Note 255 — Women in Greek Comedy

No one who is familiar with the Middle Comedy is likely to wish to maintain that the words παρθένων φθοράς imply that the plays of Anaxandrides were similar in character to such plays as the Andria or the Adelphi of Menander. The exact nature of the παρθένων ἔρωτες of the Middle Comedy, which form, in fact, an infinitesimal part of the erotic element in that literature, will be fully discussed lower down. [pp. 159, 213.]