Note 25 — Chapter VII · POETIC IN ANCIENT DRAMA AND NARRATIVE

See the quotation from Apuleius on page 228. The Onomasticon of Julius Pollux enumerates 44 masks sufficient for all the rôles and all the situations of the New Comedy: 10 for old men, 10 for young men, 7 for slaves, 3 for old women, 14 for young women. There are even stock names, e.g., Davos and Chremes. Miles gloriosus was taken over by Latin comedy and again by French seventeenth-century comedy, though in fact neither society had this Athenian type. Over against him is the parasite, often the mover of the intrigue. The slave and he are the most active of the personæ. (This note is derived from Lallier.)