The classification of Greek Comedy has been, from the earliest times, a subject of dispute. The ancient critics, for the most part, divided comedy into two classes only—the Old Comedy, which has a parabasis, and the New Comedy, which has none. According to these critics, the acme of the Old Comedy was reached during the Peloponnesian War, that of the New Comedy during the reign of Alexander. That this system of classification, though sound as far as it goes, is not an adequate one, will be admitted by every student of the subject, and need not be further discussed. The alternative division of comedy into three classes, corresponding roughly to the sixth, seventh, and eighth so-called periods of Greek literature[202]—a scheme of arrangement that has on the whole been most generally accepted in modern times—is also not a very satisfactory one; for, apart from the initial objection that it, like all similar chronological arrangements, is far too rigid to be applied to anything so intangible as a literary tendency, there is the further and graver objection that there is really no essential difference whatever between the comedies performed at Athens during the reign of Philip and those performed there in the time of Alexander.
The Orge of Menander, produced in the year after the death of the latter monarch, might have been produced, as far as one can judge of its character by its remains, in any year of the previous fifty.
At the same time, however, it is certain that a division of comedy into three classes rather than two is necessary; for that the work of, say, Apollodorus Carystius, differs as much from that of Antiphanes as anything the latter ever wrote does from the work of Eupolis, is a fact that no one acquainted with the subject is likely to question.
The only satisfactory system of classification is that based, not on style or chronology, but on subject. Greek comedy falls naturally into three great divisions—the Political, the Social, and the Romantic,[203] and, to come at once to the point, these three divisions are characterised by three distinct ways of regarding women. The Political Comedy practically ignores women altogether; the Social Comedy admits the fascination of woman’s society as an incident in a man’s life; the Romantic Comedy claims woman’s love as the one topic of absorbing interest for men.
And here it may at once be observed that the relation between the first two forms of art is somewhat different from that which exists between them and the last. The Social Comedy was the natural and logical development of the original primitive comedy, and the Comedy of Cratinus, with its political motive, was but a temporary branch of the art, which, though growing at one time to such striking proportions as well nigh to conceal the parent stem, yet never actually prevented the growth and development of the latter. The Romantic Comedy, on the other hand, was the result, not of development, but of revolution. It was a deliberate attempt (undertaken in the first instance, it would seem, by a single man of genius) to inoculate the old Athenian drama with those romantic ideas which were by this time beginning to be freely expressed in various other parts of Greece, and to combine the teaching of the epic erotic legends, which were in essence ideal, with the realism of Social Comedy.[204]
This being the case, one would not unnaturally expect to find a more decided line of cleavage between the writers of the two last phases of Comedy than is apparent in the previous case. And this is unquestionably so. Throughout the fifth century we find political and social comedy flourishing side by side, the great mass of the comedians being equally at home in either branch of the art, while, towards the close of that century and at the beginning of the next, the boundary line between the writers of “Old” and “Middle” Comedy is notoriously a very faint one. At the end of the fourth century, on the other hand, the victory of the Romantic Comedy was rapid and well-nigh complete, while there is generally no difficulty in saying without hesitation to which of the two classes, the modern or the old-fashioned, any given play of the transition belonged.[205]
But while the most satisfactory classification of Greek Comedy is unquestionably one on the lines suggested above, the ordinary division into Old, Middle, and New Comedy, is so generally recognised that it has seemed to me inadvisable to ignore it altogether, and so these terms will be found occurring repeatedly in the following pages. To avoid the possibility of any misunderstanding, however, it may be remarked that the term, “New Comedy,” will always be used in the sense of romantic comedy. The term, “Middle Comedy,” will be used in its ordinary sense, except that it will be extended to cover all works, irrespective of author, which are akin to the school of Antiphanes and Eubulus. The unsatisfactory term, “Old Comedy,” will only be used in those passages where the context renders its meaning unmistakable.
Comedy was, in its origin, as seems indeed necessary from its nature, social rather than political. The scenes which the first comic actors aimed at depicting appear, beyond doubt, to have been representations of amusing incidents in the everyday life of ordinary people, and were in no way concerned with state policy; while the personalities with which this form of entertainment originally abounded, were aimed rather at rival actors than at well-known public characters, and had nothing at all in common with political lampoons. It is true that Comedy generally received its chief impulses at times of great popular license under democracies,[206] but this fact really means no more than that, at such periods, the amusements of the people received greater attention than would be the case under a tyranny or an oligarchy. No doubt these extempore slanging-matches became, at an early time already, very general in character, and contained, among other promiscuous allusions, occasional references, probably none too complimentary, to important contemporary events or personages; but that this was not their main feature, nor that which supplied their chief interest, seems shown, inter alia, by the fact that the first artistic development they received at the hands of Epicharmus was by no means in this direction. Nor, indeed, do the earliest Attic comedies appear to have been political in character, the few fragments of them which survive seeming, in every case, to deal with social subjects.[207]
The first writer to make Comedy political—that is, the first writer to give to the “Old” Comedy of Athens that which is, by modern readers, generally regarded as its most essential characteristic—was Cratinus. He, abandoning in great part that endeavour to amuse which had been the primary object of his predecessors, deliberately made use of Comedy as a political party engine, or, as he would perhaps have preferred to call it, as a means of attacking those who did harm to the state.[208] The success of the new element thus imported seems to have been very great; but, at the same time, it must not be supposed that the work of Cratinus was all of this nature. In the first place, some of his plays were of a distinctly general character. Thus the Odysses was a simple parody of the Odyssey of Homer, and, as such, was the distinct forerunner of a class of piece very common in the Social Comedy of the fourth century.[209] The Cleobulinae, with its enigmas, is equally suggestive of another feature of the same period of art. In like manner, the Panoptae, with its attacks on the philosopher Hippo, the Seriphii, with its mythological allusions, and the Horae, with its apparent discussions of tragedy, all point to the direction in which lay the true development of the art of Comedy.[210]
But, popular as the indiscriminate mud-throwing of Cratinus undoubtedly was with a large section of that cultured Athenian audience which one is taught to admire, a certain reaction was, in course of time, almost inevitable; and such a reaction was actually furnished by the comedies of Crates. Crates is described as the first Attic comedian to develop Comedy on the lines of Epicharmus, and to introduce a plot with apparently fictitious or allegorical characters, instead of merely bringing public characters on the stage and making them ridiculous.[211]
From a very early period, therefore, Comedy at Athens falls into two classes, the personal, which is usually also political, and the general or social, though the line of demarcation is not, of course, a very rigid one, since writers of the latter class would seldom feel much hesitation in attacking anyone who had made himself particularly obnoxious to them, even if he were a political character, while those of the former were also frequently compelled, for equally personal reasons, to set a limit to their righteous indignation. Thus Pherecrates, the most important of the actual imitators of Crates,[212] is by no means averse to an occasional personality, while a writer of the very opposite school, Hermippus, was yet the author of the Athenas Gonae.[213] Plato and Aristophanes are, of course, equally striking instances of the same fact occurring at a later date.
From the preceding paragraphs, which might have been considerably extended, had it not lain somewhat outside the present subject to extend them, one fact at least will be abundantly clear. That system of treating subjects rather than persons as material for comedy which is sometimes spoken of as a distinctive feature of “Middle” Comedy (using that term in its chronological sense), had already been in vogue at Athens from the very earliest times; in fact, what are commonly called “Old” and “Middle” Comedy are, in spirit, intimately associated with one another, and the most important differences between them are in purely external matters, brought about by external causes.[214]
This fact will not be without its importance in considering our immediate subject. In the first place, it will cause us to find in the early Athenian comedy two distinct ways of regarding women, which, while contemporaneous, have very little else in common with one another. The comedy of the school of Cratinus,[215] being concerned with public characters and with them alone, naturally ignores women almost entirely.[216] The comedy of the school of Crates, on the other hand, is very similar in its treatment of women to the comedy of the beginning of the fourth century, except that, in so far as the position of women in Athenian society was a less important one in the middle of the fifth century than it was some seventy years later, the female element is not such a pronounced feature of these early works as it is of the later.
A detailed examination of the treatment of women in early comedy, as far as such is possible by means of the fragments, will serve to illustrate the foregoing somewhat general remarks.
Cratinus, in that work at any rate which is truly characteristic of his genius, is entirely engrossed in public affairs, and in attacking the characters of public men. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that in his plays women are almost entirely ignored. The one notable exception is Aspasia, who is, it is true, alluded to more than once, and that in no very complimentary terms; but this is, of course, only what one would expect of an opponent of Pericles.[217] The poet’s views of married life are sufficiently illustrated by his Pytine. It is, however, to be observed that, in those of his plays which, from legislative causes, approximated more closely to the contemporary social comedy, the female element is more apparent, though even here it is never really prominent. Thus the Cleobulinae appears to have introduced a chorus of women propounding enigmas, while both the Nemesis and the Seriphii contained at least allusions to erotic mythological incidents.[218]
The other early poets of the political school are still more barren of references to women; indeed the fragments of Teleclides, Hermippus, and Eupolis,[219] put together, do not furnish a single noticeable instance.
It is otherwise, as already remarked, with the school of Crates. The fragments of Crates himself do not indeed furnish much of interest in this connection, except, perhaps, the rather risqué remarks in Fr. Incert. 3 and 4, but from Pherecrates there is more to be learnt. In the first place, three of his plays, the Corianno, Thalatta, and Petale, are named after Hetaerae, a common enough feature in later times, but rare at this early period; while the first two of these, at any rate, were evidently devoted to a study of the life of this class of person. Thus the Corianno describes (Fr. 1, 2, 3, 4) the drinking propensities of its heroine;[220] while the Thalatta gives one even further particulars, Fr. 7 describing the arrival at Thalatta’s house of her lover[221] (perhaps the Epilesmon, the “Absent-minded Man,” from whom the piece had its second title), and Fr. 2, 3, and 5 their supper together, while Fr. 4 shows clearly that a lover’s quarrel of some sort duly found its place in the piece.[222] Of the Petale no important fragment remains. Whether the Pannychis dealt with one of those incidents which are so common in New Comedy, it is impossible to say.
The remains of Pherecrates, therefore, notwithstanding their very meagre character, supply ample evidence that, at this period already, some of the most popular characters and scenes of early fourth-century comedy had found a place on the Athenian stage[223]; but a still more interesting field of study is furnished by those poets who belong to the period of transition which commences with the decline of the Athenian power, and more especially by those who began life as adherents of the personal and political school of Cratinus, and were afterwards compelled, by force of circumstances, to identify themselves with a different style of art. Foremost among these is, of course, the name of Aristophanes. The earlier plays of Aristophanes contain few allusions to women, and throughout his works it may be doubted whether he ever introduced a female character on the stage except with the ultimate intention of leading up to some form of indecency. At the same time, since the fact that his plays have been preserved affords a better opportunity of judging of his views than is to be had in the case of any other writer of the period, it will perhaps be well to examine some of his characteristics in greater detail.
The first and, perhaps, the most striking feature in the Aristophanic treatment of women—a feature which is very prominent indeed in certain plays—is the respect which the poet professes to feel for women’s judgment and powers of organisation. Thus, in the Lysistrata, the treaty between Athens and Sparta, which is admitted on all sides to be desirable, can only be brought about through the intervention of a woman. Similarly, in the Ecclesiazusae, when the government of the city has fallen into a deplorable state, it is reorganised by the women, and their scheme of reorganisation is, we are given to understand, a complete success, for the time being at any rate. Again, in the lost play of the Scenas Catalambanusae, there seems little doubt that the motive of the action was an appeal on the part of the poet from the male audience who had not appreciated him, to a female audience which he expected to find endowed with better taste.
All this is very pleasing as far as it goes. The question is:—How far is this respect professed for women, genuine? Enquiry would seem to show that very little of it, if any, is genuine at all. Of the Scenas Catalambanusae it is impossible to speak with certainty,[224] but, as for the other two plays mentioned above, it is hard to believe that the women are introduced for any other purpose than that of leading up to the various scenes of indecency which afford the main interest of both pieces. The climax of the Lysistrata is the pathetic speech of Cinesias (865 seqq.), that of the Ecclesiazusae the struggle between the γραῦς and the νεανίς (877 seqq.), and neither of these scenes can be said to show much respect for female nature. As for the success of the women’s efforts in both these plays, it is perhaps sufficient to observe that in each case the poet’s main object was to point out the advantages of a particular course of action, not to suggest any novel method of procedure by means of which this course was to be adopted. The political object of both comedies is merely to attack the government of the day. No one who has ever read these plays would be likely to argue that they advocated the extension of the franchise to women, or indeed concerned themselves in any way with any subject of the kind. To put it shortly, the women are introduced for indecency’s sake, and their revolutions succeed simply because they are revolutions against the existing order of things, an order of which Aristophanes did not approve. It would be as reasonable to suppose that the Aves was a serious piece of advice to the Athenians to consult with birds about the management of the State, as to assume that the Ecclesiazusae meant to imply that the views of women were really worthy of consideration or adoption.
The incessant allusions in these plays, no less than in others, to the incontinence,[225] the drunkenness, and the various other faults with which it was usual at the time to tax women—allusions which frequently take the form of frank confessions on the part of the women themselves—are so numerous that there is no need to quote any of them.
Another rather striking feature is the way in which several of the plays of Aristophanes conclude with the wedding of one of the characters—a feature at first sight very suggestive of the comedy typical of a much later period. The best known instance of this is perhaps in the Eirene, but the same seems to have been the case in the Polyidus (where the successful soothsayer is rewarded with the hand of the king’s daughter, Phaedra), and in the Geras, where the hero, having been miraculously restored to youth, repudiates his former wife, and marries one more suited to his recently acquired—or lost—years. It must, however, be observed that in none of these plays, as far as one can see, is the wedding of the hero by any means the logical result of the action of the piece; it is merely an incidental episode introduced, in the Eirene at any rate, and very possibly also in the others, simply with the view of providing the chorus with an effective exit. In the Polyidus, moreover, it is clear that though Minos gives his daughter as a reward, he has his own opinion as to the value of the gift, an opinion which is hardly complimentary to Phaedra[226]; while in the Geras there can be little reasonable doubt that the connubial arrangements were made the occasion for a plentiful supply of obscenities, quae nunc desiderantur, if one can use the words in such a connection.[227] One must be careful, therefore, not to exaggerate the importance of this feature in the Aristophanic treatment of women, though it cannot, of course, be denied that to introduce a wedding at all on the stage was a distinct advance on strict Athenian views with reference to such events.[228]
Aristophanes was above all things, by profession at least, a conservative and a laudator temporis acti; but, strangely enough, this characteristic of his is but little noticeable in his treatment of women. Nothing would have been more natural, one would have thought, than that he should, in the course of some of his highly-coloured pictures of primeval felicity before the days of Euripides and the philosophers, have dwelt upon the purity of ancient family life and the chastity of a previous generation of women, in contrast to that present depravity to which he makes such frequent allusion. But, true to his Athenian temperament, he never follows any such line, nor indeed does he ever take up high ground on this subject. Ready as he is to moralise seriously on other matters, even on matters so distinctly erotic as the relations of man to man,[229] his tone with regard to women is invariably flippant.
Women are, above all things, conservative:
Euripides may have made rude remarks about women, but his suggestions are politeness itself compared with what might have been said.[230] Indeed, the main charge of the women against Euripides in the Thesmophoriazusae is not that he has maligned them, but that he has opened the eyes of their husbands to what they actually do.[231] It is needless to multiply instances; the general tendency is plain. Woman in Aristophanes is invariably an object of ridicule. So incapable was he of treating her otherwise, that his one ideal woman, Eirene, for whom the knight-errant Trygaeus flies up to heaven on the dung-beetle, was a colossal failure, a κολοσσικὸν ἄγαλμα that was the general laughing-stock of his contemporaries.[232]
This being so, there is but little need to dwell on such “erotic” passages as do occur, here and there in his works, between men and women. Such scenes, of which the best instance is perhaps that in the Ecclesiazusae (877 seqq.), are never the main motive of the plot; they are merely more or less irrelevant incidents, developed or not according to the chances they afford for the introduction of amusing indecencies. In these scenes Aristophanes is often to be seen at his very best, but they cannot of course be drawn upon with the object of supplying evidence as to his real views of women, except in so far as they serve still further to emphasise what has already been said as to the poet’s disinclination to deal seriously with the subject of women at all. Indeed, his view of the proper relation between love and art is sufficiently illustrated by the famous argument in the Ranae (1043 seqq.) between Aeschylus and Euripides, where, after the former has stated with pride:
and the latter has defended his own erotic treatment on the ground that it is realistic:
the answer comes back:
The treatment of erotic subjects in a realistic manner is not the business of a true poet!
With this before one, it would seem hardly necessary to say anything further about the erotic element in Aristophanes. There is, however, one play of his—the last, or last but one, that he wrote—which seems at first sight to differ so entirely in spirit from the rest, that it is well worthy of separate notice.
This play is the Cocalus, a work of which it is distinctly stated by ancient authorities that it anticipated one of the most characteristic features of romantic comedy—nay more, that it actually served as the model for Menander and Philemon. Thus, in the Vita Aristophanis, p. xxxviii., it is said: ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ αἴτιος ζήλου τοῖς νέοις κωμικοῖς, λέγω δὴ Φιλήμονι καὶ Μενάνδρῳ ... ἔγραψε Κώκαλον, ἐν ᾧ εἰσάγει φθορὰν καὶ ἀναγνωρισμὸν καὶ τἄλλα πάντα ἃ ἐζήλωσε Μένανδρος, and again, p. xxxv.: πρῶτος δὲ καὶ τῆς νέας κωμῳδίας τὸν τρόπον ἐπέδειξεν ἐν τῷ Κωκάλῳ, ἐξ οὗ τὴν ἀρχὴν λαβόμενοι Μένανδρός τε καὶ Φιλήμων ἐδραματούργησαν.
Of these statements, the one part, startling as it is, must presumably be accepted without question. In the face of such definite evidence, it would be rash to attempt to deny that one of the features of Aristophanes’ play was φθορὰ καὶ ἀναγνωρισμός—a feature which is, as is well known, not only one of the commonest in romantic comedy, but also peculiarly characteristic of the love-element as there treated. The sort of story of which we are speaking is sufficiently familiar to every reader of Terence. A man seduces a girl, either without knowing at all who she is, or else under the impression that she is a foreigner or a slave. Afterwards she is proved to be an Athenian citizen, and he, being still in love, marries her, with the double object of atoning for his fault and of continuing his amour on a legitimate basis.[233]
But here a question arises. Granted that Aristophanes anticipated one of the most characteristic situations of the romantic comedy, in how far, if at all, did he anticipate the romantic treatment of that situation, such as we subsequently find it? Aristophanes, as we have seen, has the first part of the romantic love-story in his Cocalus; is it probable that he also had the second? He has the seduction and the recognition; is it probable that he had also the amende honorable prompted by feelings of respect and devotion? And, as a natural pendant to this, is it probable that the Cocalus was really, as asserted, the model after which the later romantic comedy was formed?
It is not probable. No one who knows the works of Aristophanes, and considers the character of the Athenians of his day, would expect such a thing; and, apart from this inherent improbability, there are various reasons which seem to suggest that the second part of the anonymous grammarian’s statement was based upon a misconception. But, before discussing any of these points, it will be necessary to investigate, as far as possible, the exact nature of this play of Aristophanes, for which so much is claimed.
An examination of the actual remains of the Cocalus will not afford very much information, for the fragments preserved are few and unimportant, while the mercurial nature of Aristophanes’ plots, as we know them from existing plays, makes it obviously hazardous to venture conjectures as to what they may or may not have included. Certain facts, however, seem sufficiently clear. For one thing, the play was based, at any rate originally and ostensibly, on the legendary history of Cocalus, Daedalus, and Minos. This history was, briefly, as follows:—
Daedalus, after his flight from Crete, took refuge with Cocalus, king of Sicily, and rose to high favour at his court. When Minos, having learnt his whereabouts, demanded his surrender, Cocalus at first seemed willing to comply, and invited Minos to his palace. The latter, suspecting nothing, accepted the invitation, and was at once murdered in his bath, either by Cocalus himself or by his daughters.[234]
That the latter version of the final incident was accepted by Aristophanes seems probable, but even so it is hard to see how the φθορὰ καὶ ἀναγνωρισμός can be brought into the story. It is, perhaps, justifiable to assume that the hero of the amour was Daedalus, and that the lady was subsequently recognised as a daughter of Cocalus; but how this all came about, it is well-nigh impossible to say. In some of the fragments we are apparently introduced to a regular Hetaera (e.g. 2, 10; and, perhaps, 6, 7); in another, however (Fr. 3), a woman seems vigorously repudiating some slur cast on her character. It cannot, of course, be proved that the plot[235] was not one of the regular New Comedy kind: The daughter of Cocalus, being stolen as a child, became the property of a leno, and was thus brought in contact with Daedalus, &c. But it seems to me much more probable that the structure of the story was somewhat of the following kind. The daughter of Cocalus is violated by Daedalus on the occasion of a nocturnal orgy, without being recognised by her lover. She, however, is aware of his identity, and consequently, when the time comes, murders Minos, an event which necessitates explanations (the ἀναγνωρισμός of the grammarian).[236] One thing there is to be said in favour of this scheme of reconstruction, though, of course, when the evidence is so slight, it is impossible to feel anything like confidence with regard to this or any other suggestion. If this view be adopted, Aristophanes may be assumed to have chosen his story with the object of satirising the Pannychides and other similar orgies, which were always a favourite subject of attack with him, and which he had already abused in the Horae,[237] the Lemniae, and, perhaps, elsewhere.
But, be this as it may, one thing is plain. There is nothing, either in the story of the Cocalus or in its treatment, as far as the fragments allow one to judge of this, which has any real sympathy with that later feeling which inspires the romantic comedy. For one thing, the erotic incident, such as it is, belongs entirely to that primitive class in which the action is all on the side of the woman. The daughter of Cocalus saving her lover is but a reflection of Medea or Ariadne. In the later romantic comedy, on the other hand, the action is regularly on the side of the man; for, as is well known, the attempts of the lover to outwit his father or the leno supply pretty well the whole stock of the incidents of New Comedy. Again, there is no suggestion whatever, as far as one can judge, of any marriage by way of reparation, or, indeed, of any marriage at all;[238] and marriage, as we shall see very clearly later on, is the fundamental principle of Greek romance. Again, there is no suggestion—and this is still more important—that the love of Daedalus was described as more than a mere temporary emotion; and here is another point of difference between this play and the romantic New Comedy. In fact, if one comes to examine the story of the Cocalus carefully, it becomes apparent that the essential features of Greek romance are entirely wanting. Indeed, the only real affinity of this play to the New Comedy seems to be that it anticipated, or possibly suggested, some of the rather cumbrous conventional machinery of the latter form of art.
A further fact, which well-nigh precludes the possibility of regarding the Cocalus as the real model of New Comedy, is furnished by the dates. The date of the Cocalus cannot be fixed later than the year 380 or thereabouts. The first play of Philemon, admittedly the most ancient poet who wrote romantic comedies, appeared in 330. Thus, even if it were granted that such romantic comedies were among the earliest of Philemon’s works, which was almost certainly not the case,[239] there would still be an interval of at least fifty years during which the “romantic” Cocalus of Aristophanes did not find a single imitator. The works of Antiphanes, Eubulus, and, indeed, all the typical writers of “Middle” Comedy, do not contain so much as a suggestion of a romantic element, and yet, before the time of all of them, there was in existence a perfect romantic comedy, which only needed to be revived by Philemon to bring about a complete revolution of the canons of dramatic art. In fact, the introduction of the romantic element into comedy—that is, the birth of the modern drama—was due to a chance resuscitation by Philemon of an obscure piece that had been lying unnoticed for more than fifty years. Credat Apella.
Moreover, if one comes to consider the matter, there were powerful causes at work in the minds of the early critics, which may very well have led them to assign an undue degree of importance to the Cocalus. Such causes would be mainly of two distinct kinds.
In the first place, there was the tendency, with which every student of ancient and mediaeval criticism is familiar, to exaggerate the merits of certain individuals, and to ascribe to certain admittedly great names an even more extended influence than they actually possessed.[240] It seemed only natural, therefore, to the ancient critic to expect that Aristophanes, being admittedly the greatest of the comedians, should not only have profoundly influenced his own immediate field of art, but should also have laid the foundations of every subsequent form of comedy. The grammarian, therefore, who found in the story of the Cocalus a certain resemblance to stories with which he was familiar in the plays of the New Comedy, felt no hesitation in affirming that the Cocalus was actually the model on which these plays of the New Comedy were based, just as Platonius (p. xxxiv.) speaks of the Aeolosicon as ὁ τῆς μέσης κωμῳδίας τύπος.
In the second place, the story of the Cocalus had actually been converted into a “New” Comedy play—the Hypobolimaeus of Philemon[241]—and the existence of this neo-comic version of the story may very possibly have influenced the recollections of the original; for it is more than probable that the play of Philemon, while adopting the main features of the story as it appeared in Aristophanes, yet differed considerably in its general treatment of the erotic incidents. In other words, there is little reason to doubt that Philemon, actuated by the changed spirit of his time, developed the romantic capabilities of the story to the utmost, and gave a romantic interpretation to various situations, where nothing of the kind had been done or intended by Aristophanes. And hence the fact that a romantic version of the Cocalus was familiar, served to spread the idea that the original Cocalus was romantic also, and, as such, a forerunner of the romantic element in New Comedy, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was nothing of the kind, owing its romantic colouring entirely to the influence of the ideas disseminated by that New Comedy which it was erroneously supposed to inspire.
To sum up, then: There seems little reason to believe that the Cocalus is really as important for the history of the romantic element as would at first sight appear. Apart from the strong prima facie improbability of finding a romantic love-story in a play by Aristophanes, there is the further remarkable fact that the Aristophanic suggestion, if really given, found no one to take it up for more than fifty years. Again, while the legendary history of Cocalus and the fragments of the play, as far as such have been preserved, do not actually preclude the possibility that the erotic incident may have been treated in a romantic manner, they certainly furnish no evidence whatever in favour of such a view. There are, besides, various reasons which may have induced the ancient critics to see a greater resemblance between the Cocalus and the plays of the New Comedy than was actually present. On the whole, therefore, it would appear that the similarity between this work of Aristophanes and the romantic comedies of Menander and his followers, is merely an accidental and superficial one, and that it is incorrect to say, as some have done, that the latter class of composition was derived from or inspired by the former.
To return after this somewhat lengthy digression to our examination of the poets of the transition.
Plato, even more than his model Aristophanes, was a follower of the political school of Cratinus, revelling in personal attacks of the most violent kind, and hence there seems little reason to doubt that such of his plays as bear the stamp of Middle Comedy belong to his later period, and were only produced, decidedly invita Minerva, when the free license of abuse had been artificially checked. Hence the allusions in his works to women or erotic subjects seem to have been unusually scarce. In the Adonis, mention is made of the rival lovers of the hero, Aphrodite and Dionysus; but there is nothing to indicate that this play contained anything of the nature of a serious exposition of the respective claims of male and female love. The Zeus Cacumenus very probably introduced Zeus in his usual comic character of the adulterer, as did the Nyx Macra,[242] and the Europe may very possibly have treated of a similar subject. More original, however, and interesting than these is the Phaon, which seems to have been one of the poet’s latest works, and which furnishes a good specimen of his manner of treating women. Phaon, having been presented by Aphrodite with the cosmetics which were to inspire universal passion, appears surrounded by a crowd of admiring women, who are, however, refused access to his presence, unless they perform certain propitiatory rites (Fr. 2), and otherwise prove themselves worthy of the honour. The means by which one lady eventually qualifies (Fr. 4) can only be guessed, but the language of Fr. 3 seems to suggest that the contest was somewhat after the manner of those described in Anth. Pal. v. 35 or Alciphron i. 39, 4 seqq.[243] The interest of this piece lies in the fact that the plot is, despite its ribald handling, unequivocally a love-story, and, as such, perhaps distinct from any piece that we have hitherto had occasion to examine. That the love-story is, however, of the kind which belongs essentially to Middle Comedy, and has nothing whatever in common with those of the later romantic comedy, will become abundantly clear when we come to deal with the points of difference between these two schools of art.[244]
The information to be gained from the remains of the other poets of the transitional period is sadly scanty. The Moechi of Ameipsias, a play which, to judge by the title, might have thrown much light on the present subject, is hopelessly lost. Of the Sappho even the title is doubtful. The celebrated Ichthys of Archippus seems to have contained punning allusions to the Hetaerae Sepia and Aphye, a sign of the growing inclination to discuss this class of persons on the stage. The latter lady, or a namesake of hers, is mentioned by Callias in his Cyclopes. Of the Atalanta of the same writer, one line is preserved: