New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy 1-4438-2411-9

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New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy

Pierides Studies in Greek and Latin Literature

Series Editors:

Philip Hardie and Stratis Kyriakidis

Volume I: S. Kyriakidis, Catalogues of Proper Names in Latin Epic Poetry: Lucretius - Virgil - Ovid

Pierides Studies in Greek and Latin Literature

Volume II:

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy

Edited by

Antonis K. Petrides and Sophia Papaioannou

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy, Edited by Antonis K. Petrides and Sophia Papaioannou This book first published 2010 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2010 by Antonis K. Petrides and Sophia Papaioannou and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2411-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2411-8

In grateful memory of Colin François Lloyd Austin (1941-2010)

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it (William James)

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE...................................................................................................... ix CONTRIBUTORS ........................................................................................... xi INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 New Comedy under New Light Antonis K. Petrides and Sophia Papaioannou CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................ 14 Menander: The Text and its Restoration Horst-Dieter Blume CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................... 31 Menander and Cultural Studies David Konstan CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................ 51 Gender in Menander’s Comedy Susan Lape CHAPTER FOUR .......................................................................................... 79 New Performance Antonis K. Petrides CHAPTER FIVE .......................................................................................... 125 Performing Traditions: Relations and Relationships in Menander and Tragedy Rosanna Omitowoju CHAPTER SIX............................................................................................ 146 Postclassical Comedy and the Composition of Roman Comedy Sophia Papaioannou BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 176 INDEX LOCORUM...................................................................................... 206 GENERAL INDEX....................................................................................... 213

PREFACE This project originated in a series of discussions between the editors in the summer of 2007 in Nicosia, Cyprus, where we both resided at the time. Intrigued and excited by the strides in the discoveries of new fragments of post-classical comedies and particularly Menander’s plays in the last twenty years, we nonetheless had to admit that the surge in productivity was lacking a comprehensive assessment of the big picture with respect to the orientation and status of current research in the field. We also acknowledged that the thought of creating not so much another Companion to Menander but a showcase of the significant new approaches to New Comedy, the fresh perspectives which had brought so much improvement in the way 21-st century scholars appreciate the genre, had been circling our minds independently much earlier. Still, the idea may never have come to fruition, had it not been communicated to Professor Stratis Kyriakidis, one of the editors of CSP’s Pierides series. It was immediately showered with sweeping enthusiasm and encouragement, such as we both personally have experienced, time and again, by this unfailingly supportive mentor. Professor Philip Hardie was no less eager to endorse the project and effectively facilitate the publication process. Over the three years that this volume was in preparation, we incurred considerable debts and profited from the assistance and generosity of many individuals and institutions. Special thanks are first due to the anonymous readers of CSP and the Pierides series for their numerous invaluable suggestions and incisive comments. Professor Colin Austin would be the protagonist of this performance’s cast, had it not been for a harsh intervention of Tyche. That notwithstanding, he remained a steadfast supporter of both the project and the people involved in it to the very end. The news of his death reached us on the very week the final version of the manuscript received the imprimatur—a fact that only accentuated our great sorrow. We believe that he would have enjoyed this book and we were looking forward to the comments of the scholar who more than anyone else contributed to the ever-growing appreciation of postclassical drama nowadays. The dedication of the volume to his memory can convey only a small fraction of our deep respect and gratitude. Demetris Beroutsos, Stephanos Efthymiadis (Open University of Cyprus), Ioanna Hadjicosti (Open University of Cyprus), Richard Hunter

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Preface

(Trinity College, Cambridge), Ioannis M. Konstantakos (University of Athens), Theodoros Stephanopoulos (University of Patras) and Antonis Tsakmakis (University of Cyprus) read parts of the volume and offered invaluable advice, or assisted us otherwise in the often exigent business of setting up a collective volume. We have been fortunate to labour alongside four distinguished specialists of Menander and Greek Comedy; from initial approaches, exchanges of first ideas and outlines, through the formulation of the final drafts of their chapters, we enjoyed working with all four colleagues and learned a lot from them. The Open University of Cyprus, the University of Athens, Trinity College, Cambridge, the British School at Athens and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens have provided grants as well as the congenial environment necessary for academic research. Antonis’ wife Erika hosted numerous συµπόσια in their Nicosia home, which allowed the idea of the book to ferment and grow. After all Menander has always been best with dessert and wine. There is one more person who deserves very special thanks for all the extremely meticulous work she did proofreading this volume over and over again and saving us from numerous mistakes. She wants to remain anonymous. “Thank you” is very pale to express the gratitude we feel. This book is intended not only for the specialist New Comedy scholar but also for the advanced graduate and undergraduate student working in the fields of Classics and Cultural History. All long quotations of Greek and Latin are translated. Nicosia & Athens, September 2010

Note on the Text of Menander Menander's plays are quoted from the following editions: Dyskolos: Sandbach 1990 Aspis: Jacques 1998 Dis Exapaton: Arnott 1979 Epitrepontes: Martina 1997 Misoumenos: Arnott 1996b Perikeiromene: Arnott 1996b Samia: Arnott 2000 Sikyonioi: Blanchard 2009

CONTRIBUTORS HORST-DIETER BLUME is Retired Professor of Classics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität of Münster (Germany). He studied Greek, Latin and English Philology at the universities of Göttingen, München and Durham (GB). His main areas of research are Ancient Drama and Classical Theatre History and Performance. Among his publications are Menanders Samia. Eine Interpretation (1974); Einführung in das antike Theaterwesen (1978, 1991; Greek translation 1993); Renaissance Latin Drama in England (II,13): Hymenaeus. Victoria. Laelia (1991); Menander (1998). At present he prepares an annotated German translation of Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis. DAVID KONSTAN is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University (until May 2010, he was the John Rowe Workman Distinguished Professor of Classics and the Humanistic Tradition, and Professor of Comparative Literature). As of the summer of 2010, he is joining the Department of Classics at NYU. He has published Roman Comedy (1983); Greek Comedy and Ideology (1992); Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (1994); Friendship in the Classical World (1997); Pity Transformed (2001); and The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks (2007). His most recent book, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea, is to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. He has served as President of the American Philological Association (1999), and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. SUSAN LAPE (PhD Princeton University) is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California, College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses mainly on ancient comedy and rhetoric, which she studies mostly as sources of socio-cultural history. Lape is especially interested in the notions of democracy, law, political, cultural, and natural history, and theories of identity and the self in ancient Greece. Among her publications are: Reproducing Athens: Menander’s Comedy, Democratic Culture, and the Hellenistic City (2004); Race and Citizen Identity in the Classical Athenian democracy (2010); and (with P.N. Stearns) Demosthenes: Democracy in Difficult Times (forthcoming in 2011).

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Contributors

ANTONIS K. PETRIDES (BA in Classical Philology, University of Thessaloniki; MPhil, PhD in Classics, Trinity College, University of Cambridge) is Lecturer of Classics at the Open University of Cyprus. His publications include articles on Old and New Comedy, Epicharmus, the mime, Hellenistic poetry (mainly in the comic and satirical mode), and physiognomic theories in antiquity and Byzantium. He is currently preparing a monograph on the visual aspect of New Comedy performance, to be included in the series Cambridge Classical Studies by Cambridge University Press. ROSANNA OMITOWOJU is Senior Language Teaching Officer in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is also a Fellow and Director of Studies at King’s College, Cambridge. She is the author of Rape and the Politics of Consent (2002), and articles on the law courts of Athens and Menandrian comedy. She has also translated Chariton’s Callirhoe for Penguin. Currently she is working on a book on Menander, an article further exploring the relationship between Menander and tragedy and a commentary on Ovid. She did an undergraduate degree, teacher training, and PhD all at King’s College, Cambridge. She is the mother of Jonah, Adelaide, Carmen, and Hector. SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU (BA University of Crete; PhD University of Texas at Austin) is Assistant Professor of Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is the author of Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623-14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (2005); of Redesigning Achilles: The 'Recycling' of the Epic Cycle in Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1-13.620 (2007); and, most recently, of Plautus, Miles Gloriosus. Introduction, Translation and Commentary [Greek title: Πλαύτος, Ο Καυχησιάρης Στρατιώτης (Miles Gloriosus). Εισαγωγή-Μετάφραση-Σχόλια] (2009), the first annotated edition of Plautus’ play since 1963, and the first translation of the play in Greek. Current projects include the edition of the first Greek translation of Ovid’s Amores by Christos Christovassilis in the early 1920s; and a booklength study on Epic Orality in Vergil’s Aeneid.

INTRODUCTION NEW COMEDY UNDER NEW LIGHT ANTONIS K. PETRIDES AND SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

New Comedy, chiefly Menander, has virtually re-emerged from the tenebrae thanks to the spectacular papyrological discoveries of late 19th and 20th centuries. The unfolding of those discoveries is a thrilling story, eloquently related by HORST-DIETER BLUME in Chapter One of the present volume (“Menander: The Text and its Restoration”). First and foremost, it is a story of triumph: between that infelicitous moment in late antiquity when Menander’s texts stopped being copied and the celebrated publication of the Membrana Petropolitana by Viktor Jernstedt in 1891 barely more than a glimpse of Menander’s work was available, and this only to a limited number of experts. Composed in 1893, C. P. Cavafy’s sonnet Θεατής ∆υσαρεστηµένος (“Displeased Theatregoer”), for all its multiple other reverberations, provides a taste of the sensational exhilaration that Menander’s belated rediscovery caused.1 The poem, itself dramatic in form and set in a supposed Roman theatre during a “Menandrian” performance, is deliciously ironic, as it jibes at the “barbarian” who was once but apparently no longer indispensable for getting to Menander: “Aπέρχοµαι, απέρχοµαι. Μη κράτει µε. Της αηδίας και ανίας είµαι θύµα.” “Πλην µείν’ ολίγον χάριν του Μενάνδρου. Κρίµα τόσον να στερηθής.” “Υβρίζεις, άτιµε. ”Μένανδρος είναι ταύτα τα λογίδια, άξεστοι στίχοι και παιδαριώδες ρήµα; 1

Cavafy celebrated the re-emergence of Herodas, too, in his much less competent “Οι µιµίαµβοι του Ηρώδου” (1892).

2

Introduction Άφες ν’ απέλθω του θεάτρου παραχρήµα και λυτρωθείς να στρέψω εις τα ίδια. ”Της Pώµης ο αήρ σ’ έφθειρεν εντελώς. Aντί να κατακρίνης, επαινείς δειλώς κ’ επευφηµείς τον βάρβαρον — πώς λέγεται; ”Γαβρέντιος, Τερέντιος; — όστις απλώς διά Λατίνων ατελλάνας ων καλός, την δόξαν του Μενάνδρου µας ορέγεται.” “I am leaving, leaving. Do not hold me back. I’m a martyr to ennui and to revulsion.” “But stay a while for Menander’s sake. What a pity if you miss it.” “You insult me. Menander’s are they, then, these weak données, these unpolished verses, this childish speech? Let me leave this theater straightaway that I may go home—with no little relief. The Roman air has ruined you utterly. Instead of condemning, you timidly acclaim, applaud this uncouth—what’s his name? Gavrence, Terence?—whose only talent is for composing those Latin Atellans; yet nonetheless he hungers for Menander’s fame.” (transl. D. Mendelsohn)

The Membrana was but a thrifty foretaste of the feasts to ensue (hence perhaps the smug bitterness of the persona’s tone). Cavafy would soon witness greater discoveries than that, even closer to home. We do not know what his final verdict was about Menander. We do know, however, that among scholars, unsurprisingly, the initial excitement was swiftly tempered by apprehension. Too much was at stake;2 after all, the “golden Menander” (Μένανδρος ὁ χρυσοῦς, test. 126 K.-A.) was regarded by ancient scholars as a playwright and poet of the highest rank, renowned for his realistic portrayal of life and his skilful portrait of character.3 2

Cf. Lever 1959/60. Testimonia 83-167 K.-A. collect all known ancient judgements on Menander’s merit. Among them stands out testimonium 119 (an extract from Phrynichus), which betrays the kind of animosity which eventually consigned Menander to near 3

New Comedy under New Light

3

Menander’s reputation in fact took a definite hit, and sympathetic critics soon found themselves in the defensive, as the recovered texts to the minds of many failed to live up to the hype. Dissatisfaction with the redivivus Menander could materialise into a hailstorm of bitter disappointment as late in time as 1990. The following extract from Peter Green’s Alexander to Actium is the pinnacle of that trend: “The moralizing asides thrown in to give these puffball plays extra weight should not blind us to the fact that they were the precise ancient equivalents of modern situation comedies or soap operas. A contemporary reader may find some difficulty in appreciating the reasons for the high status Menander, for instance, enjoyed throughout antiquity (though not, interestingly, during his lifetime). [...] Obviously, Hellenistic society was not chiefly remarkable for kidnappings, coincidental rape, and contrived happy resolutions. What, then, did Aristophanes of Byzantium mean when he praised Menander for so skilfully imitating life? The compliment cannot but strike us as paradoxical, since to our way of thinking Menander’s plays are remarkably formulaic and artificial. [...] What stirred admiration for Menander was the (to us, gingerly) way in which he set about broaching [social and literary] conventions, to put on stage something at least approaching life as it was actually lived, some features of everyday Athenian existence. To borrow a phrase from Dr. Johnson, it was not so much that he did it well as that he did it at all”.4

Unquestionably, Peter Green’s diatribe is an isolated echo of bygone critical extremism. Too much water has already run under the scholarly bridge for Menander to still be considered, so mercilessly, a frivolous maker of “puffball plays”. Yet, the Menander-chapter in Green’s otherwise magisterial book remains indicative of a series of diehard prejudices which lingered in New Comedy criticism for too long, misjudgements by which younger generations of scholars were beleaguered and to which they reacted with a vengeance. One striking such notion, for instance, is that fourth-century theatre, including Comedy, was an era of decadent mannerism, rhetorical sentimentalism, and inane recycling of conventions—a fallacy rarely questioned by scholars until a groundbreaking 1993 article by Pat Easterling entitled “The end of an era?”5 This belief went hand in hand oblivion for almost two millennia: οὐχ ὁρῶ, µὰ τὸν Ἡρακλέα, τί πάσχουσιν οἱ τὸν Μένανδρον µέγαν ἄγοντες καὶ αἴροντες ὑπὲρ τὸ ἑλληνικὸν ἅπαν. On Atticist disapproval of Menander, see Horst-Dieter Blume’s chapter in this volume. 4 Green 1990, 67. All the emphases are ours. 5 Easterling 1993.

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Introduction

with the idea that, in an era of crisis for the democratic polis culture, Menander’s choice was to cultivate an “apolitical” genre of comedy. New Comedy was routinely taken as a comedy of the vita privata, which consciously eschewed the great public issues, inasmuch as the individual was increasingly estranged from politics (“political disenchantment”, Green calls it).6 The aura of introversion that enveloped New Comedy was encouraged also, we hear, by an intrageneric trend, at play already from the beginning of the fourth century, to steer clear of too explicit references to topical matters. New Comedy was reduced to a mere fantastical and inconsequential boy-meets-girl scenario. The ideological purchase of this scenario and the conspicuous “marriage imperative” which drove it to an end was routinely missed. Furthermore, Green evinces the insistent tendency to gauge Menander’s Comedy not in its own right, but against superficially akin but ultimately dissimilar analogues, such as the Comedy of Manners.7 Such tendency was often almost mechanical even among the best critics. Compare, for example, Geoffrey Arnott’s definition of character in Menander with that of humour in the Comedy of Manners by William Congreve (1670-1729). For Arnott, character in Menander is “the sum of a person’s idiosyncrasies in speech and behaviour, an externally viewed set of matching characteristics that slot into a conventional pattern like the tesserae of a mosaic”.8 For William Congreve, correspondingly, humour, that is, the constitution of bodily fluids which conditions human personality, was “a singular and unavoidable manner of doing or saying anything, peculiar and natural to one man only, by which his speech and action are distinguished from those of other men”.9 Arnott’s view on its own, of course, obviously stems from T.B.L. Webster’s earlier description of New Comedy character as “a mosaic-like addition of small characteristics”.10 The similarities between the three are, I think, uncanny and the conceptual genealogies clear. Even to the eyes of the most astute and appreciative scholars Menander’s characters often needed the more or 6

Green 1990, 52. Cf. Green 1990, 66: “What emerges—something wholly predictable in the light of political and social developments—is new to Greek literature: the private comedy of manners”. See also Post 1934. The “defence” of Menander by Post is interesting, insomuch as it arguably constitutes implicit acceptance of the fact that Menander did not write comedy as “sophisticated” as his Comedy of Manners counterparts. 8 Arnott 1979, xxxii. 9 Congreve 1696 at McMillin 21997, 475. 10 Webster 1974, 44. 7

New Comedy under New Light

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less implicit juxtaposition to their supposed kin, the fops and rakes of Wycherley, Congreve or Molière, to make full sense. No wonder that, pushing it a step further, less competent or sympathetic critics than Arnott or Webster also found them to pale in comparison. After all, even the first cousins of Menander’s characters, Plautus’ uproarious and extravagant vagabonds, were found to be livelier, looser, and more perceptibly funny. To the minds of many Menander still seems to have diluted the comic vis of Aristophanes,11 while the resurfaced specimens do not even vindicate his supposed atout, “realism”, i.e. being true to the life of the late-classical and Hellenistic polis. Bespeaking a distinct modern uneasiness towards this strand of comic discourse is perhaps the fact that Menander, even his complete or almost complete plays, never became the favourite of modern theatre practitioners.12 Menander’s comedy for a long time seemed almost too earnest and sentimental to be truly relished. Exposing this, Stephen Halliwell even entitled an earlier version of his seminal essay on Menander’s humour with the provocative phrase: “What is there to laugh about in Menander?”13 Halliwell’s intent was of course thoroughly revisionist, as he showed that humour in Menander could capitalise on subtler mechanisms than the obvious laugh-out-loud banter, namely on manipulating the perspectives of internal and external audiences (a technique he terms “perspectivism”). Halliwell clinched the point that Menander’s comedy can still be worthy of its name without being sidesplittingly hilarious, by being even ambivalent in terms of its psychological impact. The fact alone, however, that in 2007 the Comic in Menander could still represent a “problem”, because it is not entirely commensurable with known standards of “funniness”, speaks volumes as to the ever growing urgency for new perspectives on the comedy of postclassical times. Eventually it was all a matter (obviously) of sound texts and (less obviously) of adequate hermeneutic tools. A pantheon of towering scholarly figures deserve credit for establishing and explicating Menander’s texts mainly in the cardinal 1960s and 1970s, the exciting time in which Menandrian Studies were truly established as a field with a strong 11 For an apologia on behalf of Menander against this accusation, see Post 1931. Suggestively, Post more guards Menander against unfavourable identification with Terence, the dimidiatus Menander, rather than sets him straight against earlier comic tradition. 12 A complete study of Menander’s Nachleben on the modern stage is still a desideratum. 13 See Halliwell 2007 and Halliwell 2008, 388-428.

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Introduction

groundwork of editions, commentaries, monographs, and articles on all aspects of Menander’s theatrical art.14 The relative stabilisation of the texts in this period and the comprehensive studies which saw the light of day as a result were foundational for anything that followed suit. However, it is the central claim of this book that in terms of hermeneutics it was actually the 1980s that ushered in an era of new intellectual vigour. From the 1980s onwards, a number of new approaches inspired mainly by semiotics, structuralism, intertextuality, performance criticism, reception theory, cultural poetics, ideology, and gender studies virtually revolutionised criticism on New Comedy, Greek as well as Roman. The objective of this volume is to showcase a representative, though admittedly not exhaustive sample of such new perspectives on the Comedy of postclassical times and to imply routes for further exploration of this genre. The individual contributions in this volume approach New Comedy as theatrical performance, but also as a dynamic player in the socio-political discourses of the polis culture that gave birth to it. The chapters highlight continuities as well as discontinuities with the cultural and literary past of Athens and the Greek world, but mostly emphasise the progressiveness of New Comedy as a genre and its importance for the nascent culture of Hellenism. The chapters, with the exception of Blume’s introductory one, are dual in nature: expositional of a method, but also practical examples of it. They are arranged in a fashion which underlines the major theoretical underpinnings of New Comedy studies, as they are being developed in the present: Cultural Studies (Konstan and Lape), Intertextuality and Performance (Petrides and Omitowoju), Reception (Papaioannou). DAVID KONSTAN’S “Menander and Cultural Studies” sets off with a survey of this field from its early establishment in University of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies to its modern multifarious ramifications. Konstan himself, with a series of articles now collected in his Roman Comedy (1983) and Greek Comedy and Ideology (1995), was among the pioneers of introducing Cultural Studies into the study of New Comedy. Cultural Studies, the postmodern inter-discipline par excellence, ushered into the study of Menander, Plautus, and Terence a whole arsenal of new hermeneutic tools mustered from the full array of social and political sciences. The development was pivotal, arguably one of those “egg of Columbus” moments in the history of scholarship, in which so simple and so retrospectively obvious intellectual shifts make such difference in the evolution of a field. The areas of inquiry central to 14

Full bibliography, up to 1995, in Katsouris 1995.

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Cultural Studies are practically identical with the categories mostly at stake at least in the comedy of Menander: social class, civic status, gender, and age as loaded determinants of social position and identity. Cultural Studies exposed the densely overdetermined character of Menander’s deceptively simple and mundane plots, revealing, for example, how in Konstan’s own words, “the romantic complication that constitutes the surface plot of a Menandrian Comedy may lie athwart an alternative story line based on tensions of class and status”. It was so simple yet so consequential. The Cultural Studies perspective, with its strong political and ideological tendance, elevated New Comedy from the obscurity of supposed political irrelevance to the epicentre of a fruitful, and still expanding investigation of the ways literary works in late-fourth century and Hellenistic Athens, as well as in Republican Rome, mask, inflect, critique, subvert or reaffirm the ideological presuppositions of the society in which they operate. Konstan’s article exemplifies the gains promised by the practice of exposing the hidden ideological operations and premises of the literary work, in order to grasp its significance as an active producer of social discourse. He centres on three cases studies from Menander’s Dyskolos, Aspis and Samia, which deal respectively with the categories of class, status and age. In the Dyskolos section, Konstan explains how a cultural critic would be attracted to the ways in which and the reasons why two contrasting themes and story lines—one about a cantankerous agelast, and another about class tensions—share the same narrative space in this early piece by Menander. A Cultural Studies-inflected analysis, Konstan writes, would focus on the strategies the play employs, first to interweave the story lines, and then to make a point about the re-affirmation of civic solidarity over disparities of class and wealth. The Aspis provides opportunity for comment on the status of slaves and how Menander’s Comedy serves to naturalise the institution in the same time that it is wont to portray slaves of intelligence and moral standing equal to that of free Athenians. The Samia affords the longest case study of the chapter, as its plot reveals how in New Comedy the social hierarchy among age groups can be mapped onto the status difference of free and slave or citizen and non-citizen. In the Samia, Konstan maintains, age and status reinforce each other by constructing the free adult male citizen, such as Demeas is and Moschion becomes, as the locus of power and authority. A Cultural Studies perspective bespeaks how even such universal emotions as anger can have socio-political significance in this direction. The Samia, furthermore, which presents three paradigms of relationship between parent and child (adoption and two distinct cases of νοθεία, one of a

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Introduction

bastard of Athenian lineage and another, supposedly, of one with a foreign mother), and three types of sexual union (rape, consensual sex, and incest), lays bare a major contradiction in Athenian ideology: that an adopted son of Athenian lineage (Moschion in this respect) can have more legitimacy, which in this case translates into a right to live and prosper, than a natural son from a foreign mother (Moschion’s supposed child from Chrysis). Ultimately, it hinges upon the crucial ideological issue for democratic Athens: ensuring the legitimate reproduction of the body politic. The most important category of gender, a central concern of Cultural Studies and a concept with an illustrious track record as a conceptual tool in the study of fifth-century theatre, is reserved for autonomous and exhaustive examination in Chapter Three by SUSAN LAPE (“Gender in Menander’s Comedy”). Like much else, gender came surprisingly late to New Comedy, despite the fact that the genre pivots on the relations between men and women. New Comedy may still, here and there, be dubbed “romantic”, as it concerns tortuous unions between boys and girls, who overcome obstacles of various kinds to consummate their love. There are strange, contrived things, though, involved in this: in New Comedy, at least of Menander’s, it just so happens that citizens always marry citizens, however unfeasible that may have seemed at first. Coincidence or τύχη may cause short-term suffering (for example in a raped girl), but in the end it effects or salvages unions oftentimes impossible otherwise (such as inter-class matches or marriages rigged by what Lape calls the double standard in Athenian gender ideology, as in the Epitrepontes). No union is ever sanctioned in Menander’s Comedy—as a rule and provided that we are not fooled by the evidence—outside the purview of Athenian laws and norms pertaining to marriage, citizenship, and legitimate procreation. For that matter, New Comedy even adheres to the stringent and inflexible Law of Perikles (451), which enjoined that both parents be Athenians for a child to be entitled as a citizen. In fact, in late-fourth century, in a period when the law of Perikles may have relaxed, New Comedy is obdurate on upholding its clauses, even more than the state itself. Therefore, the myth that New Comedy confines itself to the vita privata implodes in the face of gender: gender is a social script, not a biological reality, and marriage is not the culmination of a sentimental affair, but a social transaction with reverberations for the salus publica. The relations between men and women in Menander’s comedy are far from innocent romantic liaisons, insomuch as sex, marriage, and procreation, in democratic Athens especially, are anxiety-ridden, socio-politically conditioned public acts

New Comedy under New Light

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rather than liberties of the private individual. In Lape’s own words, gender is “a culturally specific story about the behaviours, roles, and psychological makeup assigned to males and females on the basis of biological sex but which do not necessarily derive from biological sex.” Gender, in Greek society as well as in New Comedy, is crosscut with other social determinants, such as ethnicity, status, kinship, and social role. It is thus invested with a set of expectations attuned with official ideologies and axiologies. In Athens it serves as a mould for constructing citizens, male or female, and ensuring the continuity of the οἶκος as the nucleic element of the polis. In her chapter, Lape focuses specifically on the way New Comedy reifies the Athenian gender system infusing it with democratic values, even in a time when democracy in Athens was in peril. This alignment of τύχη, social custom and political ideology is particularly productive. New Comedy plot lines are even ultra-democratic in occasion, as they fashion egalitarian bonds beyond conventional practice. This is the function that Lape sees, for instance, in New Comedy’s interclass marriage, such as the one achieved in the Dyskolos. She contends that this overemphasis on egalitarianism is not unrelated with the threat on democracy caused by the emergence of Hellenistic kingdoms. That said New Comedy’s take on the official gender system is not straightforwardly validatory. Lape also examines, focusing on the Samia and the Epitrepontes, how in some cases the genre exposes also its tensions, contradictions, and double standards, especially as regards courtesans, wives, and slaves. Intertextuality looms large—in the purview of performance criticism— in ANTONIS K. PETRIDES’ “New Performance” (Chapter Four). Intertextuality, or indeed “inter-visuality”, the property of spectacle to call in systems of reference, thus functioning as an intertextual marker in its own right irrespective of verbal cues, is postulated to be an inalienable tool for conceptualising what is essentially “new” in New Comedy performance. Performance Studies, an umbrella discipline, which examined figure skating and street theatre alongside Sophocles and Shakespeare, traditionally grew outside of Theatre and Drama Departments, to “attract” and incorporate theatre theorists and practitioners in the process. This, at least, was certainly the case in the two American universities most commonly acknowledged as the discipline’s birthplaces, NYU and Northwestern. At NYU, as a result of a happy synergy between a theatre man, Richard Schechner, and an anthropologist, Victor Turner, breakthroughs in the study of theatre performance were achieved through analysing an array of cultural and religious rituals, i.e. through the study of

10

Introduction

“social drama”.15 At Northwestern, Performance Studies developed from inside a School of Speech, which included, as well as Theatre, such departments as Communication Studies, Radio/TV/Film, and Oral Interpretation. In both cases, broadening the definition of what constitutes performance worthy of institutionalised university study was not dissociated from the overall, tension-ridden restructuring of tertiary education curricula towards a new postmodernist canon16. The study of performance is, therefore, an e principio interdisciplinary study, which comprises literary and cultural theory, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, political history, art history, folklore, and, no less, rhetoric, semiotics, semantics, pragmatics, etc. It can by no means be limited to the study of stagecraft alone or, much less, to the archaeology of theatrical events, although, obviously both these areas of research are essential. Such study of theatre as a total event came to New Comedy even later than to tragedy or Old Comedy; but it came with a bang, introduced most momentously by Niall Slater’s Plautus in Performance (1985a) and David Wiles’ The Masks of Menander (1991). This did not of course happen free of controversy. Wiles’ book in particular has been faulted for its trenchant structuralism, its rather cavalier attitude towards the archaeological evidence, and its “glib generalizations”.17 Be that as it may, Wiles was the first to truly advocate the power of New Comedy spectacle, especially its “master sign”, the mask, to create meaning by visual means. Petrides’ chapter builds on that thesis—only Petrides argues insistently against a purely synchronic approach to performance. The specificity of Menander’s performance, he argues, can only be fathomed with a double reference (a) to the evolution of Comedy and its osmosis with tragedy; and (b) to the “new performance culture” which marked the era of Hellenism, even if that was still nascent in Menander’s lifetime. The theorisation of theatre, the rise of the actor, the evolution of theatre architecture and its concomitants, the new understanding of the semantics and the politics of opsis (the visual aspect of performance), an overall theatrical mentality prevailing in public life, are paradigm shifts, which were underway as early as the late fifth century and grew ever deeper as the sociopolitical and geographical milieu of theatre expanded rapidly to the outmost limits of the Greek world. These shifts transformed the conditions of both the production of performance by professional practitioners and its reception 15

See e.g. V. Turner 1974, 1982. For an account of these developments, mostly with reference to the USA, see Jackson 2004, esp. 1-39. 17 See, for instance, the reviews by Peter Brown and Eric Csapo in The Classical Review 42.2 (1992), 273-274, and Phoenix 48 (1994), 259-262, respectively. 16

New Comedy under New Light

11

by theoretically savvy and experienced audiences. Petrides suggests that the new-ness of New Comedy performance can be captured by the upshots of three terms, which denote processes of evolution: standardisation (the establishment of a limited, recurrent system of signs); hybridisation (a methodical absorption of tragic structures: narrative, verbal, and visual); and semiotisation (assigning, in Keir Elam’s words, an “overriding signifying power”, a symbolic value, to otherwise merely iconic or indexical signs). In the case of the mask especially, semiotisation was tantamount to the physiognomical overdetermination of the πρόσωπον, the investment of mask’s features with the ability to signify moral predisposition (ἦθος), thus to transmit, as an ensemble and in relation to other systems of signs, plot-specific and character-specific pieces of information. As a result, in its evolved state, New Comedy is inherently intertextual, with the tragic intertext as integral, as imbued in its fabric as epic myth was in tragedy itself. Using space and the mask as cases in point, Petrides attempts to show that New Comic intertextuality cannot be exhausted in verbal allusions or structural parallels alone, but expands to the visual aspect of performance; that in Menander’s comedy the opsis, too, can be referential. ROSANNA OMITOWOJU’S chapter, “Performing Traditions: Relations and Relationships in Menander and Tragedy”, has been placed fifth in this volume, since some of the background information provided by Petrides in Chapter Four would be to the benefit of the non-specialist reader of her work. In essence, however, Omitowoju’s chapter crosscuts the methodologies of Chapters 2-4, as it combines a literary with a cultural studies-oriented approach. Omitowoju’s main focus is the presentation of social relationships in Menander, with especial reference to the father-son relationship in the Samia, which she examines against possible tragic intertexts, namely the father-son relationships in Euripides’ Phoenix and (chiefly) Hippolytus. Omitowoju’s working hypothesis is that social relationships in New Comedy owe much not only to the cultural context in which they operate but also, perhaps even more so, to the literary tradition which preconditions Menander’s work. This hypothesis bifurcates into two interlinked questions: (a) are family relations constituted differently in New Comedy than in tragedy, and if so, how and why? And (b) does the use of tragic models diminish one’s ability to relate the action and resolution of Menander to its dominant cultural context? The way Omitowoju formulates her questions is characteristic of a newfound sophistication in researching Menander as a source of socio-cultural history, a new understanding of the complex interplay between the

12

Introduction

constituents of a literary work, which checks any over-enthusiastic affirmation of Menander as a “mirror of life” (cf. test. 83 K.-A.)—or indeed the contrary, an inconsequential bourgeoisification of tragic plots. If Greek New Comedy is inherently intertextual, Roman Comedy is infinitely more so: it would never have existed in the form we have come to know it from the plays of Plautus and Terence save for an ongoing, conspicuous and deeply conscious association with its Greek models. Plautus’ plays in particular appealed broadly to his contemporaries because their framework observed a carefully constructed dramatic format that blended in an ideal way, on the one hand, native Italian drama (fabulae atellanae, pantomime) with Greek drama (Middle and New Comedy, Hellenistic mime), and on the other, literary and performance genres. The meticulously crafted entwinement of intertextuality and performance sits at the core of a palliata by definition; the two are inseparable, not only because successful dramaturgy requires so but also because their individual contributions are impossible to determine on account of the fragmentary status of the surviving New Comedy texts. This sad limitation of the paradosis steered modern Plautine studies towards the performance dimension of the palliata. This led to the birth of Roman (mainly Plautine) metatheatre, the celebration of metatheatricality as a new, decisively Roman entity on the ancient stage, and the unprecedented capabilities this technique offered the palliata characters, particularly the slaves, to rewrite their comic world, including the New Comedy script, upon which the play they enacted was based—to transform the reality of the literary text through impromptu performance developed in their imagination. This picture has been enhanced in the past decade or so, rekindling interest in the study of Plautus’ irreverent inventiveness towards his Greek models. This reinvention of intertextuality in the palliata is discussed by SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU in the last chapter of this book (“Postclassical Comedy and the Composition of Roman Comedy”). Taking advantage of the fresh fragmentary discoveries in New Comedy, Papaioannou focuses anew on the relationship between Roman Comedy and fourth-century Greek comedy, and argues that the two develop along similar structural principles because they embrace parallel philosophies of dealing with their potential literary models. Setting as premise that postclassical Greek comic drama is the outcome of a well-thought combination of individual genius and cleverly filtered sources, not always literary, Papaioannou’s assessment of Plautine and Terentian dramaturgy, based on extensive discussions of specific case studies, examines in detail the anatomy of a

New Comedy under New Light

13

twofold methodology of model reception behind the texts of the palliata. The process in question transforms the so-perceived image of a spontaneous, improvisatory Plautine speech, by proving that Plautus’ literary language, no less than Terence’s own, involves complex intertextuality, which, in turn, comes in the aftermath of a long Quellenforschung whose successful conclusion presupposes critical acumen, powerful memory, and years of experience in viewing and performing Greek comedies.

CHAPTER ONE MENANDER: THE TEXT AND ITS RESTORATION HORST-DIETER BLUME

The “classical” Greek tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides have never ceased to be present with at least part of their works since their lifetime, and the same holds true of Aristophanes, the leading poet of the so-called Old Comedy. Complete manuscripts with a selection of their plays have come down to us; these plays were being copied throughout antiquity and were eventually passed on to Byzantium. After having undergone the change from papyrus scroll to parchment codex and the transcription from majuscule to cursive minuscule they finally escaped destruction, and via Crete and Venice they percolated through the western medieval manuscript tradition into printed book editions. Menander and his rival poets of New Comedy were less fortunate. In spite of their immense popularity their plays gradually vanished in late antiquity before Byzantine scholars could get hold of them. Consequently, a medieval manuscript tradition does not exist for them. Menander was considered lost for many centuries, reduced to not much more than a great name: he was represented by a handful of Roman adaptations of Plautus and Terence, by a collection of one-line gnomes (Monosticha) that only partly can be ascribed to him, and by a considerable number of short quotations found in various Greek authors. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the first bits of original Menandrian scenes turned up on papyrus sheets, which had been preserved in the dry sand of Egypt. Since then, the number of newfound texts has increased continually: many of them include only small fragments and scraps collected from ancient garbage heaps, but there have also turned up the remnants of two papyrus codices, which restored to us substantial portions of half a dozen plays, amongst which one almost complete (Dyskolos). Remarkable finds were also made quite unexpectedly in cartonnage used for mummy wrappings. Menandrian papyri date from the

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

15

third century BC (that is very close to the poet’s own lifetime) down to the sixth century AD, thus being roughly a thousand years earlier than our manuscripts of Aristophanes. However, this does not mean that their texts are more reliable: because they show no traces of a systematic treatment by Alexandrian scholars, they needed (and still need) careful reading and restoration. Step by step during the last century Menander has regained shape thanks to an international cooperation of modern classical scholars. The youngest of the great Greek dramatists, who has created, developed and influenced a theatrical tradition alive up to the present day, is on his way to become a classic once again. Let us turn back our eyes and ask why Menander was not part of the transcription which paved the way for medieval manuscript tradition. The reasons must have been manifold, perhaps arbitrary; hence one hesitates to offer a forthright answer. Admittedly Menander had been treated with reserve by the general public during his lifetime: in the course of thirty years of his career as a dramatist (about 320 – 290 BC) he composed more than a hundred comedies, but only eight times he was proclaimed victor in the dramatic contest. It seems that the Athenian audience regarded his comic characters and the way they argued their case on stage to be too far ahead of their time. But this cannot have been a relevant factor for the later transmission of the texts, because matters changed quickly after his death. Many theatres had been built in the third century BC, not only in Attica but all over the Greek speaking world, and Menander and Euripides who had shared a similar fate during their life now became the most popular dramatists. They dominated the stage and were prominent school authors as well: ideal conditions, one is inclined to think, to secure their afterlife. At the same time the comedies of Menander were collected and compiled in the Alexandrian Library; whether also a critical edition of his works was prepared by one of the great scholars working there, remains a debated question. The only thing we know for certain is that Aristophanes of Byzantium thought very highly of him; he placed Menander next to Homer, thus regarding the dramatist of day-to-day life and the poet of heroic myth as antipodes: both of them exemplary and outstanding in their own way.1 This high esteem was general and lasted for several centuries; even when the theatre performances gradually came to an end, Menander continued to be a much-loved author among educated Greeks, as evidenced by Plutarch.2 His complete works must still have been available in libraries. Athenaeus in his learned Deipnosophistai (ca. AD 200) was 1 2

Test. 83 and 170 K.-A. Test. 103-107 K.-A.

16

Chapter One

perhaps the last to make extensive use of them: we owe to him 70 excerpts from Menander drawn from 47 different comedies, all of them quoted with their respective title. On the other hand, a selection of his favourite plays had come into use for the general reader; interest, it seems, was focused on about a dozen or so more, as the number of later papyri shows.3 In the end, the following fact proved to be obstructive to Menander’s lasting fame: his plays were considered to be easy reading, above all for beginners (both Greek and Roman). The absence of coarse language and obscenities, the frugal use of topical allusions, the clear and concise dialogues: in a word, the ethical and aesthetic qualities of Menander’s plays made him an ideal author for elementary teaching. Nonetheless, exercises in writing and reading could do without deep appreciation of his refined, almost individual character drawing and his subtle humour and dramatic irony, and so no need was felt for detailed commentaries. Had Menander, like Homer and the tragedians, been taught in higher education as well, he would not have escaped the attention of commentators and scholiasts. There was still another unfavourable development: during the second century AD grammarians of a strict Atticist order exercised their influence on literary style. These critics castigated Menander for the occasional koine phrase and an alleged lack of pure Attic dialect, being blind to his lively poetic expression which reflects the language of the audience.4 Their rigid, puristic criticism combined with the lack of sustained scholarly attention had, if not immediate, yet surely long-term consequences: notwithstanding his lasting popularity which manifests itself in the papyri, and in spite of his clear presence in public life by means of a large number of portrait busts,5 Menander fell into oblivion during the so-called dark centuries (about 650-850 AD) which marked the end of late antiquity and preceded the revival of humanism in Byzantium. Thus for more than a thousand years the once famous dramatist had faded away. Certainly, the comedies of Terence were still widely read, from whose prologues one could learn that he had translated and adapted Greek originals, mostly of Menander; but Terence was not so much appreciated for being the dimidiatus Menander6 who created an almost Greek atmosphere on stage, as for his elegant and lucid Latin style. Rather than the Roman comedies a totally different literary genre kept Menander’s

3

Del Corno 1964. Test. 119 -120 K.-A. 5 Fittschen 1991; Blume 1998, 12-15. 6 So Caesar’s judgement on Terence, cf. Donatus Vita Terenti 7. 4

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

17

name alive: the above-mentioned Gnômai Monostichoi.7 Forty manuscripts written between the 13th and 16th century preserve this collection; it consists of 877 lines in total, but only a minority of about sixty of them can definitely be identified as Menandrian. An equal number of verses have been assigned to Euripides; others are drawn from various poets of New Comedy and tragedy. Papyri of the first and second century AD testify that these dicta were used for practice at school: they were copied, read and learnt by heart. So it is hardly surprising that Menander had been considered a highly sententious and didactic poet, until original scenes of his comedies turned up again and corrected this one-sided impression. The gnomic character of Menander’s language was confirmed also by the great number of quotations (frr. 680-876 K.-A.) which Stobaios has preserved in his anthology (5th century AD); some of these are identical with dicta in the earlier collection. In the wake of the revival of Greek literature during the Renaissance period first attempts were made to collect what still could be known about the lost comic poets. Guilelmus Morelius: Ex veterum comicorum graecorum fabulis quae integrae non extant sententiae (Paris 1553) led the way. Half a century later scenic fragments on a broader scale, which included also the tragic poets, were listed by the famous Dutch historian and philologist Hugo Grotius: Excerpta ex tragoediis et comoediis graecis (Paris 1626). The first scholar who undertook the task of collecting systematically the scattered fragments and testimonies of Menander’s comedies in ancient literature was Ioannes Clericus (= Jean Le Clerc) in Menandri et Philemonis reliquiae (Amsterdam 1709). Clericus thus combined the two leading poets of New Comedy, both of them by that time reduced to a random sample of fragments. Philemon who had come to Athens from Syracuse was a bit older and a more successful comedy writer, a fact which, the story goes, caused Menander some annoyance.8 Later, however, Philemon was generally considered second to Menander, yet he continued to be held in high esteem. So even in late antiquity, when comedies were no longer played and seldom read, a rather dull piece of work, the Comparatio Menandri et Philistionis (apparently mistaken for Philemonis), could still enjoy some popularity.9 Up to now no coherent dramatic scenes of Philemon have surfaced on papyrus—perhaps some may still lurk among the fragmenta adespota. We must, therefore, judge Philemon’s dramatic art from a few comedies of

7

Jaekel 1964; for the latest edition, see Liapis 2002. Test. 71 K.-A. 9 Text: Jaekel 1964, 87-120. See also Dain 1963, 300. 8

18

Chapter One

Plautus: the plots of Mercator, Trinummus, and probably also Mostellaria have been borrowed from him. Unfortunately, Clericus’ edition was a hasty work full of mistakes, but it had the immediate effect of instigating a highly competent critic, namely Richard Bentley; under the pseudonym of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis he published Emendationes in Menandri et Philemonis reliquias only few months later (Utrecht 1710, Cambridge 1713). Bentley’s book was a severe and sarcastic analysis of Clericus’ metrical and linguistic blunders which in its turn provoked sharp replies by some inferior minds such as Iohannes C. de Pauw: Philargyri Cantabrigiensis emendationes in Menandri et Philemonis reliquias (Amsterdam 1711). This whole polemic is certainly mere academic squabble, yet it aptly illustrates the fact that Menander was no longer just a name but an author worth squabbling about. Bentley’s Emendationes were reprinted a century later in August Meineke’s new collection of fragments: Menandri et Philemonis reliquiae (Berlin 1823), a forerunner of his masterly Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum (Berlin 1839-1857).10 As far as the fragments from secondary sources are concerned, with this edition Meineke has laid a reliable foundation for all further scholarly work. In the fourth volume Menander, standing out amidst more than thirty other dramatists, receives his due place as the most prominent representative of New Comedy. The fragments are clearly arranged and numbered separately for each play; the comments are lucid and instructive. In late 19th century interest in Greek and Roman comedy generally diminished. The study of the fragments was left to specialists; even Latin comedies were no longer produced for the stage but only read at school. When Theodor Kock, one generation after Meineke, presented a new edition of comic fragments in three volumes—Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (Leipzig 1880-1888)—its impact was more restrained. The material he offered was slightly corrected and augmented and more concisely arranged: the fragments of each poet now numbered through continuously which made quoting much easier, and the comments were brought up to date. Occasionally the treatment of the transmitted text seems to be less careful and the critical judgement not quite reliable. Nevertheless, all that could be known about Menander at that time had been collected and closely examined. What else could be done for this poet?

10

Edited in 5 vols. (7 parts); ed. min. Berlin 1847.

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

19

Meanwhile the first coherent texts of Menander had come to light without anyone taking notice. Their strange recovery is a story worth telling. As early as 1844 the famous German theologian and biblical paleographer Konstantin von Tischendorf had discovered in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai the fragments of three parchment leaves of a manuscript dated to the 4th century AD, which were glued into the binding of another codex. He copied the unknown verses and presented them to a friend, the classical scholar Cobet in Leiden, because he himself concentrated his attention exclusively on the study of biblical manuscripts. But it was only after Tischendorf’s death in 1874 that Cobet published the texts.11 He correctly identified the author and observed that the verses came from two different plays. He also discovered in them a previously known fragment cited (without play title) by Clement of Alexandria, and followed Meineke who had wrongly attributed it to Menander’s comedy Deisidaimon. The other portion of the text remained of unknown origin. Not much later, however, the parchment leaves had been taken out of the codex and brought from the Sinai to St. Petersburg,12 where Viktor Jernstedt scrutinised them closely and finally published the complete text—that is, also the reverse of the sheets—in the Acta Universitatis Petropolitanae (1891). Almost half a century had passed since their discovery! Jernstedt was now able to securely assign the previously known fragment to Menander’s Phasma with the help of a summary account of this play given by Donatus,13 whereas the others still could not be identified. That they belong to the end of the first act of the Epitrepontes was made out seventeen years later by Jan van Leeuwen after substantial parts of this comedy had come to light.14 Close to the end of the 19th century the first papyrus fragments of Menandrian comedies also turned up: one leaf of a codex with verses of the Georgos (Geneva 1897), and a fragment of a scroll with a column of the Perikeiromene (London 1899). Both texts could be attributed to their respective play by means of a quotation from a previously known secondary source. With only these few lines at his disposal Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in a remarkable paper succeeded in giving an idea of Menander’s dramatic art.15 Not only did he distinguish New Comedy both from the earlier Greek tradition and the Roman successors 11

Cobet 1876. Hence their official name Membrana Petropolitana 388. 13 Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 9. 14 van Leeuwen 1908, 16. 15 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 1899, reprinted in Kl. Schr. I, Berlin 1935, 224-248. After a hundred years of research the progress is evident: see Austin 2004. 12

20

Chapter One

but he interpreted and translated the new verses of the Georgos, and made good observations about the manuscript tradition in late antiquity. Nevertheless, it was not until the 20th century that Menander, thanks to a series of newly discovered texts, truly gained weight as an individual dramatist. In 1907 Gustave Lefebvre published considerable fragments of a papyrus codex which he had excavated in Aphroditopolis in Upper Egypt (today Kom Ishkaou, situated about 200 miles to the north of Thebes) and which is now kept in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. It was a sensational find indeed, because from one moment to the next it brought back to light whole scenes and even entire acts of several plays, namely Heros, Epitrepontes, Perikeiromene, Samia, and a fifth still unidentified Fabula Incerta.16 The volume originally contained five or six plays of Menander, Heros being the second in order, as is inferred from page numbers (29/30) on the sheet containing the opening of this comedy. Another play of similar size obviously had preceded it, and as far as one can judge this was not the Fabula Incerta. The Epitrepontes was the first comedy of Menander that could be appreciated both for its structure and its character portrayal. The text of the Membrana Petropolitana did not overlap; that it belonged to the Epitrepontes was now proved by the coincidence of proper names. In the end almost two thirds of this play had been recovered. Things were not quite so favourable for the other plays. As for the Perikeiromene, its title was identified straightaway because the names of the two leading characters, Polemon and Glykera, had been known before, and the plot could be reconstructed at least in broad terms. Again the earlier fragment did not overlap with any portion of the new text, but it was now ascribed with certainty to the fifth act. Regarding the Samia not even the title was undisputed: the assumption was simply based upon the fact that a hetaira from Samos is twice mentioned in the dialogue; but since this island was famous for its hetairai, such a girl could occur in any comedy.17 The scanty remnants of the opening scene of the Heros are preceded by a metrical summary (a so-called hypothesis) and a cast list which mentions a ἥρως θεός as divine prologue. Can we assume that a similar hypothesis had been added to every single play in this volume? None of the comparatively small fragments of the Fabula Incerta correspond with any ancient quotation from a named play by Menander, 16

Lefebvre 1907; Riad and Selim 1978. For Samian hetairai, see Tsantsanoglou 1973, 192-193. The two sisters in Plautus, Bacchides are from Samos (200, 472, 574), and Thais in Terence, Eunuch had a Samian mother (107). 17

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

21

and the few dramatis personae that can be made out in the text bear the most common names. So the title of this comedy (which must have been a popular play since it was included in this late selection) still remains a riddle. The codex Cairensis was written in the fifth century AD. It was discovered in the remains of a house from the late Roman period, which had belonged to a man named Flavius Dioscorus, a lawyer and poet who lived under emperor Justinian (6th century). After a hundred years’ use the manuscript had been badly damaged; the binding of the papyrus volume was torn, the pages were scattered and no longer suitable for reading. Yet the owner did not throw them away but used them to cover and protect documents and letters which he kept in an earthen vessel. Thus about a third of the original codex has survived. The editio princeps aroused enormous international interest. A great number of papers were published in the course of the following years to correct and supplement the text and to secure the proper arrangement of the fragments. Critical editions by Jan van Leeuwen (Leiden 21908; 1919), Siegfried Sudhaus (Bonn 1909; 1914), Edward Capps (Boston 1910), and Alfred Körte (Leipzig 1910; 1912) followed each other closely, and a great number of modern translations aimed at making the wider public familiar with this rediscovered dramatist. Again it was Ulrich von WilamowitzMoellendorff who with his commented bilingual edition of the Epitrepontes in 1925 tried to sum up what at that time could be said about Menander’s dramatic art and poetic language.18 Apart from the codex Cairensis a growing number of smaller papyri could be ascribed successfully to Menander during the first two decades of the 20th century, not only some which fitted into the already recovered plays (especially the Epitrepontes and the Perikeiromene) but also fragments of hitherto unknown comedies, such as the Kolax or the Misoumenos. One among these finds deserves special mention: a double leaf of a parchment codex dating from the 5th century AD edited by G. Vitelli in Florence, 1913. That the author of these more than eighty verses was Menander seemed probable from the very beginning, but no comedy could be made out with certainty. Epikleros (“Heiress”) was a mere guess, and so Comoedia Florentina became the generally accepted title for the next half century; in 1969 the Bodmer Papyrus will show that these scenes were actually part of Menander’s Aspis. Hereafter the steady increase in new discovered texts ebbed away, and the known fragments were being scrutinised over and over by a great 18

Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 1925.

22

Chapter One

number of scholars. Consequently the interest in Menander began to decline between the two World Wars. Two critical editions of the text collected the scattered material and marked the enormous progress that had been achieved since Sudhaus (1914): those of Christian Jensen (1929) and Alfred Körte (3rd ed.1938).19 Jensen was an eminent papyrologist, who had travelled twice to Cairo to study the famous Menander codex. The extensive preface of his edition gives excellent and detailed descriptions of all relevant manuscripts and, therefore, still deserves close reading.20 Körte’s Teubneriana became the standard text for the next generation of philologists; it was designed to be the first complete edition of Menander in two volumes, which collected the surviving remains both on papyrus and in secondary sources. The useful bilingual Loeb edition of F. G. Allinson (London/New York 1921, 1930) with its rather conservative text addressed also the general reader. Finally the edition of Dario Del Corno (Milano 1966) is worthy of special attention; unfortunately only the first volume was completed. Its introduction (17-130) is still indispensable and so are the preliminary remarks to the individual plays.21 What nobody dared to hope for became reality in 1958: Egypt had preserved even a complete comedy of Menander, namely the Dyskolos. Again the find was a papyrus codex of unknown provenance written in the 3rd or early 4th century AD and purchased by the famous bibliophile Martin Bodmer in Geneva. The text was published quickly and competently by Victor Martin, together with a diplomatic transcription, with prose translations, index of words, and good photos of the manuscript at a slightly reduced scale.22 A page number (no.19) on the well-preserved first leaf was striking; it made clear that another, slightly shorter play must have preceded the Dyskolos in the codex. Because the last leaf, as well, was also in excellent condition, it was easy to guess that at least one more play had followed. Thus it became obvious that the central pages of the manuscript (naturally these were the best preserved ones) had been taken out and published separately. But what had happened with the rest? Had the whole codex been brought to Geneva, and which were the titles of the 19

Jensen 1929; Körte 1938, and Körte and Thierfelder 1953. His final characterisation of the Cairensis may stand as a convincing example (XVI): tenemus codicem grammaticorum curis non perpolitum, sed magna cum cura a scriba satis erudito ex bono exemplari descriptum et gravioribus mendis fere liberum. 21 Del Corno 1966. Volume I contains the plays of Körte’s edition except Samia and Comoedia Florentina: all the Bodmer plays were reserved for vol. II. 22 Martin 1958. 20

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

23

other plays? Soon there were rumours that Samia and Aspis were the two missing comedies, but more than ten years had to pass (at least for the general public; a small number of initiates had gained access in advance to parts of the secret text and had set to work already) until in 1969 the rest of the Bodmer papyrus with considerable portions of the two comedies appeared.23 The outer pages of the papyrus codex had crumbled to pieces; accordingly the first two acts of the Samia are badly damaged and the last two of the Aspis almost have disappeared. A small fragment of the Aspis mysteriously ended up in Cologne, another one of the Samia in Barcelona.24 Both plays are slightly shorter than the Dyskolos: in length they keep below nine hundred verses.25 As to the Samia, its title was definitely confirmed by the subscription at the end. Together with the Dyskolos and the Epitrepontes the play now ranks among the best preserved Menandrian comedies. This is an astonishing development indeed. In his collection of fragments Meineke could list just one single line from the Samia, which even turned out to be a mistaken assignment! But the two major text finds of 1907 and 1969 have now restored to us acts III to V almost completely. The new Bodmer papyrus not only covers the gap of 130 verses that had separated the two portions of the Cairensis, but also adds the remaining 51 verses of the final act and has preserved substantial parts of the prologue that are indispensable for the appreciation of the characters and the dramatic action. Furthermore, two quotations already known from Stobaios could be inserted happily into the scanty remnants of the second act of the new text. The lines had been quoted under an alternative title Kēdeia (“The marriage contract”), but since this word was corrupted in the manuscripts of Stobaios, Clericus had conjectured a new title Knidia (“The woman of Knidos”) which had gained general acceptance. The Aspis is a more difficult case. Again there are two major manuscripts (the Florentine bifolium of 1913 and the Bodmer paryrus), but for the most part they coincide and only the first half of the play is virtually intact. The poor fragments of the rest do not permit any farreaching conclusions as to the development of the intrigue. Nevertheless, the two manuscripts allow us to examine both the quality of the text’s transmission in late antiquity and the soundness of modern emendations.26 The identification of the title at least was no problem. Five quotations (out 23

Kasser and Austin 1969a; Kasser and Austin 1969b. Blume 1998, 39. 25 Lowe 1973. 26 Austin 1969, 71-72: Index coniecturarum et supplementorum nunc confirmatorum. 24

24

Chapter One

of nine) which had been known before from secondary sources could be discerned in the Bodmer text; moreover, a shield is brought on stage in the introductory scene as a symbolic item. The Bodmer codex surely was no “official” copy produced for a public library. The text is written too negligently for that purpose. Several mistakes and trivial slips have been corrected by the scribe himself, but a lot had to be emended by modern editors. Probably this book once belonged to a private lover of Menander’s comedies, in a similar way to the papyrus Cairensis. It was copied, so it seems, from a theatre manuscript, because a short passage of the Samia (606-611) has been left out where Menander has made fun of a contemporary Athenian parasite, verses which had become pointless in later times. Apart from that, two stage-directions in Aspis 93 and 467 (“silently”) refer to the tone of the actor’s delivery;27 in a copy designed for reading they are dispensable. On the other hand, the cast list and the didascalic notes for the Dyskolos and few (usually simple) marginal glosses somehow enhance the quality of the manuscript. Three more discoveries still deserve to be mentioned hereafter: an unexpected one, a much longed-for one, and a warmly welcomed one being an addition to a play we were already familiar with. The greatest surprise came in 1964 with the Sikyonios (“The man from Sikyon”),28 a comedy which up to this date had not attracted much attention, though it seems to have ranked among Menander’s favourite plays in antiquity.29 Its recovery makes for a fantastic story. It goes back right to the beginning of the 20th century, when Pierre Jouguet excavated the Ptolemaic cemetery of Medinet-Ghoran in the Fayum. Later, at the Sorbonne, he found out that the cartonnage of a mummy wrapping was made from a worn out scroll of a literary papyrus, which had become useless for reading and, therefore, was utilised for this purpose. In 1906 he published seven fragments of a text which he attributed to Menander:30 a lucky guess which was later corroborated, but at his time could not be proved. The hypothesis,

27

Bain 1977, 106-108, 132-133. Sikyonioi (plur.) is the title both in Pap. Sorbonne and on a wall-painting in Ephesos, but it cannot as yet reasonably be explained from the text. For details, see Blanchard 2009, xxiv-xxxiii. 29 In a fictitious correspondence between Menander and Glykera the rhetor Alciphron (4.19.19) names the poet’s most famous plays, amongst them also the Sikyonios (= test. 20 K.-A.). 30 Jouguet 1906. 28

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

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therefore, was rejected almost generally and the fragments were included in none of the earlier editions of Menander.31 In 1962/63, the investigations of the Ghoran finds were taken up again. Alain Blanchard and André Bataille brought to light from different mummy cartonnages further fragments of the same scroll, which at last allowed an indisputable identification of the text thanks to the subscription Σικυώνιοι Μενάνδρου. The editio princeps was published without much delay in 1964;32 it presented a puzzle of pieces (peculiarly cut into shape) whose context was still far from established, but with the help of good photos the reader was enabled to try out his own ways. Forty years later Blanchard has crowned his efforts with an excellent bilingual edition of the play including an extensive introduction full of accurate knowledge and good sense (Paris 2009). The Papyrus Sorbonne 72-2272-2273 is extraordinary also on account of its early date. It was written in the last third of the 3rd century BC, that is, only two generations after Menander’s death! Strangely enough, none of the ten quotations from secondary sources has turned up in the new text, though it comprises remnants of more than four hundred (out of more than one thousand) verses.33 Not only large scale discoveries of whole scenes but also the meticulous reconstruction of tiny traces of letters helps to regain a lost comedy of Menander step by step. A good example for this is the Misoumenos (“The hated man”), a comedy about a (supposed) braggart soldier. This laudatissima fabula (Meineke) was a play most often quoted and mentioned in ancient literature. Körte and Del Corno had four manuscripts at their disposal: two papyrus scraps from Oxyrhynchus and two torn codex leaves (one of them a parchment) from Berlin. These sad remains of four ancient books together presented just a bit more than a hundred unconnected lines, and scarcely a single one of them undamaged. The names of the leading characters (the soldier Thrasonides, the girl Krateia, and the slave Getas) were already known and allowed the identification of the texts. Then, four big leaves of a codex from Oxyrhynchus (4th century AD) came to light: almost 350 verses from somewhere in the third act down to the end of the play with its title written in the subscription.34 Such a find would normally have cast light to the still obscure plot of this comedy. But unfortunately the new papyrus is mutilated beyond easy recognition. The 31

Blanchard 2009, xxii, n.4. Blanchard and Bataille 1964. 33 There is a damaged line number right at the end and two more in the margin, cf. Blanchard 2009, cxiv. 34 Again an alternative title, Thrasonides, instead of Misoumenos. 32

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Chapter One

renowned papyrologist Eric Turner, therefore, made known the text and discussed the problems of reconstruction in an advance publication (1965), and three years later edited and briefly commented it with the utmost care and precision.35 In the same volume he then added yet another new fragment of the Misoumenos which, as it did not overlap with any known section of the play, he attributed to the second act. Turner’s edition is of exemplary value. He has laid out (as a substructure, so to speak, of the entire second half of the play) a pattern of words and letters that enabled him to insert all previously known fragments to their proper place. Further discoveries hereafter will be located with some confidence as well. And still there was no end with the Misoumenos. When in 1970 a fragment of 16 lines (probably a school exercise in writing) turned up, it became evident that they belonged to a scene which perhaps may be called the most famous one in the whole oeuvre of Menander. The few verses almost entirely consisted of already known quotations: two of them confirmed that their origin indeed was the Misoumenos (frr. 5 and 6 Körte), two more had survived without the relevant title added (frr. 664 and 789 Körte-Thierfelder) and another one even without the name of the poet himself (fr. adesp. 282 Kock). No doubt this passage once opened the comedy: a soliloquy of the hero who has excluded himself from his own house at night and in bad weather. Soon more fragments of the famous scene could be identified, until in the end “a particularly dirty scrap of papyrus from the Oxyrhynchus collection” (E. Turner) interlocked the remnants with each other. Thus, the first hundred verses of the comedy have gradually re-emerged, but still the events that preceded the scenic action and the development of the dramatic plot pose a number of unsolved problems. Again Turner had prepared an informative advance print to his final publication in the series of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Today the text is easily accessible in the latest Menander editions.36 To give a (provisional) résumé: in spite of Turner’s lifelong efforts to recover this outstanding comedy and notwithstanding the fourteen different manuscripts now at our disposal, this comedy still puzzles the reader. We must hope for further discoveries. A third text which deserves special attention is of a different kind again. Around the end of the 2nd century AD a selection of Menandrian comedies for school purposes (so it seems) was gradually taking shape. This was no strict canon, to be sure, but we learn from later papyri that priority was given to moralising and subtle plots in contrast to the more 35

E. G. Turner 1965; E. G. Turner 1968. E. G. Turner 1977; E. G. Turner 1981; cf. Sandbach 1990, 351-354; Arnott 1996b, 256-271.

36

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

27

comic and burlesque plays which used to be successful on the stage. These selected comedies usually end up with a marriage, and often the recognition of a lost daughter is prerequisite for their happy ending. Under these circumstances some surprise was caused, when Eric Handley could assign a number of fragments from three columns of a papyrus roll (3rd century AD) to the Dis Exapaton (“The Twice Deceiving”), a play about a most efficient scheming slave whom Plautus in his Bacchides had magnified into a kind of tricky superman.37 This is no moralising play; the focus of interest lies on swindling money out of a father for the sake of a love affair with a hetaira, and the plot will not lead in the end towards engagement and wedding. But what is more, now for the first time we possess a bit of a Greek text which a Roman comedy writer had chosen as model, and we get the chance to cast an eye on a Latin “translator” at work.38 E. Handley in his Inaugural Lecture “Menander and Plautus. A Study in Comparison” (London 1968) sketched out similarities and differences between the two authors with great care and was even able to improve the Plautine version with the help of the Greek fragments.39 As for the range of Menander’s humour, we cannot as yet tell whether in this play he tended towards more obviously comic elements. After the recovery of the Bodmer comedies and the Sorbonne papyrus there was a veritable flood of single editions: most of them short-lived, some with a few comments added, many with a translation. A small volume in the OCT series with the Dyskolos edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones (1960) was welcomed as a quick attempt to offer a standard text, equipped with a short apparatus criticus, few remarks on the stage action and an index verborum. Equally praiseworthy were the competent editions of the Sikyonios by Rudolf Kassel (1965) and of Samia et Aspis by Colin Austin (1969-1970),40 both quickly superseding their respective editio princeps. Nevertheless, a new up-to-date complete edition which incorporated all significant post-war finds was urgently needed. Unfortunately neither the announced second volume of D. Del Corno’s Menandro appeared, nor would its bilingual French counterpart of the Association Guillaume Budé develop into an integral whole. We are greatly indebted to Jean-Marie 37 As early as 1836 F. Ritschl had recognised the Dis Exapaton as the model for Plautus’ Bacchides, cf. Ritschl 1845, 404-412. 38 Small remains of the Kolax and the Perinthia (the two plays were Terence’s secondary models for Eunuch and Andria) do not provide much insight into the scope of borrowing and change by the Roman dramatists. 39 Final edition: Handley 1997. 40 Kassel 1965; Austin 1969, 1970.

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Chapter One

Jacques for three important volumes for the single comedies of the Bodmer papyrus, and Alain Blanchard has now followed with the Sicyoniens.41 But at last in 1972 a new OCT edition by F. H. Sandbach replaced the first volume of Körte; it became the authoritative text for the next generation.42 Its title Reliquiae selectae is very modest, because almost all fragments on papyrus were incorporated, down to the latest finds (an Oxyrhynchus Papyrus of Phasma had appeared in 1971), and even some longer quotations from secondary sources. Sandbach published this edition almost simultaneously with a voluminous commentary (Oxford 1973), based on a draft version left behind by Arnold W. Gomme on Heros, Epitrepontes, Perikeiromene, and Samia, but thoroughly revised and completed by Sandbach himself.43 Sandbach’s Greek text is excellent. Much more reluctant than Körte to supplement fragmentary lines he inserts into the text only what is reasonably certain. The plays are printed in Greek alphabetical order at last. A thorny problem remains the numbering of lines: in the Epitrepontes Wilamowitz and Körte followed different numbering, and Sandbach gives yet another count, calculating (to the extent possible) the length of the gaps and thus allowing for further text additions. The bilingual Loeb edition of F.G. Allinson (1921) became useless decades ago, and a new complete Loeb Menander was urgently needed. W. Geoffrey Arnott has performed an immense task in offering a new edition now in three volumes.44 His critical text is of painstaking accuracy, the metrical translation lively though perhaps a bit “Plautine”; short comments are given in the footnotes and discussion of the action and the movements on stage within the body of the English text. Lucid introductions both to Menander’s life and art and to every single play provide rich information, and there is a concise catalogue of editions and bibliographies in the first volume.45 What is to come then? A kind of “final” edition of Menander was initially planned by Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin within the purview of their masterly Poetae Comici Graeci, as the necessary complement of the

41

Jacques 1963-1998; Blanchard 2009 was the fourth volume of the series. Revised edition: Sandbach 1990. Unfortunately, corrections and additions (new discoveries for the Epitrepontes and the Misoumenos) were not inserted in the text but relegated to an appendix (pp. 341-356). 43 Gomme and Sandbach 1973. 44 Arnott 1979; Arnott 1996b; and Arnott 2000b. 45 Arnott 1979, xlvii-lii. 42

Menander: The Text and its Restoration

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volume which contains the testimonies and quotations in ancient authors.46 Their reluctance, however, to issue the fragments from papyrus and parchment manuscripts at the moment is understandable. Rushed publication could quickly render the (indeed luxuriously produced) volume obsolete, as soon as new discoveries come to light. Until untimely death cut the project short in 2010, C. Austin was preparing a new Oxford edition instead (the next generation after Sandbach’s), which in its turn could be replaced more easily should it get outdated some day. Meanwhile a number of new fragments became known after 1990. The most important find was announced already in Dec. 2003: a Vatican palimpsest with traces of about four hundred lines (200 from the Dyskolos and 200 of a play now identified as the Titthe); the text is not yet published.47 The recovery of Menander’s text will never reach a definite end. Good progress was made up to now because of a series of accidents—some minor and a few major ones—which in their sum aim at the remote and ideal goal of restoring a representative sample of Menander’s plays. Indeed much room is left for further discoveries. Menander wrote more than a hundred comedies;48 only one has come upon us virtually intact (Dyskolos), four of them we now know in significant proportion (Epitrepontes, Samia, Aspis, Perikeiromene), and fifteen more can be recognised in (small) parts at least thanks to papyrus finds. All the rest, this means three quarters of his plays, have disappeared altogether; a handful of snippets obtained from anthologies or grammatical treatises cannot convey any positive idea of their plots. Consequently we do not possess much more than five percent of Menander’s original works, and what is worse: a great number of lines in damaged condition only.

46 Poetae Comici Graeci is designed to combine the complete plays of Aristophanes with the fragments of all comic poets (in alphabetical order); vol. VI is reserved exclusively for Menander; VI.2 (Berlin 1998) includes the Testimonia et Fragmenta apud scriptores servata. 47 Arnott 2004a. See also Arnott 2004b, specifically for new additions to the Epitrepontes. Two recent Cambridge PhD dissertations directed by Colin Austin contributed to our understanding of the text of Menander’s Misoumenos (Stigka 2007); and Epitrepontes (Bathrellou 2009). See also the new edition of the Epitrepontes by Furley 2009. 48 Gellius, 17.4.4, discusses several authorities which mention more than one hundred titles (= test. 46 K.-A.). It is possible that we do not know all the titles, yet their number may also fluctuate on account of alternative titles that could be attached to a play at a later performance. For a list of Menander’s titles see Sandbach 1990, 339-340.

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Chapter One

To complete and improve the transmitted texts, therefore, remains the most urgent need of the future, and the chief duty of classical scholars. Only when there is a firm and sufficiently broad textual basis, far-reaching interpretation and specialised research will be fruitful. In the course of the last hundred years Menander has developed from a mere great name towards a recognised classic. The participants in this volume demonstrate that his art and dramatic skill can be appreciated again today in various aspects.

CHAPTER TWO MENANDER AND CULTURAL STUDIES DAVID KONSTAN

Cultural Studies as a Discipline The phrase Cultural Studies suggests an area of investigation as broad as culture itself, defined in one dictionary as (among other things) “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group”, and also as “the characteristic features of everyday existence”.1 Of course, one can exploit Menander’s comedies to educe a picture of everyday life in the Athens of his time: Aristophanes of Byzantium famously exclaimed: “O Menander, O life, which of you has imitated the other?”2 But the discipline of Cultural Studies, as it has evolved over the past forty-five years, complete with doctoral programs, journals (e.g., Cultural Studies, founded in 1987), even a professional association (The Cultural Studies Association, established in 2003), has a more specific focus and purpose, although it remains wide enough even so. As Lawrence Grossberg, the editor of Cultural Studies, has put it: “Cultural studies is still almost impossible to define, especially given the enormous diversity of work that is carried on in its name”.3 So too, Simon During, in his introduction to the Cultural Studies Reader, observes that “Cultural Studies is not an academic discipline quite like others. It possesses neither a well-defined methodology nor clearly demarcated fields for investigation”.4

1 Merriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary; cf. Williams 1958, xvi, who defines culture as “a whole way of life”. 2 Syrianus Commentary on Hermogenes on Staseis 2.15 = test. 83 K.-A. 3 The reference is to the “Aims and Scope” statement recorded on the homepage of the electronic version of the journal Cultural Studies; the relevant URL is http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/09502386.html 4 During 1999, v.

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While the methods associated with Cultural Studies are not entirely new, the origin of what now goes under that name is generally traced back to Richard Hoggart, who was the first director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Hoggart, in his inaugural address, outlined three components: “one is roughly historical and philosophical; another is, again roughly, sociological; the third—which will be the most important—is the literary critical”.5 It is the emphasis on literary criticism that differentiates Cultural Studies from neighbouring fields such as anthropology, sociology, and history; and this is the most relevant aspect in connection with the study of Menander. Cultural Studies, nevertheless, has prided itself on its multidisciplinary approach. Thus, the program at George Mason University, which advertises itself as the “first stand-alone interdisciplinary Ph.D. in cultural studies in the United States”, includes among its special strengths “gender/sexuality, film and media, and cultural and political economy”, and offers concentrations in “African-American studies, early modern literatures, Latin American modernities, contemporary museum studies, and popular culture”. The description of the program provided on the George Mason University website points up the variety of intellectual currents on which it has drawn, and illustrates its practical orientation–one might almost say its mission. Noting the influence of “German traditions of critical theory”, such as the Frankfurt School, as well as of “contemporary French theory, with its various confluences of semiotics, psychoanalysis, and neomarxism”, the blurb goes on to explain that in Great Britain, “where it was first named as such, cultural studies developed as a collaboration between literary scholarship and the social sciences in an attempt to fathom the history of class in British society and to understand how class is defined and transformed under conditions of mass culture”. In the United States, Cultural Studies emerged in part in response to “the post-60s new social movements”, and incorporated such areas of inquiry as gender theory, studies of race, and gay and lesbian studies, “subaltern studies” (especially prominent in India), as well as diaspora and transnational studies. This international emphasis characterises as well the Cultural Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh, created in the mid-1980s, which is “concerned with the dynamics of culture on a global scale”. The program “provides an institutional forum for responding to the increasing need to comprehend the role and formation of culture beyond national boundaries and disciplinary divisions”. Again, the Graduate Group in Cultural Studies at 5

Hoggart 1970, 255; on the Birmingham Centre, see Schulman 1993.

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the University of California, Davis, “offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of culture and society that highlights how sexuality, race, ability, citizenship, gender, nationality, class, and language organise embodied identities, social relations and cultural objects”, with special relation to “local community formations, transnationalism, (post)(neo) colonialism, and globalisation”. Cultural Studies, then, does not conceive of itself as a strictly academic enterprise, but is marked by a strong political tendance. Under the rubric, “Uses of Cultural Studies”, the George Mason program proclaims: “Cultural studies is a scholarly field that seeks to understand, critique, and transform cultural practices”, and suggests career paths that include not just university teaching but also “advocacy groups, service groups, or nongovernment organisations”. The University of Pittsburgh program, in turn, notes that Cultural Studies “is intended not so much as multicultural appreciation, as a critique—across traditional disciplinary lines—of the ways that culture has been studied within the university departmental structure. It is not ‘value neutral’, but tends to be inclined towards leftinflected social change. Its job is to raise disturbing questions about how power constructs knowledge and about how the university resolves intellectual debates in its own internally contradictory interests”. The critical nature of the field is suggested by the very list of topics available for study in the UC Davis program, where students “pursue interdisciplinary research in areas including studies of comparative and critical race, ecocriticism, fashion, queer theory, media and popular cultural representation, science and technology, Marxist theory, travel and tourism, food, physical and cognitive abilities, cultural geography, transnational culture and politics, globalisation, religion, rhetoric, performance, critical theory, and disability studies”. Attempting to give some coherence to the broad array of topics embraced by Cultural Studies, Simon During, in the introduction to the reader mentioned above, identifies two distinguishing characteristics of the field: first, that “one life-practice (like reading) cannot be torn out of a large network constituted by many other life-practices—working, sexual orientation, family life”, and so on; and second, that Cultural Studies from the beginning “was an engaged form of analysis”, and one which “did not flinch from the fact that societies are structured unequally”. And Lawrence Grossberg affirms: “I now understand that it is precisely as a project—a radically contextual practice of the articulation of knowledge and power— that Cultural Studies will continue to challenge dominant intellectual and political practices, and to look to the possibilities of the future. As the world speeds into an increasingly precarious and inhumane future, I still

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believe... that Cultural Studies has something to contribute to making another future possible”.6 While literary scholars may entertain the hope that their teaching will contribute something to the betterment of the world, they do not usually express their aspirations in such a frankly ambitious and optimistic fashion.

Cultural Studies and Menander You have, dear Reader, patiently borne with this survey of Cultural Sudies as a discipline, but have doubtless been eager at several moments to inquire: Very well–but what has globalisation, subaltern studies, “the articulation of knowledge and power”, and the rest to do with Menander? The answer is, I think, a great deal; but to see how, it is necessary to recall the literary dimension of Cultural Studies, which was so prominent in its original formulation. Literature, in this perspective, is understood to be inextricably bound up with matters of class, gender, civic status, age–all the categories of discrimination that sustain unequal relations of power: and who doubts that Menander’s comedies are centrally concerned with these areas of contention? A Cultural Studies approach to Menander focuses the spotlight on such issues in his plays, and not, indeed, in a “value-neutral” way: rather, it seeks to determine the extent to which such potentially invidious distinctions are reinforced in the comedies, whether consciously or not, by the structure of the plots, types of characterisation and stock roles, even elements of diction and style, and also how they are subtly undermined. This is not to deny the aesthetic achievement of Menander: the ingenuity of his story lines, the elegance and clarity of his language, his deftness at portraying character, and his wry wit, as he gently pokes fun at every form of self-importance, from pompous old fathers, sure of their moral rectitude, to infatuated young lovers reckless of the consequences of their passion. But the humour often depends on the tension between social norms, represented (sometimes in the breach) by elder citizens, and the transgressive desires of the young, which are reconciled precisely by the clever coincidences and recognitions that Menander devises. Contemporary culture is not so much the backdrop of Menandrian comedy as it is the material from which it is constructed. Cultural criticism, then, views a literary work in something like the way that modern anthropologists interpret myths: they encode the values of a society, putting their finger on points of contradiction which the 6

Also recorded on the “Aims and Scope” section of the electronic site of the Cultural Journal at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/09502386.html.

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narrative in turn seeks to resolve. As John Frow puts it, a text is “a labor of transformation carried out on a raw material of ideological values”.7 But this process is not seamless: in societies marked by inequalities of class, gender, and status, the ideology too is contradictory, and literary texts betray the strain involved in forging such refractory materials into a unified composition. There remain fissures and hiatuses that disrupt the smooth texture of the work, whether on the level of plot or character. As Mieke Bal observes: “Characters embody contradictions; only if we endure lapses can we take them as existing in a stable and unchanging, if fictive, ontology”.8 We may compare these ruptures with symptoms in psychoanalytic psychology, which are taken as signs of a deeper conflict unacknowledged at the level of consciousness.9 Such inconcinnities are not lapses in artistic unity, but rather, from the point of view of Cultural Studies, a necessary condition of textual production. As Pierre Macherey affirms: “What begs to be explained in the work is not that false simplicity which derives from the apparent unity of its meaning, but [...] those disparities which point to a conflict of meaning”.10 We may add that Menander in particular stands to benefit from this approach, since, in comparison with more earnest and ostensibly edifying genres such as epic and tragedy, New Comedy has often seemed superficial or trivial, as though its aim was nothing more than entertainment.

Case Study I: Dyskolos With this preamble, let us turn to case studies, since the proof of a method is in the results. I begin with the Dyskolos or “Grouch” (also entitled “Misanthrope”), the only comedy of Menander’s to survive complete. The plot is relatively straightforward; here is the verse hypothesis to the play, falsely attributed in the papyrus to Aristophanes of Byzantium: An ill-tempered man had a daughter, but he was soon abandoned by her mother because of his character. He had married her [as a widow] when she already had a son. He continued to live alone on his farm. Sostratos fell violently in love with the girl, and came to ask for her in marriage, but the ill-tempered fellow refused. He managed to persuade her brother, but he 7

Frow 1986, 19. Bal 1987, 107-108. 9 On the “lecture symptomale”, cf. Althusser and Balibar 1970, 16; S. B. Smith 1984, 73, 75-82. 10 Macherey 1978, 79-80. 8

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Chapter Two could not make a case. When Knemon fell into a well, however, he immediately found a helper in Sostratos. He was then reconciled with his wife, voluntarily gave the girl to Sostratos as his lawful wife, and received Sostratos’ sister as wife to Gorgias, his wife’s son, since he had now become mild-tempered.

This brief synopsis contains some serious mistakes: it was Gorgias, rather than Sostratos, who primarily rescued Knemon from the well; and it was Gorgias, too, who gave his sister in marriage to Sostratos, after Knemon handed over to him full responsibility for his household. What is more, Knemon is hardly shown to have become gentle in character by the play’s finale.11 Still, it gets the basic outline right: a young man is in love with a girl; her father opposes the marriage because of his misanthropic nature; he is humbled by his accident, which reveals his dependency on the goodwill of others; and the play concludes with a double marriage, and with the reunion of Knemon and his estranged wife–a comic ending par excellence. Nevertheless, this summary omits an essential element in the play, which has escaped many modern commentators as well. For Knemon is not just a pathologically grumpy old man; he is also, throughout the play, represented as typical of the poor, hard-working Attic farmer, who scarcely ekes a living out of the land–and this even though we are given to understand that Knemon is fairly well off, certainly in comparison with his impoverished stepson Gorgias. Knemon has chosen a life of toil, though he could well afford to own slaves to labour for him. Right at the beginning, when Knemon has violently driven away the slave whom Sostratos sent to inquire about marriage, Sostratos (or possibly his companion Chaireas) muses: “A poor farmer is a bitter sort, not only this one, but practically all of them” (120-131). Later, when Sostratos’ mother is in the process of preparing an expensive sacrifice to Pan in the shrine next door to Knemon’s house, Knemon mutters irritably about such ostentatious displays of piety, which cater more to human gluttony than the needs of the gods (448-453). As Gomme and Sandbach remark, Knemon’s speech “introduces a new point: his dislike of his fellow men is rooted in a belief in their selfishness”.12 Already in the prologue, Pan describes Knemon’s daughter as “true to her upbringing, ignorant of pettiness” (35-36), and Sostratos then says she has been brought up to be her own person (ἐλευθέρως, 387), since her father’s

11

In addition, it misses out the crucial role of Pan, and the religious dimension of the play. 12 Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 205, ad 442-455.

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solitariness protected her from the corrupting influence of nannies.13 These suggestions of a positive side to Knemon’s surliness culminate in his famous self-defence: “If everyone were like me, there would be no courts, they would not be taking each other off to jail, there would be no war, and each would be content with his fair share” (743-745). This ideal of ἀπραγµοσύνη, or non-meddlesomeness, was a commonplace in classical Greece, but Menander deftly employs it to rescue, to some extent, the character of his protagonist. As one critic has remarked: “It is Menander’s considerable achievement that after spending three acts building Knemon into a monster (a comic monster, maybe, but one for whom the audience’s sympathy is not invited for a moment), he is able to transform him into a human being whose ill-guided attempt to live without assistance from others, αὐτὸς αὐτάρκης (714), is not merely touching but has a trace of nobility about it”.14 Yet to do so runs the risk of an inconsistency in characterisation, particularly since Knemon has, as we have seen, no need to struggle so desperately: self-sufficiency was never understood as solitary toil, without the assistance of slaves, who were, after all, a form of property. Knemon’s way of life, given his resources, has more than a trace of perversity to it. If Knemon’s character is complex or overdetermined, so too is that of Sostratos, who is at once a naïve young man, who falls in love on the spot and sends a slave as his intermediary in seeking the girl’s hand, without so much as consulting his father on the matter, and at the same time a bit of a dandy. Pan, in the prologue, says that he is “citified in his way of life” (41), and illustrates the point by noting that he has been hunting (42), an activity typical of the idle rich. Daos, Gorgias’ slave, is instantly suspicious when he sees Sostratos chatting with the girl, thinking he’s made a lucky find (224-226). The first thing that Gorgias observes, when he meets him, is Sostratos’ fancy cloak (257), and he lectures Sostratos on the danger of treating poor people with contempt (285-286), warning him not to try corrupting a free young woman (290-291). His free time should not be turned to the detriment of those who have none: “of all men a beggar wronged is the most churlish”–that is, δυσκολώτατον (296), a word used elsewhere in the play only of Knemon (as in the title): Gorgias’ outlook is thus identified with that of his step-father, insofar as both are indigent farmers with no time for foppishness. When Gorgias is finally persuaded of Sostratos’ honourable intentions, but alerts him to the 13

Antonis K. Petrides points to Daos’ remark that the girl may have been too free: hence her indiscretion in sallying forth from her house unaccompanied. See his chapter in this volume. 14 M. Anderson 1970, 204.

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hopelessness of winning Knemon’s consent, Sostratos exclaims: “Have you never been in love with anyone” (341), to which Gorgias replies that he hasn’t the time: ἔρως is for the leisured class. But if Sostratos will not be discouraged, he must at least get rid of his fancy cloak before approaching Knemon (357, 369-370). In the final act, Kallipides, Sostratos’ father, who is said by Pan himself to be very wealthy (40-41; cf. Gorgias’ view, 775), gives his consent to Sostratos’ marriage with Knemon’s daughter, but balks at Sostratos’ idea that he give his daughter as wife to Gorgias: “I do not want to accept both a bride and a groom who are paupers: one is enough for me”, he declares (795-796), though he is persuaded to relent in the end. Menander’s Dyskolos may thus be seen as superimposing two distinct story lines, one involving the discomfiture of a grumpy hermit who will have nothing to do with his fellows, the kind of agelast or laughless individual that comedy delights in bringing to heel, the other predicated on a class tension between rich and poor. Both issues are resolved simultaneously by the marriage between Sostratos and Knemon’s daughter (and the additional union of their respective siblings). As to the first, the main problem with Knemon’s surliness is that it has prevented his daughter from finding a spouse, and thus having a household of her own; as for the second, the merger of families from different economic strata affirms the solidarity of the citizen body over disparities of wealth.15 A Cultural Studies approach to the play will note the coexistence of these contrasting themes, and will inquire further into the reasons why they share, as it were, the same narrative space. It is plausible to infer that the easy, almost casual, dissolution to the mistrust between classes may have seemed unrealistic in an Athens marked, it appears, by increasing division between rich and poor, and that the social anxiety over the possible effects of this gap on the cohesion of the citizen community could be best allayed, as comedy is wont to do, by embedding the rather sentimental resolution of the economic discrepancy in a fairy-tale story of a cantankerous old ogre who finally learns to change his ways, as the author of the hypothesis to the play seems to have taken it.16 Other explanations may well suggest themselves, as well as different interpretations of the themes implicit in the

15

See Cox 2002. In reality, the economic gap between Kallipides and Knemon is not as great as may appear, since Knemon is worth at least four talents; this is another of the overdetermined aspects of Knemon’s characterisation.

16

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Dyskolos. My example is intended to indicate the kind of exegesis that a critic inspired by cultural studies will find sympathetic.17

Case Study II: Aspis If class is one issue that lurks behind Menandrian comedy, status–the distinction between foreigner and citizen, free person and slave–is another. Now, on the subject of slavery, there would seem to be little need for a Cultural Studies approach. Slaves clearly constitute a subordinate group, entirely subject to the will and mercy of their masters. They may be allowed a certain degree of sassiness for the sake of comic stage business, or to engineer a turn in the plot, but such antics do not negate their radical state of dependency. Comedy does, of course, bear witness to some features in the lives of slaves, and hence provide data for the sociology of servitude in classical Greece. Needless to say, such information must be carefully controlled for comic distortion, by taking account, for example, of standard roles and dramatic functions fulfilled by slave characters. This type of analysis is highly valuable; however, it does not yet possess the critical edge that proponents of Cultural Studies insist upon, when they define their enterprise as “a scholarly field that seeks to understand, critique, and transform cultural practices”, with a calling to “challenge dominant intellectual and political practices”. To achieve these ends, it is not sufficient to show that slavery, even as it is represented in comedy, is a bad thing; one must reveal how comedy serves to naturalise the institution, and this not just by taking it for granted but by working it into the plot in such a way as to align the audience’s sympathies with the masters. It is necessary, then, to expose the ideological operations of the literary work, even one as ostensibly innocent and humane as Menandrian comedy. Consider the opening scene of Menander’s Aspis. Daos, the slave and παιδαγωγός (14) of Kleostratos, has returned from Lycia, where, he believes, his master has been killed. Daos enters bringing Kleostratos’ shield, along with gold, cups, and a crowd of captives (αἰχµαλώτων ... ὄχλον, 36-7; cf. 89) which Kleostratos and his fellow soldiers had captured on campaign (other prisoners they sold into slavery, 32). While they were in careless disarray after their victory, the barbarians (the word is Daos’: 25, 42, 74) regrouped and attacked. Daos had been sent away to safeguard 17

See further Konstan 1995, 93-106; Rosivach 2001; Lape 2001b, who argues that Menander favoured democracy in an epoch in which Athens was under the suzerainty of a succession of autocrats; see also Lape 2004; Wiles 1984 takes a contrary view.

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Kleostratos’ booty, where he learned that the Lycians made off with some captives, though he did not realise that Kleostratos was among them (112). This is how it comes about that Daos leads on stage a group of recently enslaved men and women, along with other plunder (140-141). This loot helps to set the plot in motion, since the miserly old Smikrines will try to marry his niece to obtain it (appealing to the law on ἐπίκληροι), rather than allow her to marry his cousin, in accord with Kleostratos’ own wishes– only to be thwarted by a clever scheme devised by Daos himself. Daos is a Phrygian by origin, and he still regards (or pretends to regard) Athenian customs as foreign; as he says to Smikrines, “many of the things that are fine among you people strike me as terrible, and vice versa” (206-208). Daos exploits this fact to avoid pronouncing a judgment on Smikrines’ intentions, after first excusing himself on the grounds that, as a slave, he has no business interfering in the affairs of free men (200204). It is not just his social inferiority, then, that disqualifies him to express his view, but a cultural difference, with the implication that Smikrines would be equally incapable of evaluating Daos’ own ethical principles. Thus, Menander cleverly allows Daos to affirm his moral identity before Smikrines even as he declines to controvert him—though Daos knows perfectly well that Smikrines is in the wrong, whatever the rule on ἐπίκληροι may be. At the same time, we may infer that Daos must have been captured and reduced to servitude as a young adult (if not older), if he can plausibly avow his Phrygian acculturation. If so, he might be expected to sympathise to some extent with the captives who are in his charge. In Sophocles’ Trachiniae, Deianeira looks with compassion upon the captive women delivered by Herakles (243, 298-302, 298), and the chorus pities Kassandra in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (1069). Yet there is no suggestion of such a sentiment on Daos’ part, though he is ready enough with sympathy for the young couple whose betrothal Smikrines hopes to prevent. Here, then, is a slave who is conscious of his own cultural tradition but can accurately appraise misconduct among free Athenians, and seems indifferent to the fate of newly enslaved barbarians like himself. Viewed from the perspective of Cultural Studies, the scene raises a series of questions about the elisions in the text, by which these apparent contradictions are harmonised in the person of a loyal and intelligent slave who is given a central role in orchestrating the plot, and who had hoped to be rewarded for his services, past and present, if not with freedom, then at least with a partial release from toil (11f.). Thanks to this overdetermination of Daos’ persona, he embodies, as it were, the moral equality of free man and slave, Greek and barbarian, even as he coldly shepherds Lycian

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prisoners into servitude. The tension in his role reflects, I imagine, a certain conflict, even anxiety, in Menander and his audience concerning the unstable basis of citizen status in a world of violent subjection. If so, it is no surprise: for after all, Kleostratos himself was led off as a captive (112), and though he somehow manages to recover his freedom (the text as we have it does not indicate how he achieved this), his situation was clearly precarious. The adroit plotting of Menandrian comedy masks the fragility of the social identities it takes for granted, and exposing how it does so may help us to “understand, critique, and transform cultural practices” in the spirit of Cultural Studies.

Case Study III: Samia We have seen that the romantic complication that constitutes the surface plot of a Menandrian comedy may lie athwart an alternative story line based on tensions of class and status. Although Ovid tells us that “none of genial Menander’s comedies is without love” (Tristia 2.1.369), other themes subtend the erotic narrative. Sometimes, social distinctions overlap and reinforce one another. This is the case in the Samia, for example, where a hierarchy among age groups is mapped onto the status difference of free and slave as well as citizen and non-citizen–or so an analysis from the perspective of Cultural Studies suggests. The frame narrative of the Samia is a fairly straightforward comedy of ἔρως. Two Athenian men, Demeas and Nikeratos, have been travelling abroad. In their absence, Demeas’ adopted son, Moschion, has raped Plangon, the daughter of Nikeratos, as a result of which she became pregnant and gave birth to a child. Out of shame over the deed, and in fear of his father’s reaction, Moschion conspires with Chrysis, Demeas’ concubine, to pretend that the baby is hers and that Demeas is its father. Since, however, the two fathers have agreed in advance to the wedding of Moschion and Plangon, the typical comic pattern, by which the father (or fathers) constitutes the blocking character, is quickly rendered inoperative, and from this point on the intrigue and resolution will revolve about the confusion arising from the deception concocted between Moschion and Chrysis. The first problem to be faced is that Chrysis is a concubine and a foreigner (from Samos, as the title indicates), and Demeas will have no desire to raise a child of hers. According to a law promulgated by Perikles in 451, citizen status in Athens depended on descent from two citizen parents–that is, on both the father’s and the mother’s side. Only children of such a union were deemed γνήσιοι or “legitimate”, whereas the offspring

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of mixed parentage–an Athenian citizen and a foreigner, such as Chrysis– were νόθοι, loosely rendered as “bastards”: the latter could not be registered in their deme, and were deprived of the right to own or inherit property. Whatever the original motives for Perikles’ legislation (the matter is debated), it came to form one of the conventions that govern the plots of New Comedy: it is the basis, for example, of the recognition scenes, characteristic of the genre, in which the citizenship of a woman (or occasionally a man) is revealed by keepsakes that identify the true parents of a child who has been exposed to die at birth (as in Menander’s Perikeiromene), or kidnapped, or lost in some other way. It has been conjectured that this pervasive theme reflects anxiety concerning the exclusivity of Athenian citizenship and the danger of losing one’s civic rights, in the aftermath of the conquests by Philip and Alexander, when Athenian citizens were no longer in full control of their political affairs but were subject to the authoritarian suzerainty either of local potentates like Demetrios of Phaleron or outsiders like Demetrios Poliorketes.18 Nevertheless, Chrysis rightly predicts that Demeas will accept the child, since he is in love with her, and “this quickly leads even the most anger-prone person to reconciliation” (82-83). When he finds out what has happened, Demeas is indeed furious: “It seems that, unbeknownst to me, I have a lawfully wedded hetaira [γαµετὴν ἑταίραν]” (130-131). He declares that he is not one to raise a bastard son (136) for someone else, and that he is prepared to cast Chrysis out of the house. Moschion, however, objects: “which of us is a bastard, by the gods, and which legitimate, given that we are born human?” (137-138). The following bit is mutilated, and so we cannot tell what further arguments the boy may have offered, but Demeas is ultimately persuaded to relent. Moschion’s question would seem openly to subvert the fundamental social distinction between citizen and non-citizen that Perikles’ law had installed (as well as one of the principles that informed the genre of New Comedy), and Demeas is understandably amazed at it: “You’re joking!”, he exclaims (138-139). Now, it is possible that Perikles’ law was effectively in abeyance in Menander’s time, even if it continued to be exploited in comedy, in which case, Moschion’s apparently radical position may be a reflection of a genuine modification of Athenian sensibilities, though it is not yet shared by his stepfather, perhaps because he is of an earlier generation. It might even be the case that Demeas’ oxymoron of a “lawfully wedded courtesan” was not so paradoxical as he supposed, and that he would have been able to treat a child of Chrysis as 18

Cf. Davies 1977/8.

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his heir, just as he had done with Moschion himself. If so, the relationship between Demeas and Chrysis takes on a new complexity, and Demeas’ indignation at her behaviour may seem arbitrary, even cruel, rather than the natural response of an Athenian head of household. Of course, the audience knows that the child is in fact legitimate (that it was born out of wedlock is indifferent to its status as γνήσιος). But cultural studies criticism may well wish to inquire why Menander should have undermined here, at least potentially, one of the foundational premises of New Comedy. Demeas’ concession on this point, however, does not bring the plot of the Samia to a resolution. For when Demeas accidentally overhears his old nurse say that the child’s real father is Moschion, he concludes that Moschion had an affair with Chrysis during his absence. In this pass, he nevertheless finds ways of exonerating his son, on the grounds that he is young and naïve; besides, it is not plausible that a youth who was always well-behaved and modest should treat his own father badly, “even if he was ten-times over adopted, and not my own son by birth: for I look not to this, but to his character [τρόπος]” (346-347). Having convinced himself of Moschion’s innocence, however, Demeas turns violently against Chrysis: it is she who is “responsible for what happened” (338), he declares, and he resolves to expel her from his house, while pretending, for his son’s sake, that the reason is her presumptuousness in raising the child (374-375). A cultural critic may observe here the contrast between Demeas’ compunctions about the status of a foreign hetaira and his willingness to judge his adoptive son on the basis of his character or τρόπος; for Moschion had earlier declared that lineage counts for nothing: “if one examines the matter rightly, it is the good man who is legitimate, the base one a bastard” (141-142). Adoption was, in fact, a common practice in the fourth century, and carried no stigma.19 That Moschion is a foster child rather than Demeas’ biological son points up the disparity in Athenian status rules, whereby a child whose natural parents are citizens (as one must assume in the case of Moschion), though not related to the adoptive father by blood, has greater legitimacy than a man’s own son does if the mother, albeit free, is not a citizen (Menander may also have wished to avoid even the suggestion that a biological son would have carried on this way with his father’s concubine). Demeas’ decision to absolve the boy on the basis of his good character, irrespective of his adopted status, seems

19

See Rubinstein 1993.

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the more arbitrary as he reverts to the excuse that he is expelling Chrysis simply because she kept his child. A structuralist might observe that the Samia in fact instantiates three paradigms of the relationship between parent and child. First, there is the infant born to Moschion and Plangon, out of wedlock, to be sure, but of secure Athenian lineage and guaranteed citizen status, once the marriage is acknowledged. Second, there is Demeas’ and Chrysis’ putative baby, which, to the extent that Perikles’ old citizenship law is still in effect, must be a nothos without the right to be inscribed on the deme list. Finally, there is Moschion as adopted son, perfectly legitimate (in the Athenian sense of γνήσιος) but without a blood tie to Demeas. Further, three types of sexual union are represented: rape, in the case of Moschion and Plangon, an extra-legal act which will lead to wedlock; consensual sex outside of marriage between Demeas and Chrysis; and by implication, the transgressive intercourse between Demeas’ adopted son and his concubine, which comes close to being incest–in fact, when Nikeratos learns of it, he does not hesitate to compare Moschion to Oedipus (496). There is certain symmetry between the two devalued types of union: Demeas’ relation with Chrysis crosses the boundary between citizen and stranger, who are too distant to marry or raise a legitimate child; Moschion’s suspected affair with Chrysis, in turn, violates the prohibition against sex and matrimony between partners who are too close. The one restriction looks to the integrity of the perimeter of the polis, while the other marks the separation between city and household. There is a mirror effect between two imagined relations in the comedy–the “lawfully wedded courtesan” on the one hand, and incest between the Demeas’ courtesan and stepson on the other–that flank the primary union, itself based on violence, between Moschion and Plangon. With regard to the plot, of course, Demeas’ mistaken assumption about the infant’s parentage serves to prolong the tension and further complicate the story. Thus, when Moschion, unaware of Demeas’ suspicions, pleads vigorously on behalf of Chrysis, Demeas concludes that he must have been a willing partner in the affair, after all. When at last Moschion catches on to his father’s error and reveals that Plangon is the mother, it is Nikeratos’ turn to be furious at the rape of his daughter and the dishonour to his household, going so far as to conclude that Demeas was in on the scheme from the beginning (582-584), until Demeas calms him down with the assurance that Moschion will marry the girl (586, 599). With this, all the misapprehensions that have driven the drama are apparently dispelled, and the way is open to a denouement.

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The final act, however, brings a further surprise. Moschion enters, furious, now that he has reflected on the matter, that his father even suspected him of sleeping with Chrysis (620-621). Only his passion (ἔρως) for Nikeratos’ daughter, he says, prevents him from leaving Athens for good and entering military service in remotest Bactria. Nevertheless, he desires some vengeance, if only in words, and so he pretends that he is off to the wars: this way he can give his father a fright, so that he will hesitate to treat him unfairly in the future (635-637). When Demeas emerges from the house, he neither begs Moschion to stay nor dismisses him angrily (as Moschion had feared, at 682-684). Rather, he acknowledges that Moschion has reason to be angry and hurt at having been wrongly accused (694-696; cf. 702-703), but he goes on to call Moschion’s attention to the circumstances of the case (697). In his defence, Demeas reminds Moschion of all he has given him since childhood; he then points out that even when he believed the worst of Moschion he kept it to himself, whereas Moschion has made his father’s mistake public; finally, he urges Moschion not to dwell on the memory of a single day and forget all the rest. Gomme and Sandbach, in their commentary on Menander, argue that “Demeas’ speech puts Moschion in a difficult position.... Reason requires that he should abandon his dramatic pose and apologise. But this is a thing that Moschion, like many young men, would find very hard”.20 But Demeas’ admission that he was at fault would seem rather to put him in the wrong, and so to justify his son’s anger. At all events, once Demeas has humbly conceded his guilt and apologised, Moschion relents, though even so he alleges that the reason for his change of heart is his love for Nikeratos’ daughter. The play concludes with the marriage of the young couple. As we have seen, the truth about Moschion and Nikeratos’ daughter has already been revealed, and both fathers are in accord about the marriage: indeed, the wedding preparations are in full swing. What function, then, does the final episode have in the economy of the drama as a whole? On a psychological reading, one might imagine that Moschion’s sudden rage at the end of the play, when he decides that he has been wrongly accused, is a way of compensating for his earlier shame at having raped Plangon: he can now place himself in the role of the offended party, and demand that others bow to his injured pride. One may also remark that Moschion had already revealed a tendency to violence when he raped Plangon before the beginning of the play; his posturing in the finale, bearing a shield and brandishing a sword, is a reminder of the brutal 20

Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 628, ad 713ff.

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machismo that underpins the classical Greek code of honour, and which sees in mercenary military service abroad a legitimate, if dangerous, occupation. Moschion’s charade is, after all, not unrealistic–he threatens (albeit disingenuously) to undertake just what Kleostratos actually has done in the Aspis. Aggressiveness is written into Athenian social life.21 A Cultural Studies approach, however, may invite still further reflection on the social meaning of anger in classical Greece. Consider the distribution of anger among the several characters in the drama. At the beginning, as we have seen, Moschion is filled with shame and anxiety at having committed the rape; when his father and Nikeratos unexpectedly appear, he has not the courage to face them, but runs away. When Demeas flies into a rage at the thought that Chrysis has kept the child and decides to expel her from his house, Moschion has the gumption to argue back, but his defence, which rests on denying the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate offspring, is pretty feeble (137-138). Demeas is still more furious when he learns that Moschion is the father of the child, and mistakenly jumps to the conclusion that he has slept with Chrysis. When Moschion finally perceives his father’s error and reveals the truth about the child, Demeas is pacified, but now it is Nikeratos’ turn to rage; Demeas is left to reason with him, as Moschion once again makes his escape (539). Finally, just as wedding preparations are underway inside the house, Moschion returns, not shamefaced this time but incensed over his father’s earlier suspicions. No doubt he is overreacting, but Menander is here granting him the opportunity to express irritation in his own right, in contrast with his previous apprehensions and downright spinelessness. To put it differently, Moschion has joined the ranks of those who give vent to anger. What meaning might we assign to this transformation? One way of interpreting Moschion’s unanticipated outburst is to note that here, for the first time, he asserts his own dignity. Now that he is about to assume the role of head of household, complete with wife and child, his anger is the sign that he is an adult, the equal of Demeas and Nikeratos, who up until this point have been the only characters to grow irate. To put it differently, the right to be angry is the mark of the mature citizen. In New Comedy, older men–of the age of Demeas and Nikeratos–were imagined as especially irascible. Quintilian informs us that “in comedies... the father who has the principal role has one eyebrow raised and the other flat because he is sometimes wrought up and sometimes calm, and it is the 21

Humbling the overconfident Demeas also contributes to the humour: comedy invites some kind of comeuppance for figures of authority.

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actors’ custom to expose mainly that side of the mask which suits the part they are playing” (11.3.74). This stereotype has its basis in the social fact that free adult males had a recognised status and authority in Athenian society: they were κύριοι or heads of household, with positions to defend and the right to respond with indignation to what they regard as a diminishment of their reputation or prestige. As Danielle Allen observes, “the individual citizen who was sensitive to his honour and guarded it with anger was also guarding his personal independence, greatness, and equality”.22 In recognising his son’s right to be angry at the insult to his character, and humbly offering an apology, Demeas is in effect acknowledging Moschion’s new status as an adult; correspondingly, by angrily demanding this show of respect Moschion demonstrates that he is now a man, ready to assume adult responsibilities and demand the respect due to a kyrios, like Demeas and Nikeratos. The finale, then, far from being a mere coda to the earlier action, dramatises Moschion’s change of status from boy to man. I suggested above that age and civil status work together in the Samia, reinforcing each other by constructing the free adult (and, we may add, male) citizen as the locus of power and authority. We may perceive this additional dimension in the way that anger on the part of the main characters is directed at Parmenon, Demeas’ slave and the only person of servile status who has a speaking role in the comedy. In the beginning, when the news of Demeas’ and Nikeratos’ return to Athens is first announced, Parmenon tries to buck up the cowardly Moschion, reminding him of his obligation to Nikeratos’ daughter: “Be a man, and raise the question of the marriage at once” (63-65). To this Moschion replies: “How can I? I’m turning chicken now that the moment has arrived”. Parmenon shouts at him: “Are you trembling, you sissy [ἀνδρόγυνε]?” (69), indignant that he should neglect the vows he made: “I want the wedding now!”, he insists (71-72). Parmenon treats Moschion as a spoiled child, which befits his condition at this point in the action, as analysed above. The next time we see Parmenon (in what survives of the play), it is just after Demeas has become reconciled to the idea of raising Chrysis’ child (as he thinks), and is ready to arrange Moschion’s marriage to Nikeratos’ daughter: to this end, he sends Parmenon scurrying off to fetch the necessary items at the market. Parmenon returns just after Demeas has learned that Moschion is the child’s father. He engages in some typical banter with the cook he has brought along, after which Demeas calls him aside and threatens him with a beating, on the grounds that he must have 22

Allen 2000, 129.

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known the goings on in the house. When Parmenon is finally forced to acknowledge Moschion’s role, Demeas declares that he will whip and then brand him, before Parmenon has a chance to explain that Chrysis is not the mother: for this is surely the secret he was about to reveal (cf. λανθάνειν, 320-321) before Demeas frightened him into silence. Instead, Parmenon runs off in terror, hoping to hide, no doubt, until the matter is clarified. Parmenon re-emerges in the last act, entering just after Moschion. The symmetry is striking, since both have returned to the stage after taking flight. Parmenon’s soliloquy is pathetic: “I’ve done a foolish and despicable thing: though I’d done nothing wrong, I was afraid and ran away from my master” (641-644). Parmenon sets out his case: it was Moschion, not he, who raped a free girl; if she got pregnant, it was not his fault; if the baby was brought into the house, and Chrysis pretended to have borne it, Parmenon did no harm. “So why did you flee, you idiot, you coward?” (653-654). Parmenon answers his own question: “He threatened to brand me. It makes no difference whether you suffer this justly or unjustly, it’s not nice either way” (654-657). Moschion at once demands that Parmenon stop his blather and fetch him a cloak and sword. When the slave naturally wonders why, Moschion erupts: “If I get my hands on a whip [ἰµάντα]...” (662-663), just as Demeas had threatened (321). Inside the house, Parmenon learns that the wedding preparations are in full swing, and assuming, naturally enough, that Moschion must still be unaware of this, he tries to tell him what is happening; to this, Moschion replies: “are you giving me counsel, you scoundrel?” (677-678). Parmenon asks: “Child [παῖ παῖ], what are you doing” (678), employing the form of address to Moschion, whom he regards almost as his ward, that masters typically use with their slaves (cf. 189, 358). Moschion’s response is to punch Parmenon in the mouth (679), a rare instance of the physical assault of a slave on stage in New Comedy (in Aristophanes’ Peace 255-257, War punches his slave [cf. the address, παῖ παῖ] Uproar, but War is by nature violent; at Wasps 292-295, the slave Xanthias describes the beating he has received from Philocleon, but the action itself takes place off stage). Even so, Parmenon continues to remonstrate with him for a while, before he yields and brings Moschion his equipment. Though he believes that Moschion is speaking nonsense (φλυαρεῖς, 690, recalling Moschion’s response to Parmenon’s soliloquy at 658), he is prepared to follow him abroad, and enters the house once more to bid the others farewell (693694), thus removing him from the scene before the final reconciliation. The exchanges between Moschion and Parmenon in the final act confirm that he is no longer the child whom Parmenon can instruct, and even holler at, as he did in the opening scene. If Moschion is asserting his

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status as an adult, and even stands to gain an apology from his father for having wrongly suspected him of an affair with Chrysis, he is not about to accept advice from a slave, and he reacts with the same impatient violence that his father did earlier on. There is no more fairness in Moschion’s treatment of Parmenon than there was in Demeas’, but as Parmenon says, justice is not at issue in the punishment of a slave. Moschion is no longer to be trifled with. His hitting Parmenon squares with his new status as a mature man, his fury at his slave coordinate with his indignation at his father. To be sure, there is a bit of swagger in Moschion’s pretence that he is going off to war, and his exaggerated sensitivity, not surprising in a young man on the verge of adulthood, may have evoked a benignly condescending smile among some members of the original audience. So too, his striking Parmenon may perhaps be taken as a sign of juvenile excess. But we have seen that it is parallel to Demeas’ own behaviour toward the slave. Formally, Moschion’s aggression is a variation on the stock burlesque confrontation between an indignant master and a cringing slave, in which the slave’s own feelings are beside the point. Yet Parmenon’s brief soliloquy on a slave’s exposure to violence–provided that it is delivered with a touch of pathos and not as a clownish caricature of servile whining–may invite a more sympathetic response to his plight. The question of tone may be undecidable. A Cultural Studies approach, however, exposes the way slavery and social status go hand in hand in Athenian ideology: achieving adulthood ends the relation of dependence on one’s παιδαγωγός, and the young man’s new equality with his elders is incidentally manifested in his callous treatment of his slave. To the extent that Moschion’s violence against Parmenon seems a natural consequence of his coming of age, it camouflages the injustice implicit in servitude as such.23

Conclusion It is as “an engaged form of analysis”, which takes as its point of departure “the fact that societies are structured unequally”, that Cultural Studies brings to light the forms of oppression that tacitly underlie works of literature, in antiquity as much as today. Many of the problems that inform Menander’s comedies are different from those of modern society; but the study of Menander stands to illuminate the mechanisms of 23 Some of the arguments concerning Menander’s Samia are developed in Konstan 2010; Konstan forthcoming a; and Konstan forthcoming b.

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inequality in our own culture as well. It was Menander’s fortune to be reborn, with the discovery and publication of the Dyskolos in 1958 and major new fragments of other plays over the next couple of decades, at just around the time when Cultural Studies was emerging as a major approach to literature, in part in response to “the post-60s new social movements”. It is thus fitting that New Comedy should be one of the major beneficiaries of Cultural Studies.

CHAPTER THREE GENDER IN MENANDER’S COMEDY SUSAN LAPE

Introduction The obvious place to begin investigating gender in the extant plays and fragments of the new comic poet Menander is by defining gender. While the meaning of gender is one of those big questions that cannot be fully answered or settled here, for the purposes of this study, gender will be considered a culturally specific story about the behaviours, roles, and psychological makeup assigned to males and females on the basis of biological sex but which do not necessarily derive from biological sex.1 Like comic drama itself, gender involves scripts–narratives about how human beings should behave given their biological sex, and performances–behaviours, practices, bodily comportment, etc.–employed (successfully or not) to enact those scripts.2 But while the actors in a comedy know on some level that they are not what they play, social actors inhabiting gender roles often believe their roles are real–that they are in fact who and what they play. Like the category of gender, Menander’s comedy is centrally concerned with relations between men and women, particularly as they relate to biological sex. The extant plays and fragments are constructed around romantic plots, either with a young citizen trying to win or reconcile with his beloved, usually so they can marry and live in a happilyever-after world that we (the audience) never see, or with a mercenary trying to win or reconcile with his beloved. What is remarkable about these stories is that they operate within and enact the Athenian gender 1

Scholars working in a Darwinian paradigm argue that many aspects of gender have a basis in human nature as it has evolved, see Buss 1994; Vandermassen 2005. For gender as a social construction, see Butler 1993, 1997. 2 See Butler 1997.

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system, or at least a stylised version thereof. To be more specific, the Athenian laws and norms pertaining to marriage, legitimate procreation, citizenship, and sexual conduct serve as comedy’s basic generic conventions.3 Just as Athenian law forbade marriages between Athenians and non-Athenians, so too Menander’s male citizen heroes always marry female citizens, even in cases in which their love initially appears to contravene Athenian law and its nativity requirement.4 Equally significant, the comedies always adhere to what might be called Athens’ official sex and gender ideology. Just as respectable women in Athens (free citizens) were barred from engaging in non-marital sex, so too in comedy, Menander’s citizen heroines never willingly participate in such activity; when they are forced to do so, as in cases of rape, they inevitably marry their violators, which is seen as the socially appropriate and indeed happy solution. While gender—in the form of relations between men and women—is certainly at the heart of Menander’s comedy, it is probably already apparent that gender does not operate as an autonomous category of selfidentity and/or social structure (either in comedy or in Athenian culture).5 Rather, gender interacts with other social identity categories, including citizenship, ethnic affiliation, and slavery.6 Consequently, what gender means for a woman depends not only on the cultural significance attached to facts of biological sex but also on whether the woman is slave or free, Athenian or non-Athenian, and/or respectable or “rough” (i.e., perceived to be sexually available). As we will see, the meaning of gender for male characters is likewise crosscut with factors of polis affiliation, status, kinship, and social role. In what follows, I discuss Comedy’s vision of gender and how it interfaces with fourth-century gender realities and ideals. In so doing, I aim less to show that Menander offers us a snapshot of gender as it was or was supposed to be lived in Athens, than to elaborate the implications of the particular ways in which comedy portrays gender. By structuring its romantic plots around the Athenian gender system, comedy no doubt supported the ideology or cultural obviousness of that system. For instance, by employing the overlapping norms of Athenian marriage and citizenship as its own generic conventions, comedy necessarily endorses 3

See Ogden 1996 and Lape 2004, with additional references cited. For comedy’s fidelity to the overlapping marriage and citizenship norms, see Konstan 1983, 1995; Ogden 1996, 174-180; Lape 2001a, 2004. 5 See Guillaumin 1995; Warnke 2007. 6 For the intersections between gender and other forms of social identity, see Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989; Guillaumin 1995; Stevens 1999; Warnke 2007. 4

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those norms and the (gender) ideology of female sexual control that went with them. In so doing, comic plots sometimes even invest gender with recognisably democratic values, a tendency we find in other cultural sources, especially fourth-century law court speeches. On the other hand, however, comedy developed its own conventions, which—irrespective of their intent—had the effect of exposing tensions and contradictions in the Athenian gender system. In particular, the way comic plots orchestrate the destined civic marriage often unsettles the double standard (I define this term below) at the heart of Athenian gender realities and the highly circumscribed vision of female social identity it helped support. Finally, we will see that gender is a highly plastic category in comedy, capable of being infused with meanings and messages that bear not only on existing gender practices and ideologies but also on the contemporary political realities. In the first section of the paper, I review the gender system in Athenian culture and Menander’s comedy, highlighting where comedy supports and challenges the official ideology. In section two, I investigate the dynamics of interclass marriage in Menander’s comedy. This motif tells us something about the work of gender hierarchy between men and women in supporting egalitarian ideology between men in Athenian democratic culture.7 At the same time, by endorsing unions that at least seem to be between wealthy and less-wealthy families, comic representations move beyond the conventional use of gender to fashion egalitarian bonds between men. Rather, comedy also leverages this motif to contest the very real threats to democratic egalitarianism posed by the emergence of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The last two sections of the paper focus on particular plays (Samia and Epitrepontes) that challenge the Athenian version of the double standard in ways that highlight gender’s very different social meaning for courtesans, wives, and slaves.

Gender in Comedy and Culture Menander’s comedy both endorses and enhances the official gender ideology of democratic Athens even as it sometimes exposes its contradictions and refutes its guiding propositions. This, of course, means different things for male and female citizens, as well as for male and female slaves (and other non-citizens), who star as supporting characters 7

For gender and politics, see Scott 1988, 27; Stevens 1999; in the Athenian context, see Foxhall 1989; Loraux 1993; Katz 1999; Lape 2001a, 2002/3, 2004, 2010.

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in Menander’s romances of civic reproduction. The female citizens who serve as comedy’s heroines are chaste.8 When they do have premarital sex, it is the result of forcible coercion rather than seduction. They never have sexual relations with a man other than their husband or future husband. Consequently, they never give birth to true bastards, children whose status cannot be regularised by the belated marriage of their citizen parents.9 Comedy’s male citizen heroes likewise embody and enact key elements of the civic gender system. They never father true bastards or seduce other men’s wives. And they always marry the female citizens whom they rape or violate, usually while intoxicated at night-time festivals. Finally, turning to the slaves that support comedy’s central characters, we find that they too embrace the core values of Athenian gender system. Females slaves nurture and nurse citizen children, and generally look after the interests of the citizen family.10 Similarly, male slaves protect the female citizens in their care from potentially predatory males.11 When attached to male citizens, they unstintingly serve the interests of the civic gender system, even when it means reproaching their masters for laxity and cowardice (e.g. Samia). Comedy’s gendered generic conventions attest to a rigorous double standard: the sanctioning of non-marital sex for men but not for respectable women.12 As a female slave in Plautus’ Mercator puts it, husbands can freely introduce low class mistresses into their homes while wives can be divorced for simply stepping outside without a husband’s knowledge (819-822). There is only one instance in extant comedy where we find a respectable woman who has sex with a man other than her husband or husband to be. In Plautus’ Amphitruo, a wife gets to commit adultery only because she doesn’t know what she’s doing: the man she sleeps with (Zeus) is a body-double for her husband.13 To justify the double standard in Athens, the official ideology divided women into those available for sex and marriage versus those available for 8

By contrast, Aristophanes’ Old Comedy often depicts respectable citizen women/girls as no less sexual than their male counterparts; on this, see Cohen 1990; Roy 1997; Faraone 2006; Gilhuly 2008. 9 Ogden 1996; Lape 2001a, 2004; Omitowoju 2002. 10 See especially Menander Samia and Epitrepontes, Plautus Cistellaria, Terence Andria. 11 See Aspis, Dyskolos, Misoumenos. 12 For the double standard in classical antiquity, see Skinner 2005; in the context of evolutionary psychology, see R. Wright 1994; Vandermassen 2005. 13 This play is usually seen as a specimen of Middle Comedy; see Hunter 1987. For the adultery scenarios as a ruse in comedy, see Scafuro 1997.

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sex only.14 In other words, there were wives (or those eligible to be wives) and all the rest, be they slaves, prostitutes, or courtesans. All citizens, even the relatively poor, were expected to marry and have children with a wife and, when they wished, to engage in non- or extra-marital sexual encounters with their slaves and/or sex workers. Prostitution was not only legal in Athens but was also subsidised by the state, apparently to ensure equal sexual opportunity for men.15 Although this historically specific form of the double standard furthered Athens’ egalitarian ideology by promoting equal sexual opportunity for men, or at least the illusion thereof, the division of women into two basic types was neither tidy nor without contest. For one thing, not all female sex workers were equal. While every citizen could in principle afford a cheap brothel prostitute (pornē) for a casual encounter, many fewer men could afford to indulge in relationships with courtesans— the usual rendering of hetairai.16 To deny this reality, Athenian civic ideology tends to flatten the distinction between the prostitute and the courtesan, portraying all female sex workers as “common” and “available to all comers.”17 Hence, Athenian speakers often conflate the hetaira with the pornē, eliding the reality that economic inequality meant inequality in sexual access. Although comic gender representations support one aspect of the Athenian double standard and the egalitarian work it performed, comedy does not wholeheartedly endorse the binary model of female social identity advanced in the official ideology. One way the Athenians justified using certain women for sex only was to endow them with a host of negative character traits and stereotypes; female sex workers of all variety are described variously as greedy, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, deceitful, base, and common.18 By contrast, Menander’s comedy often confounds

14

See Keuls 1985. To emphasise that the official ideology divided women into two types is not to claim that there really were only two female social identities, see Davidson 1997, 74-75. 15 See Halperin 1990, 101; Kurke 1999, 197; McClure 2003, 21-22. 16 In comedy, as in Athenian culture, these terms are slippery: their application to a particular woman depended as much on the attitude of the speaker to the woman in question as on objective status considerations; see Reinsberg 1989; Davidson 1997; Kurke 1999, 186; McClure 2003, 18. 17 See, for example, Isaeus 3.11,13, 16, 77, with Lape 2004. 18 See Lape 2004; Glazebrook 2006.

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these stereotypes by portraying courtesans who manifestly resist the negative character traits commonly imputed to them.19 The reverberations of comedy’s implicit challenge to the “democratic” two-type model of female social identity extend beyond gender. We need to recall that the division between wives and all the rest had long been recruited to maintain the boundary between citizens and non-citizens.20 The passage of the Periklean citizenship law in 451/0 BC increased the boundary-making work of gender by requiring that citizens have both an Athenian mother and an Athenian father, rather than, as had previously been the case, an Athenian father only.21 By practically prohibiting marriage between Athenian citizens and foreign women, the law’s operation attached new importance to Athenian women as the coproducers of Athenianness, adding to their traditional roles as guarantors of male legitimacy and civic boundaries.22 It also fostered the belief that bilateral Athenian nativity and more particularly biological inheritance had something to do with citizen identity.23 Correspondingly, the law emphasised the otherness of the category of sexually available but nonmarriageable women. To put it another way, it inflected the double standard with ethnic or racial significance in the sense that it encouraged the notion that Athenian men married and had children with Athenian women, while using non-Athenian women for sexual purposes only. At the same time, it attached new weight to the cultural mandate that citizens not father bastard children because bastardy now acquired a new ethnic salience.24 Accordingly, it became more important than ever to deny the reality that any woman, not only a wife, might bear children for a man. Although Athenian citizens do not father (permanent) bastards on the comic stage, comedy insistently flirts with the possibility, forcing audience members to confront the contradiction in their culturally specific form of the double standard (as we will see in discussion of the Samia below). 19

For courtesans in Menander’s comedy, see Fantham 1975; Henry 1985; Brown 1990; Krieter-Spiro 1997; Lape 2004; Traill 2008. 20 For the role of women’s bodies and national boundaries, see Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989. 21 See Boegehold 1994; Ogden 1996; Blok 2005; Patterson 2005; Lape 2010. 22 For the Periklean law and the gender system, see Stears 1995; Osborne 1997; Leader 1997; Lape 2010. In the 4th century, the Athenians passed additional laws that underline the interconnections between marriage, female sexuality, and citizenship, see Demosthenes 59.16, 65 with Kapparis 1999. 23 See further Aeschines 3.172-176, with Blok 2005, 18, 20. See also Ober 1989, 266; Lape 2003 and 2010; Parker 2005, 454. 24 For the expanded meaning of bastardy after the passage of the citizenship law, see Ogden 1996; and Lape 2010 on the motif in Euripides’ Ion.

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Comedy also portrays marriage in ways that challenge other facets of the gender system. For instance, the plays often suggest that men should love or have eros (romantic/sexual passion) for their future wives.25 By contrast, eros or romantic passion never appears among the stated reasons for marriage at Athens; according to the Attic lawsuits, citizens married for reasons of kinship, procreation, male friendship, and economic or financial considerations.26 In addition, Athenian men were usually twice as old as their wives at the time of first marriage: men aged thirty and over married young women aged fourteen to sixteen.27 Comedy, however, regularly unites couples who seem to be relatively close in age—or at any rate closer in age than the scholars have argued was norm for Athens. A character in Menander’s Aspis specifically argues that the best marriages are those in which the partners are roughly the same age. Chairestratos admonishes his greedy older brother not to marry his young niece, now an heiress, thus allowing her to marry someone her own age (267); he has in mind his stepson with whom she was raised (263). In Terence’s Eunuch (based on a Menandrian original), the young man who marries is explicitly identified as an Athenian ephebe, hence somewhere in the vicinity of 18 and 20. In addition, plays premised on a premarital rape often stress the youth of the offender-husband as a way of freeing him from the opprobrium that might otherwise follow from his action. The discrepancy between comedy and other cultural sources for the age of men at first marriage raises obvious questions: did men begin to marry earlier in Hellenistic Athens? Was comedy anticipating or advocating such a change in practice? It is certainly possible that the changed conditions of life in the Hellenistic polis conduced to a younger marriage age for men. For some of the activities that men were traditionally involved in prior to their first marriage, serving as a citizensoldier, participating in politics, were reduced in scope. In these circumstances, marriage may have become for men what it had long been for women, a crucial rite of passage marking transition to adulthood as well as a key sphere of identity formation.28 That said there are grounds for questioning whether comedy’s erosbased marriages also attest to a shift in cultural practice. For although the 25

See Dyskolos 788-790 with Lape 2004 on the “love at first sight” motif deployed in the play. See also Masaracchia 1981; Rudd 1981; Walcot 1987; Brown 1993; Thorton 1997, 175; Wiles 2001. 26 See Isager 1980/1; exception in Lysias 19, see Cox 1998. 27 For the debate concerning the age of Athenian girls at first marriage, see Keuls 1985, 104; Golden 1990; Ingalls 2001. 28 See further Vernant 1980.

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early Hellenistic period was a time of unprecedented change in Athens and throughout the Greek world, the double standard sanctioning extra-marital sex for men but not for women remained constant. The significant factor here is the persistence of slavery and the unquestioned right of Athenian masters to use their female slaves for sexual purposes.29 Historians argue that slave systems so configured operate to weaken marriage, or at any rate, the romantic conception of marriage.30 Although the persistence of slavery may not have blocked the emergence of passionate marriage and the ideal of conjugal closeness that comedy associates with it, it did present an obstacle. Comedy allows us to see this indirectly when it highlights that the numerous displaced people who arrived in Athens, some slaves, some refugees, created ever more sexual opportunity for men. Comedy portrays women from Samos and Andros, etc. as relocating to Athens and engaging in various forms of sex work. Although comic plots tend to remake these women as lost female citizens or their caretakers, and hence not a threat to the marriage system or its nativity norms, their frequent presence in comedy attests to a social situation that was not exactly fertile soil for the cultivation of romantic and/or companionate marriages.

Gender and Class in the Marriage Plot As far as we can tell, economic calculations weighed heavily in the calculus of Athenian marriage. Speakers in the Attic lawsuits have a great deal to say about the size of women’s dowries. Although a dowry was not formally required for a marriage, it protected women from mistreatment, abrupt divorce, and served as key evidence that a given union was in fact a legitimate marriage.31 It was expected that an Athenian man would marry a woman with a dowry roughly in proportion to the size of their own patrimony.32 Athenian speakers insist that wealthy men did not marry women with little or no dowry (e.g. Is. 3.29, 11.40). Given this situation, it comes as something of a surprise to find that comedy’s wealthy young citizen heroes often marry women with little or no dowry, or at least show themselves willing to do so. Menander’s Dyskolos couples this motif with a fairly extensive critique of economic

29

Finley 1969, 260; Scheidel 2009. Scheidel 2009, 286-289. 31 Schaps 1979, 74-75; Foxhall 1989; Patterson 1991; V. Hunter 1994, 15-18; Cox 1998; Ingalls 2002. 32 See Foxhall 1989, 34. 30

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motives for marriage.33 The wealthy young citizen hero, Sostratos, falls in love at first sight with a young girl from the rural deme of Phyle. There are, of course, complications. Knemon, her father and guardian (kyrios), is an intractable misanthrope who refuses to speak to anyone. Eventually, Gorgias, the girl’s half-brother, is given the power to arrange her marriage. While we do not know exactly how wealthy he is, he is repeatedly referred to as a beggar.34 With this emphasis, the play highlights that the wealthy Sostratos must win the approval of an impoverished citizen (Gorgias) in order to make the marriage he desires. As if to make sure we grasp the significance of this unexpected power dynamic, Gorgias states it explicitly when he tells Sostratos that he can marry his sister because, although rich and pampered, he was willing to treat a poor man as his equal (764-770). The Dyskolos does not simply applaud a lack of snobbishness on the part of the rich: it actually argues for a redistribution of wealth. Toward the end of the play, Sostratos engineers a second marriage between his own sister and Gorgias, his new-found friend. Rather than automatically approving of the marriage—perhaps the typical pattern when comic plays conclude with multiple marriages—Sostratos’ father Kallippides strenuously objects, because, as he puts it, he does not want two beggars (πτωχοί) in the family (794-796). Although Gorgias is not exactly a beggar after Knemon adopts him, in the argument between Sostratos and his father over Gorgias’ marriage the only point of contention is Gorgias’ poverty. Rather than attempting to correct his father’s assessment of Gorgias’ poverty, Sostratos instead argues that it is his father’s duty to share the wealth. Although the Dyskolos engineers what appear to be two interclass marriages, the special pleading required for these marriages to be approved eventually reminds us that such marriages were not actually the norm in Athenian culture. To bypass the convention calling for intrarather than inter-class marriage, comedy more commonly creates a crisis in the form of a premarital rape resulting in pregnancy to make interclass marriage a matter of necessity.35 In plays following this pattern, a wealthy

33

On the Dyskolos, see Arnott 1964; Handley 1965; Keuls 1969; M. Anderson 1970; Goldberg 1980; Brown 1992; Konstan 1995; Rosivach 2001; Cox 2002; Lape 2004. 34 On the exaggeration of Gorgias’ poverty in the play, see Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 181 ad 285; Lape 2004. 35 The term “rape” can be misleading when applied in the Athenian context because it carries various modern ideas about female consent and the nature of a sexual offense that the Athenians did not necessarily share; see Lape 2001a. For

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young citizen “rapes” and impregnates a young less wealthy or poor female citizen, usually before the play begins.36 The action then centres on bringing about the marriage of rapist and victim, an outcome that ensures the legitimacy of the child that inevitably issues from the rape. In essence, the protagonist’s need to marry the victim cancels out the traditional economic factors that worked against interclass marriage.37 While the fact of premarital rape probably had no formal implications for the dowry, it enabled the victim’s family to provide a dowry commensurate with their own socio-economic means rather than one in proportion to the husband’s expected inheritance. In this way, comedy’s stylised rape scenarios remove economics from the matrimonial equation, allowing for the generation of an interclass marriage that works to offset social and economic stratification. While the New Comic rape plot is a fantasy scenario, rather than a reflection of actual practices, the intersections between gender, class, and political ideology it relies on and creates were not exactly unknown in the ancient Greek world.38 We know that one Greek lawgiver proposed using interclass marriage to engineer economic equality. According to Aristotle, the lawgiver Phaleas urged that the rich should give but not get dowries, and conversely, that the poor receive but not give them (Pol. 1266a40-b4). Comedy’s tactic of promoting greater economic equality through interclass marriages may have been motivated less by concern about actual economic inequality than by a concern to resist the oligarchic principle that made wealth the basis for political membership. During the last generation of the fourth-century, the heyday of Menander’s career, the Macedonians twice replaced Athens’ democracy with oligarchic regimes rape and sexual offenses in Athenian law, see Cole 1984; Brown 1991; Carey 1995; Scafuro 1997; Omitowoju 2002. 36 For this plot pattern, see Menander, Georgos, Epitrepontes, Heros, Kitharistēs, Plokion, Samia, Phasma, and Fabula Incerta; Plautus, Aulularia, Cistellaria, and Truculentus; Terence, Adelphoe, Eunuch, Hecyra, and Phormio. See Fantham 1975, 44-74; Doblhofer 1994, 57-63; Konstan 1995, 141-152; Pierce 1997, 163184; Scafuro 1997, 238-278; Sommerstein 1998, 100-114; Rosivach 1998, 113150; Lape 2001a; Omitowoju 2002. 37 In some cases, however, the impoverished heroine unexpectedly turns out to be wealthy or comes upon a considerable dowry. By the time this happens, however, the ideological damage has been done: the plays always send the message that the protagonist’s desire to marry the heroine is more important than economic considerations. On the size of dowries in comedy, see Golden 1990, 174-179. On the portrayal of wealth in comedy, see also Hofmeister 1997; G. Hoffmann 1998; Rosivach 2001; Lape 2001b and 2004. 38 For the Athenian dowry system and Solon’s egalitarian ideology, see Leduc 1992.

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that used wealth as the basis for citizenship.39 Whatever Menander’s intention may have been, the emphasis in his plays on marriages between the wealthy and the less-wealthy certainly goes against the grain of the oligarchic use of wealth as the barometer of social meaning. At the same time, comedy’s dynamics of interclass marriage provided a safe way of expressing democratically-inflected values and norms that was possible precisely because it seemed not to be political, that is, not a challenge to the Macedonian-backed leadership.

Gender and Kinship in the Samia The Samia is an unusual play: it critiques one aspect of the conventional gender ideology, even as it upholds and strengthens another.40 Moschion, son of the wealthy Demeas, has raped and impregnated the girl next-door, Plangon, daughter of the distinctly poor or less wealthy Nikeratos. Although he is more than willing to marry the girl, he needs to work up the courage to confess his behaviour to his father. The birth of the child has made his confession imperative and in his opening prologue he explains that he intends to correct the situation immediately, now that his father and his future father-in-law have returned from abroad. Although the rape motif generates an interclass marriage in the Samia, the class dynamics of the plot are prominent mostly in the subplot involving Nikeratos, Plangon’s father. The action as we have it, much of which consists of monologue, focuses more on the way gender—relations between men and women—operates as a context for the forging of male identities, social roles, and friendships. The Samia actually contains a double romantic plot, which is one reason why gender assumes a special thematic and ideological importance in the play. Prior to the play’s beginning, Demeas, Moschion’s father, installed a former courtesan of Samian extraction in his home; it is worth pointing out that this is the only case in extant comedy where we find a former courtesan seated in the place of an Athenian wife. To avoid the possible opprobrium inhering in such a situation, the play employs several safeguards. First, although Demeas tried to be discrete about this relationship out of shame, Moschion perceived it and determined that 39

Discussion of the tumultuous political landscape of early Hellenistic Athens is outside the scope of this chapter: see Habicht 1997, and Lape 2004, with additional references. 40 For the Samia, see W. S. Anderson 1972; Keuls 1973; Bain 1983; Dedoussi 1988 and 2006; Henry 1985; Weissenberger 1991; West 1991; Arnott 2000a; Lape 2004; Traill 2008.

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unless his father got the “hetaira in his power” (i.e. in his home) he would be troubled by younger rivals (23-26). Still, while Moschion’s plan protected Demeas from sexual rivals, it brought another form of risk. For a married man, living with a wife and a courtesan or former courtesan was for all practical purposes an impossibility. Such a situation smacked of deviance, bigamy, as well as disrespect to a citizen wife. For bachelors like Demeas, living with a courtesan could also be a risky proposition not because of bigamy concerns but rather because it looked too much like a monogamous marriage. Living with a courtesan, or any woman, could suggest marriage because the closest thing to a legal definition of marriage in Athens seems to be “living together for purposes of producing legitimate children”.41 Since cohabitation was a crucial part of what made a marriage, living with a courtesan could be cast as marriage fraud. The only extant lawsuit for citizenship fraud in Athens, namely Demosthenes Against Neaira, hinges on this very question, namely determining whether a given case of cohabitation with a courtesan was being masqueraded as a marriage. We might think that Demeas was in special judicial jeopardy from the beginning insofar as he had a child (albeit a grown one) in his house, along with a courtesan. What protected him, however, was the fact that Moschion was adopted long ago, and indeed may have been relatively close in age to Chrysis herself; hence, it was likely obvious that Chrysis could not have been Moschion’s mother. At the same time, Moschion’s adopted status shielded him from any questions that might have been raised about his paternity in light of Demeas’ irregular living arrangement. The situation became more perilous, though, when Chrysis became pregnant, which is one reason why Demeas initially refuses to raise the child. Although the child was apparently stillborn, Demeas does not know this and thinks that Chrysis is raising the child against his wishes. In reality, she is temporarily caring for Moschion’s son. Upset by Chrysis’ apparent defiance, Demeas refers to her sarcastically as his “married hetaira,” showing that he realises that the existence of a child in his home suggests a marriage, or the pretence thereof (130). As it happens, however, the child creates a very different problem in Demeas’ household, because he overhears Moschion’s old nurse coddling it and naming Moschion as the father. In this way, Demeas comes to 41 See Dem. 59.122. For marriage in Athenian law, ideology, and practice, see Wyse 1904, 289-293; Wolff 1944, 51-53; Harrison 1968-71, 3-9; Humphreys 1974, 88-95; Rhodes 1981, 331-333; DuBois 1988, 65-78; Patterson 1990, 1998, and 2005; Pomeroy 1997; Vérilhac & Vial 1998. Perhaps note that Chrysis was apparently on good terms with the women next door (35-38).

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believe that Moschion and Chrysis are the child’s parents. While he sees this evidence of Moschion’s and Chrysis’ sexual activity as a slight to him, he is not entirely sure who is responsible for it. From the outset, however, he conducts his inquiry in a way that virtually guarantees the outcome. At the same time, it allows him to show that he values his son more than his mistress, and that he considers his mistress not as a replacement wife but rather as the courtesan or prostitute she cannot—in his view—escape being. He first conducts an impromptu paternity test, threatening Moschion’s slave on pain of torture to tell him the truth about the child’s father. When the slave identifies Moschion as the father, Demeas engages in a momentary bout of tragic histrionics but then reasons that Moschion has not deliberately harmed him (Sam. 325-335). He reaches a conclusion that even he realises is paradoxical on the basis of Moschion’s track record. οὐδενὶ τρόπῳ γὰρ πιθανὸν εἶναί µοι δοκεῖ τὸν εἰς ἅπαντας κόσµιον καὶ σώφρονα τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους εἰς ἐµὲ τοιοῦτον γεγονέναι, (345) οὐδ’ εἰ δεκάκις ποητός ἐστι, µὴ γόνῳ ἐµὸς ὑός. Sam. 343-347 It’s simply not credible that Moschion who was so well-behaved and sôphron in dealing with others would behave in such a way to me, not even if he’s ten times my adopted son, not my son by birth.

While Demeas gives Moschion the benefit of a doubt because of his past behaviour, he evaluates Chrysis by dredging up her deep past, her work as a hetaira before she moved in with him. Presuming that Chrysis got Moschion drunk and seduced him, he resolves to disown her and to maintain a manly silence about his own injuries (Sam. 338-342, 349-354). Demeas’ appeal to the rhetoric of manhood highlights how gender difference can operate to protect and cement male social bonds. In this case, being a man means taking the man’s side, irrespective of any special pleading or outright distortion that might be required to do so. Demeas has no need to concoct an outlandish story to explain Chrysis’ behaviour since the culture (Athenian legal narratives especially) provided him with a repertoire of negative stereotypes about women and female sex workers in

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particular.42 When it suits them, Athenian speakers condemn prostitutes and courtesans alike as greedy, cunning, and/or sexually predatory. Indeed, a man’s involvement with a prostitute could be and was employed to explain a wide range of male misdeeds, from supposed madness to citizenship and inheritance fraud.43 Accordingly, Demeas has little difficultly imagining that Chrysis got his son drunk and seduced him, apparently against his will. Yet, although Demeas explains Moschion’s behaviour by reducing Chrysis to a negative stereotype, the overall action of the play only serves to highlight just how far she differs from that image. Rather than behaving in a sexually and/or materially rapacious way, Chrysis acts like a mother, that is, she acts like the citizen women from whom she was supposed to differ. She is the character most concerned for the welfare of Moschion’s child and who cannot tolerate the thought of having it cared for by strangers. She insists on nursing the child herself, not worrying about how this might jeopardise her own position in Demeas’ household.44 Later in the play, when Nikeratos learns that the baby belongs not to Chrysis but to his own unwed daughter, he flies into a rage and threatens to incinerate the child (554). Once again, Chrysis is there to safeguard the baby; she seizes it and refuses to hand it over to the belligerent Nikeratos (559-561). With this farcical scenario, the play highlights the discrepancy between Chrysis’ actual character and the negative stereotypes that Demeas wrongly applies to her, thereby also destabilizing the division of female social identity into a two-type binary. The play upsets the conventional gender ideology in several ways. First, Chrysis has been pregnant, revealing how tenuous the intra-gender distinctions that sustained the norms of civic and familial membership could be. Second, the allegations against her—those conventionally employed to reinforce the perception that women used for sex only were unfit for marriage and reproduction—not only fail to stick but are also shown to be the face-saving fantasy of masculine ideology. Finally, the two-type ideology of female identity is also shown to be flawed not only because the action undermines one prong of the binary but also because it 42

Although Chrysis was a courtesan or hetaira, Demeas condemns her as a prostitute, performing the same conflation found in democratic discourse; see further below. For the negative stereotype of the hetaira in comedy, see Henry 1985, esp. 93-102 on Dis Ex.; in forensic rhetoric, Glazebrook 2006. 43 See Lape 2004. 44 It has sometimes been argued that Chrysis wants to keep the baby permanently and possibly to acquire the status of Demeas’ wife by doing so; for a summary of the scholarship on this issue Krieter-Spiro 1997, 117-120.

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shows that there are more than two types of women. To be more precise, the play averts to a range of possible relationships that might exist between Demeas and Chrysis that cannot be reduced to the dichotomy between wives and sexually available non-wives. In so doing, it also exposes what the official ideology papers over or ignores, namely the gap between social identities and narrowly prescribed social roles. We might initially think that Chrysis is a concubine (pallakē) especially since Nikeratos calls her one (508). In archaic Athens, wealthy men kept slave concubines who were able to bear them free children.45 This practice, however, mostly died out once bastards, non-marital children, were excluded from full family and state membership.46 A concubine’s ability to bear a man free children did not matter much once “legitimacy” became the key to social status. When Nikeratos labels Chrysis a concubine, he is likely drawing on the archaic meaning of the term rather than describing her actual status in Demeas’ household. For to all outward appearances, Chrysis seemed to have produced a free albeit bastard child with Demeas, meaning he could neither inherit Demeas’ οἶκος nor participate in politics. The point, however, is that Chrysis does not fit this social role (archaic concubine) any more than she fits the others in which the play places her. Although she once performed the hetaira’s part, the play makes it clear that she has abandoned that role in favour of an exclusive relationship with Demeas. Moreover, the play distances her from her past role as a hetaira by endowing her with a kind of maternal disposition. Accordingly, this would seem to make her a surrogate wife, as Demeas understands early on in the play. But again, she is not and cannot be a wife, for reasons of her past as well as her ancestry. While she may have temporarily veered over into the territory of a wife with her pregnancy, the failed pregnancy also underscores the impossibility of this position. That is, just as her child has no place within comedy’s fantasy world of civic reproduction, neither does Chrysis. Both she and the child exist outside what counts as liveable kinship (and identity) in comedy’s instantiation of the Periklean bastardy regime.47 45

We can infer this from the status distinctions articulated in early Athenian laws. For the concubine’s social status in Demosthenes 23.53 and archaic Athens, see Lape 2002/3 and 2010. 46 Concubinage is infrequently attested in the classical period; see Vernant 1980, 47-48; Maffi 1989; Patterson 1990, 55; id. 1991, 28; Mossé 1991; Ogden 1996, 158-163; Kapparis 1999, 9-13; McClure 2003, 18; Lape 2002/3. This is not to say, however, that concubinage did not exist as a practice; on this, see Hartmann 2002. 47 For the phrase “Periklean bastardy regime”, see Ogden 1996.

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Whether or not Chrysis’ depiction was intended as a plea to rethink gender, the blurring of intra-gender divisions her character creates goes hand-in-hand with a critique of the kinship positions associated with them. With the undoing of the wife/hetaira divide, so too fall other conventional distinctions deployed to bound Athenian families and the citizen body as a whole. The difference, however, is where the critique of intra-gender distinctions is implicit in the action, the attack on civic kinship statuses to which they were conjoined is stated openly in the dialogue. When early on in the play, Demeas learns that Chrysis is rearing his bastard child, he reacts with all the horror that Athenian civic ideology requires: he demands that the infant be exposed. In a key scene, however, Moschion intervenes and apparently succeeds in convincing Demeas to raise the child (in reality, Moschion’s child).48 Initially Demeas resists, objecting that to raise a bastard would be a monstrous impropriety (136). At this juncture, Moschion asks: τίς δ’ [ἐ]στὶν ἡµῶν γνήσιος, πρὸς τῶν θεῶν, ἢ τίς νόθος, γενόµενος ἄνθρωπος;

Sam. 137-138

Who of us is legitimate, by the gods, or a bastard, being born a human being?

With this query, Moschion diminishes the significance of bastardy and legitimacy by changing the comparative context from the Athenian citizenship system to the human condition. His logic seems to be that the kinship designations of legitimacy and bastardy do not pick out anything meaningful about people as human beings. Still, Demeas assumes that his son must be joking, prompting Moschion to go further: µὰ τὸν ∆ιόνυσον, ἐσπούδακα· οὐθὲν γένος γένους γὰρ οἶµαι διαφέρειν, ἀλλ’ εἰ δικαίως ἐξετάσαι τις, γνήσιος ὁ χρηστός ἐστιν, ὁ δὲ πονηρὸς καὶ νόθος καὶ δοῦλος.

Sam. 140-142

No, by Dionysus I’m serious. I don’t think there’s any distinction with regard to birth (genos), but if you scrutinise rightly, the moral man is legitimate and the wicked man a bastard.

Rather than continuing to undermine bastardy and legitimacy as empty and artificial designations, Moschion redefines them in terms of character, 48

West 1991; Arnott 1998a, 39; Lape 2004, 103, 147.

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making them identify something significant about those to whom they apply. In so doing, he makes this status basically optional. That is, rather than being assigned at birth, legitimacy and bastardy will be earned on the basis of behaviour. Although the next few lines of dialogue are too fragmentary to recover, it is clear that Moschion convinced his father to allow Chrysis and their supposed bastard child to remain in the house. This does not mean that he convinced Demeas to accept his revisionist definitions. Demeas may have decided to keep Chrysis and the child because this is what he really wanted to do anyway. Still, Moschion’s pleas on behalf of a bastard child are exceptional in the context of New Comedy and perhaps the Athenian dramatic tradition more broadly.49 For Moschion does not defend bastardy by appealing to an aristocratic ideology, a move we sometimes see in tragedy; rather, he offers a wholesale redefinition of bastardy and legitimacy based on moral character (138).50 Moschion’s defence of bastards is, of course, self-serving insofar as he himself is the father of the bastard child he seeks to protect. And, as he well knows, this child is only temporarily condemned to the disadvantaged status. Once he marries Plangon, the child’s status will be regularised and the bastardy issue papered over. But there may be an additional resonance to his remarkable attempt to undo the social stigma attached to a status issuing from the circumstances of birth. Throughout the play, much is made of the fact that Demeas is Moschion’s adoptive father. Moreover, Demeas behaviour and treatment of his son seems deliberately at odds with conventional Athenian ideas about adopted children and their loyalties. Although adoption was crucially important to reproducing the Athenian family (given the exclusion of bastards), kinship perceived to be rooted in biology rather than only in law was clearly preferred.51 This helps to explain the tendency of Athenian juries to privilege the claims of blood relatives over those of adopted children (and of nearer blood relatives over more distant relatives who had been adopted: see e.g. Is. 3.61). Sally Humphreys has argued that these cases reflect an “opposition in Athenian minds between natural affections and legal rules”.52 The circumstances of the play draw an analogy between the stigma against bastardy and the admittedly less powerful bias against adopted children: in both cases, the negative evaluation arises from ideas about the 49

See also Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 559; Bain 1983, xix; Ogden 1996, 204. See Ormand 1999, 107-110; Allan 2000, 187; Ebbott 2003, 45-58. 51 See Lape 2002/3; for adoption, see further Gernet 1920; Harrison 1968-71, vol. 1, 82-96; MacDowell 1978, 100; Just 1989; Rubinstein 1993; Ghiggia 1999. 52 Humphreys 1993, 8. 50

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significance of birth. First, Demeas emphasises that Moschion’s status as adopted—i.e. the fact that he is not his birth son—has in no way detracted from his filial piety. Similarly, Moschion defends bastards on the grounds that birth alone is an insufficient basis on which to evaluate human beings. In addition, there may be another albeit tacit level of significance to thematic parallel between adopted and bastard children that the play creates. For the circumstances of Moschion’s adoption are exceptional. Unmarried Athenian men like Demeas did not normally adopt and rear infants. In the Attic lawsuits, men only have recourse to adoption when it becomes clear that they themselves are not going to have children. But in such cases, they seek to secure an heir rather than an infant to care for. Accordingly, they usually adopt the young adult sons of other family members. And in many cases these adoptions only went into effect posthumously, after the adopter himself died.53 In the Samia, however, we know that Demeas adopted Moschion when he was an infant since the nurse tells us that she breastfed Moschion when he was a newborn (245). These circumstances perhaps suggest a reproductive irregularity, perhaps even that Moschion was Demeas’ bastard son.54 In addition to the exceptional adoption scenario, the play draws on the Hippolytus as a key intertext against which to characterise Moschion’s pseudo-seduction of Chrysis.55 While Demeas clearly refuses the tragic parallel, its very use associates Moschion with bastardy since Hippolytus was one of the more famous Athenian bastards. Still, to view Moschion as a spuriously adopted bastard requires a good bit of reading between the lines, filling in the cultural nuance that may stand behind the non-standard adoption scenario. While the play certainly invites its audience to think about the norms of civic kinship, it does not go so far as to actually contravene those norms. Rather, it uses a child temporarily branded as a bastard to interrogate the social meaning of both kinship and gender. Initially, it threatens to blur the key intra-gender distinctions of Athenian civic ideology by having a Samian hetaira give birth to a citizen’s child, thereby underlining how easily the line between wives and the rest could be crossed, and hence how easily the norms of civic exclusivity breached. While the play avoids this scenario, it 53

For the various forms of adoption permitted in Athenian law, see Rubinstein 1993; Ghiggia 1999. 54 The law of testament gave the citizen the right to adopt only the legitimate sons of other men rather than any of his own bastard children, see Wolff 1944, 79; Just 1989, 56 with n. 22 on Dem. 40. 55 Katsouris 1975a, 131; West 1991; Lape 2004. See also Rosanna Omitowoju’s chapter in this volume.

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nevertheless forces its audience to confront its implications in the register of kinship by having Moschion defend a supposed bastard child’s right to be reared. In turn, the play uses Chrysis’ pregnancy as a foil to leverage a different kind of intra-gender slippage. Her ability to nurse Moschion’s child leads to Demeas’ wrongful assumption that she is in fact the child’s mother. By engineering up a contrast between Demeas’ allegations against Chrysis and her actual maternal behaviour, the play undermines the Athenian double standard and its two-type ideology of female social identity.

Just Gender: Undoing the Double Standard in Epitrepontes The Epitrepontes explores and destabilises both formulations of the double standard in two interwoven plot lines, one involving the heroine and her father, the other, the heroine and her husband. The premise of the play is that Charisios has raped and impregnated his wife prior to their marriage. The catch, though, is that neither one of them recognises the other. Charisios was extremely drunk at the time of the incident and perhaps does not even recall it. Although Pamphile (the heroine) could not see her assailant since the act took place during a night-time festival, she did manage to extract his ring, which will, of course, be the key to identifying Charisios as the child’s father. In the meantime, by a happy coincidence, Charisios and Pamphile have been married. Everything is going along well until Onesimos, Charisios’ slave, reports the bad news, namely that Pamphile has borne and exposed a child just a few short months into her marriage with Charisios. Believing that the child cannot possibly be his, the distraught Charisios takes refuge with a friend and hires a pricey harp-girl (Habrotonon) to console himself. So far, I have spoken of prostitutes (pornai) and courtesans (hetairai) and emphasised that democratic ideology tends to flatten the distinction between them, presenting them both as women whose bodies are for hire. For lack of a better term, I have referred to these women as sex workers, with the caveat that hetairai certainly seem to have resisted any such overt classification. However, there were clearly other kinds of female “sex workers”. According to [Aristotle’s] Ath. Pol., the city-controllers monitored “flute-girls, harp-girls, and lyre-girls” to ensure that they were not hired for more than two drachmas per night (50.2). Although scholars agree that these female entertainers were also sex workers, these classifications were fuzzy. In fact, the Epitrepontes shows that a female harpist is not always, or necessarily, a sex worker. Habrotonon reports that

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before she gained experience with men, she was hired to play the harp for respectable citizen girls at a festival and was allowed to join in their games (477-8). After she learned about men, presumably after reaching a certain age, she became a sexual entertainer as well as a musician. Some characters (like the cook) refer to Habrotonon as a harp girl. But others call her a courtesan and/or a prostitute (985, 794, 646). To a certain extent, the label Habrotonon receives at any moment in the play depends on the attitude and agenda of the male character who employs the term.56 Indeed, her pimp may have made a deliberate decision to market her as a hetaira, rather than a harp-girl, to avoid possible price regulations. Early on in the play, Smikrines, the heroine’s father, complains that Charisios is paying a pimp twelve drachmas per day for Habrotonon (136-137). If Habrotonon was considered a harp-girl, this price would have been more than legally allowed given that harp-girls were forbidden from charging more than two drachmas per night (if this provision remained in force when the play was performed).57 I call attention to these considerations not to make a definitive judgement on Habrotonon’s status but rather to highlight that the world of commercial sex was hardly transparent in democratic Athens. And, as I will argue below, to worry too much about Habrotonon’s job classification would be to miss the most powerful marker of her status and identity, namely servitude. Although Charisios’ hiring of Habrotonon almost proves to be the undoing of his marriage, the play leaves us in no doubt that Charisios remains sexually faithful to his wife. The action of the play begins shortly after he has apparently abandoned his wife for Habrotonon. Seeing his son-in-law’s profligate behaviour, Smikrines begins to worry about his daughter’s marriage. Although he initially complains most about Charisios’ squandering of Pamphile’s large dowry, he is also concerned for his daughter’s happiness. For this reason, his eventual efforts to terminate the marriage provide a format for discussing the effects of the double standard on wives as well as on the institution of monogamy generally. To a certain extent, what makes this questioning and social critique possible is the exceptional scenario the play constructs in having Pamphile, the rape victim, hail from a wealthy rather than an impoverished family. In the Epitrepontes, the rape plot is not deployed to generate an interclass marriage and hence to diminish socio-economic disparity in the polis. In this play, the rape scenario is tethered to a different kind of social 56 57

For male misperceptions of female characters in comedy, see Traill 2008. Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 298.

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engineering, namely the undoing of the double standard, or at least, the exposure of the unsupportable hypocrisy at its core. Pamphile’s wealth ensures that she and, of course, her father have some say in the marriage. That is, Pamphile’s wealth operates to diminish (but not upend) the gender hierarchy structuring the conjugal bond. It also gives Smikrines the right, in his own mind, to dissolve his daughter’s marriage, while also probably endowing Pamphile with the confidence to oppose him in this aim.58 While Smikrines is initially outraged at the money Charisios is wasting on women and wine, he is also worried that his daughter is going to be miserable in her marriage because of her husband’s affair. Yet, in characterising her husband’s behaviour, he does not hesitate to paint Habrotonon as the real villain. Drawing on the two-type view of women, he explains that respectable women have little chance against the wiles of the pornē: Χαλεπόν, Παµφίλη, ἐλευθέρᾳ γυναικὶ πρὸς πόρνην µάχη· πλείονα πανουργεῖ, πλείον’ οἶδ’, αἰσχύνεται οὐδέν, κολακεύει µᾶλλον […]. (Epitr. 793-6, M.) Pamphile, a battle against a pornē is difficult for a freeborn woman. She contrives more, she knows more, she is ashamed of nothing and flatters more […].

Although women like Habrotonon should be used by men for sex only, according to Smikrines and the dominant ideology, with their deceitful ways they can alienate men from their wives. In other words, the very negative character attributes that assist in justifying the double standard by characterising sexually available women as unworthy of marriage are here shown to jeopardise the marriage system itself. Crucially, however, Habrotonon’s actions will reveal how misguided Smikrines’ assumptions are; just as in the Samia, the negative female stereotype acts as a foil, a product of men unthinkingly buying into an ideology that is shown to be out of sync with social realities. In the fourth act, when Smikrines tries to convince Pamphile to leave her husband, he tells Pamphile to think of the expense: her husband will have to hold the Thesmophoria and Skira twice (749-750). In so doing, he casts Charisios as a bigamist; for Athenian husbands funded these fertility festivals on behalf of their legitimate wives. Although it would have been 58

On a father’s right to intervene in a daughter’s marriage, see Cohn-Haft 1995.

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impossible for a man to fund these festivals on behalf of a courtesan, Smikrines’ aim here is not realism but to allow his daughter to digest the fact that her husband’s conduct will irreparably harm her status as well as her happiness.59 But Pamphile is better able to tolerate her husband’s behaviour because she, unlike her father, knows the source of his upset. Presumably, she believed or hoped that Charisios would get over the news of her pregnancy and that their marriage would survive. After Onesimos learns that his master’s ring was found with an exposed baby, Habrotonon devises a paternity test that enables Onesimos to avoid being the bearer of the bad news. She asks to be allowed to visit Charisios, who is still drowning his sorrows in alcohol, while wearing the ring and holding the baby. Her idea is to pretend to be the rape victim herself and thus to encourage Charisios, once confronted by the baby and his ring, to confess to the deed of his own accord.60 Although Onesimos is filled with admiration for the cleverness of the plan, he expresses doubt about her motivation. He notes out that in outlining the plan, she failed to mention that Charisios will certainly buy her freedom, if he thinks she is the mother of his child (538-540). This clarifies one way that Habrotonon’s situation differs from Chrysis’ in the Samia. Neither of these women is simply a sex worker. Chrysis’ identity as a former sex worker interfaces with her Samian identity (although the play as we have it does not highlight the ethnic dimension of her identity) and it clearly continues to condition Demeas’ view of her. To a certain extent, there is no escaping the past for Chrysis (although we can assume that she and Demeas reconciled). By contrast, Habrotonon is depicted as a sex worker and slave. And as the play makes clear, it may be possible for her to leave one of these identities behind. Habrotonon does not deny that she is hoping that Charisios will buy her freedom. Although she admits to this interest, it does not compromise her so much that Onesimos refuses to allow her to implement the plan; he only wants her gratitude. But Onesimos voices an additional suspicion: he worries that once she has her freedom she will fail to follow through on finding the baby’s real mother (545-546). At this, Habrotonon insists that she wants freedom not children, as if having children would mean the exchange of one form of servitude for another (547-549). The scene between Onesimos and Habrotonon, and Onesimos’ later commentary on 59 Although a bigamy scenario stands behind the plot in the Phormio, the bigamist does not have two wives in one household, but rather two households with a single wife in each. 60 For Habrotonon as an internal playwright, see Stockert 1997, 8-9; Gutzwiller 2000, 120-121.

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the encounter, tells us something about the bearing of gender on slave status. Judging from Onesimos’ comments, women like Habrotonon might be able to exploit the sexual significance of their body to find a way out of slavery, whereas male slaves had no corresponding exit strategy. While this scenario seems to entail a conflict between courtesan and wife, Menander is careful to avoid the implication that Pamphile and Habrotonon are in competition for Charisios. This is largely because Habrotonon is a slave who reasonably enough wants her freedom. By endowing her with this goal, the play bypasses the issue of female competition, providing each woman very different interests, freedom for one, and husband and baby for the other. In this way, the play avoids giving Habrotonon a hard choice to make. Still, the scene implicitly suggests that the only way for Habrotonon to attain her desired freedom was by exploiting her body in a way that brought her into tacit but temporary competition with Pamphile. For Onesimos points out that she will gain her freedom by seeming to be the mother of Charisios’ child, not simply by restoring his child to him (539-540). In other words, Habrotonon’s freedom requires a necessary albeit temporary displacement of the citizen wife’s position. What also makes this move remarkable is that both Habrotonon and Onesimos can envision it happening despite her status as a slave and courtesan. In other words, they think that Charisios will not only agree to rear a bastard child, but also that he will buy the mother’s freedom. Just as in the Samia, we find the expectation that an Athenian citizen can be convinced, without much difficulty, to rear his illegitimate child. As it happens, we never find out how amenable Charisios would have been to raising his illegitimate child. For immediately after being taken in by Habrotonon’s paternity plot, Charisios overhears Pamphile defying her father and defending him. Smikrines is trying to convince Pamphile to leave her husband at this point because he too believes that Charisios fathered a child with Habrotonon. The key scene occurs in two parts; in the first, Onesimos reports Charisios’ reactions and words upon overhearing Pamphile refuse her father’s demands to dissolve the marriage, and in the second, Charisios speaks directly, comparing Pamphile’s behaviour with his own. His monologue serves as a kind of recognition scene in which Charisios becomes aware of the real conditions of gendered existence. According to Onesimos, Charisios blushed more than can be decently described when he heard his wife standing up for their marriage (886-87); obviously, Charisios’ disquieting blushing is indicative of shame, the source of which we will query further below. After listening to the whole

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exchange, Charisios ran inside, gnashing his teeth, tearing his hair, and admonishing himself out loud; Onesimos reports: “ἐγὼ” γὰρ “ἁλιτήριος” πυκνὸν πάνυ ἔλεγεν, “τοιοῦτον ἔργον ἐξειργασµένος αὐτὸς γεγονώς τε παιδίου νόθου πατὴρ οὐκ ἔσχον οὐδ’ ἔδωκα συγγνώµης µέρος οὐθὲν ἀτυχούσῃ ταὔτ’ ἐκείνῃ βάρβαρος ἀνηλεής τε.

(Epitr. 894-99 M.)

He went on saying, “Look at me, the sinner. I myself commit a crime like this and am the father of a bastard child. Yet, me, pitiless and barbarian, neither felt nor gave a share of pardon to that woman in the same misfortune.

Charisios’ self-recrimination allows us to see that in accepting “Habrotonon’s” child as his own, he comes to the belated realisation that he has been judging his wife according to an impossible double standard. At issue, though, is not sexual conduct per se, but rather sexual conduct with reproductive consequences. As David Konstan has discussed, Charisios’ upset with his wife stems from the fact that she has borne a bastard rather than from her pre-marital sexual experience per se.61 Charisios is distressed because he realises that he has committed the very same reproductive affront as his wife. With this emphasis, the text implicitly acknowledges the difficulties of the double standard in sanctioning male sexual freedom and the corresponding hypocrisy of the constraints placed on respectable women. These tensions are not directly perceived or presented in terms of fairness or equal sexual opportunity. Rather, there is a recognition that the prevailing sexual mores actually conflict with the state’s rules stipulating who could bear legitimate children with whom. As Charisios seems to understand, the exercise of male sexual freedom (outside the marriage context) pushes against these rules and hence against the boundaries and bloodlines they were supposed to enclose. While the facts of biological reproduction made it easy for men to evade or deny the consequences of their behaviour, the scenario in the Epitrepontes forces Charisios and the audience to confront them. Charisios’ direct speech goes further in articulating the particular significance he attaches to his own behaviour and to his wife’s. He denounces his former self-righteousness as based on a false view of his 61

Konstan 1994.

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superiority and immunity from what we might call moral mistakes.62 As he sees it, divine oversight (τὸ δαιµόνιον) intervened to demolish his deluded self-view, forcing him to acknowledge that he himself has committed the very same act for which he is condemning his wife. Charisios comes to realise he, just like any citizen exercising his culturally sanctioned sexual freedom, might father a bastard. Still, the text permits Charisios a key face-saving gesture. He conceptualises his own behaviour in fathering a bastard in terms of a misfortune (ἀτύχηµα), and hence an involuntary action not amenable to full ethical evaluation.63 Likewise, he comes to view Pamphile’s role in giving birth to a bastard in the same classificatory rubric as a misfortune, an unintended action that releases the doer from full culpability.64 By characterising Pamphile’s behaviour as a misfortune (ἀτύχηµα), Charisios acknowledges the error of his former behaviour; that is, he wrongly condemned his wife for an action that she did not have the decisional autonomy to choose or control. Although one might have concluded that women ought to be granted agency or choice in the realm of sexual relations so as to make their behaviour in this sphere subject to moral evaluation, the text avoids this implication. There is no hint that women’s moral agency should be realised through greater freedom, sexual or otherwise. Rather, we are left with the conclusion that reproductive accidents or departures from the state’s norms of sexual reproduction are only “human”, misfortunes that might befall either men or women— despite their discrepant levels of sexual agency. It remains to question the cause of Charisios’ unseemly blushing. What is the source of his shame? Does shame work here as we find elsewhere in Menander’s comedy, allowing a character to get away with a real or attempted violation of conventional mores while simultaneously reinforcing the very ideological system he would seem to have compromised. This is the dynamic that enables Demeas to avoid some of the scandal entailed by 62

For Charisios’ speech as the ethical climax of the play, see Del Corno 1966, 179; Konstan 1995; Furley 2009, 226-227. 63 For Aristotle, however, a sex act is a voluntary action, irrespective of its passionate motivation, and so can be subjected to moral evaluation; see M.M. 1188a3-4 and E.N. 1113b16-9. 64 He repeatedly refers to Pamphile’s production of a nothos as ἀτύχηµα (898, 914), and views his own circumstances in fathering a nothos in similar terms (ἠτύχηκα, 891, cf. 918). Konstan 1995, 146-147, shows that ἀτυχεῖν and ἀτύχηµα in Epitrepontes refer to the circumstances of producing a bastard child. For previous interpretations, see Capps 1910, 111; Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 361 ad 891, and 362 ad 898; Blanchard 1983, 333-334.

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his living arrangements in the Samia and likewise allows his son to escape condemnation despite committing a rape while sober; he too feels shame.65 When a character blushes or simply states that he is ashamed of his behaviour, he acknowledges the wrongness of his conduct and effectively endorses the very norm or code of conduct he has breached. This dynamic would be in play in the Epitrepontes, if Charisios were primarily ashamed of fathering a nothos. This is not, however, the case. Rather, Charisios blushes when he hears his wife defending him and their marriage (885-891 M.). While he is upset to learn that he has fathered a bastard, what elicits his shame is his awareness of the discrepancy between his own behaviour and his wife’s when confronted with the same news. Whereas Pamphile steadfastly refuses to leave her husband when she learns he is consorting with a prostitute and (probably) has fathered a child with her, Charisios abandoned his wife and hired a courtesan as soon as his slave told him that she had exposed a child. This is the source of his shame. He describes himself as behaving in a pitiless, barbaric, and unfeeling manner (898-899 M.). By contrast, Pamphile’s willingness to stay the course with her husband points to her adherence to the norms of reciprocity, Greekness, and humanity.66 Accordingly, Charisios’ shame operates very differently from what we find in other comedies. Rather than serving as a backhanded endorsement of the gender system and status quo, his shame arises from an awareness of his complicity in that unjust system, an involvement that induced him to mistreat his wife. In other words, we are very close here to a recognition and rejection of the bad faith inherent in the Athenian gender regime and its impossible double standard.67

Conclusion Throughout this study, I have examined the ways in which Menander’s plays both affirm and question Athenian gender orthodoxies. As we have seen, the Epitrepontes appears to particularly challenge the basic assumptions and practices that support gender hierarchy. By way of conclusion, it should be mentioned that Epitrepontes is not alone in this 65

Sam. 23, 27. On shame (αἰσχύνη) in the Samia, see Jacques 1971, xxxviii with n. 4; W. S. Anderson 1972, 156-157; Henry 1985; Lape 2004. 66 For the ethical sense of βάρβαρος in New Comedy, see Long 1986, 151-156. A re-examination of barbarians in the genre is attempted in sketch by Petrides forthcoming. 67 It may be that the play calls attention to Pamphile’s participation in a common “Greek” ethos to allow her to emerge as a moral exemplar for her errant husband in a way that seems not to contest prevailing gender categories.

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emphasis. The romantic plots of Menander’s extant plays and fragments can be divided into two types: some portray the romantic union as an affair conducted between men, while others portray the interaction and/or relationship between the romantic couple. Plays that fall into this latter category (like the Epitrepontes) follow a reconciliation format; their plots focus not on creating a romantic or marital union but rather on saving one. The reconciliation plays (Epitrepontes, Misoumenos, Perikeiromene) not only portray both sides of romantic relationship, they also emphasise gender symmetry rather than an unquestioned gender hierarchy. In all three of these plays we find heroines who, one way or another, are granted the explicit capacity to accept or reject marital unions. In the Epitrepontes, this decisional autonomy is depicted in a backhanded way in Pamphile’s ability to refuse her father’s demands that she divorce her husband. Given what might seem to be the greater realism of plays of this type in depicting both the male and the female side of the story, we might think that the reconciliation plays more directly engage with gender in the contemporary social setting. There is a difficulty with this assumption, however, because gender in the reconciliation plays featuring a mercenary in the role of comic hero (Perikeiromene and Misoumenos) carries additional layers of meaning. The conflict between a mercenary and a lost female citizen in the Perikeiromene and Misoumenos encloses and resolves contemporary conflicts between the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Greek cities within the romantic union, i.e., a space that allows the city to come out on top.68 Elsewhere, I have discussed the way that Menander’s mercenaries are strongly associated with the Hellenistic rulers and/or their kingdoms, and correspondingly, the way that the heroines who educate and domesticate them embody the concerns and plight of the Greek cities.69 In plays of this type, the traditional gender hierarchy, i.e. the imbalance in power between men and women, provided a safe framework for re-imagining the power asymmetry between the Greek cities and the newly dominant kingdoms.70 For this reason, it is unlikely that the depiction of relatively empowered heroines in these plays was originally intended as a plea to remake the gender system on a more balanced footing. This is not to say, of course, that such representations did not have the effect of challenging received gender orthodoxies and hence pushing toward greater symmetry. 68 For mercenaries in the Hellenistic world, see Griffith 1935; for mercenaries in Menander’s comedy, see MacCary 1972; Lape 2004. 69 See Lape 2004, esp. chapter 6. 70 For the negotiations between the Greek cities and Hellenistic rulers, see Gauthier 1993; Gruen 1993; Billows 1995; Ma 1999.

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Like the Perikeiromene and Misoumenos, the Epitrepontes is a play of reconciliation featuring the reunion of an already established couple. It crucially differs, though, in that the hero is not a mercenary and the harm suffered by the heroine stems not from the character attributes associated with the mercenary’s profession but from the existing gender system and the double standard enshrined therein. Accordingly, since gender has a less heavy allegorical inflection in the Epitrepontes, it may interface more directly with gender in Athenian culture. It remains difficult, however, to assess precisely what the nature of that interaction might have been. Did it reflect or attempt to shape or revise existing attitudes?

CHAPTER FOUR NEW PERFORMANCE ANTONIS K. PETRIDES

Opening Credits Let us begin by looking at a 2nd-century AD wall painting from Ephesus, which probably preserves a famous, but now lost (i.e. not surviving in the extant text) moment of Menandrian performance: the opening of Perikeiromene.1 How would a late-fourth-century, most likely male citizen,2 decode such a scene? Such a spectator (we may assume) would be sitting in the new Lycurgan Theatre of Dionysos, right underneath the great democratic monuments of a city now probably ruled by an oligarch,3 or possibly even enduring the sacrilege of a real-life miles gloriosus.4 The play apparently opened with a powerful tableau: Glykera is standing speechless, her long cloak “raised at the back so that it conceals her hair”. She is turning her back on a young man, likely the soldier Polemon, who

1

Cf. Arnott 1988. For a colour photograph of the painting see Strocka 1977, pl. 66; discussion in 48, 55ff. A mosaic version of this painting, one of four scenes from Menander recently excavated in Turkey, still awaits detailed discussion: see Ömer Çelik, Yukarı Harbiye Moszaik Kurtama Hasısı, Ankara 2009, Resim 5. 2 For necessary adjustments to earlier views on New Comedy audiences, see Rosivach 2000. On women among theatre audiences in Athens, see J. Henderson 1991. 3 There is no clear evidence about the original time or place of the Perikeiromene. That the action may be set in Corinth (this is only a plausible assumption) does not say much. On the dating of Menander’s Perikeiromene sometime between 315-303 BC, see Arnott 1996b, 372. 4 On Demetrios Poliorketes’ shameful conduct during his stay in Athens, cf. Philippides, fr. 25 K.-A., with the commentary of Olson 2007, 224-226. Demetrios reputedly imprinted his image as a military master of the universe on the theatre itself, apparently on a wooden panel facing the audience, cf. Douris ap. Athen. 12.536a.

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“seems to be gazing gloomily into distance”. A third figure, possibly Sosias, has his “right arm raised in an emotional gesture”.5 Sosias’ activity contrasts starkly with Polemon’s disconsolation and even more plainly with Glykera’s indignant silence. Indignation, however, may not be the sole emotional backdrop to the scene. The image itself is evocative enough to energise theatrical memory. The tableau of a woman sitting with her hair concealed in mournful silence had been given cult status on the Athenian stage by the opening act of Aeschylus’ Niobe.6 Aeschylus’ version of the story, perhaps the first among many to follow, was still notorious in the time of Menander: by then it had become a cultural archetype of heroic grief. Allusion to the Niobe, παρὰ προσδοκίαν, would paint a highly atmospheric fondo to the scene and function perfectly as an attention-catcher. The Perikeiromene, a fine example of a genre which revolves around the social mechanics of marriage, opens surprisingly with a funereal impression. Similarly enough, but with bustling activity rather than the stony dignity we see here, Menander’s Aspis opens with the semblance of a funerary procession. This “intertextual soundtrack” of mourning underscores ironies evoked by Glykera’s lacerated hair. In Greek culture, hair cutting is commonly associated with lamentation. On the tragic stage, especially, shorn girls had their special mask, the mournful and sallow κούριµος παρθένος (Pollux 4.140, Tragic Mask 26). One can only wonder to what extent Glykera’s mask—definitely custom-made or otherwise refashioned, as no female New Comedy mask had shorn hair—called to mind the tragic κούριµος. If so, a whole space for intertextual allusions was opened up by the mask alone. However, Greek culture associated hair cutting also with the prenuptial custom of a bride-to-be sacrificing a specially grown lock of hair to a deity guarding transitions.7 The latter action is, naturally, symbolic. In the funereal situation, on the contrary, “the mourner in effect ‘wears’ his loss on his head”.8 Glykera would cut a lock preparing for a (comic) wedding; now having had her hair shorn off, she evokes ritual mourning and tragic grief. The irony goes deeper. Mournful and prenuptial hair sacrifice is intentional; Polemon’s deed is intrusive and brutal. Shaving Glykera’s head raises issues of domination and consent, ironically highlighted 5

All quotations are from Arnott 1996b, 369. Cf. Ar. Ran. 911-926. On vase-paintings relating to Niobe, cf. Taplin 2007, 7479. Other archetypes of heroic grief, such as Europē, may be alluded to here. 7 Cf. Sommer 1912. On funereal and prenuptial rituals and their treatment in drama, see Rehm 1994. 8 Leitao 2003, 113. 6

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insomuch as in this play Glykera is supposedly κυρία ἑαυτῆς (497). At the behest of George Bernard Shaw, Gilbert Murray ingeniously translated the title Περικειροµένη as The Rape of the Locks.9 Polemon’s act was indeed an act of symbolic rape. Rape in Greek terms signifies sexual intercourse lacking the consent not so much of the woman herself, but of the woman’s kyrios.10 As it turns out, Glykera was as much subject to male domination as any other member of womenfolk. The rape of Glykera’s locks is singularly suggestive. As a falsification of a prenuptial ritual, it crashes any illusions of legitimacy or empowerment in concubinage. At the same time, nonetheless, Polemon’s cruelty initiates the process of reestablishing Glykera’s birthrights and rehabilitating the pallake into the ranks of “respectable” women: the rape of the locks marks the “death” of pallakeia and the beginning of its transformation into a genuine marital union. Let us now move away from the stage and towards the auditorium. Few words only, if any, must have been exchanged at the opening of the Perikeiromene. The audience was confronted with a fairly static, yet pregnant visual image. In order to “read” this image, a Greek spectator should be able to perceive the significance of the way actors positioned their bodies in relation to one another. S/he was expected to examine their movements (or lack thereof) and observe character-drawing differences in them. S/he should also study the personages’ scenic apparatus to garner information on ethos as well as on the plot. And, finally, moving beyond the surface, the spectator was apparently supposed to activate (a) theatrical memory (giving perspective to the scene by making associations with tragedy); (b) cultural awareness (ironically contrasting nuptial and funereal customs); and, definitely, (c) ideology and politics (in order to grasp the “otherness” of the professional soldier, in a play which emphasises strongly that “soldier” and “citizen” are incompatible categories, and perhaps place it in the context of the rivalry between oligarchy and democracy in Hellenistic Athens). Amidst all this influx of information, afforded by crisscrossing visual cues and literary or cultural intertexts, the script alone could navigate Menander’s spectator only so far. In theatrical performance a script is uniquely and ephemerally realised within a defined cultural and historical context (literary, artistic, socioeconomic, (geo)political, etc). Menander’s performance in particular requires the action to be read, all at once, at least on three interwoven levels: on the urban level of a “boy-meets-girl” scenario; on an archetypal 9

Murray 1942. On consent and rape in Greece, see Omitowoju 2002.

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level projecting the urban scenario onto mythological analogues afforded by tragedy; and on an ideological level pursuing the corollaries of this scenario for the polis. Studying Menander’s performance, therefore, demands alertness to a complex web of allusions, which created a thick discursive texture around a mundane, if cleverly crafted, plot. What we are dealing with is a subtly intertextual spectacle, in which allusion was not necessarily achieved by virtue of verbal markers, but also (one is tempted to say, but chiefly) by way of the very referentiality of the visual. Intertextuality, in the case of Menander, seems to have called for high attentiveness to what can be called inter-visuality as well. The above is a crucial point, which must be pressed hard from the beginning. New Comedy is not a ‘spectacular’ show, but a fairly modest and tame one compared to the extravagance of contemporary tragedy and of course Old Comedy. This constitutes a paradoxical reversal: comedy is no longer the privileged ground of lavish spectacle. However, ὄψις is prominent—one could even say primary—in New Comedy, inasmuch as the visual has an allusive function as dense and sophisticated as never before. If New Comedy, as I argue, is inherently intertextual, the visual is part and parcel of this intertextuality beyond its other forms of semiosis. The axiomatic indispensability of performance acquires a special significance for the genre of Menander.

Performance Studies and the Study of Menander’s Performance The study of performance, as the above example shows, is a complex and freighted enterprise. It encompasses analysis of all the semiotic components of theatre in their real-time interaction, but also engages archetypes, paradigms, biases, stereotypes, ideologies, and all possible other ‘filters’, which render theatrical signifiers meaningful for particular audiences (and arguably less meaningful for others). Thus, performance analysis is more analysis of a discourse, not merely of signs. This discourse is textual and inter-textual, visual, and inter-visual. Even “at best on very soft focus”11 awareness of at least stagecraft was a staple since antiquity. Sophisticated scenic commentaries can be found dispersed in classical texts from Aristotle to the Scholiasts.12 That said, of course, performance criticism, a metalanguage which evaluates plays “in 11

Osborne 2008, 395. See, e.g., Arist. Poet. 1455a22-29, [Long.], 15.7. On the Scholiasts, see Falkner 2002.

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and as performance”,13 cannot be reduced simply to the theatrical execution of dramatic texts. It must describe a collaborative, multi-tiered event. In the case of Greek theatre performance, such awareness is made all the more urgent, inasmuch as theatrical space was a multi-use field of social transaction, which housed a variety of performative occasions—all the more so in the period under scrutiny in this volume. From the “high” of theatre to the “low” of mime and other forms of popular spectacles, and from the solemnity of public processions and religious rituals to the histrionics of imperial adulation, the θέατρον was a hotbed of cultural polyvalence, which could not but generate semantic cross-pollination between the various δράµατα performed in it. We should conceive the study of performance as a situated, emplaced and context-bound, and yet flexible and open-ended interpretive endeavour, which needs to be sensitive to a whole web of interlocking cultural associations. Pinning down, of course, such associations can rarely be straightforward, although anecdotes intimating, for instance, the increasing theatricality of public life especially in the Hellenistic period,14 are not scarce. Before continuing, we need to examine briefly the role of theatre archaeology in ancient performance studies, and more specifically in the study of New Comedy performance. This will provide the necessary background for the comments to be made further on about the space and the mask. The study of New Comedy performance is predicated on a pair of conditions, which make it quite antipodal to that of fifth-century performance: on the one hand, a tantalizing scarcity of texts surviving complete; on the other hand, a wealth of scattered and heterogeneous, but nonetheless invaluable archaeological testimonies, attesting to a vibrant, “international” theatrical tradition, which claimed at least an equal share of popularity with tragedy in the imaginary of the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods. Finds like the terracotta masks in Lipari15 or Centuripe;16 the mosaics of the House of Menander in Mytilene17; the mosaics of Dioskourides in the Villa of Cicero in Pompeii (Naples 9985);18 the 13

Goldhill 1989. See Chaniotis 1997. On theatre as “the stage of public life”, see esp. 224-226. 15 See especially Bernabò Brea 1981 and 2001; for tragic masks in Lipari, Bernabò Brea 1998, 41-78. 16 Simon 1989. 17 Charitonidis, Kahil and Ginouvès 1970. 18 Donderer 1989, 59-61. For a recent discussion of the representations of scenes from Menander’s Theophoroumene, see Nervegna 2010. 14

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paintings of masks on the Gnathia vases19 or a score of figurines representing characters in action (e.g. the Myrina20 and the Morgantina21 figurines or the so-called Loeb group for a more transitional phase)22 are extremely useful; even more so, as they interface with Julius Pollux’s Onomasticon, Book 4, 133ff. (2nd century AD),23 the most comprehensive written source on material theatre at our disposal, which for all its limitations harks firmly back to authoritative early Hellenistic sources.24 All the archaeological evidence relating to New Comedy is now collected and analysed in MINC3. The taxonomic principles in this collection are nuanced and suggestive of a method for exploiting the material. Dramatic literature and theatre-related archaeological material are mutually informative, but should each be read according to their own distinct set of rules. In the case of artefacts (a) the date of the original artefact, (b) the place of manufacture and the findspot, (c) the medium employed and its restrictions (terracotta, stone sculpture, pottery, paintings and drawings, mosaics, coins and tokens, gems, lamps, etc), and (d) iconographic tradition25 can all alter the face value of any information performance analysis may hope to derive from archaeology. Two specific examples indicated by the editors of MINC3 will illustrate this point. The first regards the increase in the number of Old Men and Slave masks in “Period 2” (150-50 BC), as opposed to the predominance of Young Men and Women masks in the period 325-250. Does this reflect a twist in the genre, a different kind of comedy being produced in 150-50? The editors of MINC3 are right to be sceptical: representations of theatre cannot be isolated from the context in which they were placed and found.26 The so-called Megarian bowls (MINC3 2AV), whence much of our 19

Webster 1951; J. R. Green 1989. Mollard 1963. 21 Bell 1981. 22 Webster, Green and Seeberg 1995. Henceforth, MINC3. 23 Attempts to connect Pollux’s types with archaeological finds include Robert 1911, a seminal study; Roth 1913; Navarre 1914; Bieber 1930; Webster 1949; and Webster 1952. Cross-checking of Pollux’s catalogue against the pseudoAristotelian Physiognomics was also variously attempted, cf. e.g. Krien 1955 and Poe 1996. 24 For a good collection of general studies on Pollux, see Bearzot, Landucci & Zecchini 2007, with further bibliography, but, deplorably, without a chapter on theatre. On the ancient treatises of drama, some of which furnished Pollux’s material, directly or indirectly, see Bagordo 1998. 25 MINC3, vol. 1, 53. 26 For a survey of theatrical motifs found in non-theatrical archaeological contexts, see J. R. Green 1995. 20

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material for this period derives, have a festive context, “where Old Men’s masks are particularly popular as representing or typifying the comic theatre in general”.27 The concomitant question, avoided by MINC3—why Old Men, since in other cases slaves or other character types perform this function—is indicative of the complexity of the issue, but does not detract from the fact that oftentimes theatrical representations make generic references to theatre in its symbolic dimensions (the comic mask as a symbol of festivity and well-being), hence they bear little on contemporary theatre practice. The second example adds two further reasons why archaeological testimonies need to be used with caution. MINC3, Figure 18, attests that whereas, as said, mask representations in Menander’s time privilege young heroes and heroines, figurines in the same period constitute the domain of slaves and cooks. The editors suppose the discrepancy may be stemming from a tradition enjoining that figurines represent “funny men and stock situations”, but may also relate to the existence of distinct markets for masks and figurines, one opting for “the ‘intellectual’ reception of Menandrian comedy”, and one preferring “the broad humour of comedy as performed on stage”.28 Whether this latter explanation is cogent or not (it reflects, to some extent, outdated prejudices about the constitution of New Comedy’s audience), the example certainly allows for the possibility that artefact genre and intended clientele may distort the picture as to the relation between theatrical representation and stage practice. The final admonition is broader, but just as significant. We should never lose sight of the fact that the material in our possession is not the relic of actual theatrical events. What we have at best are images of performances post eventum; objects of art, that is, used for a variety of non-theatrical purposes, such as dedication to shrines (by victorious actors, khoregoi, troupes), trade (souvenirs of performances), decoration, show of culture and/or declaration of ‘Greekness’, and so on. These images seem in most cases to be fairly accurate repositories of theatrical memory; however, the unique, corporeal, living objects of performance have been irrevocably lost, because, like all theatre, they were ephemeral. For one, they were constructed with perishable material: masks, for instance, were made of thin stuccoed linen,29 wood,30 perhaps leather. Yet, even if we had 27

MINC3, vol. 1, 79. MINC3, vol. 1, 79. 29 Schol. Ar. Ran. 406; Isidore of Seville, Etym. X, 119. The linen was glued together (κατακολλᾶται). 30 Hesychius, κ 4501, κ 4678, κ 4684; Prudentius, Contra Symmachum II, 647-648; Servius on Verg. Georg. 2.387. Hesychius and Servius provide evidence 28

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a “real” theatrical mask, it would be just as “dead” as its terracotta counterpart: theatrical masks, unlike their reproducible blueprints, live only (and shortly) in performance; they are bound to the moment. The duplicates or otherwise derivative renditions we can touch and feel are but the bare bones of what the actor, employing voice, gesture, dance and overall comportment, along with a clever exposure of the mask to light and shade in different angles relative to the audience, brought to life on the stage of a particular Greek city on a particular day in the context of a particular festival. With these preliminary thoughts in mind, let us now turn first to the cultural environment in which Menander's genre was developed and then to some of the genre’s innovative characteristics, in order to grasp what was essentially “new” in New Comedy performance. The section that follows may seem longish, but it is indispensable for establishing the correct frame of analysis: it is too easy, sometimes, to forget that New Comedy is not only the swansong of classical Greek theatre, but also the crack of dawn for the theatre of Hellenism.

A New Performance Culture The sheer vehemence of the opposition on the part of such contemporary thinkers as Plato or Aristotle bespeaks a major paradigm shift in fourth-century perceptions regarding the balance of the visual and the verbal in performance. New Comedy audiences seem to have been by now fully awakened to the fact that theatre is first and foremost a performative, not a “poetic” art, hence the visual was sine qua non for theatrical art to be realised in all its thrillingly “psychagogic” dimension. It appears that theoretical consciousness of that major tenet of performance studies—the text is by definition always lacunose—was solidified in the course of the fourth century. Edith Hall accurately regards the “theorisation” of theatre as one of the many “cultural revolutions”, which transformed Athens in the period 430380 BC.31 She focuses on the practical consequences, which thinking about theatre precipitated in these crucial fifty years. Most momentously, theorisation launched a discussion of generic attributes, as well as generic

concerning probably ritual rather than theatrical masks (of Italy, in two of the four cases). Prudentius (c. 400 AD) refers specifically to a tragicus cantor, who ligno tegit ora cavato. 31 Hall 2007, 272-274.

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boundaries;32 hence, we must add, inasmuch as most of the thinking about theatre was actually carried out in the moment of doing theatre on stage, theorisation introduced a bold process of generic intersection, a form of experimental Kreuzung der (theatralischen) Gattungen, so to speak, which would be the hallmark of the fourth century. Euripides creates a tradition of pathetic, action-packed, spectacular and “romantic” tragedy with comic elements; comedy integrates tragic structures, diction and scenic features, first by way of parody33 and eventually by way of a bold “urbanisation” of mythological themes; satyr drama, finally, finds a new lease of life by verging towards topicality and slapstick, thus embracing the mode comedy had largely left behind.34 In fact, the period 430-380 BC constituted only the tentative commencement of a systematic theatrological reflection, which would intensify from Plato onwards and which eventually invested the practice of making and watching theatre with unprecedented self-consciousness. These cumulative layers of σοφία, a blend of practical and theoretical savvy, abetted by other relevant factors, such as the growing professionalism of theatrical agents (actors, impresarios, σκευοποιοί, musicians, etc.) and the expanding literacy and book culture, gradually metamorphosed theatrical performance into a much more technically educated experience on all sides (producers, performers, and at least parts of the audience). Theatre now possesses symbolic and ideological significance so pervasive that Lycurgus could name the committee responsible for the entire financial management of the polis οἱ ἐπὶ τὸ θεωρικόν (Aeschin. 3.25).35 Public performances (processions, appearances in court and the Ecclesia)36 are becoming ever more self-consciously “theatrical”;37 and 32

On the issue, see most recently Foley 2008. Arnott 1972 and Csapo 2000 chart the territory for Comedy. 33 See Nesselrath 1993 and Nesselrath 1995. 34 Cipolla 2003, 271ff. 35 Cf. Wilson 2000, 266. 36 On the “performance culture” of Athens, see the essays in Goldhill and Osborne 1999, especially Goldhill 1999. 37 One notorious case of spectacle turning the tables in a court of law involved Hyperides and the celebrated courtesan Phryne, see Athen. 15. 590d-e: ὁ δὲ Ὑπερείδης (fr. 181 Bl) συναγορεύων τῇ Φρύνῃ, ὡς οὐδὲν ἤνυε λέγων ἐπίδοξοί τε ἦσαν οἱ δικασταὶ καταψηφιούµενοι, παραγαγὼν αὐτὴν εἰς τοὐµφανὲς καὶ περιρρήξας τοὺς χιτωνίσκους γυµνά τε τὰ στέρνα ποιήσας τοὺς ἐπιλογικοὺς οἴκτους ἐκ τῆς ὄψεως αὐτῆς ἐπερρητόρευσεν δεισιδαιµονῆσαί τε ἐποίησεν τοὺς δικαστὰς τὴν ὑποφῆτιν καὶ ζάκορον Ἀφροδίτης ἐλέῳ χαρισαµένους µὴ ἀποκτεῖναι. The anecdote reeks of pathetic theatricalisation. Hyperides capitalises brilliantly on the psychagogic elements of ὄψις. He creates an eye-catching tableau, which calls

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theatrical shows are fast overshadowing any other product exported from Athens to the wider Greek world. By the time of Menander theatre is not purely an athenocentric form of art; it was a universal social phenomenon essential in conceptualizing the whole idea of the polis as an institution much beyond Athens (in fact, so essential that the presence or absence of a theatre building is even a chief criterion in the very identification of settlements as poleis).38 Theatre was also establishing itself rapidly as a token of civility, culture and Greekness. The ubiquity of theatre, e.g., in the “social semiotics” of Theophrastus’ Characters, where behaviour during theatrical festivals is a decisive factor for type casting,39 as well as the recurrence of theatrical paradigms, analogies, vocabulary, or other references everywhere, from forensic oratory to philosophy to ordinary speech, are evidence that by the fourth century and increasingly afterwards theatre engrossed Greece more overpoweringly than ever before. The casual air whereby Menander’s characters, for instance, evoke tragic counterparts for mundane situations ought to be explained not only as a humorous moment of metatheatrical transparency (which, of course, it is);40 it may well reflect actual social practice, the hold of theatre on the imagination of even the commonest folk. This must be kept in mind also as a necessary caveat with reference to claims made further down in this chapter on the issue of Menander’s relation with tragedy. In the fourth century, therefore, and from then onwards, theatre is not just good to think about; it is good to think with. However, as a result of the theatrical art’s newfound “celebrity”, theoretical reflection on theatre also exposed a number of rifts and tensions, which rendered it a

to mind a mythological paradigm: the famous epic incident of Menelaus’ dropping the sword in the view of Helen’s naked breast (cf. Ar. Lys. 155-6), archetypal example of male helplessness in the face of superior female splendour. In the same time, the image preys on the jurists’ religious superstition: Phryne’s blameless beauty, reputedly Apelles’ and Praxiteles’ model for their respective Aphrodite Anadyomene and Aphrodite Knidia, was to be seen by the jurists as almost divine. As logical arguments began to fail him, Hyperides excited in the audience pity (οἴκτους) and fear (δεισιδαιµονῆσαι) by way of ὄψις—and he carried the day. 38 Pausanias, 9.4.1. 39 This is, for instance, the case for the Man of Petty Ambition (Character 7), who will sit near the generals in the theatre; the Avaricious Man (Character 26), who takes his sons to performances only when admission is free, a.s.f. For commentaries ad loc., see Diggle 2004. 40 On metatheatricality in Menander, see Gutzwiller 2000.

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philosophical battlefield. Theatricality41 gradually found itself to be the point of contention in a philosophical tug-of-war (a) between reality and conscious self-illusion (Gorgias); (b) reality and representation (Plato); and (c) between representation verbal and enacted (Aristotle). Theorisation, that is, was a tense process, which added density to the theatrical experience, but also marked the beginning of a long anti-theatrical bias, which centred on theatre’s growing spectacularity.42 Aristotle is particularly emblematic of a pendulum swinging to-and-fro between grudging realism and a call for ideological control, the need for which is determined exactly because of theatre’s assumed “slide” to a form of pernicious ψυχαγωγία (literally: “carrying away the soul”) by way of ὄψις, the visual dimension of performance. Aristotle’s statements on ὄψις are notoriously ambiguous.43 The ambiguities stem partly from Aristotle’s well-known dithering between description and prescription; but they derive also from the ambivalence of the term ὄψις itself, which denotes the apparatus scaenicus, but also suggests, though reluctantly, theatre’s ontological duality.44 Aristotle acknowledges that “the arrangement of spectacle” is for tragedy µόριον ἐξ ἀνάγκης (Poet. 1449b31-33; cf. also Poet. 1454b15-16: τὰς ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀκολουθούσας αἰσθήσεις τῇ ποιητικῇ). The attempt to create ideological and qualitative distinctions between tragedies which generate pity and fear, on the one hand ἐκ τῆς ὄψεως, on the other hand ἐκ τῆς συστάσεως τῶν πραγµάτων (Poet. 1453b1-3), practically affirms the former as a least desirable (because it is ἀτεχνότερον καὶ χορηγίας δεόµενον, 1453b8) but yet resoundingly real and apparently novel theatrical mode. Its novelty is evinced by its growing escalation towards the extreme (Poet. 1454b8ff.). Aristotle, to be sure, is actually defending tragedy from the sweeping, uncompromising denunciation of Plato. To that effect, he is suggesting a form of purism, which divests tragedy from the prerequisite of 41

On the notion of theatricality in modern theory, see especially Davis and Postlewait 2003, esp. 1-39. 42 On the various attitudes to theatre in Antiquity and beyond, see Theodorakopoulos 2004. 43 Among the vast literature, see the most recent contributions by Halliwell 1986 [2000], 337-343; Marzullo 1980; di Marco 1989; Mesturini 1992; Bonanno 1999 and 2000. 44 I am confident, pace Halliwell 1986 [2000], 338-339, that we must allow this wider signification of the term opsis in Aristotle. That most of Aristotle’s references to opsis seem to allude to the actors means simply that the chief visual signs in fourth-century performance, anyway, were comprised by the actor and his apparatus. It need not mean, however, that Aristotle neglected everything else.

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performance by (a) distinguishing sharply the art of the poet from those of the actor, the σκευοποιός, the musician, etc, which are still acknowledged as inevitable (the mise-en-scène must, indeed, be visualised and anticipated by the poet, cf. Poet. 1455a22ff.); (b) postulating a conservative approach to enactment, which eschews τὸ φορτικόν and is addressed πρὸς θεατὰς ἐπιεικεῖς (Poet. 1461b32-1462a18); and (c) enjoining the precedence of clever plot crafting and “conductive” words over the sensationalism of the visual (Poet. 1453b3-7). Pace Plato, who denounced drama as incurably mimetic, as opposed to epic, Aristotle affirms that tragedy can realise its potential καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ ὁρᾶν (Poet. 1453b4); it can become φανερὰ διὰ τοῦ ἀναγιγνώσκειν (Poet. 1462a1213). Paradoxically, in all this fascinating and almost desperate dillydally, Aristotle does nothing but substantiate the inalienability of opsis in fourthcentury performance both theoretically and in action; he confirms the apparent consensus of contemporary practitioners and spectators alike that the visual is not a condiment but an overarching stipulation of drama. In fact, albeit in a textually problematic passage,45 Aristotle may even be explicitly admitting, while not endorsing, this new supremacy of opsis over all other aspects of performance in the fourth century: καὶ γὰρ †ὄψις ἔχει πᾶν† καὶ ἦθος καὶ µῦθον καὶ λέξιν καὶ µέλος καὶ διάνοιαν ὡσαύτως (Poet. 1450a13-14). The current trend among scholars is to defend the paradosis, but interpret ἔχει variously as “prevailed over” (Marzullo: “hat…überwältigt”), “dominates over” (Lanza, Mesturini) or “contains” (di Marco) the rest. The three translations, of course, have different semantic upshots: di Marco’s, more conservatively, evokes Aristotle’s admittance that the poet no longer enjoys full creative control over performance; Lanza’s and Marzullo’s imply an evolution and express an expostulation analogous to that of other famous dicta, such as Aristotle, Rhet. 1403b31ff., Plato, Resp. 492b5ff., or indeed Isocrates’ despondent comparisons between the “arrogance” (ὑπερηφάνεια) of fourth-century spectacles compared to the glorious past (Isoc. 7.53-54).46 Such aphorisms certainly represent personal agendas and biases, but we should not discount their evidentiary value completely, as a mere “mythology of the fifth century”.47 As they cluster up with a general distaste for the extravagant ostentation of public life at large expressed by aristocrats a few decades prior to the birth of Menander, they also accord very well 45

See di Marco 1989, 133, n. 16, for a summary of scholarly discussions on the passage. 46 Cf. also the famous remarks in Plut. Mor. 348e4ff. 47 Wilson 2000, 269.

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with developments in the Hellenistic period, where theatricalisation, even a holistic perception of vita publica as a form of performance, was the norm.48 J.J. Pollitt posited a “theatrical mentality” as the hallmark of Hellenistic life.49 This is crucial: realising that “all the world’s a stage” is not merely a philosophical stance, which assigned to Tyche the role of playwright in the drama of everyday life.50 It is not also simply the application of tragic structures in perceiving the course of history.51 Ιt also entails—or rather, is predicated upon—a sophisticated understanding of the semiotics of spectacle (of putting oneself on show) in public comportment. This is the advanced stage of an evolution, this time regarding the conception, execution and reception of hypokrisis, in theatre, in the Ecclesia or in court. In this case, theorisation did not simply elaborate on a development, which occurred outside the loci of performance: it constructed and imposed it. The various Rhetorics, being written already since the fifth century, but much more systematically from the fourth century onwards, taught actors and orators, and by extension, Greek audiences, theatrical or other, how to read an “endless array of public festivals”52 in a semiotically erudite manner.53 Hellenistic culture in general, and theatre by extension, was one in which opsis consciously played a dominant role, either in quantity (lavish shows to the extent of τὸ τερατῶδες) or in quality (growing alertness to the symbolic cache of the visual). The progress towards a culture of spectacle and spectators was developing vigorously, especially as it fell neatly in both with the power hunger of individuals aiming to lure the crowds and, even more so, with the need of sovereigns to propagate court ideology through spectacles of every kind. Voices of opposition petered out after Aristotle; when they resurfaced in late Hellenistic and Imperial times, theatre had already run out of creative steam. But even in those cases, opposition to spectacle sounded almost dutiful, “the right thing to do” for a homo politus, who may also have had

48

See Chaniotis 1997. Pollitt 1986, 4. 50 For instance, Teles, fr. 5, 2-7 Hense. On the “dramatic simile of life”, see Kokolakis 1960. 51 See Walbank 1960. For further applications of theatrical analogies, this time in Imperial Rome, see Edwards 2002. 52 Cf. Herakleides, fr. 1 Pfister: θέαι συνεχεῖς. 53 On the evidence see Ober & Strauss 1990 and Fantham 2002, with further bibliography. 49

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other axes to grind.54 Make no mistake: panem et circenses was a phenomenon mainly of Rome and of Greece under Rome, and chiefly a development of the Imperial rather than the Hellenistic period. However, the seeds were being sown as early as the period which formed Menander. It is undeniable, therefore, that New Comedy starts life amidst a new performance culture in statu nascendi, a culture with not only a taste for spectacle, but also, most crucially, the conceptual equipment required to read it in minute detail. A comparison between the treatment of ὑπόκρισις in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book 3 (written ca. 335-330 BC) and Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, Book 11, Chapter 3 (written before AD 96), two major works, which chronologically circumscribe the conventional boundaries of the period in question here, should be suggestive of how deeply Hellenistic practitioners of the twin performative arts of acting and oratory gradually delved into the minutiae of performance. The contrast is stark. In Rhetoric, Book 3, Aristotle includes ὑπόκρισις into his discussion of style, the τέχνη of ὡς δεῖ εἰπεῖν, which, he begrudgingly admits, contributes generously towards φανῆναι ποιόν τινα τὸν λόγον (1403b14-15). After all, “everything around delivering a speech is a show (φαντασία) addressed to the spectator” (1404a11). This notion of rhetorical speech as φαντασία is pivotal: the dominance of rhetoric in fourth-century tragedy was another device of spectacle, so to speak.55 However, whereas Aristotle expounds an imposing variety of stylistic devices likely to enrich an argument and render it more visible to the audience (metaphors, similes, connecting particles, the notion of dignity and propriety of style, rhythm, syntax, word order, imagery, apothegms, etc.), Aristotle suppresses as still ἀτεχνότερον (despite some attempts at systematisation), all other aspects of ὑπόκρισις, apart from controlling the voice, “the most mimetic of human organs” (1404a21), by managing

54

Cicero, for instance, expresses his aristocratic distaste for popular performance in Ad Fam. 7.1. But this, we must not forget, is a letter to Marius: slamming the bothersome parade of extras in Accius’ plays, as well as the rest of the spectacles Pompey set up for the crowds, is simply accentuating Pompey’s coarseness and susceptibility to bad counsellors. Yet, there is no denying that such entertainments popularem admirationem habuerunt. On popular entertainment in early imperial Rome, see Beacham 1999. 55 The famous distinction between fifth-century theatrical characters speaking πολιτικῶς and their fourth-century counterparts ῥητορικῶς is one of the conundrums of the Poetics (1450b4-8), but the dominance of rhetoric in postclassical tragedy is beyond doubt.

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µέγεθος (volume), ἁρµονία (tone/pitch), and ῥυθµός aptly πρὸς ἕκαστον πάθος (1403b26-36). Moving on to Quintilian, on the other hand, we find voice management, pronunciation and enunciation covering only one third of the chapter on actio (11.3.1-64). The other two thirds (11.3.65-184) are devoted to gesture, body management and dress. Quintilian connects a number of body signs with their common “ethical” readings, thus producing a sophisticated semiotics of actorial body language: he recognises nine different positions of the head (11.3.69-71); twelve misguided uses of the gaze (11.3.72-77); at least five different emotions signified by the eyebrows (11.3.78-79); seven indecorous uses of the nostrils (11.3.80) and ten of the lips (11.3.81); four ways in which the neck affects delivery (11.3.82); at least three ethical signifiers for the shoulders and arms (11.3.83-84). He even enumerates several ethical messages conveyed by clutching the fingers (11.3.92ff.). Suggestively, throughout this chapter: (a) Quintilian unfolds his advice on actio with constant parallel references to the mechanics of acting, indeed with masks (for instance, 11.3.73, 91, 111, 112), evidence that the insights produced in Institutio Oratoria were results of experimentation on the pulpitum as well as on the rostrum; (b) his association of body language with ethos squares very well with the physiognomic focus on φαίνεσθαι, which prevailed in Greek culture and art from the 4th c. BC and without a doubt informed the sculpting of the late-classical and Hellenistic theatrical mask (see below in this chapter). Whatever his personal embellishments to this exposition may have been, Quintilian is certainly the heir of three centuries’ worth of stylisation and codification in the art of ὑπόκρισις (cf. 11.3.106: veteres artifices), which invested every last particle of the written text with performative avatars, in a quest to make ἦθος and πάθος, i.e. the preconditions of πρᾶξις, readable on the visual level as well. The distance covered from Aristotle to Quintilian is very long indeed. Aristotle chose to see the rise of ὑπόκρισις as the poet’s relinquishing creative control and theatre’s succumbing to spectators other than the ἐπιεικεῖς. In fact, it may well be seen as the dawn of a new era, where visual cues were just as preponderant as words and where all the subtlety involved in structuring the spectacle precludes any suspicion of crudeness on the part of the audience. The rise of this new kind of actor,56 who so annoyed Aristotle and his peers (cf. Poet. 1461b26), was meteoric: a professional, highly trained, 56

The best starting points for studying ancient actors are Ghiron-Bistagne 1976, and Easterling & Hall 2002.

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specialised τεχνίτης, whose stage accomplishment is cashed out in celebrity and political office57, and who perhaps already by the end of the fourth century will be ‘unionised’, along with other theatre practitioners, in powerful, state-like organisations with unique privileges (οἱ περὶ τὸν ∆ιόνυσον τεχνῖται).58 The Dionysiac guilds were not actors-only clubs: they included practically all theatre practitioners, who vied for prizes in the festivals: protagonists and συναγωνισταί, χορευταί and χοροδιδάσκαλοι, musicians and, of course, poets. The very composition of the guilds can be seen as a token of a holistic new perception of theatre, which did away with the old pecking order. No longer regarded as sign of “decline”,59 this shift in theatrical hierarchies had been underway at least since the inception of actor prizes in the Dionysia at 449 BC. Before us are several evolutionary channels, whose trajectories may well cross, but we cannot pinpoint exactly how and where: the decline of the chorus (which shifted attention onto the skene),60 the actors shooting to stardom, and the performances becoming richer in visual signification involving both the apparatus scaenicus, acting, dancing, and other elements (pathetic motifs, rhetoric and music, to name but a few).61 Theatre evolves, for better or for worse, along the way engendering a correspondingly different theatrical culture. Another development concomitant with the rise of actor was the emergence of an “international” nexus of numerous new festivals comprising theatrical performances alongside other kinds of popular entertainment.62 The new festivals were dispersed all over the wider Greek 57

On actors as celebrities, see Easterling 2002; Garland 2006, 105-116. On the Dionysiac guilds see Aneziri 2003, with bibliography and an epigraphical appendix; also Le Guen 2001. For a Prosopography, see Stefanis 1988. 59 See the classic rebuttal of this now obsolete notion in Easterling 1993. Good discussions can also be found in Wallace 1995 and 1997; Le Guen 1995 and 2007. On the associated concept of the “death of the polis” and the exaggerated arguments for and against it, see now Ma 2008. Recent advocacies of theatrical “decline” and the “end of the polis” are Ghiron-Bistagne 1974 and Kuch 1993. 60 On the gradual sidelining of the chorus in fourth-century theatre, which, of course, does not imply that the chorus at large as a cultural institution waned during this period, see Capps 1895; Maidment 1935; Sifakis 1971a; Hunter 1979b; and Rothwell 1992. The attempt of Marshall 2002 to postulate a more active role for the chorus in Menander’s Dyskolos is speculative, but interesting. 61 On the supposed ills of “New Music”, which, championed first by Euripides and Agathon, swept the fourth century, the locus classicus is Plato Leg. 700a5ff. On New Music, see Csapo 2004. 62 Cf. Tarn and Griffith 31952, 113: “A complete list of the new Hellenistic festivals would fill a page”. 58

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world and were accruing steadily throughout the Hellenistic period. Although still resolutely religious and political occasions, in the sense that they are attached to particular cults and mostly serve some sort of ultimate purpose, they tend to claim τιµή (and other benefits) for the organisers (cities or Koina,63 sovereigns,64 or private εὐεργέται)65 rather than to function as focal points for the community in the spirit of classical Athens.66 Be that as it may, the festivals provided plentiful opportunities for all kinds of performances: new plays, revivals of old ones (tragedies, comedies, even satyr plays) in agonistic contexts or not, solo performances of extracts, public or private.67 The organisation, the quality and the renown of these festivals varied; all the same, strong evidence suggests that oftentimes they provided much more attractive prospects for the Artists of Dionysus than Athens itself. The actor Athenodorus, for instance, refused to appear in the Dionysia, for the sake of an appearance in the Athens-style ἀγών Alexander had set up in Tyre between the Kings of Cyprus (Plut. Alex. 29). The great procession of Ptolemy in Alexandria (Athen. 5.198c) far surpassed in grandeur the ποµπή of Athens. Furthermore, other festivals offered opportunities for exposure and monetary gain, the chief incentives of the Technitai, beyond any comparison with the still democratically-minded Great Dionysia: such were, for example, Alexander’s nine-day festival at Dion (Diod. 17.16.34); or the one at Ecbatana, where three thousand Greek Technitai took part (Plut. Alex. 72.1); and, of course, his proverbially sumptuous Wedding Feast at Susa, where Alexander was so extravagant in his δωρεαί that οἱ πρότερον καλούµενοι ∆ιονυσοκόλακες (an apparently derisive variant for the Artists of Dionysus) Ἀλεξανδροκόλακες ἐκλήθησαν (Athen. 12.538cff.). Compared to this, the Great Dionysia must have seemed rather pale. But for some structural changes,68 the establishment of a state-controlled 63

Such as in Delphi, Tanagra, Oropus, Euboea, Argos, Dodona, Samos, Thespiae, Delos, Cos, Magnesia, Miletus, Pergamum, etc. 64 Such as the Ptolemaia in Alexandria. 65 Cf. for instance, IG ix 1, 694, for a privately-organised Dionysia in Corcyra in 200 BC. 66 Complete studies of the festivals in Delos and Delphi, among the most important ones in this age, are offered by Sifakis 1967. 67 See Gentili 2006, esp. 37-72. 68 Performance of old tragedy (386, certainly from 341-339), old comedy (339/311) and old satyr play (before 254); contest of comic actors (between 329312); change of place for satyr play (one single play at the beginning of the festival); and change in the system of distributing actors to poet: the chief actor now performs one play of each poet.

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ἀγωνοθεσία in place of χορηγία (between 317-307)69 and the abolition of the θεωρικόν (estimated around 300 BC), the Dionysia remained fairly conservative. The “end of Athenocentrism” does not simply mean that Athens stopped being the only place where important theatre was made— because to a large extent this would be inaccurate even for the classical period; it must mean that Athens is not even necessarily the prime hub of great theatre any more, especially from the third century onwards, when the Dionysiac guilds increased enough in number, organisation and prestige to become practically the primum movens of Hellenistic theatrical activity. To conclude this section, we should glimpse at the new Hellenistic theatre building, one final novelty tied with the rise of the actor and the increase of ὄψις in prestige and sophistication. The so-called “proscenium theatre” with its high stage (occasionally, as high as 3.5 m) and the oblong λογεῖον (only 2-3 m deep) created a barrier between the orchestra and the skene and gave new prominence to on-stage happenings. The tapered acting space created the effect of a relief70 and accentuated the body of the actor on stage. The skene building, moreover, could be highly ornate with θυρώµατα bearing atmospheric paintings. It was also equipped with a whole assortment of machinery designed to enhance spectacle.71 Although this kind of theatre building appeared sporadically in the Greek world since the late fourth century and soon became the Panhellenic standard, it is hotly debated whether it was already present in Menander’s Athens. The argument seems to lean overwhelmingly in favour of the doubters, who argue that it was not until the 2nd, possibly even the 1st century BC, that Athens followed suit.72 If the advent of this proscenium theatre was indeed so late, this would be one further strong indication of how obstinately Athens clung to tradition amidst a rapidly altering theatrical (and political) universe.

69

Cf. Wilson 2000, 270-276; Latini 2003; and Summa 2003. Wiles 1991, 36. 71 On the use of such machinery in the fourth century see Pöhlmann 1995. 72 See, for instance, Pickard-Cambridge 1946, 134ff.; Bieber 1961, 108ff.; Townsend 1986; Polacco 1990; Moretti 2001; Gogos 2008, 69ff. There are, of course, still voices supporting the idea that the Theatre of Lycurgus had a raised stage: cf. Winter 1983; Wiles 1991, 38. But they seem to argue against the archaeological evidence, scant as that may be. 70

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A New Performance Medium (1): Standardisation, Hybridity, Referentiality We should bear in mind the possibility of such Athenian hesitancy, because (to borrow a chemistry term) the “amphoteric” climate in which Menander’s theatre grew accounts for a great deal of its peculiarities. Menander’s career (321-292 BC) lies at a junction. He looks both back at classical antecedents and forward to Hellenistic follow-ups. The elaborate nature of his performance text prefigures developments one can comfortably call “Hellenistic”. Nevertheless, we should not forget that if the “Hellenistic” was simply intimated, and can only be verified in retrospect, the presence of the Classical was still very physical. Old and new tendencies converge. Menander’s comedies, inasmuch as they premiered or were re-performed both in and out of Athens, may have been produced in both the old and the new type of theatre. The new system of masks, to name another example, had already taken a distinct shape, but it was clearly novel and perhaps still fictile. Alongside many “New Type” masks one could find a fair number of “Old Type” ones, deriving from the period of the Middle. The boundaries between “Middle” and “New” Comedy, after all, are not only porous, as literary-historical categories being conventional and heuristic always are, but substantially so. Such trademarks of Middle Comedy as ὀνοµαστὶ κωµῳδεῖν or topical references persisted, to a certain extent, in New Comedy as well. The same happened with plot types and stock characters, such as the cook, the parasite, the soldier, the servus callidus, etc., which never ceased to be popular, although their dramatic “genome” had already been mapped out completely before the advent of Menander and his coevals.73 Above all, however, the “Classical” was present on the stage of Menander in the sense that New Comedy was the product of an evolutionary oxymoron: on the one hand, comedy as a genre displayed a fair amount of continuity from Aristophanes to Menander;74 on the other hand, the formative pressure of tragedy is obvious and its penetration into Menander’s genre very deep. For all intents and purposes, New Comedy is a hybrid genre.75 It is precisely the way Menander juggles the constituents 73 Our understanding of Middle Comedy has deepened thanks to Webster 21970; Hunter 1983; Nesselrath 1990; Arnott 1996a; and Konstantakos 2000. See also Papachrysostomou 2008. 74 On comic continuities in the fourth century, see Arnott 1972; Arnott 1986; Csapo 2000. 75 The theory of “royal genres” and generic hybridisation was propounded by the Polish formalist Ireneusz Opacki, cf. Duff 2000, 118-126. By hybridisation, Duff

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of his genre which amounts to the “Hellenistic” character of his performance, and which renders a purely synchronic approach to his theatre potentially reductive. The formulation of a new performance medium by the time of Menander was predicated on two simultaneous and interlocking processes: standardisation and semiotisation. Starting with the former, these two processes will be the focus of the two following sections. Practical constraints do not allow us to discuss the complete arsenal of New Comedy signs in this chapter. We shall confine ourselves to the two semiotic systems, space and the mask, which most clearly of all evince the hybridity we postulate for the genre and the semantic significance thereof. Space and the mask are arguably the two material sign systems most foregrounded in the genre (the actor, of course, is always at the apex, the link between and the animator of them all).76 I suggest two reasons for this foregrounding. The first is functional. In a genre which revolves around relationships and the issue of status, spatial arrangements physicalise the tensions of the play. As regards the mask, in the kind of comedy which centres on the progression from ἦθος, i.e. moral predisposition, to προαίρεσις, moral choice, and finally to πρᾶξις, action, it is natural to focus on the sign carrying the greatest number of ethical clues and creating the greatest number of tensions between image and words, words and action, generic expectation and manifested behaviour, etc. The second reason is the dynamic referentiality of space and the mask, which emanates from the visible allusions they perform, either to tragedy or to other significant areas of reference. Whether non-verbal signs possess the

notes, “Opacki means not just the particular type of genre mixing for which Alastair Fowler reserves the term (Fowler 1982), but the many different kinds of cross-fertilisation, which occur when in the course of their historical development other genres enter into the sphere of influence of […] a ‘royal genre’”. This “royal genre” exerts transformative influence on the lesser genres hybridising them not by transplanting its subcodes directly but by creating a dominant literary trend, in which the “royal genre” is “the sum of its poetics”. Generic development is engendered through a natural development of re-evaluation and redistribution of those elements within the literary trend characteristic of the “royal genre”. What happens in due course is just the “canonisation of the junior branch”. This process seems particularly apt for the parallel development of tragedy and comedy in the period of the Mese. 76 On the notions of “foregrounding” and “semiotic hierarchy” in performance, see Elam 1980, 11ff., with references to the fundamental works of the Prague theorists (Mukařovský, Veltruský, etc.).

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ability “to refer to anything” used to be a controversial issue;77 however, few scholars doubt nowadays that this undervaluation of the nonverbal is simply a symptom of logocentrism in the semiotics of drama, and that nonverbal signs are connotative as much as they are denotative; that they, too, are repositories of theatrical memory and hence potential markers of allusion. We shall begin this discussion by referring to the standardisation of Menander’s performance medium and the semantic dynamism it generated. By ‘standardisation’ we refer to the process whereby New Comedy, via the intermediary Middle Comedy, crystallised standard systems of signs including: (a) structured parameters of plot, with defined actants and conventional resolutions;78 (b) stock character types, associated with typical costumes79 and premises of acting (movements, etc.);80 (c) specific genera of masks; (d) a new arrangement of space (theatrical, stage or dramatic space);81 (e) a steady number of no more than three actors82 and the marginalisation of the chorus. In most of the above cases, standardisation was effected through (or caused by) a shift from the relative semiotic fluidity of Aristophanes83 towards the practices of tragedy; standardisation ran parallel with hybridisation. Parody, we said above, may well have been the prime channel, whereby tragic structures 77

Cf. Issacharoff 1981, with the rebuttal of Edmunds 1992. On the New Comedy plot, see the structuralist analyses in Wiles 1991, 26ff.; and, mostly N. J. Lowe 2000. See also Webster 1973. 79 On New Comedy costume, see Wiles 1991, 188-208. 80 On acting in the fourth century, see Hughes 1991; Neiiendam 1992, 63-93; Green 1997 and 2002; Csapo 2002; Handley 2002a. 81 Categories as distinguished by Issacharoff 1981. Theatrical space refers to the architectural design; stage space, to the arrangement of the skene-building; and dramatic space to spaces created in and by the fictional world of the play, in which case it is subdivided into mimetic space (space visible to the audience) and diegetic space (space offstage). Edmunds 1992, 223 refines Issacharoff’s diegetic space subdividing it into space represented as “visible to the characters on stage but not to the spectators and space invisible to both the characters on stage and the spectators”. 82 On the three-actor rule in Menander, see: Rees 1910a and 1910b; Hourmouziades 1973; Sandbach 1975. 83 This fluidity was recently challenged by N. J. Lowe 2006 in a palinode to previous positions (Lowe 1987 and Lowe 1988). Lowe aims to show that (a) space is still “an important shaper of narrative and theme in Aristophanes as it is in tragedy”; and (b) that “for the most part [the uses of space in Aristophanes and tragedy] are far more similar than they are different”. Lowe is vindicated fully as regards the first goal. The second is rather overstated. 78

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and signifiers were initially transfused into comedy; but, reaching Menander, tragic elements are so deeply woven into the fabric of the genre that they can no longer be seen as extraneous intruders. This much is already well known. What is not emphatic enough in current scholarship is the allusive potential which resulted from standardisation, exactly because the latter was largely the end product of inter-generic osmosis. Menander’s comedy underlines affinities with tragedy constantly, juggling very creatively conventions, structures, types and archetypes: so to speak, it wears its bifurcated genealogy on its sleeve. Much of this dynamic polysemy is played out visually, just as much as verbally. Let us expand on that before we turn our attention to space. Discussion of Menander’s approach to tragedy has been extensive and enlightening. However, the conceptual filters most commonly evoked— “paratragedy”, “generic competition” or “subversion”,84 “metatheatre”,85 even such noncommittal terms as “usage”86 or “exploitation”87 (we can now discard the obsolete “influence” or “imitation”)88—suggestive as they may be of different facets of the phenomenon do not make full justice to the very newness of New Comedy. Playing with bathos or exposing the artificiality of conventions is something Menander certainly attempts on and off. Tragic intertextuality indeed occasionally creates a humorous effect of incongruity between situation and quotation (as in the Aspis). Elsewhere tragic reference opens up a rift between the tragic and the comic worlds, underlying comedy’s superior ability to access truth, knowledge and reality (as in the Samia); or it sets up a metatheatrical landscape, where the characters display their self-consciousness as figures of drama and actors on stage (for instance, in the arbitration scene in the Epitrepontes). But all these usages are more or less found in earlier comedy, too. Where, if anywhere, does the difference lie? In my view it lies here: for New Comedy, tragedy is no longer merely a “competitor”, but a genetic component, which provides possibilities of variation, innovation and ironic double play with a view to stratifying the plot and universalising its meaning. New Comedy does not confine itself to debunking tragedy. In terms of mega-structure, the genre largely urbanises 84

Hurst 1990; Iversen 1998. Stockert 1997; Gutzwiller 2000. 86 Katsouris 1975a. 87 Hunter 1985, 114ff. 88 E.g.: Sehrt 1912; Andrewes 1924; Davidson 1932. Two articles tie Menander and Euripides together in the even more inapt terms of “spiritual affinity”: Del Grande 1952 and Perusi 1953. 85

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and secularises narratives shaped by tragic µῦθος, overlaying an urban “superstratum” onto a mythical “substratum”, often with the crust being rather thin. This is a crucial point: far from being “realistic” or resulting from the “influence of real life”,89 New Comedy plots emanate from a primarily theatrical instigation. Tragic paradigms—not vaguely “myths”, but theatrical plots, complete with memories of (re)performance90—are integral to the genre. To put it briefly: tragedy seems to operate within New Comedy in ways comparable to the workings of epic myth in tragedy itself; i.e. as a precedent series of performed narratives possessing “sufficient gravity to hold the contemporary world within their orbit, creating a wide spatial field in which mythic and contemporary worlds could coexist” (Rush Rehm on myth in tragedy).91 New Comedy is inherently intertextual, as much as tragedy, and practically for the same reason—because the particular shape and emphases of both a tragic and a New Comedy plot is the product of variation (in New Comedy’s case, also, to a certain extent, urbanisation and secularisation) of known legendary material.92 Just like tragedy and myth, New Comedy and tragedy lie in constant interchange, on the levels of text, performance and reception of performance. Tragic paradigms often play in the background of the most mundane comic situations and can “obtrude” themselves upon scenes least suspect of intertextual over-determination. Herein, in this almost counter-intuitively thick theatrical texture, lies the allure of this hybrid genre. Let me suggest one, previously unnoticed, example from Menander’s Dyskolos. We should notice in this example that intertextual bridging is carried out by nonverbal as well as verbal pointers. In Dysk. 392 Sostratos decides to head towards Knemon’s fields. This is an alarming development: Sostratos is endorsing a course of action potentially threatening for his personal safety—to say nothing of its ruinous repercussions on the romantic plot. To meet Knemon face to face is nothing short of madness—or should we say µανία? At the point where Sostratos is the least “conducive to the fulfilment of the romance”,93 he is 89

Prescott (1917; 1918; and 1919) dissented significantly from the communis opinio of his times, when he asserted the continuity of Comedy. However, his denial of the role of tragedy was far too sweeping. 90 On the performance of παλαιαὶ τραγῳδίαι in the period of Menander, see Katsouris 1974; also Wagner 1995. 91 Rehm 2002, 30. 92 On the way myth becomes µῦθος in tragedy, see Burian 1997. 93 Zagagi 1994, 159.

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driven by Panic frenzy at the utmost. In the meantime, of course, Pan has taken steps to avert the “tragedy”: he sent a prophetic dream to Sostratos’ mother, which will soon bring her along with a sacrificial party to Phyle. This will cause Knemon to stay at home—but this is not yet known. Sostratos’ exit, leaving the stage empty for a moment,94 creates, always by comic standards, a sense of impending doom.95 The looming danger, the precarious, climactic moment, the presence of a divinity of possession, the woods and the wilderness: the parallelisms, as well as the reversals are such that the interplay between lines 345-392 and the famous “robing scene”96 in Euripides’ Bacchae 802ff. seems, to my mind, to invite itself. In that scene, Dionysus proposes to Pentheus that they should go out to the mountains, for Pentheus to see the Bacchants at work (the spectator will turn spectacle at his fall).97 In the Dyskolos, where the divinity acts through human agents, Gorgias and Daos propose that they and Sostratos should go out to Knemon’s field, for Sostratos to be seen by Knemon at work (Sostratos, now spectacle, will subsequently be spectator at Knemon’s literal fall!). In both cases, a shift is proposed from civilisation to the “wild”, to encounter the denizens of the wild. If Pentheus fails to see that his appearance near the Bacchants will be fatal to his life, Sostratos, too, “fails to see that his appearance [near Knemon] will be fatal to his chances”.98 Pentheus will be dismembered; Sostratos’ “dismemberment” is enacted in Daos’ imagination (Dysk. 366-367). The chorus in the Bacchae, too, visualises Pentheus’ sacrifice ante eventum (977-996). Analysed in detail, the two scenes are similar in structure: (a) Person A makes the proposal. Person B accepts the proposal with burning enthusiasm. When Dionysus mentions the plan (signalled by his famous interjection ἆ, Bacch. 810), Pentheus, fervent with µέγας ἔρως (Bacch. 813), cannot wait to follow the god’s lead: ἄγ’ ὡς τάχιστα, τοῦ χρόνου δέ σοι φθονῶ (Bacch. 820). Sostratos’ erotic exasperation takes the twist of a supplication (ἀλλ’, ἀντιβολῶ, συναγώνισαί µοι, Dysk. 362). The king would be willing to pay µυρίον...χρυσοῦ σταθµόν to see the 94

For as much time as was needed for the actors playing Daos and Gorgias to come back as Sikon and Getas respectively; a minimum interval, but long enough for the audience to take in what they have seen. For the whole question of the empty stage within acts, see Belardinelli 1990. 95 Notice, nonetheless, how the empty stage is immediately filled with the ebullience of a cook—“always a good omen”; Webster 1973, 296. 96 See Segal 1982, 223-232. 97 See Foley 1980, 122. 98 Handley 1965, 193.

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Bacchants (Bacch. 812). Sostratos is “twice as eager” to have himself seen by Knemon, when Gorgias tries to talk sense into him: οἷς ἀποτρέπεις νυνὶ γὰρ ὡς οἴει µε σύ, / τούτοις παρώξυµµ’ εἰς τὸ πρᾶγµα διπλασίως (Dysk. 382-3). He, too, places himself completely in Gorgias’ hands: βαδίζειν ἕτοιµος οἷ λέγεις (Dysk. 361). In fact, he is so carried away that he repeats his exhortation twice: προάγωµεν οἷ λέγεις, Dysk. 363). (b) Person A problematises his proposal making sure that Person B has all his facts laid out before him before getting into the venture. Dionysus first wants to know why Pentheus wants to go through with this (τί δ’ εἰς ἔρωτα τοῦδε πέπτωκας µέγαν; Bacch. 813). Then, he wants to make sure Pentheus is willing to put himself through grief: “are you sure you would make a sweet spectacle out of what would cause you bitter pain?” (ὅµως δ’ ἴδοις ἂν ἡδέως ἅ σοι πικρά; 815). In the Dyskolos, Daos (if Sandbach’s attribution is correct), with a surprised τί οὖν wants to make sure he understood what Sostratos is saying (Dysk. 363-364). Then Gorgias asks: “why do you force yourself to endure hardship?” (τί κακοπαθεῖν σαὐτὸν βιάζει; Dysk. 371).99 Pentheus has to realise that he runs the risk to be discovered and put to death: ἀλλ’ ἐξιχνεύσουσίν σε, κἂν ἔλθῃς λάθρᾳ (Bacch. 817). Correspondingly, Sostratos will definitely have to suffer clod bombardment and a torrent of abuse. (c) The dangers can be allayed if Person B follows Person A’s instructions and accepts to be disguised. Dionysus asks Pentheus to remove his royal gown and put on a woman’s dress (Bacch. 821, 828); lose the scepter in favour of the θύρσος (Bacch. 835). Sostratos will have to remove his urban χλανίς and put on a farmer’s διφθέρα, lose all his urban paraphernalia in favour of the rustic δίκελλα (Dysk. 375). There is some disagreement among scholars whether or not the change of costume in the Dyskolos takes place on stage.100 However, I believe this is exactly the sort of pregnant “inter-visuality” that Menander would not have resisted. Part of Sostratos’ disguise certainly happens onstage: there is no reason why Daos should repair the αἱµασιά first and not exit with the two youths to the fields right away other than for the exchange of the δίκελλα to actually happen in the eyes of the audience. Why then not the whole 99

Handley 1965, 195, wants Gorgias to address this question to Daos rather than Sostratos. Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 191, believe the addressee is Sostratos, but the remark is an aside. There is no dramatic need for an answer, however: Gorgias had made the same remark to Sostratos in 348 and got his answer there: for Sostratos this is not κακοπαθεῖν if he ends up having his girl (349). 100 The editio princeps, Stoessl 1965, 105-106, and Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 191, maintain that Sostratos’ change of costume takes place on stage. Handley 1965, 193ff. finds this “attractive”.

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thing? The audience has to see the incongruity of an elegant city boy holding the heavy mattock (Dysk. 390-392), just like the audience of the Bacchae should see the virile king change into female attire. This would truly be a piquant piece of spectacle. The divergences between the two scenes are equally suggestive. The terrible power of the Bacchae-scene relies on the unequivocal hierarchy of dominant and dominated. This clear pecking order is absent from the Dyskolos: here, it is well-nigh impossible, eventually, to distinguish if Sostratos is following Gorgias’ cue, if the move is his own idea or if both youths succumb to the wiles of the slave Daos.101 At 352-357 Gorgias suggests approaching Knemon as a non-option of sorts, which would prove to Sostratos that his aspirations are pure daydreaming. Sostratos’ fervour, however, transforms Gorgias’ casual thought into a course of action, finally put into words by Daos (if the OCT’s line attribution is correct). The Dyskolos transforms the element of trickery found in the Bacchae into a hilarious mutual entrapment of the comic agents, who seem to rush headlong al bucco di lupo. The undercurrent of Panic possession cannot be underestimated here. In the Dyskolos, as in the Bacchae, there is a divine force pushing εἰς ὄρος εἰς ὄρος (Bacch. 116). Comic resolution, of course, is predestined, when Sostratos moves towards the “beast” and, in the same time, the “beast” moves away from Sostratos. A central theme of the Dyskolos, αὐτάρκεια, is also not unrelated to the Bacchae. In the Bacchae, according to Seaford,102 Dionysus is the force that allays the household’s tendency towards self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια) and self-isolation in favour of the communality of the ἄστυ. David Konstan has seen Sostratos’ love, inspired by Pan, as the manifestation of the same integrating force,103 only not through destruction but through marriage. Destruction needs the beast at large; marriage demands it at bay. Dionysus unleashes the beasts on Pentheus. Pan sees to it, that the ‘beast’ is locked in his nest.104 The Bacchae-intertext brings together Knemon and the Bacchants in the paradigm of the “beast out there”. This is indeed an intricate way to conjure up all at once the terror that is Knemon and the blessing that is Pan. 101

Daos does not intend to harm Sostratos, but he certainly does not wish him well either: he hopes Sostratos will be crippled enough by hard work to leave them alone (Dysk. 371-374). 102 Seaford 1993. 103 Konstan 1995, 99. 104 It may be relevant to remember that a bewildered Congrio describes Euclio’s house in Plautus’ Aulularia as Bacchanal (Aul. 406-412). For the similarities between Euclio and Knemon, see Marcovich 1977 and Hunter 1981.

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The structures New Comedy has come to share with tragedy through a long process of cross-pollination have indeed created, for New Comedy, a hybrid world where the boundaries between the urban and the mythical are diaphanous. To miss this would be to reduce New Comedy to a unidimensional cardboard of its true self. Let us now turn more specifically to space and standardisation. Tragic intertextuality is especially expedient in the purview of this discussion, since space is, arguably, the one single semiotic category in which New Comedy’s shift towards tragic practice is more explicit. In his recent discussion of Aristophanic space, Nick Lowe juxtaposed the practices of Old Comedy and fifth-century tragedy.105 Adapting Lowe’s diagram we can set New Comedy’s position as follows: OLD COMEDY

TRAGEDY

NEW COMEDY

Scene-changes permitted but rare, and overwhelmingly confined to prologue

Scene-changes (almost) prohibited

Adopts tragic model

Identity of skene flexible and sometimes anonymous

Identity of skene constant

Adopts tragic model. Skene representing mostly urban surroundings; only exceptionally non-urban106

Location established in prologue or parodos

Location established in prologue

Adopts tragic model. Locations often very specific and naturalistic

Eisodoi access terrestrial or supernal/infernal offstage spaces

Eisodoi access terrestrial offstage spaces

Adopts tragic model. Close attention to topographical detail

Eisodoi not clearly distinguished

Eisodoi identified with opposite offstage locations

Adopts tragic model. Intricate plotting of offstage time-space. Identification of left/right parodoi with city/country is nonuniversal. Apparently common use of περίακτοι and σκηναί (representational scenery)

105

N. J. Lowe 2006, 63. Like, for instance, in Menander’s Leukadia or Plautus’ Rudens. Even country settings are residential in nature. 106

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Machinery more casually used

Machinery used with restraint

Adopts classical tragic model Use of ekkyklema common; of µηχανή, exceptional. Use of machinery in contemporary tragedy much more extensive

Sometimes more than one door (?)

One door only (?)

Akin with 4th-century tragic model.107 Three-door system; though central door on occasion unassigned and unlocalised. Exit and entrance motifs elaborated

Location and ownership of door can be uncoupled

Location and ownership of door intertwined

Adopts tragic model. Side doors opposed and symbolically overdetermined

Door/orchestra refocusing persists

Door/orchestra refocusing resisted

Adopts 4th-century tragic model. Gradually abandons orchestra as performance space for actors

Irrespective of the aforementioned archaeological uncertainties as regards the Theatre of Lycurgus, it is clear that spatial conventions in Menander have converged with those of postclassical tragedy. New Comedy’s recognisable urban milieu, for example, occasionally allows a playwright, such as Menander in the Dyskolos, to relish in minute topographical detail and to naturalistically map out on- and offstage locales.108 The handling of time is correspondingly intricate, as the plot unfolds usually within a time-scale of a single day.109 Attention is given to 107

In tragedy the central door is the domain of the protagonist, whereas the right door houses the δευτεραγωνιστής. Pollux 4.124, suggests that, contrary to the practices of comedy, in tragedy the left door was oftentimes underused or unassigned. 108 Full discussion in N. J. Lowe 1987. Some good points are also made by Hoffmann 1986. 109 Cf. the metatheatrical joke in Dysk. 187-8: πόλλ’ ἐν ἡµέρᾳ µιᾷ / γένοιτ’ ἄν. There is only one known exception, Terence’s Heautontimorumenos, which extends overnight.

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time markers; and “empty stages” (instances where no actor occupies the stage) or act intervals (with their choral interludes) are used to simulate, albeit less strictly and realistically, the passage of offstage time.110 Time before and time after the play is occasionally charted very clearly as well. However, the greatest symbolic cache as regards Menandrian space lies at the doors and their placement on the left-right axes, as well as in the focal centre of the skene. Doors are indexes (or metonymies) of households and often even symbols of individual characters (like Knemon).111 Symbolic antithesis, sometimes symmetrical, between the doors (one household being the mirror image of the other) must have been visually observable in relevant plays with the use of the περίακτοι and the σκηναί (stage-level panels representing scenery).112 Such painted tableaus connect the doors also with their corresponding offstage spaces. Spatial symbolisms, especially the contrast between the doors, materialise the moral and political stakes of the plot. This degree of sophistication seems truly new, although Menander may be taking cues from fourth-century tragedy. Parallelisms between tragedy and comedy, in terms of the symbolic use of space, become visually starker on the new, permanent stone skene of the fourth century: thus, convergence in practice may become a vehicle of allusion. Let us take the central door, for instance. The scale of this central door, plainly non-domestic, stands out. Its significance as a locus of reconciliation between the clashing households is major and has been duly noted.113 Nevertheless, this cannot exhaust its theatrical utility. The monumental central door of New Comedy is inevitably reminiscent of its larger-than-(urban) life parallel usage in tragedy. This is more evident in the cases where the door is firmly localised, e.g. in the Dyskolos. Localisation creates associations, and these associations can sometimes be shown to evoke intertexts. The focus of comedy may indeed fall on the left-right axis,114 but it is often the central door that serves as an indicator that New Comedy space, too, is stratified. Much like the plot, space, too, enjoys a twofold level of existence: urban and mythical, contextual and intertextual. A “real-life” grotto of Pan in Phyle cannot easily be dissociated from the analogous mythical grottoes, where so much happened in so many tragedies, whose µῦθοι are paradigmatic of the comic plot. Inasmuch as space, too, energises associations with mythological (i.e. tragic) paradigms, it projects itself to the level of the 110

On the time-scale of Menander’s plays, see Arnott 1987. Traill 2001. 112 On representational scenery in New Comedy, see Wiles 1991, 41-43. 113 Wiles 1991, 46. 114 Wiles 1991, 45. 111

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mythical. Space, too, can be referential. New Comedy plots tread on archetypes; similarly, the space in which they unfold is, as it were, preoccupied, pre-inhabited. The example that follows is again from the Dyskolos. In Dyskolos, Act I, lines 189ff. Knemon’s daughter, distraught and terrified, comes out carrying a water jug and prepares to enter Pan’s cave to fetch water for her cantankerous father. Sostratos meets her at the entrance of the Nymphaion and offers to relieve her from the task. The scene, “whose strict metre and elevated language are vividly tragic”,115 caused scholars, with good reason, to suspect allusion to Euripides’ Electra, 54ff.116 It can be demonstrated again that the intertextual markers are no less spatial than textual. There is certainly a lot more to the theatrical texture here than has been acknowledged. A common dramatic purpose (plotting), but also a common set of movements on the part of the actors (kinesics), plus the stark image of the unduly impoverished female protagonists tie the initial bond between the scenes. In Euripides’ play, Electra, herself visibly distraught—her hair is shorn in mourning—carrying a jug and looking like a peasant girl or a slave (Elec. 104), heads towards the river, again to fetch water, supposedly for her household’s needs (Elec. 71-76), but in fact in order to expose Aegisthus’ hubris (Elec. 57-58). In a similar way Knemon becomes liable to Daos’ censure in Dysk. 218ff. for neglecting his daughter. Electra, too, like Knemon’s daughter, is soon joined on her way to the river by the husband Aegisthus has forced upon her: a common αὐτουργός, who has nevertheless behaved nobly respecting her virginity and status. The αὐτουργός, like Sostratos (who later will pretend to be an αὐτουργός), offers to take Electra’s place, since the task is beneath a princess (Elec. 6466). In both plays the consequential space is lying offstage; only Menander has turned Euripides’ “distant space” into “extra-scenic”,117 indexically suggested by the central door. The alteration, we shall see, is momentous. Menander’s scene, as expected, performs a number of reversals with reference to the Euripidean: in fact, Menander has “reshuffled” the Electra roles in such a way as to turn Euripides on his head. Scholars sceptical of allusion at this point usually note that the αὐτουργός corresponds to the rustic Gorgias, not Sostratos. But this is missing 115

Frost 1988, 44. Handley 1965, 164; Katsouris 1975a, 120ff. Handley 2002b casts a wider glance on the motif of fetching water from springs, with emphasis on the scene in Plautus’ Rudens. 117 On this terminology of spatial categories, see Rehm 2002, 20-25. 116

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precisely the point of Menander’s comic twist. When the Daughter makes an Electra-like entrance, the audience expects a mirror of the αὐτουργός. Ironically, it is not Gorgias, but Sostratos, a pampered urban fop, who comes forth. In a brilliant comic twist, the hardy farmer of Euripides has become a city cockscomb. Likewise, Knemon’s daughter has turned the tables on Electra. The daughter’s dire need is absent in the self-demeaning princess. If Electra’s moans constitute a form of protest, the daughter’s are a gesture of powerlessness and despair. Contrast Electra’s adamant refusal to accept help with the daughter’s almost unseemly eagerness; Electra’s “sexual prurience”118 with the daughter’s purity and naiveté: in Menander, the steely, resolute royal in a peasant’s attire has become a genuinely helpless, frail countrywoman. The crucial interpretive key, however, is this: Menander has reversed the status and thus the balance of power between the male and the female characters in the two plays. The social gap in favour of the female, which ensured her chastity in Euripides, has now been overturned in favour of the male. Space is of essence in stamping out the meaning here. We cannot know what spatial adjustments, if any, would have to be made in restaging Electra in the three-door Theatre of Lycurgus. Would Electra still enter from the central door, as in the fifth-century play (where only one door may have been available)? And what would that door look like? In the fourth century, a central entrance would be a stark incongruity, of the sort that Electra herself incarnates in this play. In any case, Electra’s Dyskolosdouble has undoubtedly been relegated to the margins (stage right). The audience also cannot be oblivious to the fact that whereas Electra, as part, belongs firmly to Euripides’ protagonist, Knemon’s Daughter is most probably the tritagonist’s leftover. This simple shift of power in Menander from the female to the male is enough to create an aura of “danger” in the Dyskolos-scene. This is not unrelated to the symbolism of water and its common magical associations with precarious (sexual) encounters. This symbolism is reinforced in the Dyskolos by another vital spatial change: the substitution of the distant, absent river for the commanding, charged presence of the grotto of Pan. This crucial change of setting is yet another visual reminder that Pan’s symbolic leverage in the Dyskolos is never to be underrated. From the intertextual point of view, substituting Electra’s river with Pan’s grotto is a gesture of “contamination” with reference to the Electramodel, as the grotto carries its own distinct allusiveness into Menander’s theatrical landscape. The allusive voice in the background is crossed with 118

Rehm 2002, 194.

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a second voice, thus triangulating the theatricality of the scene. The grotto of Pan is playing a part in one of Athens’ great foundational myths dramatised by Euripides in his Ion. In the Ion, Pan’s grotto was a centrepiece in a story of violence turned blessing, but not before oscillating dangerously on the verge of total catastrophe. It was the stage of a characteristically Panic feat, the rape of a powerless mortal by an allconsuming god. It should be obvious how Menander “contaminates” the Electra-intertext with his cunning employment of status reversal and stage setting. Menander’s reversal of the status balance in favour of Sostratos, and the danger it notionally creates for Knemon’s Daughter, pertains clearly to the dynamics of the Ion, not the Electra. At the same time, what in the Ion was a feature of the extra-scenic space (and the past)—the grotto of Pan does not feature on stage—is here transformed into the focal point of Menander’s performance: it becomes imminently present. Nothing vindicates more fully the referentiality of Menander’s space than this presence. Two intertexts, two contrasting dynamics of character interaction: the way Menander has re-mastered the Electra has produced, by way of “contamination”, not one, but two models of action. Barrett’s supplement τί δρῶ in 194,119 an echo of the famous “tragic question”, would capture the moment of dramatic indecisiveness between an unconquerable carnal urge (ἄµαχος, 193), and a simultaneous, opposite-driving awe for the girl’s beauty (201). The choice of adjective to describe this beauty, ἐλευθέριος, “pertaining to a free woman”, is not gratuitous: it is expressive of Sostratos’ attraction to a course of action he knows is taboo. Characteristically, Sostratos’ quandary is couched as a choice not simply between two moral alternatives but also between two plays: the Electra, on the one hand (respecting the girl’s virginity and safe-guarding her marriability); the Ion, on the other (raping the girl inside the grotto of Pan). Daos’ irate tantrum at the end of this scene (218ff.) indicates that the latter option, in a space bursting with theatrical memory, is (humorously) not inconceivable! Let us examine the kinesics of this scene with the Euripidean intertexts in mind. Playing Electra warrants divergence between Sostratos and the girl: Knemon’s daughter enters the cave and fills the jug by herself; Sostratos either leaves, as Euripides’ farmer did (Sostratos was already setting off towards the city, that is to the audience’s right, to find Getas, 181-182), or passively waits for her outside. Playing the Ion, on the 119

Sandbach’s OCT (1992) prints Barigazzi’s [Barigazzi et al. (1970)] ἄνδρε[ς τέρας (“man, what a prodigy!”), an equally plausible reiteration of Sostratos’ amazement in front of the girl’s astounding beauty.

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contrary, requires convergence: the Daughter enters Pan’s cave; Sostratos follows her inside; all hell breaks loose. Sostratos’ actual choice explores the middle ground between the aggressive activity of the Ion-role and the hands-off passivity of the Electra-role. He enters Pan’s grotto and he fills the jug. Sostratos does not contradict Pan; it is as if the same “automatic attraction” as in 575 pulls him inside: ἕλκ]ει δέ µ’ αὐτόµατον τὸ πρᾶγµ’ εἰς τὸν τόπον. Simultaneously, however, by virtue of an opposite power, he explicitly asks the girl to wait outside, thus preventing his future bride from entering the world of extramarital, centrifugal sexuality. We have every reason to believe that in terms of proxemics the final convergence of boy and girl after the filling of the jug (211) must have been off-centred. Knemon’s daughter can be imagined as moving anxiously back and forth as she waits for Sostratos’ return. When she hears the door creaking in 204-206, she must be heading back towards her house on stage right (this would put some distance between her and Daos, who comes out from Gorgias’ house on stage left, ensuring the minimum semblance of realism Menander needs). It is thus most probably at midpoint between Knemon’s house and Pan’s grotto that Sostratos catches up with her again. This off-centred staging is semiotically powerful. It is a movement away from Pan but still by Pan’s side, beside but not inside Pan’s realm. It is a convergence brought about by the sexual energy of Pan but lying outside Pan’s un-civic sexuality. The Dyskolos has contracted, in a way, the kinesics of the two Euripidean plays in the background: the divergence of the Electra guaranteed perennial non-marriage. The convergence of the Ion would inflict Panic marriage (rape), the δύστηνον (Ion, 941), πικρῶν γάµων ὕβριν (Ion, 506) that the god only knows. In the Dyskolos, an initial divergence (Sostratos inside, Κόρη outside) brings about a final convergence (Sostratos meets the girl in front of her father’s house), away from Pan: this safeguards the possibility of citizen marriage. All in all, the example of this Dyskolos-scene shows how space can serve as another indicator of intertextual “energy” on the New Comedy stage.

A New Performance Medium (2): the Mask Nonetheless, for all the imposing presence and the referentiality of space, the most polyvalent means of constructing visual (and intervisual) meaning in New Comedy performance is the mask. David Wiles has demonstrated how New Comedy masks make sense syntagmatically, by

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way of significant differentials.120 The masks play off each other on stage and need to be “read” in contrasting pairs.121 Complementing, not contradicting, this argument here, one must bring to bear the underlying stipulation of this chapter, that to understand New Comedy, hence its mask, fully, one must reckon with the historical process which determined its making. The overdetermined nature of the mask is part and parcel of the genre’s discourse. The mask shows eloquently how the processes of standardisation, hybridisation and semiotisation converge. We must not overlook the resulting multilayered-ness of the New Comedy πρόσωπον. To understand the making of Menander’s mask, we need to reckon with two contemporary processes, launched by the end of the fifth century: (a) the move from the diverse, relatively fluid mask system of Old Comedy, which rested on more or less hapax masks, to the crystallisation of forty-four or so specific mask types falling into four (or five) distinct genera: nine masks of old men, eleven of young men, seven masks of slaves, three of old women, and fourteen of young women; (b) the evolution from the “neutral” mask of fifth-century tragedy, a minimalist face with a minimum of standard forms, to the typed “expressive” mask, which prevailed from the fourth century onwards and was distinguished by the conspicuous expression of πάθος as well as ἦθος.122 It is this “inward”, semiotised mask we encounter in Menander. Let us discuss these developments in turn. Old Comedy masks were grotesque caricatures,123 perhaps even “portrait-masks” of the real-life individuals debunked in the play.124 Typification was already underway at the end of the fifth century, as 120

Wiles 1991, 188-208. See also Petrides 2005a, 66-106, especially the example regarding the interplay between the soldier mask (πρῶτος ἐπίσειστος) and the masks of the parasite and the κόλαξ. 122 On the “neutral” mask of classical tragedy, cf. Wiles 2000, 148-149. Marshall 1999 posited some standardisation in fifth-century tragic masks. Marshall arrives at six basic mask types: Old Man, Mature Man, and Young Man (all of whom have dark faces and are distinguished by their beards—the ἔφηβος has none); and Old Woman, Mature Woman, Young Woman, all of whom have pale complexions and are differentiated by their hair. Marshall’s categories, of course, are genera rather than types proper. On the twenty-eight mask types of post-classical tragedy and the ἔσκευα πρόσωπα, see Pollux 4.133-142. 123 Pollux 4.143; ΣV on Ar. Nu. 146; Ael. VH. 2.13; Platonius Diff. Com. ll. 69-81 Perusino, etc. 124 The historicity of the “portrait-mask”, of course, is problematic: see Dover 1967. 121

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shown by the famous New York group of terracotta figurines (from the Athenian agora, dating around 400 BC).125 The mask types on these figurines expose the overlap between the mythological spoof and the domestic comedy of intrigue, which is so crucial for understanding the making of Menander’s mask.126 It should not be controversial to assert that the standardisation of the comic mask system in the fourth century must be related to comedy’s attempt to transcend the episodic character of the Old Comic mode, to tell a continuous story deploying a limited repertory of actantial roles and following plotting requirements as later encoded in Aristotle’s Poetics. Such transcendence, as mentioned above, was achieved either by extending the scope of tragic parody to the level of whole plots (as in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousae), and/or by privileging an “alternative” branch of comedy, apparently flourishing already in the fifth century, a comedy of λόγοι and µῦθοι (Arist. Poet. 1449b7-9) associated with Aristophanes’ contemporary, Crates. Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros is an example. The papyrus hypothesis (P.Oxy 663) offers glimpses of a continuous narrative structure, a µῦθος, which disguises, very thinly, topical political discourse with allusive mythological parody. The presence of a chorus of satyrs and a number of other motifs linked to satyr play reinforce a definite sense of generic hybridity. Above all, Dionysalexandros already displays the standard recipe of tragicomoedia, a comedy in which characters of tragic grandeur, “reges… et di” (Plaut. Amph. 61), performed ridiculous antics and donned comic, perhaps grotesque, masks and indecent costumes. It is only natural to assume that such novel requirements of plotting demanded analogous readjustments on the level of ὄψις. The scarcity of evidence does not allow one to pinpoint straightforward continuities or specific formative exchanges between the tragic (or the satyric) and the comic mask systems. The particulars ought to remain speculative; but in some cases we can at least see the results on display. In the case of youths and maidens, an idealised face became the staple of comic lovers, to the effect, for instance, that, save the ὄγκος, comic and tragic masks of young men soon become practically indistinguishable: in iconographic terms at least, the difference between tragic and comic youth masks soon became, in most cases, quantitative, a matter of observing the presence or absence 125

See Webster 1960, 266-268; Green 1994, 34-37, 65-67. On the poetics of the Old Comedy mask, see Wiles 2008, with discussion of Webster’s and Green’s attempts for taxonomy. 126 On the masks of Middle Comedy, see MIMC3, 13-28. The possible lines of evolution between Middle Comedy and New Comedy masks are summarised for each particular type in MINC3 vol. 1, 9-51.

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of ὄγκος. In more extreme cases, identification rests on the archaeological context and confusion is not infrequent. To gauge the effect on stage of such visual contiguity between tragic and comic masks, we can remind ourselves here of the example which opened this chapter: a comic mask reminiscent of the tragic κούριµος παρθένος ushers in a whole nexus of paradigmatic theatrical moments; it becomes “inter-visual”. As a matter of course, the historical process which makes the mask also makes (part of) its theatrical function. This, I think, is a tenable inference. In other cases, satyr play seems to have informed comic masks to the effect of well-nigh merging comic and satyric iconography. Enough has been written already about the possible satyric aspects of the comic slave.127 Another notable case is the mask of the πορνοβοσκός. Plautus’ Rudens, 317-319, is an ekphrasis of the pimp Labrax: the similarities with Pollux’s description of the Pimp mask are uncanny.128 What is most unusual, though, in Plautus’ passage, but often goes unnoticed, is that it acknowledges explicitly the iconographic provenance of this gluttonous and licentious physiognomy: Labrax, says Trachalio, is a Silenus senex (= Παπποσιληνός!). The reference certainly has the touch of comic hyperbole, but specimens of the Pimp mask (from Lipari and elsewhere) show clearly that the connection is in fact archaeologically accurate, and further complement the characteristically satyric snub nose and protruding eyes. The villainous Labrax wears a Silenus-like mask while playing a role with possible references to a specific satyr play where Silenus seems to be the villain, Aeschylus’ Diktyoulkoi.129 The mask itself, here as often elsewhere, signals the intertextual game in broad terms. In yet more sophisticated cases, even in the absence of tangible visual continuity between comic and tragic masks, such could be constructed on the level of narrative: a case in point is Menander’s Sikyonios, 120ff. Pyrrhias scurries onto the stage to break what he perceives to be disastrous news (127-129). Like his namesake in the Dyskolos, he has the function and probably the mask of a typical comic servus currens (διὰ σπουδῆς βαδίζων, 124).130 Nonetheless, his intrinsically comic function is informed 127

See Wiles 1988, and Wiles 1991, 102, 155; Petrides forthcoming. Pollux 4.145, gives the Pimp: a baldhead, long beard, curled lips and contracted eyebrows suggesting meddlesomeness. Labrax is a recalvom… senem. His eyebrows are tortis and his forehead is contracta, suggesting that he is fraudulentus and probri plenus. Plautus’ passage was associated with Pollux already by Robert 1911. 129 See Sutton 1978. 130 Csapo 1987 and 1989, successfully challenge earlier notions that the type was more Roman than Greek. 128

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by verbal pointers to the tragic associations of his role: compare Sik. 124: καὶ σκυθρωπὸς ἔρχεται to Eur. Hipp. 1152: σπουδῇ σκυθρωπὸν πρὸς δόµους ὁρµώµενον or Phoen. 1333: σκυθρωπὸν ὄµµα καὶ πρόσωπον ἀγγέλου. No mask of a comic slave is actually σκυθρωπός (although the πυρρός-haired Leading Slave συνάγει τὸ ἐπισκύνιον, Pollux, 4.149), but an impression of gloominess could be created if the actor displayed the mask at the right angle. Pyrrhias’ mask is branded with the ethos of tragedy: his is a crossbreed role initiating an equally crossbreed scene. The following point has been overlooked. There is an apparent similarity of situation between Sik. 120ff. and Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, 924ff. This is the locus classicus of an ἀγγελικὴ ῥῆσις eliciting a roller-coaster of sorrow and delight. In both passages, a messenger, who arrives suddenly and unexpectedly,131 breaks the news to a son that one of his parents is no longer alive, but that he was not his/her child after all. Further revelations are reserved for later, but the road is now paved, albeit still unbeknownst to the son, for him to be rehabilitated into his paternal city, with all the attendant consequences. A third party—Jocasta in Sophocles, Theron in Menander—witnesses the messenger’s announcement and underscores its ironies. Both these personae react with various degrees of delight to the news, as soon as its corollaries for the sons involved are made, to their minds, clear (Sik. 131-133 with OT 977-983); but, although Theron’s predictions will be verified apparently to the last detail of his marrying Malthake, Jocasta is sorely off the mark. It is a token of Menander’s subversive irony that he chose to underpin a scene of genuine triumph with the paradigm of self-destructive delusion of triumph. The tragic intertext is displaced, “ambushed”; as usual, intertextual overdetermination rests on correspondence that is incomplete, as incomplete is the assimilation of the tragic messenger into the comic servus currens. In Greek theatre generic experimentation was facilitated by the institutional nature of genre. However closely Euripides’ Helen could resemble a romantic comedy, however far Philemon’s seria were pushed usque ad coturnum (Philemon, test. 7 K.-A.), it was their niche in the competition that clinched their character as comedy and tragedy. Context is the lynchpin that holds together protean genres like comedy.132 Fourthcentury playwrights particularly took full advantage of this idiom of Athenian theatrical culture. Generic boundaries could be attacked with impunity, as long as institutional barriers remained un-breached. Masks 131

Stratophanes had apparently sent Pyrrhias to his foster-parents, to announce their safe return from abroad (Caria?), but “his return is unexpected”, cf. Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 641. 132 On the issue, see Silk 2000, 68-69.

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worked in similar ways. Menander’s masks remain undeniably comic, but on stage, deploying their iconographic hybridity, they perform their own allusiveness. We should never forget, however, that the comic actor’s body may have relinquished the excessive padding and of course the phallus, but it still remained rather too down-to-earth to be equated with the heroes of myth. The costume is urban, the proportions are relatively realistic and, if we give credence to the figurines, rather to the portly side. Body and mask form a continuum in New Comedy, too. This continuum constitutes a form of generic red line: “vertical” (paradigmatic) readings of New Comedy performance should only be pushed so far. Hybridity, after all, should be a heuristic term underlying the integrality of the tragic intertext in New Comedy; it is employed with reference to what preceded and not what followed (e.g. in the Renaissance). Hence, standardisation of the mask, too, like of space, went hand-inhand with hybridisation. It can easily be shown that also concomitant was semiotisation, the process whereby theatre avoids the presence of inert objects on stage (“redundancy”) by assigning an “overriding signifying power”133 to everything displayed thereon. Such semiotisation affected mostly the facial features of the mask. Crystallisation of types and semiotic readjustment are allied in fourthcentury theatre: the development of the ὄγκος on the tragic mask (from the later 5th c. onwards) is a case in point. Despite many ancient and modern derogatory remarks about its utility and significance, the ὄγκος, a crucial differential in Pollux’s catalogue, was, first of all, a classificatory principle: the ὄγκος seems to have been a marker of status, differentiating ‘major’ characters with high ὄγκος (e.g. µέλας ἀνήρ or οὖλος νεανίσκος) from ‘lower’ characters with low ὄγκος (e.g. λευκὸς ἀνήρ),134 and from choristers with no ὄγκος at all. Alternatively (or additionally), the ὄγκος may have helped gauge a character’s dramatic consequence: messengers, such as the σφηνοπώγων and the ἀνάσιλλος, although classified among the slaves, are both ὑπέρογκοι. The ὄγκος, that is, categorises the masks and, at the same time, contributes to semiotising this categorisation: the lambda-shaped extension of the hair, which gives an air of magnificence and grandeur, concretises and quantifies the power relations and dramatic dynamics of fourth-century tragedy in clear visual terms. One usually thinks of standardisation simply as the configuration of typical masks for typical characters; what the example of the ὄγκος shows, though, is that 133

Elam 1980, 5. Women have short or no ὄγκος, although some compensation was offered by their elaborate hairdos. 134

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standardisation also entails the formulation of a comprehensive set of visual cues. Standardisation and semiotisation are contiguous processes, historically as well as functionally. The significant change effected in New Comedy (perhaps in contemporary tragedy, too) is that elements of opsis previously simply iconic now shift into a more meaningfully indexical or even symbolic function. The facial features of the mask—there is little credible doubt—are now heavily overdetermined by Physiognomics. The movement of the eyebrow on the forehead can now signify anything between meddlesomeness and flattery, arrogance or smugness, naiveté or moroseness;135 an oxenlike nose shows despondence; an eagle-like nose, magnanimity; a snub nose, lust; a hooked nose, shamelessness.136 Everything on the mask is now a sign. This is observed most cogently on the so-called New Style masks of comedy:137 developed around the time of Menander, this new kind of mask elaborates the features of the face in ways clearly reflecting artistic and philosophical principles verified in other contemporary genres of art. Evidence of that sharpened appreciation of spectacle and τὰ φαινόµενα which we postulated in the beginning of this chapter, physiognomics was everywhere in the fourth-century: from the schools of philosophy (especially the Peripatos) to the Assembly, and from the artist’s atelier to the law-court. New-fangled inwardness prevails in both painting (Polygnotus) and sculpture (Lysippus).138 Especially the rise of portraiture cannot have been unrelated with the art of the mask maker.139 Vitally, Hellenistic portraiture responded to “two crucial developments in late Classical culture: the increasing separation of roles in the citizen body of the polis and the simultaneous elaboration of visual languages of dress, coiffure, gesture and posture that could speak to these roles”.140 Society as much as theatre was becoming, at least on a discursive level, a 135 On the forehead and eyebrows, see e.g. Arist. Hist. Anim. 491b14-18; [Arist.] Phgn. 812b25-28; Pollux, 2.49. 136 On the the nose, see e.g. [Arist.] Phgn. 811a37-811b6. 137 MINC3, vol. 1, 55. 138 On the representation of ἦθος in fourth-century art, see Rouveret 1989, 129161. 139 On physiognomics and the Hellenistic plastic art in general, see AmbergerLahrmann 1996. On Greek portraiture, cf. Fischer-Hansen et al. 1992. On physiognomics, the iconography of Alexander and Lysippus, cf. Kiilerich 1988. The interplay between image and royal ideology is examined in Bulloch et al. 1993. 140 Stewart in Bulloch et al. 1993, 200.

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standardised “scheme of things”, and one of the portrait’s most vital functions was to position the subject in this context.141 The mask performs a similar function in the microcosm of the play. Physiognomics as a general “consciousness” was a cultural stream running uninterrupted from Homer to Byzantium (and beyond). Already in 1991, pre-empting such scathing attacks against the “supposed conventional meaning” of the masks as J. P. Poe’s,142 David Wiles cautioned against turning a blind eye “to a complex ideological system which provides a semantic key to the system of masks in New Comedy”.143 After the impressive body of work on physiognomics and Greek cultural discourse which emerged from the mid 1990s onwards,144 such a stance as Poe’s is now more untenable than ever. Nonetheless, it can serve as caveat against simplistic applications of this “semantic key”. Physiognomics examines the empathy between body and soul,145 which allows the trained eye to gauge a person’s ἦθος by deciphering his external appearance (ἐνθύµηµα ἐκ σηµείων).146 Physiognomics breaks down the body into vehicles of moral significance (facial features and expression, shape of body, movement, gesture, voice, etc.). These signifiers are directly evocative of a psychosomatic ideal, cultured and context-specific, and yet strikingly constant through the centuries, from Homer to the Church Fathers, and from pseudo-Aristotle to Polemon.147 Such binaries as human/beast, man/woman, free/slave, Greek/barbarian, remained conservative in the ancient world especially within the framework of the polis. In physiognomics, three fundamental discourses of polis culture intersect, hence they should be brought to bear on our readings of Menander’s masks: (a) gender and gendered forms of propriety;148 (b) civic ideology; and, last but not least, (c) performance of status and the self.

141

Cf. R.R.R. Smith 1993, 203. Poe 1996. 143 Wiles 1991, 85-86. 144 E.g. Barton 1994; Borrmann 1994; Gleason 1995; Popovic 2007; Swain 2007, to cite only book-length studies. 145 Cf. Arist. An. pr. 70b7-9; [Arist.] Phgn. 808b11-14. For an overview of the sources, cf. Evans 1969. 146 [Arist.] Phgn. 806a22-24. 147 On Homer and physiognomics, see Evans 1948; on the Church Fathers, Asmus 1906; see also Petrides 2009, for echoes in late Byzantium. On ps.-Aristotle, see Vogt 1999; on Polemon, Swain 2007. 148 On masculine and feminine types of ἦθος, see [Arist.] Phgn. 809a26ff., with Gleason 1995, 58-59: “Gender is independent of anatomical sex. […] Hence 142

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This last notion is crucial. In the words of Simon Goldhill, the intensely competitive culture of the polis provided “space for the contests of manhood”.149 Notions such as ἀγών, ἐπίδειξις, σχῆµα, all relevant with the performance of the self, show how laborious constructing character was for the Greeks. The cocky confidence of somebody like Zopyrus or Cleanthes in their ability to read people easily and accurately was a professional ploy.150 A sincerer attitude was anxiety. The general premise, that “moral disposition can be perceived from external form” (Diog. Laert. 7.173), was exposed to a process of dissimulation, concealment and deception. The Greeks were fully aware of one’s potential to contrive, or shape up (πλάττεσθαι, σχηµατίζεσθαι), his external appearance in a way that would put “a screen over his true character” (πρόβληµα τοῦ τρόπου τὸ σχῆµα, Dem. 45.69). They entertained no fantasies about a royal road leading from the exterior to the interior. Unrelenting tension between evidence and recognition marks out physiognomics as a cognitive act:151 it is thus, as a complex process of interpretation that New Comedy encodes it on its masks. By transforming the physical features of the mask into theatrical σηµεῖα, physiognomics is cross-referencing the performance world with the cultural frame of performance. This function was absent in both the masks of Old Comedy and fifth-century tragedy. Old Comedy masks certainly registered πάθος, especially of the carnal sort, but carried little ethical information. They were certainly spectacular, but were conducive to a more outward kind of spectacle. Similarly the expressionless, “neutral” face of the fifth-century tragic hero—in Jacques Lecoq’s famous phrase, “un visage […] en équilibre, [qui] doit servir à ressentir l’état de neutralité préalable à l’action, un état de réceptivité à ce qui nous environne, sans conflit interieur”152—served purposes other than the signification of ἦθος. Both New Comedy and fourth-century tragedy developed inward masks, expressive of moral choice. To achieve as much New Comedy toned down or did away completely with the grotesque, whereas tragedy followed a slippery slope to the bizarre specimens which so abhorred Lucian in the 2nd century AD (De Salt. 27-29); opposite trajectories stemming, nonetheless, from the same initial instigation: to create theatrical meaning by visual means, too. ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ function as physiognomical categories for both male and female subjects”. 149 Goldhill 1999, 4. 150 For Zopyrus’ embarrassment, cf. Yalouris 1986. For Cleanthes, cf. Diog. Laert. 7.173. 151 Cf. Sassi 2001. 152 Lecoq 1997, 47, my emphasis.

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The visual input of the mask is de rigueur in New Comedy. However, we need to bear in mind three fundamental principles before jumping to conclusions about character based on physiognomical cues. The first two recapture points established above: (a) The mask is relational and dialogic. No theatrical mask, hence no physiognomy, can make sense independently of the other masks with which it converses. (b) On the other hand, New Comedy characters are more often than not reflected upon mythical (tragic) paradigms; hence their actions, and their masks, are also intertextually overdetermined. (c) Physiognomics makes the masks “inward”, but no associations can be made with modern notions of character. The Greek notion of ἦθος was directly related to action (πρᾶξις), as it circumscribed an agent’s predisposition towards virtue or vice. That said, the progression from moral disposition to action in Greek ethics is not direct. Aristotle recognises an intermediate stage of monumental significance: προαίρεσις or “moral choice” (literally: choosing one thing over another). Προαίρεσις is the realisation of virtuous or wicked ἦθος in action. However, it is also a moment of moral conflict, which can lead to counter-ethical choices, especially in the cases of characters in which the proairetic faculty is immature, such as the young, or decadent, such as the old. We can see now the theatrical potential of this fact for a mask system, which, as David Wiles saw,153 makes a point out of excluding from its character types the µεσότης of the mature citizen male. Reading physiognomies one reads clues, which may or may not result in the anticipated course of action, and which may or may not align with the verbal signs of the play. Such an “exercise” creates undeniable theatrical momentum. Let us illustrate this point with the Gorgias of Dyskolos. The commonest assumption is that this character is wearing the ἄγροικος mask (Pollux, comic mask 14). It is as reasonable a guess as any, not least because thus his contrast with the man-about-town Sostratos would stand out in relief. However, no study, as far as I know, has pursued the implications of this casting in the real time of performance.154 Modern scholars read a rather stern, hard-working youngster, reasonable beyond his years, who bears so many discrete yet disconcerting similarities with Knemon and emphatically states that “he cannot have the luxury of love” (341-342). At first sight, it is highly questionable whether this character is 153

Wiles 1991, 159. Except for Handley 1965, 35, who saw that “departure from type” in this case is the result of visual signs. 154

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comic at all. Yet the Athenian audience saw a character, whose mask was imprinted with physiognomic indications of lust, sluggishness, and stupidity!155 The plot thickens when one realises that the ἄγροικος mask is most probably a remnant of Middle Comedy, where the ἄγροικος was exactly what the physiognomy of the mask suggests: a sluggish moron, who falls victim to the wiles of urban hetairai due to his lustful urges.156 One completely misses the humour in Gorgias—and the new sophistication of the visual element in Menander—if one fails to see how completely at loggerheads with each other visual and verbal cues are in this case. We need to develop a discursive understanding of physiognomical indications as loci of semantic tension, whose significance only arises in the complex web that is the performance. Gorgias carries the “genes” of his type’s theatrical ancestry in the same time that he contradicts his expected actant as young lover. He is generically destined and ethically predisposed for a life of love yet destitution has turned him to an ἕξις of loveless toil. Such ἕξις can carve a new ἦθος—of the Knemon sort. No other element underscores the thematic significance of Gorgias better than this dialectic between the visual and the verbal. The presence of the mask needs to be acknowledged always. The mask furnishes an indispensable third-dimension to the characters. There is no way we can dissociate New Comedy characters from their masks without robbing them of a determinative allusive nexus, without turning them into empty sentimental shells. “Acknowledging the mask”, however, is easier said than done. First and foremost, there is the pitfall of looking to reconstruct Menander’s original attributions of masks to characters. Such archaeological positivism was common in the early days. Trying to “prove”, nevertheless, that Character X wore Mask Y in the original performance is hazardous. As plausible as some suggestions can be (sometimes they are very plausible indeed; the range of possibilities, after all, is not endless), any conclusions reached cannot be archaeologically demonstrable and should remain educated guesses. More dangerously, such guesses can be circular: speculatively, we point to Mask Y, because we perceive Character X to be 155 Cf. Pollux, 4.147 (mask no. 14): τῷ δ’ ἀγροίκῳ τὸ µὲν χρῶµα µελαίνεται, τὰ δὲ χείλη πλατέα καὶ ἡ ῥὶς σιµή, καὶ στεφάνη τριχῶν. For thick lips, see [Arist.] Phgn. 811a24-25: οἱ δὲ τὰ χείλη ἔχοντες παχέα καὶ τὸ ἄνω τοῦ κάτω προκρεµώµενον µωροί. For the snub nose, see [Arist.] Phgn. 811b2: οἱ δὲ σιµὴν [ῥῖνα] ἔχοντες λάγνοι. For puffy cheeks (as evinced by the archaeological specimens), Adamantius, 2.27: παρειαῖς σαρκώδεσι ῥαθυµίαν καὶ οἰνοφλυγίαν παρεῖναι λέγε. 156 On the ἄγροικος in Middle Comedy, see Konstantakos 2004.

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so and so; then we go back to read Character X through the conduit of Mask Y. Such accumulation of conjecture can have obvious distorting results. We should be frugal with our speculations on which character wore which mask. Nonetheless, being overly sceptical is equally pernicious, because more often than not such an attitude leads to disregarding the mask altogether. Middle ground can be cut between naive positivism and inert agnosticism, if we establish sound methodological principles. First and foremost, there are cases where attributions seem secure beyond reasonable doubt. Such cases are few, but they do avail themselves to us. Pollux, for example, for all his shortcomings, leaves little room for doubt that the professional soldier donned the first episeistos mask. This soldier interacted on stage with, among others, parasites and flatterers, apparently donning the παράσιτος or the κόλαξ mask. Constructive speculation about the semiotics and semantics of this interaction can ensue from this point on. However, other associations are plagued by uncertainties; for instance, the possible interplay between the first and the second episeistos. I myself was once too sure about this latter interplay.157 I still subscribe to the general idea that the Soldier’s rivals would make very good sense in the second episeistos (the connection between the two masks in Pollux is too obvious to discount), but I recognise now that one needs to tread very lightly when moving from this broad notion to the particular plays. Other masks, such as the ἁπαλός, can be applicable in some cases. We must expand our search to include the complete range of possibilities. Furthermore, there is the case of complex character such as the Pamphile of Epitrepontes, which open up a whole new dimension for mask casting. Modern scholars are convinced, not without good reason, that this unusual and ambivalent female character was designed for one of the two ψευδοκόρη masks, which most probably represented the “seduced maiden”.158 In a recent study by Eftychia Bathrellou the ψευδοκόρη mask was posited to be “hovering between wife [represented by the λεκτική and the οὔλη masks] and maiden [represented by the κόρη]”.159 Such categorisation of Pollux’s female types is generally cogent; though, as Simon160 saw and Bathrellou herself admits, Pamphile is not entirely in place with the ψευδοκόρη:161 she is a married woman, not particularly 157

Petrides 2005b. Robert 1911, 41, n. 6; 74. 159 Bathrellou 2009, 230. 160 Simon 1938, 102. 161 Bathrellou 2009, 231. 158

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νεόγαµος at that, and the mother of a child. This, of course, does not preclude such an attribution, as our conceptions were not necessarily Menander’s (or his subsequent διδάσκαλος). However, if we are to grasp the impact of the mask on Menander’s performance, we need to entertain other possibilities, too. Building on Simon’s work I have personally suggested as an alternative possibility the λεκτική, the “talker”: or, better, “the woman who can talk”. Whereas the ψευδοκόρη would underscore Pamphile’s liminality and ambiguity, the λεκτική would draw attention to her role as an unusually empowered and eloquent female.162 The “historical truth” is beyond our grasp. At the end of the day, we have no evidence as to how masks were cast for a play, by whom, when and why. The semantic boundaries between the various masks are not entirely clear to our minds. Did the playwright “lock” particular masks for particular characters or was the διδάσκαλος free to interpret? Casting a mask for a character must have been, after all, the first step towards conceiving a play directorially. The plays of Menander were performed initially with a particular staging, but they were also re-performed. Did subsequent διδάσκαλοι of Menander’s plays, especially the Τεχνῖται with the special conditions under which they operated, feel bound by the author’s original indications (if there were any)? Either way, we cannot know. But we need to clinch a major point here, that different castings of masks ultimately create different characters on stage, with special hues and dissimilar emphases. We can only be certain that Menander created theatre which utilised visual methods of creating meaning like never before. Any implication of the mask in the reading of plays must be made heuristically, with the ultimate purpose of showing how Menander’s performance must have worked in general terms, not, for instance, how Menander’s Epitrepontes was first performed and received. This is the farthest our evidence can take us, and this must be conceded. Nonetheless, acknowledging the mask and its potential input into Menander’s performance discourse can be a major breakthrough.

Conclusion What is “new” then in New Comedy performance? This chapter has pointed to a number of significant shifts. First of all, New Comedy tones down the extrovert, grotesque spectacularity of Old Comedy; it does not make use of the apparently sensational visual effects of contemporary tragedy, either. However, it creates a spectacle where the visual is densely 162

Petrides 2005a, 225, n. 60.

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semiotised, brimful of allusive potential. Menander’s Comedy, we also argued, is inherently intertextual, inasmuch as standardisation and semiotisation of the medium of performance was concomitant with a process of appropriating tragic structures and paradigms, to such an effect that it created the dynamics of a hybrid genre. This hybridity affords rich possibilities of intertextual reference, which accumulates thick layers of meaning on top of the genre’s relatively thin crust. The visual plays a central role in this referentiality of the genre with respect to tragedy, but not tragedy alone. In an era of growing alertness to the minutiae of appearances and their symbolic cache, New Comedy exploits the potential of spectacle to “call in”, with equal effectiveness as the verbal sign, systems of theatrical and extra-theatrical reference (“inter-visuality”). If Menander’s performance is intertextual, it is inter-visual as well.

CHAPTER FIVE PERFORMING TRADITIONS: RELATIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS IN MENANDER AND TRAGEDY ROSANNA OMITOWOJU

In this paper I am aiming to ask some questions about Menander and the relationship of his comedies to their tragic models. In many ways this is a risky business, since, as has been pointed out in the past1, the proportion of both Menander’s comedies and the tragedies he may or may not have been referring to which still survive is extremely small. Undoubtedly, therefore, a large quantity of relevant references pass us completely by. I am not going to speculate about these; I shall confine myself to look at one Euripidean tragedy and one Menandrian comedy for which we have good grounds to argue for a connection. I am also confining myself in another way. I am not going to look simply at the relationship between Menandrian comedy and tragedy in itself, a connection which is widely accepted, although, as Katsouris has documented, there is considerable disagreement as to its nature and extent.2 Instead, I want to examine the question by looking quite closely at a particular aspect of it. Namely, I am interested in the presentation of relationships within the comedies of Menander and what these owe or do not owe to the specific literary tradition in which Menander was working. I would like to stress this point, as it highlights some of the vested interest I have in such an approach: I want to think about Menandrian comedy in a more holistic way using the tools and asking the questions of both the literary critic and the social or cultural historian.

1

R.L. Hunter 1979a, 180; West 1991, 16. Katsouris 1975a, 3-28. See also Lanowski 1965, 245-253, and more recently, Gutzwiller 2000, 102-137. 2

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I want to know what I am justified in doing with Menander and the social relationships he represents in terms of contemporary social institutions and concerns. I want to know how the relationship of Menander to tragedy—and of New Comedy in general—affects the way that I can use Menander to these ends: that is what the implications of the literary traditions are for the cultural historian. I do not imagine that I can answer these larger questions adequately, but perhaps some answers to parts of these questions will emerge. More particularly for this essay I want to address the following questions: are the family and relations within it constituted differently in Menander and in tragedy? Does the use of tragic models diminish my ability to relate the action and resolution presented in Menander to its dominant cultural context—that is, of (late) fourth-century Athens? Or do Menander’s manipulations of those tragic models—the places where he invites comparison but only to cheat our expectations—in fact serve to strengthen an argument about its relation to a cultural ideology? That is, can Menander be more about the non-heroic present because it rejects the resolutions operating in the heroic past? I am going to start by looking in some detail at the relationship between Menander’s Samia and Euripides’ Hippolytus, a connection which has been noted by a number of scholars but which has never been analysed more fully.3 I am assuming that the Hippolytus needs no introductions—the story of Theseus’ wife falling passionately in love with her illegitimate stepson, the hyper-virginal Hippolytus—is very well known along with its fatal outcome. The Samia on the other hand, may be less well known and I will begin with a brief summary of the plot. The play is set in Athens, in the street outside two houses, one of a wealthy man, Demeas, and other of his not-so-wealthy neighbour, Nikeratos.4 3 See Hurst 1990, 100-110; West 1991, 17-23; Blanchard 2002, 58-74; Dedoussi 2006, 182, 262 and under individual line references. The Hippolytus has also been suggested as a model for the ekkyklema scene in Dyskolos. 4 The assumption that Nikeratos is poor or at least considerably less wealthy than Demeas is made only by analogy to other Menandrian comedies (though see Bain 1983, xiii, 115 n. 114, who gives no explanation of his assumption, unless it is the postponement of the payment of the dowry discussed at 130 n. 726f.); cf. Casson 1976, 29-59, and particularly on the dowry, 53-58; E. G. Turner 1979, 106-126; G. Hoffmann 1998, 135-144. There is nothing in the text either to confirm or deny it (unless Nikeratos’ behaviour with the sheep, in contrast to Demeas’ provision for the feast, is considered indicative: cf. Gomme and Sandbach 1973, ad 239), but it makes sense of Moschion’s fears about his father’s reaction to the marriage if its necessity is forced upon him. Demeas’ comments at 159-160 and 200-201, which imply that Nikeratos still needs persuading and that, even once agreed, Nikeratos

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Nikeratos has a wife and a daughter called Plangon,5 Demeas has an adopted son, called Moschion, and a Samian concubine, after whom the play is entitled. Her name is Chrysis. The text is by no means complete: however we possess probably about three quarters of the whole play.6 The play begins with the son of the rich household filling in a bit of the background to the events which are to take place on the day in question. He starts by explaining something of his relationship with this father, to whom he is very grateful for the advantageous life he now leads. He also tells how he found out about his father’s infatuation with the Samian woman, although his father, ashamed of what Moschion might think, tried to keep it from him. But it was Moschion who urged Demeas to bring Chrysis to live with them in order that his father should not have to put up with the problem of rivals for her attentions. Then he elaborates on events which have taken place in recent months, during which his father has been away on a business venture with their neighbour, Nikeratos. The women of the two households have been getting friendly, popping into each others’ houses and have celebrated the Adonia together in Demeas’ house. Moschion arrives home unexpectedly from working on the farm, and, unable to sleep with all the revelries going on ends up joining in the festivities. At this point something happens which sets in train the rest of the plot. He has sex with Plangon—whether seduction or rape is never made clear7—and Plangon, of course, becomes pregnant (49). Moschion, as he himself narrates, has gone to her mother and promised to marry her when his father returns. But he is worried about his father’s reaction, presumably to having the marriage forced upon him: his motive for these objections is presumably, through comparison to other Menandrian plots, because of the disparity in the neighbours’ financial positions. Accordingly, somebody—though probably not Moschion8—has devised the plan that Chrysis will pretend that the baby is hers (78-79). A degree of scholarly may have difficulty persuading his wife, refer, I think, to the idea of the marriage occurring immediately on that very day and so, do not undermine the assumption that financially the marriage is very advantageous to Nikeratos’ family. There is also the obvious irony that Nikeratos’ wife is the last person to need persuading, since she is only too aware that the marriage and its speed are essential. See Arnott 1998a, 35-44 and Arnott 1998b, 7-20. 5 On the names of comic characters, see A. Barton 1990, 27-30. 6 On new fragments, see Brown’s introduction, i-xxxiv in Balme 2001; also Balme’s supplemented translation on 44-80. 7 On seduction/rape, see Rosivach 1998, 14-50; Omitowoju 2002, 169-182, 186203. 8 West 1991, 14, thinks it must be Chrysis, which is perfectly credible, though Parmenon is perhaps another possible contender.

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difference, and some textual controversy, rages about whether Chrysis has herself recently had a child who has died (meaning, therefore, that she is able to breastfeed the baby), and also about whether the idea is that she will take the baby permanently or only temporarily.9 For what it is worth, I think that Chrysis probably has had and lost a baby and that the plan is that she pretends only temporarily that the baby is hers. The scheme would, therefore, ensure that Demeas is not faced, immediately on his return, with the necessity of the (assumed) unwelcome marriage, but that Moschion has time to talk him round before revealing that he has anticipated the marriage and forced everybody’s hand. Up until this point—and largely throughout the play—we see the issues from the point of view of Demeas’ household, but presumably it is in the interests of Plangon, her mother, and Moschion that Nikeratos is not suddenly faced with an illegitimate grandson either.10 Moschion admits that he is terrified of facing his father (65, 67). At this point we cut to Demeas and Nikeratos, arriving home and of their own volition planning the marriage of their offspring (113-138). Demeas learns of the child supposedly born to him by Chrysis and is angered that Chrysis has had and has kept the baby, presumably since the birth, or more particularly the raising, of children was not regarded as an appropriate outcome for non-marital sexual liaisons. He tells Moschion of his anger and of his intention to throw Chrysis out of the house and they then go on to discuss the prospect of Moschion’s marriage to Plangon and Demeas expresses his pleasure that such a course is so much to Moschion’s taste (149). It is at this point that Moschion signally fails to tell his father the truth about the baby, but if we look carefully at the order of their conversation we can see why.11 At the time when Moschion first realises the danger Chrysis is in, his marriage to Plangon has not yet been discussed. When it is discussed (and of course some of that discussion is lost to us because of the mutilated and lacunose nature of the text here), Moschion is exceptionally and, as far as we can tell, fairly instantaneously successful on two fronts, not only on the core question of his marriage, but in enlisting his father’s support to get on with it with haste. With the prospect of the marriage actually completed within a few hours, it must seem the best course, and not merely the course of least resistance, for Moschion to wait until he and Plangon have officially tied the knot and 9

Brown 1990, 255-256; West 1991, 11-15; Dedoussi 2006, 123-126. West 1991, 14, though I think she is wrong to think that the deception is aimed primarily at Nikeratos. 11 I do not subscribe to a very negative view of Moschion’s character here; cf. Miller 1987, 13; Heap 1998, 121-122. 10

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then produce—as if by magic!—the legitimate (or legitimisable) child specifically requested by the wedding formula. When the next act starts (Act Three), preparations for the wedding are by now well underway, both houses full of frenetic activity. Demeas is delivering a monologue telling how in the midst of all this activity he went into a store cupboard to check on supplies and while there, overheard Moschion’s old nurse addressing the baby. Her words make it clear that the father of the baby is Moschion and not Demeas. Overcome by this, Demeas has rushed outside, thinking that he has been betrayed by some sort of a sexual liaison between his beloved son and his beloved concubine. He goes over and over the situation to himself, trying to be reasonable but, particularly once he has got some sort of corroboration from the slave Parmenon, in increasing anger and distress. Eventually he talks himself into regarding it as entirely Chrysis’ fault—she is a Helen and must have taken advantage of Moschion when he was drunk (337, 340-341). He determines, for Moschion’s sake, that he will reveal nothing of what he has learnt and will expel Chrysis, despite his feelings for her, but as if because she has reared a child without his permission. In a painful scene Demeas expels Chrysis from the house, accusing her of not recognising when she is well off, and painting a dark and vitriolic picture of her future, reduced from beloved concubine to two-bit whore, drinking herself to death, at anyone’s beck and call (390-398). He leaves her weeping in the street, but Nikeratos, finding her there, assumes that he will change his mind, takes her into his house and then tells Moschion what has happened. Moschion approaches his father and asks him why he has behaved in this way. There follows a confrontation, which gets more heated and more fraught with misunderstanding, as each moment passes: Moschion, out of loyalty, gratitude and affection is defending Chrysis, with Demeas more and more enraged at each comment which, as he sees it, underlines Moschion’s complicity, his willingness to go against his father and perhaps even to continue his liaison with Chrysis. At last, as things reach a climax, Demeas begins hinting at what he sees as the truth and appeals to Nikeratos (who has arrived on the scene) to support his view of how abominable Moschion’s actions are. Moschion realises his father’s misconceptions at this point too, but is prevented from an immediate explanation by the presence of Nikeratos, the father of the girl he has in fact wronged. However, after declaring his horror, Nikeratos runs off into his own house to expel Chrysis from there too and Moschion immediately seizes the moment to tell his father the truth. Demeas, shocked by the sudden change in events, is starting to believe him when Nikeratos runs on in a state of extreme agitation. He has just seen his

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daughter breast-feeding the baby and realises that it must be hers. Moschion, afraid of his reaction, rushes off, leaving his father to try and calm Nikeratos down—which he does by means of mythological exempla and his assurance that the marriage will still go ahead. After more anger and threats on Nikeratos’ part, including driving out Chrysis and the baby with a stick—whom Demeas protects by telling her to go back into his house—Nikeratos is finally mollified. The fifth and final act shows Moschion determined to punish his father for having thought that he was capable of betraying him in such a way. He dons a cloak and sword, pretending that he is about to set off to become a mercenary, but his father stops him, apologises more fully and the two are reconciled. A moment of farce is provided by Nikeratos seeing Moschion in his travelling gear and thinking that he is aiming to avoid the wedding. He is reassured, Plangon is brought out and given to Moschion with the all-important wedding formula’s injunction—already successfully anticipated—that he take her “for the ploughing of legitimate children” (γνησίων παίδων ἐπ' ἀρότῳ, 726-727). So far so good: the story is convoluted, emotionally exciting, and satisfactorily resolved, the characters likeable and carefully drawn. What, however, is the justification for looking at the correspondence between this play and Euripides’ Hippolytus? Gomme and Sandbach, in their impressive commentary on the plays of Menander make no mention of the Hippolytus (and Bain only marginally more)12 but they have been accused of underestimating the influence of tragedy on New Comedy.13 Essentially then, as has been noted before, the basic correspondence between the Samia and the Hippolytus exists in the problematic relationships between father, son, and father’s consort. In both cases an inappropriate sexual relationship between son and father’s partner is suspected, though in neither case has it actually resulted in sexual action. It should be noted at the outset that the Hippolytus is by no means the only candidate for 12 See Bain 1983, 19 n. 325f., who uses Hipp. 601 as a parallel for Demeas calling upon the natural world and its elements in his distress. It is worth noting, however, that a marginal note in ms B indentifies Euripides’ Oedipus as the source of Sam. 325; this endorses the presence of deeper tragic literary background behind the Samia overall. 13 Katsouris 1975a, 10ff. Several other scholars, however, have been far more inclined to view the relationship between Menander and tragedy more productively: on Euripides’ Auge and its correspondences with Menander’s Epitrepontes, see, for instance, W. S. Anderson 1982, passim but especially 171177, a discussion complicated by the fragmentary nature of the Auge.

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comparison. Euripides’ lost play, the Phoenix, told the story of a son (probably)14 falsely accused by his father of sleeping with his concubine. In this version, it looks as if the father, Amyntor, blinded his son in punishment, though in the earliest extant version of the story (see Iliad 9.447ff.) the accusation is not false, Phoenix has slept with his father’s concubine at his mother’s instigation, and there is no blinding, but instead a curse of childlessness invoked on Phoenix by his father. Euripides’ fragmentary Stheneboea is perhaps also worth considering, although there the correspondences are less compelling since there is no conflict between father and son.15 If we can believe the conventionally offered reconstructions of these two Euripidean plays, then we can look at the patterns which emerge. All four plays share the motif of the young hero innocent of the sexual allegations made against him (if Euripides’ Phoenix is indeed innocent).16 In all the three Euripidean plays the false accusations are made by the woman herself, but in the Samia not. As I have already mentioned, the key motif which is shared by the Samia, Hippolytus, and Phoenix—and which probably puts the Stheneboea out of the running as serious competitor—is that of the conflict between father and son occasioned by the alleged illicit sex. In the Phoenix and the Samia the woman is the father’s concubine, but in the Hippolytus it is his wife (though not the young man’s mother). To this extent, it looks like the Phoenix may be a better model for us and it is indeed to this play that the most explicit reference is made, when Nikeratos advises Demeas to assume the anger of Amyntor and blind his son (498-500). However, I am going to argue on four levels that this need not in any way prevent me looking at the Samia and the Hippolytus closely together. The first is, admittedly, an argument ex silentio: in the 14

The evidence for exactly which version of the myth Euripides chose to follow and to what extent he adapted it, is very thin. See Collard and Cropp 2008, 405421. 15 In the Stheneboea the handsome young Bellerophon attracts the attention of the play’s eponymous heroine, the wife of Bellerophon’s host, Proteus. Sthenoboea attempts to seduce Bellerophon through the agency of her nurse (cf. Hipp.), but when rejected, traduces Bellerophon to her husband. Proteus sends Bellerophon to Iobates in Caria with a coded letter instructing Iobates to send Bellerophon to his doom at the hands of the Chimaera. Bellerophon, however, defeats the Chimaera, and returns to punish Stheneboea and Proteus which he does by luring Stheneboea to elope with him on Pegasus and then pushing her off so that she is cast into the ocean where she drowns. Proteus’ punishment is his grief at her death. See Collard and Cropp 2008, 121-141. 16 The other Euripidean Hippolytus play, the Hippolytus Veiled, presumably contained this motif too.

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Hippolytus and the Samia, there is a great scene of confrontation between father and son—as I shall discuss below—but no particular trace of this for the Phoenix. It is of course possible that such a scene existed in that play too, and if Amyntor does blind Phoenix, and if he carries out that blinding himself (for which there is no particular evidence either way) and on stage (against which, presumably there is a technical and conventional assumption), then it would be hard for this scene to take place without featuring some sort of confrontation. Of course this counter argument to mine—that the confrontation scene did exist, but we have lost it—is itself an argument ex silentio too. For what it is worth, I find it slightly hard to believe that such a scene existed and yet has disappeared so totally without a trace, given both its dramatic potential and its reverberation with the sacred cows of both sex and inter-generational conflict: but then I am no expert in the fragments of Euripides and their transmission. The second argument looks further at the correspondences between the two plays: as well as just the fact of the confrontation scenes there are similarities in their details as I shall examine shortly. In addition to this, there are other similarities we could pull out: a parallel focus on the moral qualities of the two young men (Moschion’s κοσµιότης and Hippolytus’ σωφροσύνη17) and the extent to which these qualities function successfully in relation to the specific sexual allegations at issue, but unsuccessfully in the domain of other sexual behaviour18 and other personal relationships, ultimately precipitating disaster or, in Moschion’s case, near disaster.19 We could also perhaps see a parallel in the comparatively positive way both plays treat their respective female characters: Phaedra in this play is believed to

17

These are parallels in that they are both qualities related to sexual and personal behaviour and how that relates outwards to others. Both are used as key points of defence against the charges of illicit sex with the father’s partner. See Mette 1969, 432-439; Blanchard 2002, 58-74. On Moschion’s κοσµιότης in reference to his relationship with his father, see Weissenberger 1991, 415-434. 18 I.e. Moschion’s κοσµιότης has not restrained him from having unsanctioned sex with Plangon, nor has Hippolytus’ σωφροσύνη led him to the proper regulation of his sexual life: instead by misreading what σωφροσύνη means for men, Hippolytus has chosen a dysfunctional masculine sexuality, by interpreting sexual σωφροσύνη for men to mean radical chastity rather than regulated sex: on σωφροσύνη in the Hippolytus more generally, see Goff 1990, 39-48. 19 I like the comment in West 1991, 16: “Moschion’s much stressed κοσµιότης might be seen as a bourgeoizification of Hippolytus’ σωφροσύνη”. We could see a similar pattern in the disasters: death and destruction in the Hippolytus, but only the expulsion of a concubine in the Samia.

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be a moral resuscitation of Euripides’ previous Phaedra,20 and the generosity and sympathy with which Chrysis is drawn is notable.21 There are other similarities we could draw on too, but I would like to go on to my third argument, which looks at the differences between the Hippolytus and the Samia but in two separate ways. Firstly, and this is mostly concerned with the confrontation scene, so I will look at it in greater detail when I come on to that, there are some differences which actually support the claim that the two can be looked at together. So for instance, Demeas’ reasonableness towards Moschion and his desire to believe in him, are in such direct contrast to Theseus’ immediate assumption of Hippolytus’ guilt that it is hard not to read the Demeas’ response as pointing to Theseus’. It is almost as if Demeas is seeing himself in contrast to his mythic predecessor.22 The other half of the argument, though, focuses on the true departures between the plays and works only to say that the claim in the Hippolytus to be looked at in relation to the Samia is no better, but also no worse, than the claim in the Phoenix. If we return to our catalogue of the patterns established by the three Euripidean plays and the Samia, then the line between Menander’s play and the others is where the real difference lies: it is only in the Menandrian version where the allegation results from confusion and misunderstanding and not female malice and only here that the woman in question does not desire the young man. It is also here where sex has actually occurred (although between a different couple), here where a child is born and, above and beyond all that, here where resolution is possible, a family is established and not dissolved, and tragedy (in all its senses) is averted. I hope, then, that I have shown that the Hippolytus is a reasonable place to look for thinking about the Samia, and that possible references to other Euripidean plays should not stop us in this project. My fourth argument in this regard, however, goes beyond this and says that, in a way, this does not really matter for my concerns anyway. I am not trying to argue that the Samia is a re-working of the Hippolytus—though I do think 20

Οn the Hippolytus Veiled, see Collard and Cropp 2008, 466-489. Also: Barrett 1964, 10-12, 18-45; Halleran 1995, 25-37; Roisman 1999, 397-409; Hutchinson 2004, 15-28; and Magnani 2004, 227-240. Note also the lack of moral criticism directed at Phaedra, for instance, at the extreme, Artemis’ obscure comment at 1300-01 and ff. 21 On Chrysis in particular, see Henry 1985, 61-73, but on courtesans in Menander more generally, 49-108, 116-129; also Wiles 2001, 42-53; and especially recently, Traill 2008, 86-92, 196-203, 233-244. 22 See on this point at West 1991, 18.

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that a strong argument can be made that the Hippolytus would have been in the audience’s mind as they watched the Samia in performance—rather, I am attempting to argue that while there are significant correspondences in the use of tragic language, in motifs of plot, in relationships between characters, the way in which these similarities are manipulated to prise open a gap between ‘literature’ and ‘life’—or rather, perhaps, to narrow it—give us crucial grounds for reading Menander in his own right. If we can construct relationships between plays and their social context, between drama in both its senses, the distinctive texture of Menander justifies an attempt to relate him to his context, not to tragedy and only through that to a framework of contemporary ideology. By social context, I am of course not talking about specific historical events or even processes—though I happen to think that some arguments can be made even in that direction23—rather, I am trying to map out a set of at least fictively feasible human interactions and reactions against structures of cultural ideology and practice. If for a moment we look outwards to other cultural discourses, it is Menander which demonstrates a high level of consistency with them, and I am thinking here of oratory in particular.24 This calls into question just how much of a problem New Comedy’s relationship with tragedy is when we come to examining the social structures within which it works. As Zagagi has argued, a distinction between tragedy and New Comedy is that both are interested in human relationships but that tragedy need make only a limited concession to social norms.25 Let us turn now to look in more detail at the relationship between the two plays. I shall begin by continuing with various areas of correspondence which justify a belief that the Samia’s audience would have been, from time to time, put in mind of the earlier play, and then go on to look at the significant father and son relationship in both these plays. The lengthiest treatment of the connections between these two plays is that of Katsouris in his 1975 book, Tragic Patterns in Menander. He starts inevitably with the fathers’ mistaken belief that their sons have betrayed them sexually which is at the heart of each play and then goes on to look at the confrontation scenes between fathers and sons. Both fathers, he says, are quick to anger26 and believe absolutely in what they think to be the truth. He notes that Moschion is the adopted son of Demeas but contrasts 23

See for instance, Omitowoju 2002, 204-229; Lape 2004, 1-13 and passim. Scafuro 1997, passim but especially 1-21; Omitowoju 2002, 204-229. 25 Zagagi 1994, 70. 26 See Groton 1987, 437-443 for a good discussion of the theme of anger in the Samia. 24

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this with the fact that Hippolytus is the natural son of Theseus. He records the traits shared by the two young men. Moschion is κόσµιος at lines 18, 273 and 344, σώφρων also at 344 and εὐσεβέστατος at line 274. The last two in particular pick up qualities with which Hippolytus is regularly associated. He notes that Theseus’ reaction is to invoke the curse of Poseidon and to expel his son, whereas Demeas expels the female participant in the supposed liaison. While obviously there is a contrast— and I shall discuss the implications of this later—there is of course also a clear level of comparison between the two reactions: they both drive out from their houses the party they believe to have been to blame. Katsouris also notes the similarities in the sons’ linguistic reactions to the confrontation: both repeatedly ask to be given an explanation for the fathers’ anger. Both fathers try to avoid being specific about their accusations, but both sons insist and both on the grounds of friendship (Hipp. 924ff.; Samia 458ff.). Both fathers describe their sons’ attitudes as arrogant and both think them guilty of hyperbole (Hipp. 939; cf. 936ff.; Samia 461). Both fathers are advised not to give in or to be carried away by ὀργή (Hipp. 900; Samia 462), Theseus by the chorus, Demeas by both Moschion and Nikeratos. In their innocence of the charges, both sons persist in their questioning, which enrages their fathers further and leads to the ultimate angry revelation of the charges. When those charges are made, both sons begin to expostulate and open their speech with the address term which stresses the relationship between them, “Father…” (Hipp. 983; Samia 520). They both deny the accusation and use the same verb, ἐλέγχω, to ask for a closer examination of the truth (Samia 531; Hipp. 1056). Eventually, for both, reconciliation occurs.27 I find Katsouris’ discussion convincing, although there are a few areas where I would probably reach a different conclusion, or think that a wider discussion of the contrasts as well as the comparisons should be undertaken. I think that there are also a few additional correspondences which strengthen even further Katsouris’ thesis. For instance, Katsouris contrasts the natural versus the adoptive relationship in the two plays, without noting that the feature of notheia functions in a parallel way. Again, Moschion’s defence of nothoi in lines 136-142, corresponds loosely to parallels from both Euripides and Sophocles as Gomme and Sandbach’s note on this line shows. But more specifically, it should be remembered that Hippolytus is one of the most famous nothoi in Greek literature and certainly the most famous nothos known for his claims to 27

See Katsouris 1975a, 131-134 for a careful observation of the correspondences and a good discussion.

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moral purity: there is a way in which Moschion’s defence, ostensibly for the fictional child of Demeas and Chrysis, works as a defence of the (also ‘fictional’) Hippolytus. It may also be a more general joke at the expense of tragedy, contrasting the different levels of fictionality at work in tragedy and New Comedy in relation to their treatment of nothoi.28 Similar too may be the threat made by Nikeratos to kill his wife for her complicity in his daughter’s situation—he has no intention of so doing, but perhaps it is a joke about the sorts of plays—i.e. tragedies—where resolution is only achieved through violent death. To return, however, to more specific issues: both fathers discuss their sons’ good characters as the chief line of defence against their culpability in the supposed liaison, though there is a contrast here as Theseus brings up Hippolytus’ claims to the moral highground as sarcastic taunts whereas Demeas sees Moschion’s good qualities as proof that he must have been less to blame than Chrysis. The presence of Nikeratos at the confrontation (providing a third voice in place of the chorus, of course) is also able to introduce another area of correspondence: unlike Demeas, he reacts much more like Theseus, with violent anger against Moschion—for which he cites mythological and tragic paradigms. He even takes Demeas to task for the leniency of his response— admonishing him to react like Amyntor. Is the point here not so much the specific model of Amyntor’s reaction (he could just as easily have cited Theseus’) but rather an injunction that tragedy and not comedy is the model he should be looking for here? If we accept that there is a convincing argument for looking at the two plays—and especially the confrontation scenes—together, then we need to move on to the next step. Spotting verbal allusions is all very well, but what we do with them once we have accepted them is crucial. In what follows, I am going to look more closely at the interaction between fathers and sons, since this is, I think, the relationship which the allusions to the Hippolytus ask us to focus upon. Through this, I am going to make a specific argument for the way in which to read the relationship between Menander and tragedy, or at the very least between this tragedy and this play of Menander. The argument that I shall make will be the “strong” version, that is, the one which claims that there are good reasons for thinking that we would be seriously missing out to read the Menandrian relationship without reference to its tragic counterpart. However, I shall be offering a provocative version of this: that the relationship between father and son in the Samia is pointedly more subtle, more emotionally pliable, arguably more realistic, and to be blunt, just downright better! 28

See Omitowoju 2002, 160-162.

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So, let me turn to focus on father and son relationships. It has been noted by several scholars that there is something special in the relationship between Demeas and Moschion.29 Often this has been linked to the nature of their relationships, that is, that since they are only adoptive rather than natural relatives their relationship is more fragile. This argument maintains that this special regard for each other and special concern about each other’s feelings motivates certain elements of the plot, such as Moschion’s excessive dread about telling his father what he has done, even after it emerges that his father has no opposition to and has even already planned Moschion’s marriage to Plangon. Such a line seems convincing to me, as undoubtedly there is a particular interest in the relationship between these two characters. However, I do not think that the adoptive nature of the relationship accounts adequately for it. It seems to me, and I shall argue for it, that we are given a very “rounded” picture of the connection between Demeas and Moschion and that, although there are some inevitable distortions due to the nature of the genre and the conceit of the plot, we are to imagine that this relationship aims at, and achieves, motifs which signify “realism”. I realise that for any literature, and perhaps particularly the self-consciously fictive genre of New Comedy, the concept of “realism” is a slippery and even a dangerous one. Still, let me give an example which might help to explain what I mean: the relationship between Demeas and Moschion is developed in both formal and informal terms. What I mean by this is that it displays interplay between, on the one hand, private and personal patterns of interaction and regard, and, on the other, formal structures and expectations, of the father-son relationship. The formal structure can be seen to operate in a number of motifs: Moschion must obtain his father’s consent to his marriage—something which he acknowledges in his promise to Plangon’s mother. Again, later, Moschion’s supposed crime against his father is figured as an ἀσέβηµα (493), a word which links the relationship which Moschion has supposedly violated to a structure of hierarchical duties, common to religious observance and inter-generational relationships. We can contrast this with elements of the relationship based on purely affective ties, such as their mutual concern for each other’s feelings, an element of the play which is arguably almost over-played by the final scene’s focus on Moschion’s emotions.

29

See for instance Grant 1986, 172-184, but especially 176ff.; also Weissenberger 1991, 415-434.

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As a different way into considering some of these questions, I have been looking at Eleanor Dickey’s book on the sociolinguistics of Greek forms of address (though her work is mostly on prose). I have, therefore, used her approach to look at how the male characters in the Samia and the Hippolytus address one another. It is perhaps worth noting that, although she does not look at Menander in detail, she finds that the characters there use address systems, in particular what she calls First Name address, far more frequently than either tragedy or Aristophanes. In certain respects, therefore, address in Menander is much more like the systems used in prose texts: Dickey does not go as far as arguing that it is likely that it reflects actual practice to a much greater extent, partly because she is not too interested in the relation between written Greek and speculative reconstructions of the language in conversation.30 However, the implication of her work is that, in respect of address systems at least, Menander’s Greek shows a significant compatibility with a large number of texts which, while having no demonstrable claim to be more ‘realistic’, more like conversational Greek as it was spoken, at least do overtly aim to represent conversations exchanged in a historically recognisable, nonfantastic Athens. How does this work, then, in regard to the Samia? Following Dickey, I have looked only at free-form terms of address, by which I mean forms of address which are not grammatically bound in to the sentence—essentially, therefore, vocatives. For this paper I have looked only at address between male characters. Of the overall 49 free-form addresses 30 are first name addresses, used with two exceptions between every pair of male characters who address one another: it is the sole way in which Nikeratos addresses Demeas and vice versa, except that Demeas once uses the expression ὦ τᾶν to address Nikeratos. Nikeratos addresses Moschion once by first name (430), once as φίλτατε, “my very dear boy” (436), and, when he thinks that Moschion has been involved in a liaison with Chrysis, as κάκιστε ἀνδρῶν ἁπάντων, “worst of all men” (492; cf. Hipp. 959), by a long and abusive phrase (495ff.), and as βάρβαρε (519). Moschion uses free-floating address to Nikeratos only once, that is, by his first name. Demeas addresses himself once, and that by first name; Parmenon the slave and Moschion address each other once by first name. Demeas addresses Parmenon three times by first name and once as παῖ: Parmenon addresses Demeas twice as δέσποτα and once, though in a mutilated line, by first name. Demeas also uses first name address to his son. As I have already mentioned, there are only two exceptions. The first is less important: at one point Demeas addresses the 30

Dickey 1996, 30-42.

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statue of the god outside his house and calls him δέσποτα (448), though it is possible even here that he later refers to him as Λοξία.31 The other exception which really is worthy of note is Moschion’s address to his father. For this, Moschion never addresses the old man by his first name; he always calls him πάτερ, a style of address from son to father which is most common in all genres. If we are thinking about a degree of formality existing in the relationship between Demeas and his son, then this gives us material for regarding this formality as also linguistically inscribed. Demeas’ addresses to his son also deserve further examination. He uses free-form address to his son eleven times, beginning twice with παῖ, then switching for first-name address which continues throughout the play. Only once, at the height of his outrage, he uses the emotive term κάθαρµα, “scum”. Apart from that exceptional phrase, then, Demeas addresses his son partly in ways which stress their relationship, and partly in ways which are fairly common for male-male address of various sorts. If we are thinking about the formal and hierarchical aspect of the father-son relationship, then it is worth noting that Demeas essentially uses the same mixture of address systems as he uses to the slave Parmenon. A second question comes to mind: when does Demeas switch from using the term which stresses the father-son, or superior-tosubordinate relationship? One might assume that the switch occurs at the point at which he begins to suspect Moschion of having slept with Chrysis, that is, at the point at which he becomes angry with him or ceases to regard him in the same light as he did before. This is not in fact the case. Demeas first addresses his son as “Moschion” at line 154 when he is discussing his marriage to Plangon with him and as yet nothing has occurred to mar the harmony of their relationship. Likewise, he uses first name address in Act Five when he knows the truth and the two are reconciled. Why does it work like this? Probably there are no conclusive answers, but with a social-historian’s hat on I would like to suggest one: the formal structure of father-son relationships acknowledged the critical transition which a son experienced when he married. Putting it only in a political context, there are a number of ways in which the image of the democratic citizen is an image of the husband and—as is relevant here, though Demeas does not yet know it—the father. For instance, to be a strategos in Athens one had to own property in Attica and be the father of legitimate children. I think that this linguistic formula reflects the formal shift in the balance of the relationship between Demeas and Moschion. 31

For the purposes of this survey I have not included invocations of the gods— though it should be noted that these are almost invariably by name.

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I hope, then, that this has given some useful illustration of what I mean by the formal structures of the relationship between Demeas and Moschion. But I have also claimed that it is a well-rounded picture of that relationship, and I want now to look at the more informal, or even intimate, aspects. Nikeratos’ outraged response to what he believes Moschion has done to his father and his horror at what he perceives to be Demeas’ leniency directly spotlight the extent to which Demeas is letting private and emotional considerations govern his behaviour rather than conforming unquestioningly to the hierarchical formulation of the relationship between them. Perhaps we can pick up on a previous example of Demeas acting in this way, as soon as we remember the moment in Moschion’s opening speech when he describes Demeas’ feelings of shame at his attraction to Chrysis. Conversely too, when Moschion describes his extreme agitation at the thought of what he has done with Plangon becoming known, it is primarily his own father’s reaction which he fears, rather than her father’s.32 When it comes to the point, of course, once it has been accepted that the marriage of Moschion and Plangon is desirable anyway, Demeas accepts the sexual relationship between them without any sense of anger at all; Nikeratos on the contrary is outspoken and violent in his expressions of disapproval (532-534, 552-556; also 560-561 and 580-581, where Nikeratos’ reaction is described by Demeas). It should probably be noted that Demeas’ calmness about it at this point could well be motivated by his relief at finding out that Moschion has not in fact had a sexual relationship with Chrysis—as a consequence of this knowledge the old man is eager to accept his son’s potential sexual liaison with anyone else with aplomb. However, if we look at the genre of New Comedy as represented in Menander, we find that fathers rarely object to their sons’ sexual liaisons unless these liaisons have other specific (and often financial) consequences: for instance, if such relationships force fathers to accept marriages they do not want for their sons, or if relationships with courtesans look likely to prevent marriages they do want, or if these relationships eventually are proving excessively expensive. Once it has been established that Demeas is happy about the marriage of Moschion and Plangon, one would normally expect the young man to face the whole issue of his confession to his father with temperance. His excessive concern—which at one crucial point prevents him from telling his father the truth—is based rather on an acknowledgement of the informal elements of their relationship, that is, on 32 Though he does not want to reveal the truth in front of Nikeratos during the latter’s confrontation scene with Demeas.

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his belief that their relationship exists by virtue of their recognition of and respect for qualities they each possess. Even during the angry confrontation between them later in the play, they show a marked concern for each other. “Why are you upset?” Moschion asks Demeas near the opening of the play. Demeas confides in Moschion about Chrysis’ baby and, when Moschion offers his sentential on the irrelevance of legitimate or illegitimate birth, listens to what he has to say, despite his surprise at the unconventional character of Moschion’s reply. Demeas warmly expresses his appreciation of Moschion (καλῶς ποεῖς, 149), and when Moschion asks Demeas for help, Demeas responds immediately (152, 154-156), and is pleased that the marriage he has chosen is so much to Moschion’s taste (159). Most importantly, of course, Demeas goes out of his way to acquit Moschion of as much of the blame as he possibly can for the supposed affair; even during the angry exchange between them, he is concerned that Nikeratos should know nothing of the affair, so as not to damage Moschion’s chances of marriage with his daughter. Moschion takes on the feared role of confrontation, amongst other reasons, for the sake of his father: “It’s for your sake most of all”, he cries, trying to persuade his father not to exclude his beloved concubine from the wedding festivities, despite seeing that such a suggestion is not what his father wants to hear. What can be gained here from going back again to look at the relationship between Hippolytus and Theseus in the Hippolytus? Just to be provocative here, I want to discuss why I think that the relationship between Moschion and Demeas is inherently more interesting than their tragic precursors’ own. At a basic, but, I think, quite profound level, it is because the relationship between Demeas and Moschion aims at, and achieves, resolution: that is because ultimately it confirms the durability of the οἶκος. Rather than sending the oikos into the sort of chaos which only death can resolve, the family unit is here seen to weather the stresses and strains it endures. Demeas in particular is a figure who poses these questions—shows what is personally at stake in the functioning of a structure which is both a unit in itself and a complex interplay of individuals. The comparison of this relationship with its mythic predecessors—and perhaps those predecessors such as the Phoenix about which we will never know much—highlights the significance of the choices which the characters here are making, and foregrounds another, differently slanted set of priorities within which they are working. If we focus again on interchanges between father and son, I can perhaps explain a little more clearly what I mean. Essentially, I think that the relationship between Theseus and Hippolytus, in comparison to that of Demeas and Moschion, is less nuanced. Just to look at free-form address

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as a test case: Hippolytus addresses his father twelve times during the time they are on stage together. Each time he uses the word, πάτερ. So far we are in a similar situation to the Samia as it is also the only term used by Moschion. The systems of address that Theseus the father employs, however, once again is more varied. It falls essentially into two parts, the first when Theseus is upbraiding his son, the second after Artemis has spoken and the king has been reconciled to Hippolytus. In the former situation Theseus pointedly avoids using any term of address to his son, even when speaking directly to him. This omission of forms of address is brought even more strongly into relief by Hippolytus’ six uses of πάτερ during this scene; to these, Theseus has to show just one form of address, the strong but essentially colourless ὦ κάκιστε (959), and the situation when he self-consciously chooses not to address the young man, but instead asks the chorus to look εἰς τόνδε (943). After the reconciliation, by contrast, Theseus does address his son: four times he calls him τέκνον (1408, 1410, 1446, 1456), an address that obviously emphasises their relationship, and once as φίλτατε (1452). Why do I regard this as less nuanced? Because the address systems tell us no more than what we already know: that during the confrontation Theseus is rejecting his son and is bitterly angry with him, but that afterwards he repents and accepts the relationship again. Throughout, Hippolytus, who has not done anything unworthy of a son to a father, consistently refers to their relationship. The address systems here, then, tell us no more about the status quo of this relationship, whereas in the Samia, Demeas’ use of terms of address offers a subtext to the characters’ relationship and to the plot. Why did Demeas begin to use first-name address at the point at which he did? Why did his use of first-name address remain unchanged throughout even the more bitter moments of their confrontation? What register does the shocking κάθαρµα belong to— contrasted ten lines later with ὦ κάκιστε from Nikeratos who thinks that tragic characters should be models for Demeas’ actions. What is the effect of a term like κάθαρµα on Moschion, who still does not know what his father is on about? There is something almost static, almost symbolic about the theme of accusation and belief in the Hippolytus too, if we contrast it with the Samia. Theseus has Phaedra’s letter and then, in opposition, Hippolytus’ sworn word that he did not do what he has been accused of. In contrast, Demeas’ belief rests on the conversation he overhears while in the store room, Parmenon’s confirmation that the baby is Moschion’s, and even Moschion’s admission of this too. Rather than the movement, the fluidity of Demeas reactions to Moschion—desperate to see the good in him at

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first, brought only to blame him by the interplay of their confrontation— Theseus’ emotions, once he has heard the accusation levelled against Hippolytus, remain the same. Another contrast can illustrate this too: Theseus reveals the nature of his belief much sooner in the course of their confrontation than Demeas does, but since there is no room for development in their relationship, this communication does no good.33 The motif of the oath holds the relationship between Theseus and Hippolytus firmly in place. The oath itself is another interesting area to contrast with the Samia. As a device of speech and silence again it is static, monumental almost. What does the Samia put up in its place? Here instead we have a subtle play of linguistic blocking going on between a number of interlocutors: accusations instead of explanations (474-478), answers given but misunderstood (477-479), unanswered questions (480), questions answered only by outraged questions (482-483), the presence of a third party making explanation as painful as silence (489-491), flights of angry exaggeration taken literally (513). But finally the right questions, asked in the right context—with only father and son present—result in the communication of the truth from which the resolution can unroll. By contrast the oath in the Hippolytus could be called a clumsy tool of silence. Only at one moment is there room for a frisson of hope when for a second Hippolytus contemplates breaking it. However, he rejects such a move, not because of the inherent wrongness of such an action, but on the grounds that it would not be effective: his father would not believe him. By accepting this, Hippolytus points up the failure of communication between them, the static nature of their confrontation which nothing internal to their relationship can change: that comes only with the arrival of Artemis, the deus ex machina, the bolt of lightning out of the blue.34 Unlike in the Samia, in Euripides’ play one could almost say that in spite of Hippolytus’ twelve uses of πάτερ, and Theseus’ too late and too desperate uses of τέκνον, there is no relationship between them. This can 33

To my mind, one of the most tragic elements of the play is that communication is rarely a good thing in the Hippolytus. More generally on miscommunication in the Hippolytus, see e.g. Goff 1990, 16-20. 34 As often in tragedy, Artemis as deus ex machina offers answers which are truthful but not necessarily helpful in human terms, along with imperious instructions as to the situation in the present and future. She ‘cuts the knot’ of the plot but without offering any personal learning to the characters: they would be as likely to make the same mistakes again, and she offers no resolution to the crisis of language and communication in the play.

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first be observed in structural organisation of the play: there is no meeting or interchange between them before the confrontation, in which their roles are already set. However, it has a more personal aspect too: when Hippolytus defends himself against the charge, he makes no mention of the idea that his respect for Theseus or for the relationship between them would have prevented him. The οἶκος which has been destroyed here is only a series of isolated individuals, after all. Demeas and Moschion on the contrary were acutely conscious of the ties that bind, of the interplay between the formal and the personal, the gaps and pitfalls in the web of relationships by which the οἶκος is formed. I had meant to look at the female characters in the two plays too, and perhaps even to open it out and look at them more widely in tragedy and Menander. Why is it, for instance, that the Samia—and other Menandrian plays, for that matter—despite showing a heavily structured and genderdivided society, can be shown to represent a far more sympathetic portrayal of women? Where in tragedy do we have the precursors of the Chryseis and Habrotonons of Menander—professional women who are portrayed as generous, honest, warm and clever? The Hippolytus betrays a profound ambivalence about female desire, sexuality, and language, which is only highlighted by Theseus’ immediate certainty of Hippolytus’ guilt. On the other hand, in the Samia, despite a clear acknowledgement of the sort of professional life Chrysis has led and would probably have to lead again were Demeas to throw her out, the play as a whole presents female sexuality as ultimately unproblematic. Again the false suspicion highlights this: the strength of the scene when Demeas turns Chrysis out is—apart, obviously, from its emotional intensity—the disparity between Demeas’ mistake about Chrysis and the audience’s knowledge that she is innocent of everything he imagines and has in fact been acting in a friendly and altruistic way. Parallel to this one could look at how eros functions in the two plays, how in the Hippolytus it is the agent and partner of chaos, transgression, and death: how the Samia puts a spin on this, allows it still to lead to transgression, but domesticates it and resolves it too—through eros a young man marries a suitable bride and they have a son (though not in that order!) and an old man keeps the companionship of a woman he loves.35 It is something of a cheat to talk about what I would have said if only I had had more space. I want to end by making one last remark about the treatment of relationships in the Samia and the Hippolytus. If we argue 35

See the relevant discussion in Omitowoju forthcoming.

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that we have to read Menander with tragedy in mind, what is at stake in this? No doubt there are other ways of formulating the relationship, but here I hope that I have shown one strong way in which Menander uses tragedy to “bounce off”, to point up where he has chosen to be different, to map out a picture with more colour, less black and white: a picture not necessarily more realistic (how could we ever argue or prove such a thing?) but one that contextualises itself against its literary tradition but also against something else as well, a world where relationships work because they have to and resolution of domestic crises is achieved. In terms of the social construct of the οἶκος and the relationships within it, then, Menander uses the backdrop of the Hippolytus, which marks them as a failure, to show how, with some change, some give, they can function as a success.

CHAPTER SIX POSTCLASSICAL COMEDY * AND THE COMPOSITION OF ROMAN COMEDY SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU

Introduction The birth of the palliata preconditions Middle and New Comedy;1 and notwithstanding the emancipation of Roman comic drama in recent scholarship, the growing number of Greek comic fragments that become available for study every passing year and the progress in literary theory have readjusted the lens through which the plays of Plautus and Terence are now read. The new perspectives through which literary and performance studies have channelled the critical appreciation of the palliata, especially in the past quarter century, influence the way we nowadays look at Greek New Comedy. The concept of “metatheatre” (literally, “transcending theatre”), the idea of self-conscious play, with a long history in the traditions of drama, became a frontline issue of literary criticism once studied in exclusive connection to Plautine theatre which more than any dramatic genre in antiquity loves to destroy the illusion of reality on stage.2 Metatheatre can be accomplished in various ways, by a character *

I would like to thank colleagues Demetris Beroutsos, Ioannis Konstantakos and Antonis Petrides who read earlier versions of the chapter and offered numerous valuable comments and suggestions. 1 Recently an attempt has been made to add the Old Comedy to the list: see Benz 2000, 233-249. 2 Slater 1985a, 14, defined metatheatre as “theatrically self-conscious theatre, i.e., theatre that demonstrates an awareness of its own theatricality”; in truth, Plautus is hardly the first to pursue a systematic breaking of the dramatic illusion: both the Old Comedy and the kindred dramatic expressions, with which Plautus’ work has been decisively interfused, and which rely much more on improvisation for their success (the mime, the atellana, etc.), produce typical examples of metatheatrical

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referring to himself/herself as an actor in a play, or describing the action on-stage as a play, or addressing the audience directly. Through this technique the Roman playwright keeps his audience closely engaged to the dramatic action, now envisioning the direction of future action now identifying with the actors and their roles in a play.3 Since the mid-1980s self-conscious acting generated fervent interest for the examination of comic performance more broadly, and brought under critical scope various issues associated with the actors-audience relationship.4 The interpretation of the servus callidus character and his scheming as an allegory for the work of the Roman playwright was promoted as a key difference between the Greek New Comedy and the Roman palliata: the identification of metatheatricality with the improvisatory faculties of the scheming slave advertises comic metatheatre as a genuinely Roman, specifically Plautine technique, absent in Menander.5 This picture has been experimentation; Slater 2002 studies metatheatre in Aristophanes; prior to Slater, the artistry in the conscious breaking of the dramatic illusion was treated in Hubbard 1991; on crafting and breaking the dramatic illusion in Greek Comedy, see also Sifakis 1971b (the first discussion on the issue, which denied the presense of “dramatic illusion” in Greek drama) and Taplin 1986; shortly before Slater 1985a, the revolutionary effect of dramatic self-awareness on the popularity of Plautine drama had already been noted in Blänsdorf 1982; on Plautus’ interaction with the various forms of popular drama, see Castellani 1988; Vogt-Spira 1995, 70-93 (English version of the latter in E. Segal 2001, 95-106) and 1998; and still earlier: Beare 1930 and Little. Plautus’ interaction with “popular farce” has received systematic treatment by Eckard Lefèvre and his school who argue for the independence of Roman Comedy from the Greek tradition of New Comedy; indicative of their line of argument are the papers in Lefèvre, Stärk and Vogt-Spira 1991; an illuminating chart of the various literary and sub-literary dramatic influences over Plautus and Terence is provided in Marshall 2006, 2. 3 The very term and notion of “metatheatre” were first introduced for the study of English drama by Lionel Abel in his Metatheater: A New View of Dramatic Form, New York 1963. A call to revisit the term ‘metatheatre’ and its application to ancient comedy, especially the palliata, has recently been heralded in Rosenmeyer 2002/3. 4 Following up on the ideas expressed in his seminal 1985a book, Slater developed further the theory of Plautine metatheatre: see Slater 1985b, 1990, and 1993, 113124. Inspired by Slater, critics have illustrated new aspects of the phenomenon of dramatic self-consciousness in Plautus. Notable studies include Riemer 1996; Frangoulidis 1997. Frangoulidis discussed in detail the manifestation of metatheatre in Terence as well; see Frangoulidis 1993, 1994a, 1994b, 1995; also, Moore 1998; Batstone 2005, 13-46; and now Marshall 2006. 5 The idea that Plautus aggrandised the role of the servus callidus, already noted in Fraenkel 2007, ch. 8, became a leading theme in E. Segal 21987 (esp. 99-136);

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enhanced in the past decade or so: the publication of a considerable number of new fragments from the lost plays of postclassical comedy led to a review of the genre with different focus inspired by the metatheatrical analysis of the Plautine plays and of many different ways dramatic selfawareness is realised on the Greek New Comedy stage. These studies have proved that the absence of an internal auctor, a plot character in the pattern of the servus callidus who can mastermind the crafting of a play-withinthe-play, is simply a variation in performance technique, one of several expressions of stage self-consciousness, and that other forms of metadrama, equally powerful and effective, were well at work in Greek drama, in Euripides’ plays. This retrospective assessment of metatheatricality in Menander has been rewarding: it foremost brought to surface the considerable artistry involved in the plot structure of fourth-century comedies and illustrated the different socio-political and literary constraints that directed the conception, orchestration and purpose of staging the breach of the dramatic illusion.6 It has also addressed the challenge to expand this retrospective critical scope, at once more broadly, in order to cover additional aspects in the dramaturgy of the postAristophanic comic tradition, and more judiciously, in order to stress further the sophistication that characterises the texture of a New Comedy play. The present chapter looks at the ever-shifting interface of the “independent” palliata script with its Greek comic backdrop by taking as research precept the call to reassess the originality of fourth-century Greek comic drama through the lens of leading trends in literary reception criticism that have transformed the study of Roman Comedy. I focus anew on the relationship between Roman Comedy and fourth-century Greek Comedy, specifically, on the parallel philosophies of dealing with literary models and earlier tradition in general. This is not a discussion on the

other important early studies on the subject include Duckworth 1952, 249-253, 288-291; Harsh 1955; J. Wright 1975. 6 The most informed study on metatheatre in Menander, especially in the Aspis, is Gutzwiller 2000, 102-137. That Daos in the Aspis is a clear early example of a servus callidus, see Beroutsos 2005, 6; beyond the Aspis, Stockert 1997; on “play within a play” in the Aspis, see also Konstantakos 2003/4, 35-47. Gutzwiller discusses transcending performance in Euripides’ plays; on the concept of “metatheatre” in Euripides’ tragedy and specifically in the Bacchae, see Bierl 1991, 115-176, esp. 115-119; also Kullmann 1993, 248-263 (249, n. 4 with further literature); and Erler 1994, 318-330, esp. 318, n. 4. On the way Athenian Drama of the late fifth century, specifically and Euripides, capitalises on its own theatricality, see Dobrov 2001.

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social or political forces that informed comic drama in Athens during the fourth century and in Rome in the last quarter of the third century. My goal is to portray the inventiveness that underlies the Roman comedians’ process of “model” appropriation by attaching it to a closer, more accurate appreciation of the creative genius that distinguishes the enhanced picture of postclassical Greek comedy.

I. Reassessing the ‘Model’ The profile of Plautus as a creative artist and author of genuinely original scripts owes much to Fraenkel’s monumental Plautinisches im Plautus (Berlin 1922) which projected Plautus as a professional, stylistically meticulous, and consistent author whose plays observe a structural organisation that builds on carefully designed, identifiable patterns. Admittedly, Fraenkel’s theory was fashioned at a time well prior to the publication of the Bodmer Papyrus that introduced to the world the first complete play of Menander,7 but it has been steadily upheld and reinforced by later criticism to this very date—and the recent (2007) translation in English of Fraenkel’s original German text eloquently attests so.8 This occurred because the systematic study of the Menandrian findings, especially those that were identified to have been Plautus’ direct models, proved that Plautus as a rule refashioned the dramatic narrative of his Greek originals primarily in order to produce a text that could repeatedly be transformed to a witty, engaging, and funny spectacle. A typical example for illustrating at work Plautus’ innovative take on the Greek tradition is Menander’s Dis Exapaton and its Latin reproduction is the Plautine Bacchides.9 The relationship between the two texts received ample attention from diverse perspectives but notwithstanding the scope critics nowadays agree that knowledge of the Dis Exapaton cannot help us understand the Bacchides in terms of ideology and culture, and cannot account for the intellectual and aesthetic forces behind Plautus’ rewriting of his Greek original. Still, by illuminating the divergences between the two plays, modern readings of the two plays have induced a new way of

7

Prior to the publication of the Dyskolos in 1958, the Cairo Codex, published in 1907, had already disclosed samples of typical Menandrian dramaturgy, including most notably 341 lines of the Samia, the opening of the Heros, and a substantial part of the Epitrepontes. See H.-D. Blume’s chapter in this volume. 8 Fraenkel 2007. 9 Ritschl 1845 was the first to identify the Dis Exapaton as the model behind the Bacchides.

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appreciating Plautus’ tactics of model reception and they have showcased the high-quality artistry that underlies each text separately.10 In the following pages, close examination of two different cases of complex intertextuality explores the process of transferring comic wit from the Greek to the Roman dramatic text and stage, and the original, genuinely Roman transformations this process entails. I shall begin with a case of model reception in Terence’s Eunuch. The model in question is not some specific text but a theme or motif that develops in different phases and is detected in a series of literary and non-literary sources. The literary treatment of the same theme already in Menander operates as a filter of earlier literary tradition, and as a result Menander is assessed here as a prototype interpreter rather than model for Terence. My second case study revisits the definition of the comic “stereotype” by focusing on the muchstudied stock character of the miles gloriosus. The publication of several New Comedy fragments has shown that the “braggart soldier” is a comic type of the palliata, not the Greek comedy—or rather, not the comedy of Menander. It will be presently argued that the Roman dramatists were themselves aware of this as well. Both studies are concerned with the influence of Middle Comedy, specifically, the appeal of the performance of the so-defined caricatured roles or “types” therein, on Roman comic dramaturgy. The argument that Middle Comedy is present in the literary and performance background of the palliata does not necessarily presuppose direct contact, on the part of the Roman dramatists, with actual Middle Comedy scripts or performances. Indeed, it is unlikely that the plays of Middle Comedy were enacted by Greek theatre groups in the third and second century BC because the New Comedy tradition of Menander’s generation and the successors to them had completely overshadowed the earlier comic tradition. But it is possible to identify in the structure of the New Comedy plays elements that clearly date to pre-existing dramatic traditions, and it is plausible to argue that the Roman playwrights and their audience were in the position to sense the difference even though not necessarily able to identify their provenance.

10 Much quoted studies on the comparative examination of the Dis Exapaton and the Bacchides include Handley 1968 (the first publication of the Dis Exapaton); Barigazzi et al. 1970; Gaiser 1970; Del Corno 1973; Questa 19752, 34-35; Bain 1979, 17-34, 202-206; Barsby 1986, 139-140; Damen 1992, and esp. 1995; Lefèvre 2001, 142-167; Jacques 2004.

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II. The Business of Roman Comic Dramaturgy: The Eunuch’s “Danae”11 Near the middle of Terence’s Eunuch, the adulescens amans of the play, Chaerea, is disguised as an old eunuch under the name of Dorus. The eunuch will soon be offered as present to the meretrix Thais by her lover; Chaerea believes that by dressing up as a eunuch and replacing the old Dorus will have easier access to Pamphila, a young girl and Thais’ protégée, with whom the young man has fallen in love at first sight. The deception succeeds: Chaerea is taken for a eunuch by Thais and is assigned to look after Pamphila. Shortly afterwards, Thais leaves the house, and Chaerea, prompted by the opportunity presented to him and inspired by a certain painting on the wall, rapes the girl.12 Subsequently he runs away and joins his friend, Antipho, to whom he narrates from his own perspective his extraordinary adventure: CH. edicit ne vir quisquam ad eam adeat et mihi ne abscedam imperat; in interiore parti ut maneam solu’ cum sola. adnuo terram intuens modeste. AN. miser. CH. “ego” inquit “ad cenam hinc eo”. 580 abducit secum ancillas: paucae quae circum illam essent manent noviciae puellae. continuo haec adornant ut lavet. adhortor properent. dum adparatur, virgo in conclavi sedet suspectans tabulam quandam pictam: ibi inerat pictura haec, Iovem quo pacto Danaae misisse aiunt quondam in gremium imbrem aureum. 585 egomet quoque id spectare coepi, et quia consimilem luserat iam olim ille ludum, inpendio magis animu’ gaudebat mihi, deum sese in hominem convortisse atque in alienas tegulas venisse clanculum per inpluvium fucum factum mulieri. at quem deum! “qui templa caeli summa sonitu concutit”. 590 ego homuncio hoc non facerem? ego illud vero ita feci—ac lubens. dum haec mecum reputo, accersitur lavatum interea virgo: iit lavit rediit; deinde eam in lecto illae conlocarunt. sto exspectans siquid mi imperent. venit una, “heus tu” inquit “Dore, cape hoc flabellum, ventulum huic sic facito, dum lavamur; 11

Citations of Plautus come from the text of W.M. Lindsay, T. Macci Plauti Comoediae (Oxford Classical Texts), Oxford 21910, and of Terence, from the text of Barsby 1999. Donatus’ text is cited from the 1902 edition by P. Wessener in the Teubner series. 12 Important recent publications on the Eunuch include J. C. B. Lowe 1983, 428444; Whitehorne 1993, 122-132; Frangoulidis 1994c; Dessen 1995; James 1998.

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Chapter Six 595 ubi nos laverimu’, si voles, lavato”. accipio tristis. AN. tum equidem istuc os tuom inpudens videre nimium vellem, qui esset status, flabell

um tenere te asinum tantum. CH. vix elocutast hoc, foras simul omnes proruont se, abeunt lavatum, perstrepunt, ita ut fit domini ubi absunt. 600 interea somnu’ virginem opprimit. ego limis specto sic per flabellum clanculum; simul alia circumspecto, satin explorata sint. video esse. pessulum ostio obdo. AN. quid tum? CH. quid “quid tum”, fatue? AN. fateor. CH. an ego occasionem mi ostentam, tantam, tam brevem, tam optatam, tam insperatam 605 amitterem? tum pol ego is essem vero qui simulabar. CH. She (Thais) gave orders that no male was to come near her, and commanded me not to step away from her; that I was to remain alone with her in the inner apartments. I nodded my assent, all the while looking bashfully on the ground. AN. You, poor thing! CH. “I am going out”, she said, “to dinner”. She took her maids with her; a few girls still in training stayed behind to keep her (Pamphile) company. These immediately made preparations for her to take a bath. I urged them to hurry up. While preparations were under way, the girl sat in a room looking up at a certain painting, in which was represented how Jupiter is said once to have sent a golden shower into the bosom of Danae. So, I myself began to look at it as well, and as he had once upon a time played a similar game, I was beginning to feel extremely delighted that a God changed himself into a man, and sneaked inside another person’s house through the roof-tiles, to deceive the woman by means of a shower. And which God he is! He, who shakes the highest temples of heaven with his thunders! Was I, a poor creature of a mortal, not to do the same? Obviously, I was to do it, too, and without hesitation. While I was thinking over these things with myself, the girl was summoned away to take her bath; she went, bathed, and came back. Subsequently, they laid her on a couch. I stood by waiting lest they gave me any orders. One came up and said: “Here, Dorus, take this fan, and stir up some air for her, like this, while we take our own baths; once we have finished, if you like, you may take a bath too”. I took the fan with a gloomy look on my face. AN. Really, I should very much have liked to see that impudent face of yours just then, the way you stood there, a big ass-like figure holding a fan! CH. No sooner she had said this, when all of them instantly disappeared: away they went to bathe, and they were making a lot of noise; just as the servants do when their masters are absent. Meanwhile, the girl fell asleep; I took a peep at her through the fan; this way (gesturing): at the same time I

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looked around in all directions, to see whether all was quite safe. I saw that it was. I bolted the door. AN. Then what? CH. Hello!!! What “then what?” you stupid? AN. I swear I do not get it! CH. Was I to let get away an opportunity like this, so great, so short-lived, so longed for, so unexpected? Well, then, I should have been the fellow I was pretending to be!

Chaerea tries to argue that initially he had no intention to rape the girl;13 the thought struck him as soon as he caught sight of a painting on Thais’ wall, depicting the rape of Danae by Jupiter, which he read as an indirect approval of the crime.14 I would like to argue that Chaerea is not inspired just by the rape theme, or by the casting of the father of the gods as a seducer, but by the broader thematic nexus that is contained in the representation of Danae’s rape in Thais’ painting, including the specific version of the Danae theme visualised in this particular picture. With this pictorial representation Terence implies that there are multiple different versions of the legend, literary or iconographic, which predate the Eunuch and might have furnished primary models.15 The unconventional circumstances of the rape episode in the Eunuch have already been stressed by Gilula who notes that this is the only rape in the surviving palliatae corpus that is not a past event but “an immediate part of the present plot”, further described by the rapist himself.16 Chaerea, unlike all other comic rapists, is sober and overjoyed, exhibiting not the slightest trace of guilt or the need to justify his act since the girl is a slave (a detail he notes twice, at 366 and 858-859) and a resident in the house of a courtesan (960-961), meaning a place where sex is readily offered; not 13

On the impromptu element in the Eunuch plot, see Saylor 1975; Frangoulidis 1994c. 14 The painting is discussed also in Tromaras 1985, but from an artistic perspective, in order to show the direct connection between the ekphrasis at hand and the representation of Danae’s seduction on the north wall of the triclinium at the Casa della Regina Margherita. 15 Only a few short fragments have survived from Terence’s direct model, Menander’s Eunouchos; as a result we cannot affirm the presence of the painting scene already in the Greek text; the potential relationship between Menander and Terence regarding the Eunuch is discussed in Lefèvre 2003. 16 Despite Chaerea’s eloquent effort to mount an excuse for his deed, the rape crime did happen, and the description by the slave Pythias of the victimised Pamphila’s state right after the crime disproves the young lover’s side of the story; on/for the typology of rape in the New Comedy, see Pierce 1988, 130-147; Packmann 1993, 42-55; and Omitowoju 2002, 137-229.

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fortuitously then he hardly offers any description of the girl’s reactions during the entire episode.17 The reception of the heroine’s rape as an erotic affair enjoyed an established tradition in art already in classical times.18 In literature, the golden rain and its relationship to the seduction of the girl had shifted the emphasis of the story towards mercenary love. This is the case in the opening eleven lines of Horace’s Ode 3.16 which uses the myth as an example of the ability of gold,19 more powerful even than a thunderbolt (aurum... potentius ictu fulmineo), to penetrate the securest bastion.20 Three centuries later, Augustine of Hippo mentions the Danae painting of the Eunuch in De civitate dei (2.7) and associates the story explicitly with prostitution (18.13). Similar is the reading of Danae’s seduction embraced by the fourthcentury scholar Aelius Donatus who comments on the mercenary nuances of the relationship between Jupiter and Danae, which in his view make it prime subject for a painting destined to adorn the wall of a courtesan’s house:

17

Gilula 2007, 207-216. There survive three representations of the heroine on fifth-century red-figure vases which depict Acrisius’ daughter in erotically suggestive poses: with her upper body naked, seated on a couch and ready to receive the shower of gold in her lap (nos. 1, 8 and 9 in LIMC 3.2; relevant discussion in LIMC 3.1, 327-328). The erotic element is more explicit in the relief engraving on the cover of a 4th-century bronze mirror, which depicts a little winged Cupid approaching Danae from the back and reaching towards her head as if proposing to crown her (no. 28 in LIMC 3.2; discussion in Maffre, LIMC 3.1, 330); and in two gems which show her partly naked, raising the corner of a cloth which covers her legs so that she can receive the golden rain of Jupiter (see Furtwängler 1900, pl. xiv, no. 25 and pl. lxiii, no. 7). The eroticism of Danae’s posture as described above is affirmed by Dietrichs, 1993, 105. On the ancient figurative tradition, see Settis 1985, esp. 226 with notes). 19 Horace rationalises the golden shower (8 converso in pretium deo; 9 aurum); similarly, Danae’s avarice is stressed in Lucian, Gall. 13 (Zeus) οὐκ ἔχων... ὅπως ἂν διαφθείρειε τοῦ Ἀκρισίου τὴν φρουράν—ἀκούεις δήπου ὡς χρυσίον ἐγένετο, “because he could not corrupt Acrisius’ guard—you hear, surely, that he became gold” (cf. Helm 1906, 325). 20 On Odes 3.16.1-11, see Nisbet/Rudd 2004, 199-203. Also, several epigrams in the Palatine Anthology comment explicitly and with marked humour on Danae’s seduction as a purely commercial transaction involving gold in exchange for sexual pleasure; most notable are AP 5.31, 33, and 34. 18

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Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 585 QUO PACTO DANAAE MISISSE AIUNT QUONDAM] quae aptior pictura domui meretricis ad amatorum illecebras quam haec, quae exemplum continet amoris et amoris puellae et amoris ad Iovem pertinentis et amoris non gratuiti nec parvo propositi, sed auro in gremium fluente venalis? Tum quod in gremium Danaae ipse ut splendidus imber illabitur, nonne videtur meretrix docere adulescentulos illam corporis partem auctore Iove velut inauratam fuisse? IMBREM AUREUM non rorem vel pluviam sed ‘imbrem’ addiderat: o avaritiam meretricis! HOW (sc. Zeus), AS THEY SAY, ONCE HAD SENT TO DANAE] what painting would fit more aptly inside the house of a courtesan, whose job is to excite her lovers, than the one that contains an exemplary narrative of love, and specifically love for a girl, and love that is associated to Zeus, and love that is not satisfied gratis or cheaply, but is purchased with that gold that flows into her bosom? Accordingly, since Zeus himself slides into the bosom of Danae like a radiant shower, is it not obvious for the courtesan to explain to the young men that that particular part of her body, at Zeus’ initiative, has been as if covered with gold? GOLDEN SHOWER] he has added not dew or sprinkles but “shower”. How greedy those courtesans are!

For Donatus, a) Danae was not raped but offered herself willingly to Zeus, and b) in exchange for her sexual favours she asked from Zeus to be rewarded literally in gold, which implies that Zeus’ transformation into shower of gold was proposed by Danae. Donatus also observes that paintings of Danae were particularly appropriate to a courtesan’s house (aptior pictura domui meretricis). This phrase makes possible a metatheatrical reading of the painting as visual metaphor of the metadrama enacted by Chaerea inside Thais’ house. The love-struck and roleplaying Chaerea sees in the painting an allegory to his own situation, for the painting narrates a sexual game involving role-playing and transformed identities. The specific details of the version of Danae’s seduction on the painting are materialised by the youth into an action plan on the basis of which he sneaks into Pamphila’s room and seduces her. The painting may refer back to specific treatments of the rape in earlier dramatic sources known to Terence, and very likely his audience as well, so that the painting on the wall comments on the literary process of intertextual/interdramatic discourse between the Roman dramatist and the earlier tradition. The case at hand represents a most convenient example to study the subtlety and elaboration of intertextuality in the palliata, because of the recent discoveries in fragmentary literature, from more than one different dramatic treatment of Danae, that belong to more than one genre.

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The production of the story of Danae on the stage is firmly attested, and the source is Menander, who, generally speaking, made frequent references to tragic plays ranging from quotations of entire lines to subtle allusions whose detection requires deep knowledge of the literary tradition;21 Terence’s pictorial Danae belongs to the latter category. In the Samia, Menander makes an amusing allusion to Jupiter’s sneaking into Danae’s chamber: ∆ΗΜ. οὐκ ἀκήκοας λεγόντων, εἰπέ µοι, Νικήρατε, τῶν τραγῳδῶν, ὡς γενόµενος χρυσὸς ὁ Ζεὺς ἐρρύη 590 διὰ τέγους, καθειργµένην τε παῖδ’ ἐµοίχευσέν ποτε; ΝΙΚ. εἶτα δὴ τί τοῦτ’; ∆ΗΜ. ἴσως δεῖ πάντα προσδοκᾶν. σκόπει, τοῦ τέγους εἴ σοι µέρος τι ῥεῖ. ΝΙΚ. τὸ πλεῖστον. ἀλλὰ τί τοῦτο πρὸς ἐκεῖν’ ἐστί; ∆ΗΜ. τότε µὲν γίνεθ’ ὁ Ζεὺς χρυσίον, τότε δ’ ὕδωρ. ὁρᾶις; ἐκείνου τοὔργον ἐστίν. ὡς ταχὺ 595 εὕροµεν. ΝΙΚ. καὶ βουκολεῖς µε. ∆ΗΜ. µὰ τὸν Ἀπόλλω, ’γω µὲν οὔ. ἀλλὰ χείρων οὐδὲ µικρὸν Ἀκρισίου δήπουθεν εἶ. εἰ δ’ ἐκείνην ἠξίωσε, τήν γε σὴν - ΝΙΚ. οἴµοι τάλας. Μοσχίων ἐσκεύακέν µε. ∆ΗΜ. λήψεται µέν, µὴ φοβοῦ τοῦτο· θεῖον δ’ ἐστ’, ἀκριβῶς ἴσθι, τὸ γεγενηµένον. DEM. Now tell me, Nikeratos, haven’t you heard the tragedians, who tell us that once upon a time Zeus turned into gold and sneaked through the roof and seduced a girl who was kept imprisoned? NIK. Indeed I have; so what? DEM. We must perhaps be prepared for everything. Think hard: perhaps (whether) in your own roof there is an area that is leaking. ΝΙΚ. Most of it is, but what is that to do with it? DEM. Jupiter sometimes makes his appearance in the form of gold, and at other times in the form of a shower… do you get it? This rape is his job! How quickly did we find it (sc. the end to this mystery)! ΝΙΚ. You are making fun of me! DEM. No, by Apollo! Not in the least are you worse than Acrisius, that’s for sure! If the god honoured that man’s daughter, then yours as well – ΝΙΚ. Oh, wretched me! Moschion has made a fool of me! ∆ΗΜ. But he will marry her, about this don’t you worry! And be absolutely sure that, whatever has happened is the doing of a god.

21

For Menander’s appropriation of tragedy, see Petrides’ chapter in this volume, along with Katsouris 1975a and 1975b; Hurst 1990, 93-122; and more recently, Cusset 2003; and Blanchard 2007, 63-70. Worth consulting are also: Zagagi 1980, 31-38; R. Hunter 1985, 114-136; Arnott 1986, 1-9. On Menander’s employment of tragic material for playful purposes, including a reading of the Danae exemplum in the Samia, see Konstantakos 2003/4, 40-47.

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Menander’s text discloses three interesting pieces of information. Firstly, there has been already a specific tragic tradition of the Danae legend (τῶν τραγῳδῶν, “of the tragedians”), of which Menander was aware.22 Secondly, the phrasing at 594-595 suggests that this tragic tradition was not unanimous about the exact form of metamorphosed Jupiter: for some, the god entered Danae’s roof in the form of gold; for others, he did so in the form of a shower. The different views point to different versions of the story, while the playful reference in the passage at hand to this divergence in the sources suggests that at a non-literal interpretation of the golden shower metamorphosis of Jupiter inspired a clever joke.23 Thirdly, the rape of Danae in the Samia is employed by the characters of the play to poke fun at the mysterious rape and resulting pregnancy of the daughter of one of them, and given Menander’s preference for integrating tragic passages either verbatim or paraphrased in his text, the lightness of the treatment justifies a relevant literary precedence of a grander style and alludes to it tongue-in-cheek. In-depth knowledge of the mythological tradition of the legend of Danae gives rise to two possible readings of Chaerea’s rape venture, both of which are inspired by the way Chaerea might have read the ekphrasis on Thais’ wall. Each reading draws on a different dramatic tradition. The one tradition may originate in tragedy. A popular drama which Menander ought to know was Euripides’ lost Danae.24 The tragedy likely advanced a version of the seduction as a mercenary bargain between Jupiter and Danae mediated by an accomplice, Danae’s nurse, who is part of the mythological tradition that precedes Euripides and in the play at hand is included in the list of the dramatis personae.25 Money was also involved in the plot: a different fragment of the play probably from a speech by

22 Cf. TrGF, 5.1, 372: Sophoclis vel Euripidis fabulam ἀναδεδιδαγµένην respicere videtur Demeas Menandri Sam. 589ff. 23 For Barsby 1999, 196, the “shower of gold” theme in the Danae story is presumably taken over by Terence from Menander’s lost Eunouchos. 24 For Gutzwiller 2000, 110-111, Menander points specifically to Euripides’ Danae, because the scene is part of a larger context inclusive of several metadramatic references to specific Euripidean models. This is argued on the basis of comparative study of the vocabulary of Euripides and the so-considered “Euripidesque” passages in Menander. 25 The presence of the nurse in the Danae legend is not a Euripidean invention but is recorded already in the version of the story noted in the late 6th/early 5th-century historian Pherecydes’ work, Genealogies (FGH 3 F10/fr. 10 Fowler [R.L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography. vol. 1, Oxford 2000] = Schol. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4. 1091 Wendel).

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Acrisius, casts curses against greed which habitually corrupts women.26 The surviving fragments of Danae mention that some sort of deception was involved in the play and that some female or females were accused of this,27 but the evidence is too scant to endorse a more substantial role for the nurse in the development of the plot. If Euripides’ Danae, or some tragedy with a similar reading of the famous seduction story, is Terence’s inspiration, then Chaerea disguised as a eunuch, a most trusted guardian of Pamphila’s chastity, sees himself in a role similar to that of the nurse. By becoming the “nurse” to Pamphila’s “Danae”, he has easy access to the exclusive company of the confined maiden. Once inside the room, he bolts the door and transforms the bedroom into the equivalent of Danae’s bolted chamber. The bolting of the door calls to mind the comic lena, or procuress, guardian, door-keeper, and mediator, a role that is indirectly in compliance with the conduct of the trusted nurse. Soon after Chaerea is left alone with Pamphila, he drops his eunuch disguise and assumes his real identity. From the harmless eunuch entrusted with the guardianship of Pamphila he is transformed into a love-struck adulescens, eager to satisfy his sexual lust; and so, he drops his ‘nurse’ role for the part of Jupiter. It is hardly certain, however, that Euripides’ Danae and its particular plot influenced Terence in his envisioning the conjectural depiction of the Danae legend in Thais’ house. In fact, if a tragic model is sought as Terence’s primary source of inspiration, this may no more be Euripides than either of the two Roman Danae tragedies, by Livius Andronicus and Naevius.28 On the other hand, it is more probable that Terence’s imaginary 26

Eur. Danae fr. 324 TGrF, 5.1; see the relevant discussion in Karamanou 2006, 37, 78-80. 27 The fragments of the Danae (along with those of the Dictys) have been recently published in Karamanou 2006. This edition, however, has serious flaws, as it is shown in Stephanopoulos 2010. The best editions for the text are still Kannicht 2004 [= TGrF, 5.1, for Danae’s surviving text] (which Karamanou has used little), and Jouan/van Looy 2000 (49-72, for the Danae fragments). 28 Barsby 1999, 196, notes that in addition to Euripides tragedies on the Danae legend had been written both by Aeschylus [∆αναΐδες, frr. 43-46 TrGF, 3] and Sophocles [∆ανάη, frr. 165-170 TrGF, 4], about which nothing is known today. Recently it has been argued that the Latin dramatists worked with a different, ‘Romanised’ version of the myth, according to which Danae after being exiled from Argos sailed west to Italy and her migration resulted in the foundation of Ardea, Turnus’ homeland; on the politics involved in the Romanisation of the Danae legend, see Lefèvre 1990 [1992] and 2000, 175-184; and in general on the Romanisation of Greek myths in the Middle Republican era, Lefèvre 1999, 367378. On the Greek sources of Naevius’ Danae, see Morelli 1974, 85-101. Notice

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depiction of Danae’s rape is indebted to the treatment of the myth in Greek Comedy of the late classical and fourth-century era, specifically, in a group of comedies with plots revolving around some love affair of Zeus with a mortal woman. In the last decade of the fifth century and the early half of the fourth the production of comedies that dramatised some well-known myth became popular.29 These comedies belonged to a larger “category” of plays within the subgenre of mythological comedy, developing around the erotic affairs of Zeus and advancing a plot strikingly similar to the typical love plots of New Comedy.30 In each of these comedies Zeus falls in love with a maiden but their union is inhibited by various obstacles. Zeus needs to come up with some scheme in order to overcome these difficulties, and the scheme he conceives typically involves a metamorphosis. In several of these erotic adventures, Zeus enjoys the assistance of an accomplice, usually Hermes, the god of trickery and deception. In the end, Zeus consummates his erotic desire, with the object of his lust often succumbing against her will. The core of these plays relayed the crafting of Zeus’ scheme, the complications of its development, and its eventual fruition. The story of Danae (along with those of Leda, Callisto, and Europa) was a prime candidate for such a comedy; at least three authors of the Middle and New Comedy, Sannyrion, Apollophanes, and Euboulos, had each written a comedy titled Danae, which related the rape of Danae by Zeus metamorphosed into a shower of gold. Plautus’ only mythological comedy, Amphitruo, most likely draws on some Greek model that belongs to this tradition.31 Also, in several of Zeus’ erotic comedies the great god also the close echo between sonitu concutit from Eun. 590 and Naevius, Danae fr. 11 (= Non. 110.17), suo sonitu claro fulgorivit Iuppiter (“Jupiter flashed with his own loud thunder”). 29 Possibly the portrayal of Danae as a courtesan was popularised not in tragedy but in paratragoedia which became the dramatic ground for the fusion of the genres of tragedy (especially late Euripidean-style tragedy) and Old Comedy in the 4th cent.; on the genesis and early development of paratragoedia, see Nesselrath 1993. 30 Sannyrion: fr. 8 K.-A.; Euboulos fr. 22 K.-A; cf. Jouan/van Looy 2000, 52, n. 20. On the tradition of these mythological love comedies about Zeus’ erotic adventures, including their repertoire and chronology, see Konstantakos 2002, 156167; also Brown 1990. 31 Thus proposed in Amphitruo’s most recent and fullest interpretive treatment, Christenson 2000. Pages 45-55 offer full discussion on the rich literary background and the multiple possible dramatic sources, tragic and comic, Greek and Italian, behind Plautus’ dramatic version of the Amphitruo myth, including the critical theories that have been advancing each of the different sources; the view that

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plans out his seduction with the assistance of a helper, usually the trickster Hermes, who paves the way, removes minor obstacles, and overall makes the plot more complicated and more suspending. The comedies concluded with the discovery of the seduction; the happy ending was probably the realisation on the part of the raped maiden and her family, of the true identity of the rapist—a kind of anagnorisis—, in some grave public proclamation by Zeus himself, of the kind featured at the closing of Plautus’ Amphitruo. The Amphitruo model, finally, suggests that Zeus might even have provided for the marriage of the raped maiden to someone else, who, like Amphitruo, would be glad to be thus honoured. In the light of the above, the ekphrasis on Thais’ wall in the Eunuch may have been inspired by some scene in a Danae comedy of this tradition: Chaerea sees before him Zeus in disguise, working his way by means of deception into Danae’s chamber. The young man who underwent transformation of identity in order to find his way to the exclusive company of Pamphila immediately likens his experience to that of Zeus narrated on Thais’ wall, which thus becomes to him an acceptable paradigm for action. Even Chaerea’s disguise as the asexual, unattractive, old, and decrepit eunuch may have been modelled on a similar disguise assumed by Zeus in one of the comic dramas that narrated his seduction of Danae. One such case is known from the picture on the surface of the socalled Asteas vase, a phlyax from Southern Italy, which depicts Zeus and his accomplice as they carry out the intrigue which will lead to the conquest of a maiden that has kindled Zeus’ erotic desire.32 The scheme involves a nocturnal visit to the maiden, which needs to be carefully planned because the maiden is locked away. Zeus is pictured carrying a ladder that he intends to use in order to climb up the building where the maiden he desires is kept under guard—the woman herself is depicted standing at the window on the upper part of the building. Part of Zeus’ scheme includes his transformation into an old man, which is supposed to ease his way into the building without raising suspicion. The situation in Terence’s Eunuch shares many similarities with the caption on the Asteas vase: the lover is transformed into an elderly, sexually unappealing man who gains access unobtrusively to the secured location wherein the maiden with whom he is infatuated is kept imprisoned. Importantly, the echo to a comic play starring Zeus is suggested also in Donatus’ commentary ad 588 (on Chaerea’s description of Jupiter’s furtive entrance into Danae’s Amphitruo is indebted foremost to some of the mythological Middle Comedies about Zeus’ erotic adventures is proposed on 55. 32 On the origin of the depiction of Zeus on the Asteas vase to a mythological play of the Middle Comedy, see Konstantakos 2002, 159-160.

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chamber): Et satis comico charactere locutus est et presso stilo. The commentator clearly implies that Terence’s allusion to Danae calls to mind a comedy (comico charactere), a remark emphasised further by the explicit reference to the lower (presso stilo)—compared to tragedy—style of the genre. His argument is endorsed by the characterisation of the phrase sonitu concutit at Eun. 590 as a tragic parody. Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 590 SONITU CONCUTIT [IUPPITER] parodia de Ennio. TEMPLA CAELI SUMMA tragice, sed de industria, non errore. SHAKES BY THUNDERING a parody from Ennius. THE LOFTIEST ENDS OF HEAVEN in tragic style, but deliberately, not by accident.

Unlike Zeus, however, Chaerea did not undergo his transformation into a eunuch in order to carry out a seduction scheme: he did so instinctively. He conceived the rape plan consciously, after he had studied the Danae painting that emphasised Zeus’ disguise and the paramour’s submission. Of course, in the mythological comedies Zeus never intends to marry the maiden he sets out to seduce. This is obviously not the case with the Hellenistic love comedies and the palliata, which typically end with the marital union of the young lover to his beloved after all obstacles and misunderstandings have been removed. Likewise, a rape victim is always a prospective bride, so much so, that, in both New and Roman Comedy, a rape situation always is a preamble to marriage. Pamphila’s plight is no exception and this is marked by special phrases and vocabulary: Chaerea describes the circumstances of the young maiden’s bath prior to her entering the bedroom in language that evokes the ceremonial of the young bride’s preparation prior to entering her marital chamber in the first night of her marriage:33 Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 581 PAUCAE QUAE CIRCUM ILLAM ESSENT] relictae nonnullae, ut lavari possit ea virgo, quae sub vitii huius occasione nuptura est. Hoc enim totum sic inducit poeta, ut non abhorreat a legitimis nuptiis, in ea praesertim quae uxor futura est.

33

Philippides 1995, reads Pamphila’s rape as a wedding ritual; the terminology from the vocabulary of Roman wedding ritual is noted also in the comments ad loc. in Tromaras 1996, 202-204. The marriage theme is present in Naevius’ Danae, too: a fragment of the play is spoken by the heroine and includes a reference to the joining of hands in Roman marriage ceremonies; cf. Erasmo 2004, 17.

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Chapter Six A FEW [girls] TO KEEP HER COMPANY] a few girls were left behind, so that the girl who would ‘marry’ as a consequence of this rape may be able to have her bath. For, the poet introduces the whole situation in such as way, that (sc. the setting of the rape) may not appear different from a legitimate nuptial, especially with respect to the girl who is going to become a wife. Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 592 DUM HAEC MECUM REPUTO ACCERSITUR LAVATUM INTEREA VIRGO] servavit ordinem nuptiarum. et proprio verbo quasi de nuptura dixit ‘accersitur’, ut alibi (Ad. V.6.1-2) ‘quam mox virginem accersant’; nam ipse illam est habiturus uxorem’. WHILE I WAS THINKING OVER THESE THINGS WITH MYSELF, THE GIRL WAS SUMMONED AWAY TO TAKE HER BATH] preserved the order of the nuptials. And he said ‘she was summoned away’ thus using a technical term (sc. of the marriage ritual), precisely in the way this term is used for the maiden who is about to marry, as he had done elsewhere (Ad. V.6.1-2) ‘how quickly they summoned the maiden’: because that man is destined to have her as his wife. Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 593 DEINDE EAM IN LECTUM34 COLLOCARUNT] vide an aliquid desit a legitimis nuptiis; nam et ipsum verbum ‘collocarunt’ proprium est et ascribitur pronubis. SUBSEQUENTLY THEY LAID HER ON A COUCH] check if something is missing from the ceremonial of a legitimate nuptial: for, even the specific term ‘they laid her’ is technical and is ascribed to the bridesmaids.

To recapitulate: the quest for the exact content of the painting of Danae’s Rape, in order to understand how this depiction that inspired and motivated Chaerea to dare his sexual attack on Pamphila, generated a trail of interconnected ideas and hypotheses which drew probable evidence from a variety of literary models, in their majority fragmentary and until a few years ago undetected. The idea that the painting on Thais’ wall may draw on previous literary narrative of the story of Danae led to an elaborate Quellenforschung that resulted to the formulation of two different arguments, both of them complex and intriguing, suggestive, yet subject to reconsideration once new evidence comes to light.

34

Lindsay in the passage quoted above (151) prefers the reading lecto.

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III. The Orthodox and the Atypical The publication of several new Menandrian fragments from Oxyrhynchus since 1970 has enabled serious study of the Misoumenos. On the basis of the most recent text of Menander, printed in Arnott’s 1996 Loeb edition, we are fortunate to have portions of ca. 590 lines, which would correspond roughly to more than half of a Menandrian play, including a large segment of the opening 100 lines of Act I, the first eighteen lines of which are preserved on two different papyri.35 In the opening of the play, that survives intact, a soldier marches in and launches a pathetic soliloquy that is also an apostrophe to Night.36 The soldier is deeply in love with a captive woman who recently came to his possession, but his feelings are not returned. This soldier is the misoumenos of the title, or “he who is hated”, and this makes him miserable because he knows that he does not deserve the hatred coming as it is from the woman he loves. His soliloquy lasts for about fifteen lines, at which point he is joined on stage by his sympathetic slave, Getas, with whom he presumably discusses his predicament and his inability to make sense of it (the text after line 18, three verses into Getas’ entrance, is fragmented, often severely). The discussion between Thrasonides (the name of the soldier) and Getas continues beyond line 100, but soon afterwards the text breaks off completely, and even though very few lines of the text between lines 18 and 100 survive intact or nearly so, one clearly gets the impression that the portrait Menander wishes to paint for Thrasonides stands at odds with the typical image of the comic soldier—the boorish foreigner who flaunts his might, irresistible sex appeal, and wealth: the misoumenos is a vulnerable and truly suffering rejected lover whose plight means to stir the audience’s sympathy: ΘΡΑΣΩΝΙ∆ΗΣ ὦ Νύξ, σὺ γὰρ δὴ πλεῖστον Ἀφροδίτης µέρος µετέχεις θεῶν, ἐν σοί τε περὶ τούτων λόγοι πλεῖστοι λέγονται φροντίδες τ’ ἐρωτικαί, ἆρ’ ἄλλον ἄνθρωπόν τιν’ ἀθλιώτερον ἑόρακας; ἆρ’ ἐρῶντα δυσποτµώτερον; πρὸς ταῖς ἐµαυτοῦ νῦν θύραις ἕστηκ’ ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ στενωπῷ, περιπατῶ τ’ ἄνω κάτω— 35

5

On the Misoumenos, see now Stigka 2007. The standard text is Arnott 1996b. Despite these, Misoumenos remains extensively damaged and as such, controversial. 36 E. G. Turner 1977 is the classic, first detailed reconstruction of the opening 18 lines of the play; cf. also the review of Turner by Brown 1980.

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Chapter Six ἀµφοτεράς—µέχρι νῦν, µεσούσης σοῦ σχεδόν, ἐξὸν καθεύδειν τήν τ’ ἐρωµένην ἔχειν. παρ’ ἐµοὶ γάρ ἐστιν ἔνδον, ἔξεστίν τέ µοι καὶ βούλοµαι τοῦθ’ ὡς ἂν ἐµµανέστατα ἐρῶν τις, οὐ ποιῶ δ᾿. ὑπαιθρίῳ δέ µοι χειµ[ῶνος ὄ]ντος ἐστὶν αἱρετώτερον ἑστη[κέναι ] τρέµοντι καὶ λαλοῦντί σοι. ΓΕΤΑΣ τὸ δ[ὴ λεγόµ]ενον, οὐδὲ κυνί, µὰ τοὺς θε[ούς, νῦν [ἐξι]τητόν ἐστιν, ὁ δ’ ἐµὸς δεσπότης ὥσπερ θέρους µέσου περιπατεῖ φιλοσο[φῶν τοσαῦτ·

10

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THR. O Night—for you’ve the largest share in sex of all the gods, and in your shades are spoken most words of love and thoughts charged with desire— have you seen any other man more racked with misery? A lover more ill-starred? Now either at my own front door I stand, here in the alley, or I saunter up and down, back and forth, when I could lie asleep till now, when you, O Night, have nearly run half course, and clasp my love. She’s in there—in my house, I’ve got the chance, I want it just as much as the most ardent lover—yet I don’t… I’d rather stand here shivering beneath a wintry sky—chatting to you! GE. Dear gods! It isn’t fit even to allow a dog [outside] now, as [they say]! My master, though, tramps round like a professor, just as if it were midsummer!

Krateia, Thrasonides’ beloved and also his slave, hates him because, according to several critics, she believes he has killed her brother.37 Thrasonides, however, hardly appears to be the braggart soldier familiar from certain poster examples in the Roman comedies (Pyrgopolynices in 37

Brown 2003/4, 12, hypothesizes that in the lost part of the text or in the action prior to the opening of the play Thrasonides boasted about killing a man without knowing that the victim was Krateia’s brother, or that Krateia recognised the victim’s sword in the soldier’s hand. A series of misunderstandings occur in Acts 2 and 3, but specific details cannot be extracted because of the fragmented status of the text; the end, though, includes the typical anagnorisis: in Act 4, Krateia is found to be of freeborn status and the soldier is absolved from all suspicion that he has killed her brother.

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the Plautine Miles Gloriosus, or Thraso in Terence’s Eunuch). The expectation to find in Thrasonides an alazon is the outcome of prejudice, so suggested by the statement of sophist Choricius (fr. 1 Sandbach = test. 1 Arnott), that the soldier is portrayed close to convention: Having the evidence of comedy you know that a soldier is a larger-thanlife, swashbuckling creature, with a great deal of false pretension. Any of you who can form a picture of Menander’s Thrasonides knows what I mean. He says that this fellow, suffering from the disease of a soldier’s disagreeable character, drove the girl he loved to loathe him. In fact this hatred of Thrasonides has come to be the play’s title.38

The Misoumenos was one of Menander’s most popular plays. This is noted by the commentators and is extracted from the fact that more papyri derive from it than from any other play of Menander. The lack of more substantial content makes the cause for this popularity a matter of speculation but the portrayal of the heart-broken, unjustly suffering lover offered in the introduction is rather unusual for this comic character and may foreshadow deeper innovations39. In any case, the strange opening of the Misoumenos elicits comparison to a similar scene that introduces Plautus’ Curculio. In Curculio I.1 the audience receives his background information about the plot from the dialogue between a young man and his loyal slave. The young man, Phaedromus, is not a soldier but, like Thrasonides in the Misoumenos, is madly in love with a girl and has camped outside her door in the middle of the night. Both young men in their own particular ways represent different versions of the exclusus amator. Phaedromus, dressed up in a reveller’s paraphernalia and accompanied by a group of attendants, besieges his beloved’s residence and in the fashion of a typical elegiac lover addresses the bolted door with a passionate paraklausithyron love-

38

Translation and Greek text on facing pages in Arnott 1996b, 360 and 361; an inattentive reading on Choricius’ part, according to E. G. Turner 1979, 110. Photius notes that the play included some form of the verb σπαθᾶν, which carried the meaning “to boast falsely” (ἀλαζονεύεσθαι, fr. 10 Arnott), but he does not specify by whom or about whom this verb was spoken; and likewise inconclusive is the evidence recorded in fr. 5 Sandbach and Arnott, about someone’s military accomplishments at the service of one of the Cypriot kings. 39 Brown 2003/4, 11 acknowledges that there is no evidence in the surviving part of the opening scene, which would lead one to assume that the play featured a “stock mercenary soldier”.

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song, the first such instance in Latin literature.40 Like the young Phaedromus in the Curculio, Thrasonides feels that he has been locked outside his own house: his beloved Krateia hates and shuns him, which makes the soldier voluntarily shut himself outside his own door and expose his emotional suffering to the speechless Night. Thrasonides’ travails are accentuated by the fact that his voluntary exclusion has brought him physical suffering as well: the night is cold and stormy. Both Phaedromus and Thrasonides enjoy the company of their respective trusted slaves, Palinurus and Getas. Despite its seriously damaged status, the surviving text on lines 19-100 makes clear that Getas asks his master what the matter with him is (35-37), to which inquiry Thrasonides replies by describing the girl’s hatred and ensuing alienation from him (37-45, 5056). As it stands, the surviving three lines, 35-37, from Getas’ part may anticipate the rest of the speech: in these lines the slave compares his distraught master, who in defiance has exposed himself to the cold and the pouring rain, and walks up and down without purpose, to a professor of philosophy, a Greek-type thinker.41 This meaningful comparison promises more witty comments and wordplays, not unlike those that spice the language of Palinurus throughout his dialogue with his master in the first act of the Curculio.42 The extant fragments from the Misoumenos may suffice to convince that Thrasonides is an actual miles as much as a miles amoris, but hardly can one perceive him as a so-held typical miles gloriosus.43 As a matter of fact, with the likely exception of the Kolax (e.g. frr. 2-4), no other soldier 40

Copley 1956 remains the most comprehensive treatment of the paraklausithyron (defined by Copley as “the song sung by the lover at his mistress’ door, after he has been refused admission”); 141, n. 1, cites the most important earlier studies, including Haight 1950; later bibliography on the paraklausithyron is cited in Henderson 1973, 51, nn. 1-5. The literary paraklausithyron is closely connected with the spirit of comedy, because it developed from the kômos (see Cairns 1972, s.v. kômos) after the symposium, when the drunken and merry lover took to the streets to the door of his beloved’s house. 41 Notice also the reference to the Greek philosophers and other market loiterers to step aside in the opening monologue of the parasite Curculio a little later (Curc. 288-295), as he storms in, in the pattern of the servus currens. 42 On the language of Palinurus who, like Geta in the Misoumenos, is the slave and interlocutor of the exclusus amator in Curculio Act I, and a character performing a role similar to that of the βωµολόχος (“buffoon”) or εἴρων (“ironic interjector”), the principal jester of Old Comedy, see Papaioannou 2008/9. 43 Lape 2004, 189, n. 55, is the only recent critic to my knowledge who believes that Thrasonides must have “acted like a stereotypical braggart soldier…in some lost portion of the play”.

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in Menander’s corpus follows the gloriosus type, popularised in later literature as stereotypical of the New Comedy soldier but in reality drawing on the picture of soldiers as outsiders, that is known from Roman comedy (such as Plautus’ Pyrgopolynices and Terence’s Thraso).44 Menander’s soldiers usually are youths who become embroiled in some domestic crisis which they settle only when, like the adulescens amans, they marry the girl they genuinely love. Even the so-held typical ἀλαζών soldier of the Kolax may turn out differently if more fragments of this play come to light.45 Menandrian plays that develop around a soldier but treat his character overall rather positively include Aspis, Misoumenos, Sikyonios, and Perikeiromene.46 All four conclude with the transformation of the soldier into a husband and because of this they picture the soldier realistically: the 44

Terence’s Thraso has been lifted from Menander’s Kolax; the soldier of this play, Bias, is the most clearly buffoonish and boastful Menandrian soldier. Given Terence’s reputation throughout antiquity as a second Menander and drawing on the surviving fragments of the Greek play, we could argue that Terence’s hero revives important characteristics of Bias: both he and Thraso are wealthy (ll. 26-53 show that he has enriched himself on his most recent campaign), and he is also competing with a citizen for the favours of a prostitute; see Brown 2003/4, 7; further, Bias, the soldier in the Kolax, appears in fr. 2 to brag that he drank a huge quantity of wine; upon hearing this, his parasite exclaims in mock-admiration that Bias can surpass in imbibing even Alexander the Great. Terence’s Thraso, who brags about his accomplishments at the symposia rather than the battlefield, may follow the model of Bias in this respect; in turn, Bias may reach further back to Antiphanes, fr. 200 K.-A., where a soldier boasts about his participation in an outrageously luxurious banquet in Paphos; on Antiphanes fr. 200 see Konstantakos 2000 ad loc. 45 A creation most likely of the Middle Comedy with clear precedents in Aristophanes (e.g. the general Lamachos in the Acharnians is a prime such example), the miles gloriosus undergoes radical change in the New Comedy as the image of the professional soldier is no longer identical to that of the foreign mercenary; overall, the development of the miles gloriosus type in Greek literature has been recently surveyed in Blume 2001, 175-195; detailed earlier discussions include MacCary 1972, on Lamachos as braggart soldier; Hofmann & Wartenberg 1973; and the detailed treatment of all New Comedy soldiers in Brown 2003/4. 46 It is argued that the Karchedonios, too, featured a soldier (see MacCary 1972, 291, n. 27, and Arnott 1996b, 88-99), but this suggestion is purely conjectural: the only evidence for this is the mention of military equipment in P. Cologne 4 (l. 109 in Arnott 1996b), which probably but not certainly comes from the Karchedonios. Even if we accept that this bit does come from the Karchedonios, and that the reference to military equipment suggests the presence of a soldier in this play, we still cannot talk with certainty about the character of that soldier.

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soldier’s attire is restricted to the military cloak and the sword, which are spoken of as professional tools, symbols of the livelihood of the man who bears them. In the Aspis, Kleostratos, the soldier who owns the shield, has joined the army only in order to raise enough money to marry off his sister; in the last act of the Samia (616-737), the young man, Moschion, by donning a cloak and sword signals to the other characters that he is planning to become a soldier—in truth, he is joking, but in doing so, he (and Menander through him) manages to convince his audience that he can instantly and credibly abandon his status as adulescens amans and become a soldier instead of entering his impending marriage.47 From this it appears that the role of the soldier in Menander is metatheatrically coloured: it represents a transitory stage in a young lover’s dramatic maturation process. In this respect, one may become a soldier on the Menandrian stage simply by putting on a cloak and a sword because here they operate as props of disguise not as distinct markers or traits of permanent identity.48 In the Perikeiromene, the soldier Polemon initially treats his lover Glykera with brutality by shearing her hair. This act of physical violence, which projects an air of defiance, is inherent to his being a soldier; in this early part of the play soldiers are dismissed as thugs and untrustworthy (186-187), and a little later his rival Moschion calls him “the plumed captain, hateful to the gods” (294), referring to the crested helmet which is combined with the long, curly hair as the typical mark of appearance of the braggart soldier, according to Pollux.49 As the play unravels, however, Polemon undergoes thorough identity transformation after following Pataikos’ advice to let aside physical violence and turn instead to eloquent and persuasive speech, and also subject himself to the authority of the law (492-503).50 The willingness as well as the ability of Polemon to accomplish this successfully convinces that his stage act as a 47 For the structure and the employment of this motif in the Samia, see Konstantakos 2003/4, 39-40. 48 This fluid profile is susceptible to character shifting which in turn suits the volatile temper of the soldier who lacks a permanent home and is usually a foreigner; cf. e.g. Nesselrath 1990, 325. 49 “The Wavy-Haired, a soldier and braggart, has dark skin and dark hair; his hair is wavy, as is that of the Second Wavy-Haired, who is more delicate and fairhaired” (Pollux 4.147, in his catalogue of the masks of Greek New Comedy). The long, curly, even scented hair is repeatedly stressed in various descriptions of Pyrgopolynices in the Miles Gloriosus (64, 768, 923-924). 50 Brown (2003/4), 8, noting further in his discussion of Polemon (pp. 8-10) that towards the end of the play, when all confusion has scattered and the soldier is welcomed to marry Glykera, the girl’s father cautions him “to forget about being a soldier and not act hastily again” (1016-1017).

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soldier is a role, which, like an actor, he can easily put aside by divesting himself of the respective mask and costume.51 The soldier in the Misoumenos is in many respects similar to Kleostratos in the Aspis, in that he views the military as a profession rather than a career. No other Menandrian soldier subjects willingly to hardship as a result of rejected love, and nowhere in the play is he depicted to force his will upon Krateia, even though he was both able and legally entitled to do so. The opening soliloquy, at least, projects a sympathetic individual, whose attitude towards his beloved is infused with sensitivity and sincere affection, and whose miserable appearance on stage bespeaks self-denial rather than self-glorification. Far from exceptional or odd, Thrasonides’ profile of the rejected lover represents a colourful expression of the varied, hardly stereotyped presence of the New Comedy soldier.52 As such, it constitutes an intriguing precedence for the proper assessment of the soldier Stratophanes in Plautus’ Truculentus. It is widely acknowledged nowadays that the Truculentus is not a typical Plautine palliata. The acting is too self-conscious, and this persistent emphasis on realism and reality is largely responsible for the play’s unorthodox plotline and content. As a result, the play clashes against the structural conventions of a New Comedy, which are founded on illusion and the reversal of reality.53 In an insightful article that has 51

Enough fragments survived of the Sikyonios to piece together another sympathetic soldier picture for Stratophanes; cf. Brown 2003/4, 12-13. 52 All the New Comedy soldiers studied here come from Menander. We have no knowledge about how the braggart soldiers were portrayed in the other prominent comic authors of New Comedy, particularly Diphilos and Philemon, but in the surviving fragments of their plays the solider follows much closer the stereotypical miles gloriosus model; see Hofmann/Wartenberg 1973. If this is so, it may well be that Menander’s atypical soldiers were not the canon but the exception, the creative reaction of the Athenian dramatist to the formalisation of the solider type by his peers. 53 For the majority of Plautus’ critics, the plot of Truculentus is very thin and weak; see Duckworth 1952, 145, Dessen 1977, 145; also Prescott 1920, 277; and Hough 1935, 56. For Harsh 1944, 372-373, the play is realistic, not amusing, depressing, with almost no plot. Lefèvre 1991, 175-176, takes the play’s unusual plot, and the many ethical problems this causes, to be responsible for the relative lack of comprehensive studies on the play, which at the time Lefèvre’s collection came out included only Enk 1953, a full-scale edition and commentary, and the unpublished dissertation by K.H. Kruse, Kommentar zu Plautus Truculentus, Heidelberg 1974 (which I have not been able to consult). All noteworthy earlier critical assessments on the play are collected in Konstan 1983, 142-143, nn. 1-4. Lefèvre and his “Freiburg School”, on the other hand, do not find dramaturgical

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greatly influenced the study of the Truculentus for the past thirty years, C. Dessen has labelled this odd play a “satiric comedy”,54 because it consciously takes apart the usual code of Roman comedy, by incorporating the “right” or paradigmatic comic characters and plot situations but rendering them empty of meaning: the play lacks altogether real movement, peripeteia, all the while the characters in it are not behaving on stage as they are expected to, and more often than not, they are well aware of this. Dessen’s view about the extraordinary character of this play was probably held by the playwright himself as well. In the ancient testimonies, it is reported that the Truculentus along with the Pseudolus were the two plays that delighted Plautus the most in his old age (e.g. Cic. Cato 50). This statement is surprising because the two plays could not be more different: Pseudolus, on the one hand, represents the culmination of the Plautine comic genius, it revolves around the key palliata theme of intrigue, and in the character of the protagonist, the slave Pseudolus, it procures a portrayal of the servus callidus, the Plautine schemer par excellence, in its most archetypal form.55 Truculentus, on the other hand, is clearly not a funny play according to the standards of the palliata, it has no intrigue, no clever slave, characters who act contrary to dramatic conventions associated with their roles, and in short, much of what is happening in the play runs contrary to audience expectation. Yet, this is not more atypical than the information about the great popularity that the Misoumenos, with its love-sick soldier enjoyed. In the Truculentus, the central character in the play and controller of the plot is the meretrix Phronesium—the etymology of her name, from φρόνησις, tellingly transcribes her leading role in directing the action—who manages to keep three different lovers simultaneously dependent and eager to spend their fault with the loose plot of the Truculentus but take it to be evidence of Plautus’ attraction to the native Italian improvisatory drama, such as the Atellan farce, which increases as he approaches the end of his career. Hofmann 2001, indebted to Lefèvre, argues that the Truculentus illustrates Plautus’ loss of interest in the tightly structured plot mechanics of the palliata, and a turn to the native dramatic traditions of improvised farce that caused the infusion of his scripts with loosely connected skits, verbal gags, and slapstick; Hofmann 2001, 24-25. 54 Dessen 1977; the term “satiric comedy” was not invented by Dessen but was popularised by Enk who called the play a comoedia saturica with a didactic tone (Enk 1953, vol.1, 27); Enk in turn follows Lejay, the first to refer to this play as “satiric comedy” (Lejay 1925, 110-111 [cit. in Enk 1953, vol.1, 26]). 55 Konstan 1983, 146, groups the Pseudolus and the Miles Gloriosus together as the “paradigmatic” Roman comedies for the type accepted as the blueprint of the genre.

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money on her. One of these lovers, in fact the least favoured one, is Stratophanes. Allegedly a miles gloriosus, Stratophanes in action proves anything but that: upon entering the play, instead of delivering the customary boasting of the braggart soldier, he lectures the audience about the despicability of a poseur’s vainglory. Conspicuously metatheatrical, his sermon (482-496) on the merits of a culture of deeds over one of words operates on two different, discordant levels, and this is spelled out in the most explicit fashion already in the opening couplet of the soldier’s words: Ne expectetis, spectatores, meas pugnas dum praedicem: / manibus duella praedicare soleo, haud in sermonibus, “Spectators, do not expect from me to tell you of my exploits in fighting: with my hands, not with my words I am accustomed to tell of my martial deeds” (482-483). On the one hand, Stratophanes’ advocacy of the culture of deeds over that of words runs against the very essence of the palliata scriptwriting which depends on the power of words. Taken at face value, Stratophanes’ beliefs alienate him not only from the dramatic character which he is supposed to embody, but also from the dramatic environment in which he is set to perform. On the other hand, at the level of meta-composition, as a speaker inside a play essentially directed by Phronesium, Stratophanes introduces himself through emphatic rejection the stereotype of the New Comedy miles gloriosus, the part assigned to him by the hetaira, which nonetheless appears to represent his exact opposite. These declarations probably caused a sensation, followed by conscious breaking of the dramatic illusion: the actor who plays the part of the braggart soldier forewarns the spectators about the unconventionality of his role. In fact, metacomposition is the key to rationalise and accept as genuinely Plautine the Truculentus: its plot brings on stage a discussion about promoting a new culture of comic dramaturgy against traditional norms, with the actors in the play taking turns in voicing the views and theories of the comic poet. In this respect, the Truculentus both parallels and develops further the meta-compositional experimentation observed in the Pseudolus: the latter enacts a comedy and simultaneously maps out the intellectual adventure of composing the archetypal palliata plot, while the Truculentus generates comic laughter by staging a comedy that follows the palliata structure but causes the palliata motifs to stand on their heads. Stratophanes enters the play at the beginning of II.6 (482) and remains on stage through the end of II.8 (644). Scene II.6 opens, as mentioned above, with the soldier’s unusual self-portrayal. Stratophanes’ mild character soon unravels further when he subjects himself without protest to Phronesium’s contemptuous treatment: the courtesan looks down on his

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expensive gifts (521ff.; esp. 542-550, 616-618) and repeatedly abuses him for allegedly causing her to bear and keep a baby—his baby. The naïve Stratophanes seems so overwhelmed at the idea of having a son, who is told to look like a spitting image of his soldier self (503-505), that he readily puts up with a series of insults—most unlike the reaction one expects from a canonical miles gloriosus. Stratophanes’ identity crisis comes about in II.7 in the aftermath of his confrontation with the cook Cyamus that results to an exchange of abuses frequently observed in a palliata between a miles gloriosus and some lowly character, usually the servus callidus of the soldier’s rival or the servant (male or female) of the courtesan besieged by the soldier. Cyamus antagonises the soldier, and by proposing a typical version of “braggart solider” as theoretical model for Stratophanes, ultimately irritates him so as to cause the soldier to cast aside his original equanimity. By line 603, Stratophanes’ acting conforms to dramatic convention by embracing the conduct of the abusive and violent soldier; thus, the section at 603-631 becomes an animated verbal duel between the soldier and the cook. This duel revives a routine New Comedy slapstick moment, the first one in the play; more importantly, in causing deliberately Stratophanes’ anger, it forces the miles gloriosus to act out the very role he should normally embody but in the case at hand seems unwilling to perform. The emphasis on the soldier’s rising anger hallmarks Plautus’ vivid description of his movements and facial expression as Stratophanes hears Phronesium praising the gifts she received from Diniarchus, Stratophanes’ rival, and ranking them (and their donor) as superior and more welcome. The text at 599-603, where the focus moves from the conversation between the cook Cyamus and Phronesium to the verbal clash between the cook and the soldier, captures the moment of Stratophanes’ transformation into a typical miles gloriosus: CY. Me intuetur gemens; traxit ex intimo ventre suspiritum. 600 hoc vide, dentibus frendit, icit femur; num obsecro nam hariolust, qui ipsus se verberat? ST. Nunc ego meos animos violentos meamque iram ex pectore iam promam. CY. He glances at me and moans; he drew that sigh from deep down inside his belly. Look here, he is grinding his teeth, he is slapping his thigh! Oh my word! What is that man, some sort of diviner, and beats himself in this way? ST. Now, at this instant, I shall summon up my indignation and my anger from my chest.

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This soldier’s transformation is enacted in the “present” (nunc, 603), which identifies with the events reported in II.7, meaning, the soldier’s exclusion from “action”, which identifies with the erotic play inside Phronesium’s house. Stratophanes, one might argue after hearing Cyamus and Phronesium referring to him with contempt, has come to realise that his straying from the comic model of the “braggart soldier” has not served him the least to win over Phronesium’s favour, and along with it, a role in Phronesium’s comedy. His verbal duel with Cyamus following next enables the soldier to revise his acting along the traditional expectations of his role, and poke fun at his own dual identity, as the true but atypical soldier Stratophanes, and as the Stratophanes who plays the typical miles gloriosus. Cyamus becomes the mirror before Stratophanes, offering the latter the opportunity to see both his real self and the self that the conventions of the palliata have fashioned for him. Thus, Cyamus’ entrance at the head of a large crowd, his command over the other servants, and the praise he receives from Phronesium on account of the gifts he carries for her underscore even more boldly Stratophanes who modestly appears standing alone and “unattended by the usual entourage of flatterers—cooks, parasites, ingratiating slaves who mockingly magnify his exploits”.56 Next, Stratophanes bursts into a tirade against Diniarchus, and portrays him as an effeminate, slothful, good-for-nothing character: ST. Ain tandem? istuc primum experiar. tun tantilli doni causa, holerum atque escarum et poscarum, moechum malacum, cincinnatum, umbraticulum, tympanotribam amas, hominem non nauci? (608-610) Is that so? I’ll first make sure of this. Can you, for the sake of some trifle of a gift of greens, fodder and vinegar-water, dare to love a soft adulterer, whose hair is all curled up, who never leaves the shade, a fan of the tampourine, without an iota of maleness on him?

These slanders echo ironically, and probably deliberately, the characterisation of the paradigmatic Plautine miles gloriosus, Pyrgopolynices: populi odium quidni noverim, magnidicum, cincinnatum, / moechum unguentatum (Mil. 49-50).57 In his effort to hold onto his unique type of the comic soldier, once again Stratophanes proves that he 56

Konstan 1983, 152. W. Hofmann 2001, 188 ad 609, takes literally the colourful description that Stratophanes gives of Diniarchus, and he notes that in general in Plautus’ texts the description of cosmetics betray influence from the Greek lifestyle or the lifestyle of the Orientals.

57

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could be conscious of the poetics involved in the fashioning of his identity: he degrades his rival by portraying him in the light of the archetypal miles gloriosus, which indirectly contrasts Stratophanes’ own, more sympathetic soldier type.

Conclusion Since the identification of new fragments is only expected to rise in the immediate future, the appraisal of the Greek postclassical comic drama and the acknowledgment of the sophisticated way it has been received by later dramatists become at once increasingly more complex and less definite. With the close interdependence between New Comedy and Roman Comedy as research premise, the present chapter explored selective episodes from Roman Comedy in order to trace the increasing difficulty and ensuing challenge that await critics of New Comedy and the palliata in the light of new textual discoveries and reception theory better attuned to the peculiarities of ancient reception methodology and politics, as these in turn become more clearly defined and comprehended. Each of the two studies in the previous pages reached out in many directions. In the first, Chaerea’s visual encounter with the painting of Danae’s seduction by Zeus inside the house of the meretrix Thais triggers a memory of a binary literary tradition, tragic and comic, that treated Danae’s erotic encounter with Zeus not as a rape but as a lighter occasion, a meretricious affair (if the tradition that inspired Terence was primarily tragic) or a comic deception incident (if the pseudo-eunuch saw himself as an alternative version of a tricky Zeus in disguise in the pattern of a comic lover). Both lines of argument are attractive, albeit not equally likely, and their simultaneous recollection but also mutual exclusiveness defines true originality in literary reception. The second case study demonstrates that the portrayal of the soldier Stratophanes in Plautus’ Truculentus, patently ill-fitting in a palliata—since all soldiers in Roman drama are to a lesser or greater extent modelled on the stock type of the braggart soldier of Old Comedy—in reality originates in Menander’s comedy and the radical refashioning of the stock alazon therein, which in turn opens new perspectives for the reappraisal of Menander’s comic genius and interaction with his own dramatic contemporaries and predecessors. Both cases illustrate that the Roman authors systematically and deliberately drew from their models, certainly literary material but also inspiration, in order to transform completely and even absorb seamlessly the original source of influence. As a result, the quest for the original Greek model of a Roman play becomes an arduous task as it should be, and in this case the

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challenge to restore the lost original relies primarily on the identification of some “incident”, in this case, a motif, theme, structural pattern, etc., that would trigger a memory—in literary terms, an intertext. The restoration of the Greek original obviously cannot be accomplished but the intellectual effort towards this ever elusive goal ultimately leads to a better understanding of the Roman play itself and to a genuine appreciation of the ingenuity that underlies its texture.

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INDEX LOCORUM

Adamantius 2.27: 121 n. 155 Aelian VH 2.13: 112 n. 122 Aeschines 3.25: 87 3.172-176: 56 n. 23 Aeschylus Ag. 1069: 40 frr. 43-46 (TrGF 3): 158 n. 28 Alciphron 4.19.19: 24 n. 45 Antiphanes fr. 200 PCG, 2: 167 n. 44 Anthologia Palatina 5.31: 154 n. 20 5.33: 154 n. 20 5.34: 154 n. 20

M.M. 1188a3-4: 75 n. 63 Poet. 1449b7-9: 113 Poet. 1449b31-33: 89 Poet. 1450a13-14: 90 Poet. 1450b4-8: 92 n. 55 Poet. 1453b1-3: 89 Poet. 1453b3-7: 90 Poet. 1453b4: 90 Poet. 1453b8: 89 Poet. 1454b8ff. : 89 Poet. 1454b15-16: 89 Poet. 1455a22-29: 82 n. 12 Poet. 1455a22ff.: 90 Poet. 1461b26: 93 Poet. 1461b32-1462a18: 90 Poet. 1462a12-13: 90 Pol. 1266a40-b4: 60 Rhet. 1403b31ff.: 90 Rhet. 1403b14-15: 92 Rhet. 1403b26-36: 93 Rhet. 1404a11: 92 Rhet. 1404a21: 92

Aristophanes Lys. 155-156: 88 n. 37 Pax 255-257: 48 Ran. 911-926: 80 n. 6 Vesp. 292-295: 48

[Aristotle] Ath. Pol. 50.2: 69 Phgn. 806a22-24: 118 n. 146 Phgn. 808b11-14: 118 n. 145 Phgn. 809a26ff.: 119 n. 148 Phgn. 811a37-811b6: 117 n. 136 Phgn. 812b25-28: 117 n. 135 Phgn. 811a24-25: 121 n. 155 Phgn. 811b2: 121 n. 155

Aristotle An. pr. 70b7-9: 118 n. 145 E.N. 1113b16-9: 75 n. 63 Hist. Anim. 491b14-18: 117 n. 135

Athenaeus 5.198c: 95 12.536a: 79 n. 2 12.538cff.: 95 15.590d-e: 87 n. 37

Apollophanes PCG, 2, p. 520: 159 n. 30

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy Augustine, De Civitate Dei 2.7: 154 18.13: 154 Cicero Ad Fam. 7.1: 92 n. 54 Cato 50: 170 Cratinus, Dionysalexandros P. Oxy 663 : 113 Demosthenes 23.53: 65 n. 45 40: 68 n. 54 45.69: 119 59.16: 56 n. 22 59.65: 56 n. 22 59.122: 62 n. 41 Diodorus Siculus 17.16.3-4: 95 Diogenes Laertius 7.173: 119, 119 n. 150 Donatus ad Ter. Eun. 9: 19 n. 29 ad Ter. Eun. 581: 161f. ad Ter. Eun. 585: 155 ad Ter. Eun. 588: 160f. ad Ter. Eun. 590: 161 ad Ter. Eun. 592: 162 ad Ter. Eun. 593: 162 Vita Terenti 7: 16 n. 22 Euboulos fr. 22 PCG, 5, p. 202: 159 n. 30 Euripides Bacch. 116: 104 Bacch. 802ff.: 102-104 Bacch. 810: 102 Bacch. 813: 102, 103 Bacch. 815: 103 Bacch. 817: 103 Bacch. 820: 102

207

Bacch. 821: 103 Bacch. 828: 103 Bacch. 835: 103 Bacch. 977-996: 102 Elec. 57-58: 108 Elec. 64-66: 108 Elec. 71-76: 108 Elec. 104: 108 Ion 941: 111 Ion 506: 111 Hipp. 601: 130 n. 12 Hipp. 900: 135 Hipp. 924ff.: 135 Hipp. 936: 135 Hipp. 939: 135 Hipp. 943: 142 Hipp. 959: 138, 142 Hipp. 983: 135 Hipp. 1056: 135 Hipp. 1152: 115 Hipp. 1408: 142 Hipp. 1410: 142 Hipp. 1446: 142 Hipp. 1452: 142 Hipp. 1456: 142 Phoen. 1333: 115 fr. 324 (TrGF 5.1): 158 n. 26 fr. 372 (TrGF 5.1): 157 n. 22 Herakleides fr. 1 Pfister: 91 n. 52 Hesychius κ 4501: 85 n. 30 κ 4678: 85 n. 30 κ 4684: 85 n. 30

Homer, Iliad 9.447ff.: 131 Horace, Odes 3.16: 154 3.16.1-11: 154 n. 20 3.16.8-9: 154 n. 19

Inscriptiones Graecae ix 1, 694: 95 n. 65 Isaeus 3.11.13: 55 n. 17 3.11.16: 55 n. 17 3.11.77: 55 n. 17 Isidore of Seville Etym. 10.119: 85 n. 29 Isocrates 3.29: 58 3.61: 67 7.53-54: 90 11.40: 58 [Longinus], De Sublimitate 15.7 Lucian De Salt. 27-29: 120 Gall. 13: 154 n. 19 Lysias 19: 57 n. 26 Menander Asp. 11f.: 40 Asp. 14: 39 Asp. 25: 39 Asp. 32: 39 Asp. 36-37: 39 Asp. 42: 39 Asp. 74: 39 Asp. 89: 39 Asp. 93: 24 Asp. 112: 40, 41 Asp. 140-141: 40 Asp. 200-204: 40 Asp. 206-208: 40 Asp. 263: 57 Asp. 267: 57 Asp. 467: 24 Dysk. 35-36: 36 Dysk. 40-41: 38

Dysk. 41: 37 Dysk. 42: 37 Dysk. 120-131: 36 Dysk. 181-182: 111 Dysk. 187-188: 106 n. 109 Dysk. 189ff.: 108-111 Dysk. 193: 110 Dysk. 194: 110 Dysk. 201: 110 Dysk. 204-206: 111 Dysk. 211: 111 Dysk. 218ff. : 110 Dysk. 224-226: 37 Dysk. 257: 37 Dysk. 285-286: 37 Dysk. 290-291: 37 Dysk. 296: 37 Dysk. 341: 38 Dysk. 341-342: 121 Dysk. 345ff.: 101-104 Dysk. 348-349: 103 n. 99 Dysk. 352-357: 104 Dysk. 357: 38 Dysk. 361: 103 Dysk. 362: 102 Dysk. 363-364: 103 Dysk. 366-367: 102 Dysk. 369-370: 38 Dysk. 371: 103 Dysk. 371-374: 104 n. 101 Dysk. 375: 103 Dysk. 382-383: 103 Dysk. 387: 36 Dysk. 390-392: 104 Dysk. 392: 101 Dysk. 448-453 Dysk. 575: 111 Dysk. 714: 37 Dysk. 743-745: 37 Dysk. 764-770: 59 Dysk. 775: 38 Dysk. 788-790: 57 n. 25 Dysk. 794-796: 59 Dysk. 795-796: 38 frr. 680-876 K.-A.: 17 Epitr. 136-137: 70

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy Epitr. 477-478: 70 Epitr. 538-540: 72 Epitr. 539-540: 73 Epitr. 545-546: 72 Epitr. 547-549: 73 Epitr. 646: 70 Epitr. 749-750: 72 Epitr. 793-796 M: 71 Epitr. 794: 70 Epitr. 885-891: 76 Epitr. 886-887: 74 Epitr. 891: 75 n. 64 Epitr. 894-899 M: 74 Epitr. 898: 75 n. 64 Epitr. 898-899 M: 76 Epitr. 914: 75 n. 64 Epitr. 918: 75 n. 64 Epitr. 985: 70 Karch. 109 Arnott (=P. Cologne 4): 167 n. 46 Kolax 26-53 Arnott: 167 n. 44 Kolax frr. 2-4 Arnott: 166f. Misoum. 1-18: 163-165 Misoum. 35-37: 166 Misoum. 37-45: 166 Misoum. 50-56: 166 Misoum. fr. 1 Sandbach = test. 1 Arnott: 165 Misoum. fr. 5 Sandbach = test. 5 Arnott: 165 n. 38 Misoum. fr. 10 Sandbach = test. 10 Arnott: 165 n. 38 Perik. 186-187: 168 Perik. 294: 168 Perik. 492-503: 168 Perik. 497: 81 Perik. 1016-1017: 168 n. 50 Sam. 18: 135 Sam. 23-26: 62 Sam. 49: 127 Sam. 63-65: 47 Sam. 65: 128 Sam. 67: 128 Sam. 69: 47 Sam. 71-72: 47 Sam. 78-79: 127

Sam. 82-83: 42 Sam. 113-138: 128 Sam. 130: 62 Sam. 130-131: 42 Sam. 136: 42, 66 Sam. 136-142: 135 Sam. 137-138: 42, 46, 66 Sam. 138: 67 Sam. 138-139: 42 Sam. 140-142: 66 Sam. 141-142: 43 Sam. 149: 128, 141 Sam. 152: 141 Sam. 154-156: 141 Sam. 154: 139 Sam. 159: 141 Sam. 189: 48 Sam. 245: 68 Sam. 273: 135 Sam. 274: 135 Sam. 320-321: 48 Sam. 321: 48 Sam. 325: 130 n. 12 Sam. 325-335: 63 Sam. 337: 129 Sam. 338: 43 Sam. 338-342: 63 Sam. 340: 129 Sam. 343-347: 63 Sam. 344: 135 Sam. 346-347: 43 Sam. 349-354: 63 Sam. 358: 48 Sam. 374-375: 43 Sam. 390-398: 129 Sam. 430: 138 Sam. 436: 138 Sam. 448: 139 Sam. 458ff.: 135 Sam. 461: 135 Sam. 462: 135 Sam. 474-478: 143 Sam. 477-479: 143 Sam. 480: 143 Sam. 482-483: 143 Sam. 489-491: 143

209

Sam. 492: 138 Sam. 493: 137 Sam. 495ff.: 138 Sam. 496: 44 Sam. 498-500: 131 Sam. 508: 65 Sam. 513: 143 Sam. 519: 138 Sam. 520: 135 Sam. 531: 135 Sam. 532-534: 140 Sam. 539: 46 Sam. 552-556: 140 Sam. 554: 64 Sam. 559-561: 64 Sam. 560-561: 140 Sam. 580-581: 140 Sam. 582-584: 44 Sam. 586: 44 Sam. 589-600: 156-157 Sam. 594-595: 157 Sam. 599: 44 Sam. 606-611: 24 Sam. 616-737: 168 Sam. 620-621: 45 Sam. 635-637: 45 Sam. 641-644: 48 Sam. 653-654: 48 Sam. 654-657: 48 Sam. 658: 48 Sam. 662-663: 48 Sam. 677-678: 48 Sam. 678: 48 Sam. 679: 48 Sam. 682-684: 45 Sam. 690: 48 Sam. 693-694: 48 Sam. 694-696: 45 Sam. 697: 45 Sam. 702-703: 45 Sam. 726-727: 130 Sik. 120ff: 115 Sik. 124: 115 Sik. 127-129: 115 Sik. 131-133: 115 test. 20 K.-A.: 24 n. 45

test. 46 K.-A.: 29 n. 64 test. 71 K.-A.: 17 n. 24 test. 83-167 K.-A.: 2 n. 3 test. 83 K.-A.: 12; 31 n. 2 test. 83 K.-A.: 15 n. 17 test. 103-107 K.-A.: 15 n. 18 test. 119 K.-A.: 2 n. 3 test. 119-120 K.-A.: 16 n. 20 test. 126 K.-A.: 2 test. 170 K.-A.: 15 n. 17 Naevius, Danae fr. 11 (= Non. 110.17): 158f. n. 28 Ovid Tr. 2.1.369 Pherecydes FGH 3 F10/fr. 10 Fowler [= Schol. Ap. Rhod. Arg. 4. 1091 Wendel] Philemon test. 7 K.-A.: 116 Philippides fr. 25 K.-A.: 79 n. 2 Plato Leg. 700a5ff.: 94 n. 61 Resp. 492b5ff.: 90 Platonius Diff. Com. ll. 69-81 Perusino: 113 n. 123 Plautus Amph. 61: 113 Aul. 406-412: 104 n. 104 Bacch. 200: 20 n. 33 Bacch. 472: 20 n. 33 Bacch. 574: 20 n. 33 Curc. 288-295: 166 n. 41 Merc. 819-822: 54 Miles 49-50: 173f.

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy Miles 64: 168 n. 49 Miles 768: 168 n. 49 Miles 923-924: 168 n. 49 Rud. 317-319: 114 Truc. 482-496: 171 Truc. 482-483: 171 Truc. 482: 171 Truc. 503-505: 172 Truc. 521ff: 171f. Truc. 542-550: 171f. Truc. 599-603: 172f. Truc. 603-631: 172 Truc. 603: 172, 173 Truc. 608-610: 173f. Truc. 616-618: 171f. Truc. 644: 171 Plutarch Alex. 29: 95 Alex. 72: 95 Mor. 348e4ff.: 90 n. 46 Pollux, Onomasticon 4.124: 106 n. 107 4.133ff.: 84 4.133-142: 112 n. 122 4.140: 80 4.143: 113 n. 123 4.145: 114 n. 128 4.147: 121 n. 155, 168 n. 49 4.149: 115 Prudentius Contra Symmachum, II 647648: 85 n. 30 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 11.3.1-64: 93 11.3.65-184: 93 11.3.69-71: 93 11.3.72-77: 93 11.3.74: 47 11.3.78-79: 93 11.3.80: 93 11.3.81: 93

211

11.3.82: 93 11.3.83-84: 93 11.3.92ff. : 93 11.3.73: 93 11.3.91: 93 11.3.111: 93 11.3.112: 93 11.3.106: 93 Scholia ad Aristophanem Ar. Nu. 146 (ΣV): 112: n. 122 Ran. 406: 85 n. 29 Sannyrion fr. 8 PCG, 7: 159 n. 30 Servius Ad Verg. Georg. 2.387: 85 n. 30 Sophocles OT. 924ff.: 115 OT. 977-983: 115 Trach. 243: 40 Trach. 298: 40 Trach. 298-302: 40 frr. 165-170 (TrGF 4): 158 n. 22 Syrianus Commentary on Hermogenes on Staseis 2.15: 31 n. 2 Teles fr. 5, 2-7 Hense: 91 n. 50 Terence Eun. 107: 20 n. 33 Eun. 366: 153 Eun. 578-606: 151-162 Eun. 590: 158f. n. 28 Eun. 858-859: 153 Eun. 960-961: 153 Theophrastus, Characters 7: 88 n. 39 26: 88 n. 39

GENERAL INDEX

Accius, 91-92 n. 54 actors/acting, 10, 24, 47, 51, 81, 8587, 90-100, 106, 107f., 115f., 147, 169, 171 address systems, 138-142 adoption, 7, 43, 67-68. Aeschylus, 14, 40, 80, 114, 158 n. 28 Alexander, King of Macedon (The Great), 42, 95, 117 n. 139, 167 n. 44 anger, 7, 42, 25-47, 128-131, 134136, 140, 172 Apollophanes, 159. Aristophanes, 5, 14f., 29 n. 46, 48, 54 n. 8, 97, 99, 113, 138, 146147 n. 2, 148, 167 n. 45 Aristophanes of Byzantium, 3, 15, 31, 35 Aristotle and opsis: 86, 87-91 and stagecraft: 82 Athenaion Politeia (pseudoAristotle?), 69 Ethica Nicomachea, 75 n. 63 Magna Moralia, 75 n. 63 Physiognomics (pseudoAristotle), 117-120 Poetics, 87-91, 92 n. 55, 113 Politics, 4 Republic, 90 Rhetoric, 90, 92 Asteas vase, 160 Athenaeus, 15, 79 n. 4, 87 n. 37, 95 Bal, Mieke, 35 bastardy, 8, 42f., 54-56, 65-68, 7376 and ethnicity, 65-68, 73-76 Centuripe, masks found in, 83

chorus, 40, 94 n. 60, 99, 102, 113, 135f. Cicero, 91-92 n. 54 citizenship, 8, 33, 42, 44, 52f., 56, 61-64, 66 citizenship fraud, 62-64 class, 7-9, 32f., 38f., 41, 53f., 58-61, 70 and gender, 58-61 and marriage, 32f., 38f., 41, 53f. concubine, 41-44, 65, 127-131, 141 Cratinus, 113 Cultural Studies, 6-11, 31-78 Danae, heroine, 151-162, 174 Euripides’ Danae, 157-159 Demetrios of Phaleron, 42 Demetrios Poliorketes, 42, 79 n. 4 Dionysia (Athenian festival), 94-96 Dionysiac guilds (Artists of Dionysus), 94-96 Dionysus, 102-104 Dioskourides, 83 Diphilos, 169 n. 52 double standard, 8f., 53, 54 n. 12, 55-58, 69-76, 78 dowry, 58-60, 70 egalitarianism, 9, 53, 55, 60 Eunuch (see Terence, Eunuchus) exclusus amator, 165f. father-son relationship, in Hippolytus, 137-139 in Samia and Hippolytus, 134f. in Samia, 136f. Euripides Auge, 130 n. 14 Bacchae, 102-104 Electra, 108-112 Hippolytus, 11, 68, 126, 130145

214

General Index

Ion , 56 n. 24, 110f. Phoenix, 11, 131-133, 142 Stheneboea, 131 ethos (ἦθος), 11, 81, 90, 93, 98, 112, 118-121 fabula atellana, 12, 146-147 n. 2, 170 n. 53 foregrounding, 98 gender, 8-9, 32-33, 34, 51-78, 118 and class, 58-61 and politics, 58-68 and sexual ideology, 51-78 passim, 118, 119 genre, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 17, 35, 42, 80, 82, 84, 85, 86-87, 97-101, 112, 115, 117, 137, 124, 139f., 146148, 155, 159-161, 170 Gnathia vases, 84 Gorgias (sophist), 89 Grossberg, Lawrence, 31, 33 Handley, Eric, 27. hetaira/pornē (ἑταίρα/πόρνη) and the double standard, 54 n. 12, 55-58, 69-76 and the negative stereotypes, 55, 62-66, 68, 69-70 hybridisation, 11, 97-101, 112, 116 Hyperides, 87-88. n. 37. hypokrisis, 91 ideologies, civic, racial and ethnic, 52-79 passim, 81, 82, 87, 89, 119, 126, 134, 149 improvisation, 146-147 n. 2 intertextuality, 6, 9, 11, 13, 79-124 passim, 146-165 passim “inter-visuality”, 82, 103-104, 108111, 114-115, 123-124 Khoregoi, 85 kinesics, 108, 111 kyrios, 47, 59, 81 Lipari, masks found in 83, 114 Livius Andronicus, 158. Lycurgus 87 (theater of, ) 96 n. 72, 106, 109

marriage, 4, 8-9, 23, 27, 35-38, 4447, 51-78, 80, 104, 111, 127130, 137-141, 160-162, 168 and class, 32f., 38f., 41, 53f and wealth, 38, 53, 57-61, 70f., 126f. masks, 112-124 four genera of, 99f. making of, 112ff. New Type/ Old Type, 97, 117 of New Comedy, 112ff. of Old Comedy, 113, 119, 124 of Old Men, 84f., 112 of Slaves, 84f. 112, 114f., 117, 119 of satyr play, 114 of tragedy, 80, 112, 122 n. 122, 114-115, 116 of the ἄγροικος type, 120-121 of the λεκτική type, 122-123 of the ψευδοκόρη type, 123 of Women, 84, 112 of Young Men, 84, 112, 114 Physiognomics and the, 119f. standardisation of mask system, 11, 97-101, 112f., 116f., 124 Megarian bowls, 85 Menander Aspis, 7, 21-24, 27, 29, 39-41, 80, 100, 148 n. 6, 168f. Dis Exapaton, 27, 149f. Dyskolos, 7, 9, 14, 22-24, 27, 29, 35-39, 54 n. 11, 57-59, 94 n. 60, 149 Epitrepontes, 8f., 19-21, 23, 28f., 53f., 60 n. 36, 69-78, 100, 122-123, 130 n. 14, 149 n. 7 Eunouchos, 153 n. 15, 157 n. 23 Heros, 20, 28, 149 n. 7 Karchedonios, 167 n. 46 Kolax, 21, 27 n. 53, 167 Misoumenos, 21, 25f., 28 n. 58, 29 n. 63, 54 n. 11, 77f., 163174

New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy Perikeiromene, 19-21, 28f., 42, 77f., 79-81, 167f. Samia, 7-9, 11, 20, 25f., 27-29, 41-49, 53f., 56, 61-69, 7175, 100, 126-144, 149 n. 7, 156f., 168 Sikyonios, 24f., 27, 114-115, 167, 169 n. 51 and Hellenistic culture, 57f., 77, 81-82, 86-96, 118 and intertextuality, 79-145 and opsis, 11, 79-124 passim as model for Plautus and Terence, 146-175 101-111, 114, 120-121, 126 n. 3, 149 n. 7 editions of, prior to the great finds, 14-18 editions of, after the great finds, 21-22, 24-28 fate of his texts in antiquity, 15f. House of Menander in Mytilene, 83 in the Renaissance, 17, 116 portrait busts of, 16 realism in, 5, 71, 77, 101, 137 referential space in, 99, 105-111 relationship to tragedy, 9-12, 79-145 passim sociopolitical issues in, 31-78 passim mercenary, 46, 51, 77f. 130 metatheatre, 12, 100, 146-148, 155 in Menander, 12, 88, 100, 106 n. 109, 155 in Roman Comedy, 146-148 Middle Comedy, 54 n. 13, 97-100, 113 n. 126, 121, 150, 159-161 miles gloriosus (comic character), 150, 163-175 mime, 12, 83, 146 n. 2 Monosticha (Menander’s gnômai), 14, 17 Morgantina, 84 Myrina, 84 mythological comedies, 159-161

215

Naevius, 158. nothos (νόθος), 44, 75f., 136 orchestra, 96, 106 oikos (οἶκος), 9, 65, 141, 144-145 onkos (ὄγκος), 114, 116-117 opsis (ὄψις), 10f. 82, 87-91, 96, 113, 117 oratory, 88, 92, 134 overdetermination, 11, 40, 115 parody, 87, 99, 113, 161 pathos (πάθος), 93, 112, 119 performance, 1, 6, 9-12, 33, 51, 79124, 134, 146-148, 150, 172174 Perikles’ citizenship law, 8, 41-44 Philemon, 17-18, 115, 169 n. 52 Philippides, 79 n. 4 Phryne, 87-88 n. 37 physiognomics/ physiognomical/ physiognomy, 117-121 Plato, 86, 87, 89-90, 94 n. 61 Plautus, Amphitruo, 54, 113, 159f. Bacchides, 20 n. 33, 27, 149f. Cistellaria, 54 n. 10, 60 n. 36 Curculio, 165f. Mercator, 18, 54 Miles Gloriosus, 165, 168 n. 49, 170 n. 55, 173 Pseudolus, 170f. Rudens, 105 n. 106, 108 n. 116, 114 Truculentus, 60 n. 36, 169-175 reception of postclassical comedy, 163-174 Plutarch, 15 Pollux, Julius, 80, 84, 112-116, 121123, 168 praxis (πρᾶξις), 93, 98, 120 proxemics, 111 Quintilian, 46, 92f. rape, 3, 8, 41-48, 51-78 passim, 81, 110f., 127, 151-162, 174 referentiality, 82, 97, 98, 99, 108112, 124 Sannyrion, 159.

216

General Index

satyr drama, 87, 95f., 114 semiotics, 6, 10, 32, 79-124 passim semiotisation, 11, 98-100, 112, 116f., 124 servus callidus, 97, 147f., 170-172 servus currens, 114-115, 166 n. 41 sex and sexuality in Samia and Hippolytus, 127-134, 140, 144 skene, 94-107 passim slavery, 39, 49, 52, 58, 73 soldiers in Greek and Roman Comedy, 23, 39, 57, 79, 81, 97, 122, 150, 163-175 Sophocles, 9, 14, 40, 115, 135, 158 n. 28 spectacle, intertextual, 79-124 passim.

Stobaios, 17-23 theatre buildings, 88, 96ff. theatrical machinery, 96, 106 theatricality, 83, 89, 110, 147 (see also metatheatre, intertextuality, intervisuality) Theophrastus, 88 Terence, Andria, 27 n. 54, 53 n. 10 Eunuchus, 27 n. 54, 57, 151-162 Heautontimorumenos, 106 n. 109 reception of postclassical comedy, 146, 150, 151-162 Villa of Cicero (Pompeii), 84