 seqq., 1002 seqq.
[230] Cp. the speech of Mnesilochus, Thesmoph. 466 seqq., the spirit of which, all allowance for comic exaggeration being made, cannot be mistaken.
[231] Vide Thesmoph. 383 seqq. The subject and style of the Daedalus were equally uncomplimentary. Cp. Fr. 3.
[232] κωμῳδεῖται δὲ (ὀ Ἀριστοφάνης) ὅτι καὶ τὸ τῆς Εἰρήνης κολοσσικὸν ἐξῆρεν ἄγαλμα, Εὔπολις Αὐτολύκῳ, Πλάτων Νίκαις. Schol. Plat. Apol. p. 331.
[233] It is worth noticing that, while a man who seduced an Athenian citizen seems to have been legally bound to marry her, and therefore, to a certain extent, there was no great virtue in his action if he did so, at the same time this legal necessity was never, so far as we know, in any way urged in any play of the New Comedy. The point will be more fully discussed when we come to this part of our subject. [See p. 169.]
[234] Minos, quod Daedali opera multa sibi incommoda acciderunt, in Siciliam est eum persecutus petiitque a rege Cocalo ut sibi redderetur. cui cum Cocalus promisisset et Daedalus rescisset, ab regis filiabus auxilium petiit. illae Minoem occiderunt. Hygin. Fab. 44.
Μίνως δὲ, ὁ τῶν Κρητῶν βασιλεύς, θαλαττοκρατῶν κατ’ ἐκείνους τοὺς χρόνους καὶ πυθόμενος τὴν Δαιδάλου φυγὴν εἰς Σικελίαν, ἔγνω στρατεύειν ἐπ’ αὐτήν ... ὁ δὲ Κώκαλος, εἰς σύλλογον προσκαλεσάμενος καὶ πάντα ποιήσειν ἐπαγγειλάμενος, ἐπὶ τὰ ξένια παρέλαβε τὸν Μίνω. λουομένου δ’ αὐτοῦ, Κώκαλος μὲν παρακατασχὼν πλείονα χρόνον ἐν τῷ θερμῷ τὸν Μίνωα διέφθειρε, καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἀπέδωκε τοῖς Κρησί, πρόφασιν ἐνεγκὼν τοῦ θανάτου διότι κατὰ τὸν λουτρῶνα ὠλίσθηκε καὶ πεσὼν εἰς τὸ θερμὸν ὕδωρ ἐτελεύτησε. (Diodorus, iv. 79.)
The story is told somewhat differently in Zenobius iv. 92. There Minos, in order to discover Daedalus, goes about the world offering large rewards to anyone who can run a linen thread through a spiral shell, being convinced that no one but Daedalus would be able to do such a thing. When he comes to Sicily, Cocalus, in order to gain the reward, gives the shell to Daedalus, who bores a hole at the end, ties the linen thread to an ant, and so does what is required. λαβὼν δὲ ὁ Μίνως τὸν λίνον διειρμένον ᾔσθετο εἶναι παρ’ ἐκείνῳ τὸν Δαίδαλον καὶ εὐθέως ἀπῄτει. Κώκαλος δὲ, ὑποσχόμενος δώσειν, ἐξένισεν αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ λουόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν Κωκάλου θυγατέρων ἀνῃρέθη ζέουσαν πίσσαν ἐπιχεαμένων αὐτῷ.—This is the version of the story followed by Sophocles in the Camici. (Cp. Fr. 301, 302.)
It is worth noticing that Daedalus, according to Diodorus, iv. 78, made a cave at Selinus, in which patients were treated by being subjected to a gradually-increasing temperature. (τρίτον δὲ σπήλαιον κατὰ τὴν Σελινουντίαν χώραν κατεσκεύασεν, ἐν ᾧ τὴν ἀτμίδα τοῦ κατ’ αὐτὴν πυρὸς οὕτως εὐστόχως ἐξέλαβεν ὥστε διὰ τὴν μαλακότητα τῆς θερμασίας ἐξιδροῦν λεληθότως, καὶ κατὰ μικρὸν τοὺς ἐνδιατρίβοντας μετὰ τέρψεως θεραπεύειν τὰ σώματα, μηδὲν παρενοχλουμένους ὑπὸ τῆς θερμότητος.) It is, perhaps, not impossible that Aristophanes may have described Minos’ death as occurring in this cave.
[235] By the word “plot” as here used, must of course be understood merely the erotic incident. That the action was not confined to one subject of this kind is obvious to every reader of Aristophanes. Whatever may have been the treatment of the erotic element, there can be practically no doubt that this element was only one, perhaps not the most important one, among the many that went to make up the play.
[236] Fr. 4 seems to suggest that there may have been a regular trial instituted, as in the Vespae (cp. Vesp. 807 seqq. with Cocal. Fr. 12), at which Daedalus was accused of complicity in the murder, and his services to Cocalus as a builder (Fr. 5; cp. Diodorus, iv. 78) urged on his behalf. This trial may well have had features in common with the last scene in Euripides’ Andromeda.
[237] The fact that this play led to the abandonment of certain nocturnal orgies is, of course, no proof that such habits altogether ceased, even for a time; indeed, it is notorious that they did not.
[238] Even if it could be proved that the play ended with a wedding—such endings are, as we have seen, not uncommon in Aristophanes—and that this is what the grammarian means by his τἄλλα πάντα ἃ ἐζήλωσε Μένανδρος, this would not, in itself, be enough to make the play a romantic one after the manner of the later works. The marriage would have to be an act of reparation inspired by love, and it need hardly be remarked how utterly foreign any such feeling would be to the work of Aristophanes. Such a difference in spirit and motive, however, important and obvious as it seems to us, may very well have escaped the ancient critics, whose criticism of art was well-nigh exclusively concerned with its external and superficial qualities. Hence, if by any chance Aristophanes’ characters were despatched off the stage to the sounds of a wedding march, it is easy to see how clear a proof this would have seemed to them that the Cocalus belonged to the same phase of art as the plays of Menander, when, in reality, it did nothing of the kind.
[239] Cp. infra, p. 189 seqq.
[240] Thus, to quote one instance among many, the habit, common among the writers of the Empire, of describing Vergil as not only a supreme, but also a universal, genius, is sufficiently familiar. (Cp. Mart. viii. 18, &c.)
[241] τὸν μέντοι Κώκαλον, τὸν ποιηθέντα Ἀραρότι τῷ Ἀριστοφάνονς υἱεῖ, Φιλήμων ὁ κωμικὸς ὑπαλλάξας ἐν Ὑποβολιμαίῳ ἐκωμῴδησεν. (Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 267 [628].)
[242] ἐπεπόλαζε γὰρ τότε ταῦτα, Ἡρακλῆς πεινῶν, καὶ Διόνυσος δειλός, καὶ μοιχὸς Ζεύς. Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 740. The Zeus Cac. of Plato is said to have borne a close resemblance to the Daedalus of Aristophanes, which certainly contained matter of this kind. Cp. Aristoph. Daed. Fr. 3.
[243] It is interesting to observe the absence, as far as one can judge, of any reference to Sappho, the favourite butt of a somewhat later school of comedians. Could the fact of this absence be conclusively proved, it would afford valuable evidence for determining the date of the origin of the Phaon and Sappho legend. The earliest reference to it at present known is, perhaps, that in the Leucadia of Menander.
[244] We may further observe the mention of Lais in Fr. 10 of this play.
[245] Cp. Ovid, Met. X. 686 seqq. The incident might be utilised in various ways.
[246] Cp. Alciphron i. 39, 7. καταπαννυχίσασαι δ’ οὖν καὶ τοὺς ἐραστὰς κακῶς εἰποῦσαι ... ᾠχόμεθα ἔξοινοι.
[247] Vide Athen. xi. 470 F. σπινθήρ in l. 8 seems not to be the proper-name of a slave, but may simply be translated “spark.” The expression is as natural in Greek as in English, even if no other instance of this exact usage occurs.
[248] The “Hedychares” of the title seems to be Plato, so that it is rather tempting to imagine a scene something like the following. The hero, after dilating sufficiently on the virtues of “Platonic” love, is eventually discovered by one of the other characters, in company with a woman under circumstances which suggest the propriety of their getting married immediately—a fact which induces the intruder to exclaim:
The late date of this play (cp. Fr. 4) makes a plot of this kind by no means impossible, but, of course, hariolandi est infinita libertas.
[249] Great care must be taken not to misunderstand the causes of this prominence of the Hetaera in Middle Comedy. The fall of Athens, and the events immediately preceding it, resulted in a revolution of the Athenian social system, which was even more momentous than the political overthrow. From this time onwards, the individual appears at Athens as opposed to the state, in a manner that would not have been possible under the earlier régime. Hence in the Middle Comedy, which is perhaps the earliest individualistic poetry which Athens produced, ordinary habits and private life come to be treated with an interest and a realism which had never previously been attempted, and, as a consequence of this, the Hetaerae come to the fore in literature. This fact does not, therefore, imply that the position of these women in the thoughts of men was any higher than had previously been the case, or that there was a growing idea among the people that love for women was a worthy subject for artistic study and representation. It simply means, as will be abundantly clear later on, that the Hetaera was an important feature in private life, and that, therefore, when private life came to be represented on the stage, she was bound to appear there also, just in the same way and for the same reasons as the cook and the fishmonger, who are also such features of this literature.
[250] With the other distinctive features of Middle Comedy, though occasional reference may be made to them, we have less to do. It may not however be amiss, in passing, just to notice the spirit of the age, which, while it required personal attacks on men to be more or less veiled, allowed personal attacks of the fiercest description to be made on women openly by name. A remarkable instance of this is the Antilais of Epicrates, but it is far from being the only one. As for those Middle Comedies which are called after public men (e.g. the Theramenes of Cratinus junior), it would be easy to believe that these were all, as some of them certainly were, composed after the deaths of the persons whose names they bear, and that these names were simply used as types, in the way that Juvenal speaks of Tigellinus, &c.
[251] With regard to what we have described as the second feature of Middle Comedy, it may perhaps just be remarked that this constant habit of parodying and ridiculing love-stories would inevitably tend, in some sort, to bring the whole matter of love into contempt. And that the feelings of contempt so produced, and the similar feelings which originated them, would act and react on one another till both became even more accentuated, was equally inevitable. Nor must it be forgotten that the influence of tragedy, which might otherwise have served to counteract this tendency, was much less than it had been at an earlier period, for the revivals and imitations of Euripides, which held the tragic stage throughout the century, popular though some of them may have been, belonged in spirit to the previous generation, and were thus to a certain extent out of touch with contemporary feeling.
[252] Many plays of this class are called after real or imaginary Hetaerae, such as the Chrysis of Antiphanes, &c., &c., but these are, of course, not the only ones that deal with the subject.
[253] Ἀντιφάνης ὁ κωμῳδοποιὸς ὡς ἀνεγίνωσκέ τινα τῷ βασιλεῖ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ κωμῳδιῶν, ὁ δὲ δῆλος ἦν οὐ πάνυ τι ἀποδεχόμενος· δεῖ γάρ, ἔφησεν, ὦ βασιλεῦ, τὸν ταῦτα ἀποδεχόμενον ἀπὸ συμβόλων τε πολλάκις δεδειπνηκέναι καὶ περὶ ἑταίρας πλεονάκις καὶ εἰληφέναι καὶ δεδωκέναι πληγάς. (Athen. xiii. 555A.)
[255] No one who is familiar with the Middle Comedy is likely to wish to maintain that the words παρθένων φθοράς imply that the plays of Anaxandrides were similar in character to such plays as the Andria or the Adelphi of Menander. The exact nature of the παρθένων ἔρωτες of the Middle Comedy, which form, in fact, an infinitesimal part of the erotic element in that literature, will be fully discussed lower down. [pp. 159, 213.]
[256] Curious in this connection is the fact that, while the Captivi of Plautus is the only extant play derived from Anaxandrides, it is, at the same time, the only extant play of Latin Comedy which is not concerned with erotic subjects.
[257] That τραγήματα was merely a polite word for drinking, seems clear from Alexis, Polycleia:—
[258] σῦκα, are doubtless used here in the same sense as “mariscae” in Iuv. ii. 13, or “ficus” in Mart. vii. 71.
[259] Or, perhaps, the νεανίσκος tries the effect of the θηρίκλεια on the girl herself (cp. the epigram of Hedylus, Anth. Pal. v. 199); sed haec omnia incerta. In any case, the scene seems somewhat to suggest that in Petr. 85 seqq.
[261] The one or two apparent exceptions to this rule, such as those in the Marathonii of Timocles or the Philaulus of Theophilus, are in reality no exceptions at all. This will be clear enough if we consider what is meant in these passages by a κόρη, and do not confuse the sentiment there expressed with a sentiment which does not occur till a later period. The κόρη in question (a κιθαρίστρια in the Philaulus) is merely an Hetaera in posse instead of in esse, an Hetaera who has not yet entered into regular business, and herein consists her superiority from the point of view of those who do not share Diogenes’ view as to the parallel between women and houses. That her attractions do not differ in kind from those of the regular Hetaera will be plain enough to anyone who takes the trouble to turn to the passage in the Marathonii, and that the character of the “love” she inspires is also similar will be equally apparent from the same lines. That this was the character of the παρθένων ἔρωτες with which, according to Suidas, Anaxandrides dealt, seems beyond question.
[264] The “Platonic” nature of Theseus’ admiration for the undeveloped charms of Helen is a well-known feature of the legend. A comparison with Aristoph. Thesmoph. B, Fr. 26, seems to suggest a further reason why Theseus should have been introduced as a mock “Platonic” lover. Cp. Phot. s.v. κυσολάκων. τὸ δὲ τοῖς παιδικοῖς χρῆσθαι λακωνίζειν ἔλεγον. Ἑλένῃ (so Ruhnken for Μελαίνῃ) γὰρ Θησεὺς οὕτως ἐχρήσατο.
[265] In this connection we may remark that the tendency of the mythological stories commonly parodied by Middle Comedy was also almost entirely in this direction. The Ζεὺς μοιχός with whom the Athenian audience of the day was so familiar, was hardly the type of character to inspire respect for married life. How different was the New Comedy treatment of the adulterer, we shall see further on.
[266] Another phase of the Middle Comedy treatment of women, the discussion of which here would lead us too far away from our immediate subject, will be considered in Excursus I.