Women in Greek Comedy

I. The Classification of Comedy

The classification of Greek Comedy has been, from the earliest times, a subject of dispute. The ancient critics, for the most part, divided comedy into two classes only—the Old Comedy, which has a parabasis, and the New Comedy, which has none. According to these critics, the acme of the Old Comedy was reached during the Peloponnesian War, that of the New Comedy during the reign of Alexander. That this system of classification, though sound as far as it goes, is not an adequate one, will be admitted by every student of the subject, and need not be further discussed. The alternative division of comedy into three classes, corresponding roughly to the sixth, seventh, and eighth so-called periods of Greek literature[202]—a scheme of arrangement that has on the whole been most generally accepted in modern times—is also not a very satisfactory one; for, apart from the initial objection that it, like all similar chronological arrangements, is far too rigid to be applied to anything so intangible as a literary tendency, there is the further and graver objection that there is really no essential difference whatever between the comedies performed at Athens during the reign of Philip and those performed there in the time of Alexander.

The Orge of Menander, produced in the year after the death of the latter monarch, might have been produced, as far as one can judge of its character by its remains, in any year of the previous fifty.

At the same time, however, it is certain that a division of comedy into three classes rather than two is necessary; for that the work of, say, Apollodorus Carystius, differs as much from that of Antiphanes as anything the latter ever wrote does from the work of Eupolis, is a fact that no one acquainted with the subject is likely to question.

The only satisfactory system of classification is that based, not on style or chronology, but on subject. Greek comedy falls naturally into three great divisions—the Political, the Social, and the Romantic,[203] and, to come at once to the point, these three divisions are characterised by three distinct ways of regarding women. The Political Comedy practically ignores women altogether; the Social Comedy admits the fascination of woman’s society as an incident in a man’s life; the Romantic Comedy claims woman’s love as the one topic of absorbing interest for men.

And here it may at once be observed that the relation between the first two forms of art is somewhat different from that which exists between them and the last. The Social Comedy was the natural and logical development of the original primitive comedy, and the Comedy of Cratinus, with its political motive, was but a temporary branch of the art, which, though growing at one time to such striking proportions as well nigh to conceal the parent stem, yet never actually prevented the growth and development of the latter. The Romantic Comedy, on the other hand, was the result, not of development, but of revolution. It was a deliberate attempt (undertaken in the first instance, it would seem, by a single man of genius) to inoculate the old Athenian drama with those romantic ideas which were by this time beginning to be freely expressed in various other parts of Greece, and to combine the teaching of the epic erotic legends, which were in essence ideal, with the realism of Social Comedy.[204]

This being the case, one would not unnaturally expect to find a more decided line of cleavage between the writers of the two last phases of Comedy than is apparent in the previous case. And this is unquestionably so. Throughout the fifth century we find political and social comedy flourishing side by side, the great mass of the comedians being equally at home in either branch of the art, while, towards the close of that century and at the beginning of the next, the boundary line between the writers of “Old” and “Middle” Comedy is notoriously a very faint one. At the end of the fourth century, on the other hand, the victory of the Romantic Comedy was rapid and well-nigh complete, while there is generally no difficulty in saying without hesitation to which of the two classes, the modern or the old-fashioned, any given play of the transition belonged.[205]

But while the most satisfactory classification of Greek Comedy is unquestionably one on the lines suggested above, the ordinary division into Old, Middle, and New Comedy, is so generally recognised that it has seemed to me inadvisable to ignore it altogether, and so these terms will be found occurring repeatedly in the following pages. To avoid the possibility of any misunderstanding, however, it may be remarked that the term, “New Comedy,” will always be used in the sense of romantic comedy. The term, “Middle Comedy,” will be used in its ordinary sense, except that it will be extended to cover all works, irrespective of author, which are akin to the school of Antiphanes and Eubulus. The unsatisfactory term, “Old Comedy,” will only be used in those passages where the context renders its meaning unmistakable.

II. The Origin of Comedy.

Comedy was, in its origin, as seems indeed necessary from its nature, social rather than political. The scenes which the first comic actors aimed at depicting appear, beyond doubt, to have been representations of amusing incidents in the everyday life of ordinary people, and were in no way concerned with state policy; while the personalities with which this form of entertainment originally abounded, were aimed rather at rival actors than at well-known public characters, and had nothing at all in common with political lampoons. It is true that Comedy generally received its chief impulses at times of great popular license under democracies,[206] but this fact really means no more than that, at such periods, the amusements of the people received greater attention than would be the case under a tyranny or an oligarchy. No doubt these extempore slanging-matches became, at an early time already, very general in character, and contained, among other promiscuous allusions, occasional references, probably none too complimentary, to important contemporary events or personages; but that this was not their main feature, nor that which supplied their chief interest, seems shown, inter alia, by the fact that the first artistic development they received at the hands of Epicharmus was by no means in this direction. Nor, indeed, do the earliest Attic comedies appear to have been political in character, the few fragments of them which survive seeming, in every case, to deal with social subjects.[207]

The first writer to make Comedy political—that is, the first writer to give to the “Old” Comedy of Athens that which is, by modern readers, generally regarded as its most essential characteristic—was Cratinus. He, abandoning in great part that endeavour to amuse which had been the primary object of his predecessors, deliberately made use of Comedy as a political party engine, or, as he would perhaps have preferred to call it, as a means of attacking those who did harm to the state.[208] The success of the new element thus imported seems to have been very great; but, at the same time, it must not be supposed that the work of Cratinus was all of this nature. In the first place, some of his plays were of a distinctly general character. Thus the Odysses was a simple parody of the Odyssey of Homer, and, as such, was the distinct forerunner of a class of piece very common in the Social Comedy of the fourth century.[209] The Cleobulinae, with its enigmas, is equally suggestive of another feature of the same period of art. In like manner, the Panoptae, with its attacks on the philosopher Hippo, the Seriphii, with its mythological allusions, and the Horae, with its apparent discussions of tragedy, all point to the direction in which lay the true development of the art of Comedy.[210]

But, popular as the indiscriminate mud-throwing of Cratinus undoubtedly was with a large section of that cultured Athenian audience which one is taught to admire, a certain reaction was, in course of time, almost inevitable; and such a reaction was actually furnished by the comedies of Crates. Crates is described as the first Attic comedian to develop Comedy on the lines of Epicharmus, and to introduce a plot with apparently fictitious or allegorical characters, instead of merely bringing public characters on the stage and making them ridiculous.[211]

From a very early period, therefore, Comedy at Athens falls into two classes, the personal, which is usually also political, and the general or social, though the line of demarcation is not, of course, a very rigid one, since writers of the latter class would seldom feel much hesitation in attacking anyone who had made himself particularly obnoxious to them, even if he were a political character, while those of the former were also frequently compelled, for equally personal reasons, to set a limit to their righteous indignation. Thus Pherecrates, the most important of the actual imitators of Crates,[212] is by no means averse to an occasional personality, while a writer of the very opposite school, Hermippus, was yet the author of the Athenas Gonae.[213] Plato and Aristophanes are, of course, equally striking instances of the same fact occurring at a later date.

From the preceding paragraphs, which might have been considerably extended, had it not lain somewhat outside the present subject to extend them, one fact at least will be abundantly clear. That system of treating subjects rather than persons as material for comedy which is sometimes spoken of as a distinctive feature of “Middle” Comedy (using that term in its chronological sense), had already been in vogue at Athens from the very earliest times; in fact, what are commonly called “Old” and “Middle” Comedy are, in spirit, intimately associated with one another, and the most important differences between them are in purely external matters, brought about by external causes.[214]

This fact will not be without its importance in considering our immediate subject. In the first place, it will cause us to find in the early Athenian comedy two distinct ways of regarding women, which, while contemporaneous, have very little else in common with one another. The comedy of the school of Cratinus,[215] being concerned with public characters and with them alone, naturally ignores women almost entirely.[216] The comedy of the school of Crates, on the other hand, is very similar in its treatment of women to the comedy of the beginning of the fourth century, except that, in so far as the position of women in Athenian society was a less important one in the middle of the fifth century than it was some seventy years later, the female element is not such a pronounced feature of these early works as it is of the later.

A detailed examination of the treatment of women in early comedy, as far as such is possible by means of the fragments, will serve to illustrate the foregoing somewhat general remarks.

III. Early Comedy.

Cratinus, in that work at any rate which is truly characteristic of his genius, is entirely engrossed in public affairs, and in attacking the characters of public men. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that in his plays women are almost entirely ignored. The one notable exception is Aspasia, who is, it is true, alluded to more than once, and that in no very complimentary terms; but this is, of course, only what one would expect of an opponent of Pericles.[217] The poet’s views of married life are sufficiently illustrated by his Pytine. It is, however, to be observed that, in those of his plays which, from legislative causes, approximated more closely to the contemporary social comedy, the female element is more apparent, though even here it is never really prominent. Thus the Cleobulinae appears to have introduced a chorus of women propounding enigmas, while both the Nemesis and the Seriphii contained at least allusions to erotic mythological incidents.[218]

The other early poets of the political school are still more barren of references to women; indeed the fragments of Teleclides, Hermippus, and Eupolis,[219] put together, do not furnish a single noticeable instance.

It is otherwise, as already remarked, with the school of Crates. The fragments of Crates himself do not indeed furnish much of interest in this connection, except, perhaps, the rather risqué remarks in Fr. Incert. 3 and 4, but from Pherecrates there is more to be learnt. In the first place, three of his plays, the Corianno, Thalatta, and Petale, are named after Hetaerae, a common enough feature in later times, but rare at this early period; while the first two of these, at any rate, were evidently devoted to a study of the life of this class of person. Thus the Corianno describes (Fr. 1, 2, 3, 4) the drinking propensities of its heroine;[220] while the Thalatta gives one even further particulars, Fr. 7 describing the arrival at Thalatta’s house of her lover[221] (perhaps the Epilesmon, the “Absent-minded Man,” from whom the piece had its second title), and Fr. 2, 3, and 5 their supper together, while Fr. 4 shows clearly that a lover’s quarrel of some sort duly found its place in the piece.[222] Of the Petale no important fragment remains. Whether the Pannychis dealt with one of those incidents which are so common in New Comedy, it is impossible to say.

IV. Aristophanes.

The remains of Pherecrates, therefore, notwithstanding their very meagre character, supply ample evidence that, at this period already, some of the most popular characters and scenes of early fourth-century comedy had found a place on the Athenian stage[223]; but a still more interesting field of study is furnished by those poets who belong to the period of transition which commences with the decline of the Athenian power, and more especially by those who began life as adherents of the personal and political school of Cratinus, and were afterwards compelled, by force of circumstances, to identify themselves with a different style of art. Foremost among these is, of course, the name of Aristophanes. The earlier plays of Aristophanes contain few allusions to women, and throughout his works it may be doubted whether he ever introduced a female character on the stage except with the ultimate intention of leading up to some form of indecency. At the same time, since the fact that his plays have been preserved affords a better opportunity of judging of his views than is to be had in the case of any other writer of the period, it will perhaps be well to examine some of his characteristics in greater detail.

The first and, perhaps, the most striking feature in the Aristophanic treatment of women—a feature which is very prominent indeed in certain plays—is the respect which the poet professes to feel for women’s judgment and powers of organisation. Thus, in the Lysistrata, the treaty between Athens and Sparta, which is admitted on all sides to be desirable, can only be brought about through the intervention of a woman. Similarly, in the Ecclesiazusae, when the government of the city has fallen into a deplorable state, it is reorganised by the women, and their scheme of reorganisation is, we are given to understand, a complete success, for the time being at any rate. Again, in the lost play of the Scenas Catalambanusae, there seems little doubt that the motive of the action was an appeal on the part of the poet from the male audience who had not appreciated him, to a female audience which he expected to find endowed with better taste.

All this is very pleasing as far as it goes. The question is:—How far is this respect professed for women, genuine? Enquiry would seem to show that very little of it, if any, is genuine at all. Of the Scenas Catalambanusae it is impossible to speak with certainty,[224] but, as for the other two plays mentioned above, it is hard to believe that the women are introduced for any other purpose than that of leading up to the various scenes of indecency which afford the main interest of both pieces. The climax of the Lysistrata is the pathetic speech of Cinesias (865 seqq.), that of the Ecclesiazusae the struggle between the γραῦς and the νεανίς (877 seqq.), and neither of these scenes can be said to show much respect for female nature. As for the success of the women’s efforts in both these plays, it is perhaps sufficient to observe that in each case the poet’s main object was to point out the advantages of a particular course of action, not to suggest any novel method of procedure by means of which this course was to be adopted. The political object of both comedies is merely to attack the government of the day. No one who has ever read these plays would be likely to argue that they advocated the extension of the franchise to women, or indeed concerned themselves in any way with any subject of the kind. To put it shortly, the women are introduced for indecency’s sake, and their revolutions succeed simply because they are revolutions against the existing order of things, an order of which Aristophanes did not approve. It would be as reasonable to suppose that the Aves was a serious piece of advice to the Athenians to consult with birds about the management of the State, as to assume that the Ecclesiazusae meant to imply that the views of women were really worthy of consideration or adoption.

The incessant allusions in these plays, no less than in others, to the incontinence,[225] the drunkenness, and the various other faults with which it was usual at the time to tax women—allusions which frequently take the form of frank confessions on the part of the women themselves—are so numerous that there is no need to quote any of them.

Another rather striking feature is the way in which several of the plays of Aristophanes conclude with the wedding of one of the characters—a feature at first sight very suggestive of the comedy typical of a much later period. The best known instance of this is perhaps in the Eirene, but the same seems to have been the case in the Polyidus (where the successful soothsayer is rewarded with the hand of the king’s daughter, Phaedra), and in the Geras, where the hero, having been miraculously restored to youth, repudiates his former wife, and marries one more suited to his recently acquired—or lost—years. It must, however, be observed that in none of these plays, as far as one can see, is the wedding of the hero by any means the logical result of the action of the piece; it is merely an incidental episode introduced, in the Eirene at any rate, and very possibly also in the others, simply with the view of providing the chorus with an effective exit. In the Polyidus, moreover, it is clear that though Minos gives his daughter as a reward, he has his own opinion as to the value of the gift, an opinion which is hardly complimentary to Phaedra[226]; while in the Geras there can be little reasonable doubt that the connubial arrangements were made the occasion for a plentiful supply of obscenities, quae nunc desiderantur, if one can use the words in such a connection.[227] One must be careful, therefore, not to exaggerate the importance of this feature in the Aristophanic treatment of women, though it cannot, of course, be denied that to introduce a wedding at all on the stage was a distinct advance on strict Athenian views with reference to such events.[228]

Aristophanes was above all things, by profession at least, a conservative and a laudator temporis acti; but, strangely enough, this characteristic of his is but little noticeable in his treatment of women. Nothing would have been more natural, one would have thought, than that he should, in the course of some of his highly-coloured pictures of primeval felicity before the days of Euripides and the philosophers, have dwelt upon the purity of ancient family life and the chastity of a previous generation of women, in contrast to that present depravity to which he makes such frequent allusion. But, true to his Athenian temperament, he never follows any such line, nor indeed does he ever take up high ground on this subject. Ready as he is to moralise seriously on other matters, even on matters so distinctly erotic as the relations of man to man,[229] his tone with regard to women is invariably flippant.

Women are, above all things, conservative:

Euripides may have made rude remarks about women, but his suggestions are politeness itself compared with what might have been said.[230] Indeed, the main charge of the women against Euripides in the Thesmophoriazusae is not that he has maligned them, but that he has opened the eyes of their husbands to what they actually do.[231] It is needless to multiply instances; the general tendency is plain. Woman in Aristophanes is invariably an object of ridicule. So incapable was he of treating her otherwise, that his one ideal woman, Eirene, for whom the knight-errant Trygaeus flies up to heaven on the dung-beetle, was a colossal failure, a κολοσσικὸν ἄγαλμα that was the general laughing-stock of his contemporaries.[232]

This being so, there is but little need to dwell on such “erotic” passages as do occur, here and there in his works, between men and women. Such scenes, of which the best instance is perhaps that in the Ecclesiazusae (877 seqq.), are never the main motive of the plot; they are merely more or less irrelevant incidents, developed or not according to the chances they afford for the introduction of amusing indecencies. In these scenes Aristophanes is often to be seen at his very best, but they cannot of course be drawn upon with the object of supplying evidence as to his real views of women, except in so far as they serve still further to emphasise what has already been said as to the poet’s disinclination to deal seriously with the subject of women at all. Indeed, his view of the proper relation between love and art is sufficiently illustrated by the famous argument in the Ranae (1043 seqq.) between Aeschylus and Euripides, where, after the former has stated with pride:

and the latter has defended his own erotic treatment on the ground that it is realistic:

the answer comes back:

The treatment of erotic subjects in a realistic manner is not the business of a true poet!

V. The Cocalus.

With this before one, it would seem hardly necessary to say anything further about the erotic element in Aristophanes. There is, however, one play of his—the last, or last but one, that he wrote—which seems at first sight to differ so entirely in spirit from the rest, that it is well worthy of separate notice.

This play is the Cocalus, a work of which it is distinctly stated by ancient authorities that it anticipated one of the most characteristic features of romantic comedy—nay more, that it actually served as the model for Menander and Philemon. Thus, in the Vita Aristophanis, p. xxxviii., it is said: ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ αἴτιος ζήλου τοῖς νέοις κωμικοῖς, λέγω δὴ Φιλήμονι καὶ Μενάνδρῳ ... ἔγραψε Κώκαλον, ἐν ᾧ εἰσάγει φθορὰν καὶ ἀναγνωρισμὸν καὶ τἄλλα πάντα ἃ ἐζήλωσε Μένανδρος, and again, p. xxxv.: πρῶτος δὲ καὶ τῆς νέας κωμῳδίας τὸν τρόπον ἐπέδειξεν ἐν τῷ Κωκάλῳ, ἐξ οὗ τὴν ἀρχὴν λαβόμενοι Μένανδρός τε καὶ Φιλήμων ἐδραματούργησαν.

Of these statements, the one part, startling as it is, must presumably be accepted without question. In the face of such definite evidence, it would be rash to attempt to deny that one of the features of Aristophanes’ play was φθορὰ καὶ ἀναγνωρισμός—a feature which is, as is well known, not only one of the commonest in romantic comedy, but also peculiarly characteristic of the love-element as there treated. The sort of story of which we are speaking is sufficiently familiar to every reader of Terence. A man seduces a girl, either without knowing at all who she is, or else under the impression that she is a foreigner or a slave. Afterwards she is proved to be an Athenian citizen, and he, being still in love, marries her, with the double object of atoning for his fault and of continuing his amour on a legitimate basis.[233]

But here a question arises. Granted that Aristophanes anticipated one of the most characteristic situations of the romantic comedy, in how far, if at all, did he anticipate the romantic treatment of that situation, such as we subsequently find it? Aristophanes, as we have seen, has the first part of the romantic love-story in his Cocalus; is it probable that he also had the second? He has the seduction and the recognition; is it probable that he had also the amende honorable prompted by feelings of respect and devotion? And, as a natural pendant to this, is it probable that the Cocalus was really, as asserted, the model after which the later romantic comedy was formed?

It is not probable. No one who knows the works of Aristophanes, and considers the character of the Athenians of his day, would expect such a thing; and, apart from this inherent improbability, there are various reasons which seem to suggest that the second part of the anonymous grammarian’s statement was based upon a misconception. But, before discussing any of these points, it will be necessary to investigate, as far as possible, the exact nature of this play of Aristophanes, for which so much is claimed.

An examination of the actual remains of the Cocalus will not afford very much information, for the fragments preserved are few and unimportant, while the mercurial nature of Aristophanes’ plots, as we know them from existing plays, makes it obviously hazardous to venture conjectures as to what they may or may not have included. Certain facts, however, seem sufficiently clear. For one thing, the play was based, at any rate originally and ostensibly, on the legendary history of Cocalus, Daedalus, and Minos. This history was, briefly, as follows:—

Daedalus, after his flight from Crete, took refuge with Cocalus, king of Sicily, and rose to high favour at his court. When Minos, having learnt his whereabouts, demanded his surrender, Cocalus at first seemed willing to comply, and invited Minos to his palace. The latter, suspecting nothing, accepted the invitation, and was at once murdered in his bath, either by Cocalus himself or by his daughters.[234]

That the latter version of the final incident was accepted by Aristophanes seems probable, but even so it is hard to see how the φθορὰ καὶ ἀναγνωρισμός can be brought into the story. It is, perhaps, justifiable to assume that the hero of the amour was Daedalus, and that the lady was subsequently recognised as a daughter of Cocalus; but how this all came about, it is well-nigh impossible to say. In some of the fragments we are apparently introduced to a regular Hetaera (e.g. 2, 10; and, perhaps, 6, 7); in another, however (Fr. 3), a woman seems vigorously repudiating some slur cast on her character. It cannot, of course, be proved that the plot[235] was not one of the regular New Comedy kind: The daughter of Cocalus, being stolen as a child, became the property of a leno, and was thus brought in contact with Daedalus, &c. But it seems to me much more probable that the structure of the story was somewhat of the following kind. The daughter of Cocalus is violated by Daedalus on the occasion of a nocturnal orgy, without being recognised by her lover. She, however, is aware of his identity, and consequently, when the time comes, murders Minos, an event which necessitates explanations (the ἀναγνωρισμός of the grammarian).[236] One thing there is to be said in favour of this scheme of reconstruction, though, of course, when the evidence is so slight, it is impossible to feel anything like confidence with regard to this or any other suggestion. If this view be adopted, Aristophanes may be assumed to have chosen his story with the object of satirising the Pannychides and other similar orgies, which were always a favourite subject of attack with him, and which he had already abused in the Horae,[237] the Lemniae, and, perhaps, elsewhere.

But, be this as it may, one thing is plain. There is nothing, either in the story of the Cocalus or in its treatment, as far as the fragments allow one to judge of this, which has any real sympathy with that later feeling which inspires the romantic comedy. For one thing, the erotic incident, such as it is, belongs entirely to that primitive class in which the action is all on the side of the woman. The daughter of Cocalus saving her lover is but a reflection of Medea or Ariadne. In the later romantic comedy, on the other hand, the action is regularly on the side of the man; for, as is well known, the attempts of the lover to outwit his father or the leno supply pretty well the whole stock of the incidents of New Comedy. Again, there is no suggestion whatever, as far as one can judge, of any marriage by way of reparation, or, indeed, of any marriage at all;[238] and marriage, as we shall see very clearly later on, is the fundamental principle of Greek romance. Again, there is no suggestion—and this is still more important—that the love of Daedalus was described as more than a mere temporary emotion; and here is another point of difference between this play and the romantic New Comedy. In fact, if one comes to examine the story of the Cocalus carefully, it becomes apparent that the essential features of Greek romance are entirely wanting. Indeed, the only real affinity of this play to the New Comedy seems to be that it anticipated, or possibly suggested, some of the rather cumbrous conventional machinery of the latter form of art.

A further fact, which well-nigh precludes the possibility of regarding the Cocalus as the real model of New Comedy, is furnished by the dates. The date of the Cocalus cannot be fixed later than the year 380 or thereabouts. The first play of Philemon, admittedly the most ancient poet who wrote romantic comedies, appeared in 330. Thus, even if it were granted that such romantic comedies were among the earliest of Philemon’s works, which was almost certainly not the case,[239] there would still be an interval of at least fifty years during which the “romantic” Cocalus of Aristophanes did not find a single imitator. The works of Antiphanes, Eubulus, and, indeed, all the typical writers of “Middle” Comedy, do not contain so much as a suggestion of a romantic element, and yet, before the time of all of them, there was in existence a perfect romantic comedy, which only needed to be revived by Philemon to bring about a complete revolution of the canons of dramatic art. In fact, the introduction of the romantic element into comedy—that is, the birth of the modern drama—was due to a chance resuscitation by Philemon of an obscure piece that had been lying unnoticed for more than fifty years. Credat Apella.

Moreover, if one comes to consider the matter, there were powerful causes at work in the minds of the early critics, which may very well have led them to assign an undue degree of importance to the Cocalus. Such causes would be mainly of two distinct kinds.

In the first place, there was the tendency, with which every student of ancient and mediaeval criticism is familiar, to exaggerate the merits of certain individuals, and to ascribe to certain admittedly great names an even more extended influence than they actually possessed.[240] It seemed only natural, therefore, to the ancient critic to expect that Aristophanes, being admittedly the greatest of the comedians, should not only have profoundly influenced his own immediate field of art, but should also have laid the foundations of every subsequent form of comedy. The grammarian, therefore, who found in the story of the Cocalus a certain resemblance to stories with which he was familiar in the plays of the New Comedy, felt no hesitation in affirming that the Cocalus was actually the model on which these plays of the New Comedy were based, just as Platonius (p. xxxiv.) speaks of the Aeolosicon as ὁ τῆς μέσης κωμῳδίας τύπος.

In the second place, the story of the Cocalus had actually been converted into a “New” Comedy play—the Hypobolimaeus of Philemon[241]—and the existence of this neo-comic version of the story may very possibly have influenced the recollections of the original; for it is more than probable that the play of Philemon, while adopting the main features of the story as it appeared in Aristophanes, yet differed considerably in its general treatment of the erotic incidents. In other words, there is little reason to doubt that Philemon, actuated by the changed spirit of his time, developed the romantic capabilities of the story to the utmost, and gave a romantic interpretation to various situations, where nothing of the kind had been done or intended by Aristophanes. And hence the fact that a romantic version of the Cocalus was familiar, served to spread the idea that the original Cocalus was romantic also, and, as such, a forerunner of the romantic element in New Comedy, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was nothing of the kind, owing its romantic colouring entirely to the influence of the ideas disseminated by that New Comedy which it was erroneously supposed to inspire.

To sum up, then: There seems little reason to believe that the Cocalus is really as important for the history of the romantic element as would at first sight appear. Apart from the strong prima facie improbability of finding a romantic love-story in a play by Aristophanes, there is the further remarkable fact that the Aristophanic suggestion, if really given, found no one to take it up for more than fifty years. Again, while the legendary history of Cocalus and the fragments of the play, as far as such have been preserved, do not actually preclude the possibility that the erotic incident may have been treated in a romantic manner, they certainly furnish no evidence whatever in favour of such a view. There are, besides, various reasons which may have induced the ancient critics to see a greater resemblance between the Cocalus and the plays of the New Comedy than was actually present. On the whole, therefore, it would appear that the similarity between this work of Aristophanes and the romantic comedies of Menander and his followers, is merely an accidental and superficial one, and that it is incorrect to say, as some have done, that the latter class of composition was derived from or inspired by the former.

VI. The Poets of the Transition.

To return after this somewhat lengthy digression to our examination of the poets of the transition.

Plato, even more than his model Aristophanes, was a follower of the political school of Cratinus, revelling in personal attacks of the most violent kind, and hence there seems little reason to doubt that such of his plays as bear the stamp of Middle Comedy belong to his later period, and were only produced, decidedly invita Minerva, when the free license of abuse had been artificially checked. Hence the allusions in his works to women or erotic subjects seem to have been unusually scarce. In the Adonis, mention is made of the rival lovers of the hero, Aphrodite and Dionysus; but there is nothing to indicate that this play contained anything of the nature of a serious exposition of the respective claims of male and female love. The Zeus Cacumenus very probably introduced Zeus in his usual comic character of the adulterer, as did the Nyx Macra,[242] and the Europe may very possibly have treated of a similar subject. More original, however, and interesting than these is the Phaon, which seems to have been one of the poet’s latest works, and which furnishes a good specimen of his manner of treating women. Phaon, having been presented by Aphrodite with the cosmetics which were to inspire universal passion, appears surrounded by a crowd of admiring women, who are, however, refused access to his presence, unless they perform certain propitiatory rites (Fr. 2), and otherwise prove themselves worthy of the honour. The means by which one lady eventually qualifies (Fr. 4) can only be guessed, but the language of Fr. 3 seems to suggest that the contest was somewhat after the manner of those described in Anth. Pal. v. 35 or Alciphron i. 39, 4 seqq.[243] The interest of this piece lies in the fact that the plot is, despite its ribald handling, unequivocally a love-story, and, as such, perhaps distinct from any piece that we have hitherto had occasion to examine. That the love-story is, however, of the kind which belongs essentially to Middle Comedy, and has nothing whatever in common with those of the later romantic comedy, will become abundantly clear when we come to deal with the points of difference between these two schools of art.[244]

The information to be gained from the remains of the other poets of the transitional period is sadly scanty. The Moechi of Ameipsias, a play which, to judge by the title, might have thrown much light on the present subject, is hopelessly lost. Of the Sappho even the title is doubtful. The celebrated Ichthys of Archippus seems to have contained punning allusions to the Hetaerae Sepia and Aphye, a sign of the growing inclination to discuss this class of persons on the stage. The latter lady, or a namesake of hers, is mentioned by Callias in his Cyclopes. Of the Atalanta of the same writer, one line is preserved:

which seems in some sort to suggest that episode in the life of the mythical Atalanta, daughter of Schoeneus, which led to her metamorphosis[245]; but, seeing that even the title Atalanta is doubtful, this conjecture cannot be considered as very certain. Strattis appears to have introduced Lais on the stage in his Macedones (Fr. 5), and in his parodies of the Medea, the Phoenissae, &c., the female characters of Euripides doubtless came in for their full share of ridicule, though no definite evidence to this effect has been preserved.

A little more information is to be gained from the works of those poets who belonged to the very end of the period of transition. Thus, the plays of Theopompus, which deal almost exclusively with Middle Comedy subjects, furnish several instances of that treatment of female characters with which one is familiar in the plays of the Middle Comedy proper. The Aphrodisia introduces us to the Hetaerae celebrating their customary festival. Fr. 1 affords a specimen of the remarks passed on absent friends on such occasions,[246] while Fr. 2 gives further details of the festivities. The solitary but considerable fragment of the Nemea (called after the Hetaera of that name) gives a lively description of a scene in which an intending lover is doing his best to gain the approval of the lady’s lena, a class which was, doubtless, as devoted then to the curto vetus amphora collo as it was 400 years later.[247] In the Capelides it is equally possible to get a glimpse of the action of the piece. A man dropping in at the bar of a house he has been in the habit of frequenting, and finding himself less effusively welcomed than he had had reason to hope (Fr. 3, 4), threatens to attack the proprietress and the rival of whom he is jealous (Fr. 5). Of the rest, the Hedychares described a wedding ceremony (Fr. 3),[248] the Callaeschrus contained an allusion to the expensiveness of certain Hetaerae, and general erotic allusions are not uncommon (e.g. Odysseus 1, Medus 2). The Stratiotides seems to have had some points in common with the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes. Alcaeus, who is one of the very latest in date of the writers usually ranked as belonging to the “Old” Comedy, deals in nearly all his plays with erotic subjects, mostly in the shape of mythological stories burlesqued. To this class belong the Pasiphae, the Hierus Gamus, the Endymion, the Ganymedes, and perhaps the Callisto, unless this be, like the Palaestra, named after an Hetaera. From this list of titles it may be seen that every style of love came in for treatment, but in no case are the fragments sufficiently numerous, for it to be possible even to hazard a guess as to what the nature of that treatment may have been. As to the plot of the Adelphae Moecheuomenae, we are equally in the dark, though the title seems to suggest the Aeolosicon of Aristophanes and the Canace of Euripides. Lastly, in the Antea of Eunicus and the Thalatta of Diodes, both named after Hetaerae, we have two further instances of a class of piece with which we have been steadily growing more familiar, the nearer we have approached the confines of the typical “Middle” Comedy.

VII. The Middle Comedy.

The poets of the transition, of whom we have just been speaking, have introduced us, more or less, to most, if not all, of the features which belong to the Middle Comedy proper; at the same time, it may not be amiss, for clearness’ sake, to recapitulate briefly those features, in so far as they affect our immediate subject.

The points on which it is essential to concentrate the attention are three in number:—

(1) In Middle Comedy, the preponderance of politics as the main dramatic interest—a preponderance which, naturally, tended to exclude women from the stage—disappears, and, consequently, female characters step inevitably into a more prominent position.

(2) The restriction of the original license of Comedy, had led the comedians to devote their talents to parodying mythological subjects; the parodists of mythology would naturally find their readiest materials in the stories of the amours of the various gods, and hence erotic stories of a sort at once come to the fore.

(3) Middle Comedy being in great part, if not entirely, devoted to the realistic treatment of contemporary social life, the Hetaerae, who formed an important feature in that life, were necessarily brought into prominence.[249]

Of these three main features,[250] the first two will not require special illustration,[251] but the last is one on which it will be necessary to dwell for some time.

The Hetaera-plays[252] are one of the most characteristic features of the fourth century; indeed, it may almost be said that admiration for the Hetaera, and ridicule of the wife, were the two main social canons of the period. These plays seem to have been realistic representations of contemporary life, and their general character is sufficiently demonstrated by the well-known retort of Antiphanes to Alexander;[253] but while they all thus have, as it were, a certain family likeness, it would appear, beyond doubt, that they may be also divided into two distinct classes, viz., those that have a distinct erotic plot, and those that have none, the latter naturally belonging to an earlier period of development than the former.

Plays dealing with Hetaerae were not, as we have already seen, exclusively a feature of the fourth-century Comedy, though the majority of such plays does, of course, belong to this period. In the very beginnings of Comedy at Athens, we have at least three plays of this class from the pen of Pherecrates,[254] while, at a later period of the fifth century, other works of a similar character seem certainly to have appeared.

The general character of these plays, however, seems, in spite of the modernity of their subject, to have been essentially that prevailing during the early period to which they belong. Pherecrates and his imitators seem to have been merely concerned in drawing a picture—perhaps a somewhat burlesque one—of the general life of an Hetaera and her followers, and in dwelling upon the various comic incidents which might occur in her environment, without troubling to connect these incidents by means of any very definite story. In other words, the Hetaera-play of Pherecrates was still, in the main, that mixture of pantomime and variety-show with which one is familiar in Aristophanes, and with which one’s ideas of the early Athenian Comedy are usually associated. And that plays of this class continued to be produced with success till well into the fourth century, there seems no reason to doubt.

The typical Hetaera-play of the Middle Comedy, however, is of an entirely different character. In this there is a definite plot, of which the Hetaera is the heroine, while the action of the piece is supplied by the struggles de nocte locanda of her various rival lovers. In fact, the Hetaera-play of Antiphanes or Alexis is a comedy in the modern sense of the word, while the Hetaera-play of an earlier period is still nothing but an extravaganza. The author of this great change is not known; perhaps it was Anaxandrides.

It is stated of Anaxandrides that he was the first to introduce ἔρωτας καὶ παρθένων φθοράς[255] into Comedy. This statement is, at first sight, rather difficult to understand, when one considers plays like the Nemesis of Cratinus, or the Cocalus of Aristophanes, not to speak of erotic episodes like the one which terminates the Ecclesiazusae of the latter writer; and it must be apparent that the mere introduction on the stage of such subjects cannot be the merit claimed by Suidas for Anaxandrides. The most simple explanation of the apparent anomaly would therefore seem to be, that what Suidas means to imply, is that Anaxandrides was the first to make erotic subjects the main interest of his plot, and to introduce his principal characters as taking part in them; for this, as we have already seen, was not the case with the earlier plays which dealt with erotic matters.

Whether this great advance was really due to Anaxandrides cannot, unfortunately, be proved with anything like certainty, for such fragments of his works as have survived are remarkably reticent on this particular subject;[256] but there can be no doubt that it took place about his time, so that there is at least a strong probability, under the circumstances, that it was the result of his influence.

On the first and older class of Hetaera-play, it is useless to dwell further; a certain vague idea of their general nature is all that can be gained by the study of their fragments, and the external evidence as to their character is equally meagre, while the intentional want of coherence which marked their action makes it obviously absurd to endeavour in any way to reconstruct them. The character of the second and, for our purposes, more important class, will be best explained by a brief examination of one or two striking specimens, the remains of which are sufficiently important to render it possible to follow their story, at any rate for a certain distance.

Thus, in the Campylion of Eubulus, we are introduced to two men, one of whom sighs with quite modern plaintiveness over the heavy burden of his love for a certain κοσμία ἑταίρα:

Through the agency of the friend, who is evidently more of a man of the world, the lovers meet at a supper party, which was probably at least a partie carrée. Here the friend gives vent to various cynical remarks on women:—

and, evidently a little sceptical as to the inviolable κοσμιότης of the lady, makes various efforts to induce her to commit herself, either by eating or drinking to excess[257] (Fr. 1, 5), or by displaying her talents in a questionable “song and dance.” (Fr. 6.) His efforts seem, however, to be unsuccessful, and at the end of the evening the hero is as hopelessly in love as ever:—

The dénouement of this interesting little story we do not know; let us hope it was a satisfactory one.

In the Agonis of Alexis again, we find a girl remonstrating with her mother, who wishes her to accept a rich but dissolute lover in preference to the νεανίσκος of her choice.

The mother, however, insists, in spite of the young man’s professions of (imaginary?) wealth (Fr. 2), in carrying off her daughter to the rich lover’s house, where, however, the hero also manages to turn up and make some cutting remarks on the family portraits (Fr. 3).[258] He then succeeds in making the mother drunk (Fr. 4), and so, we are led to believe—for the end is again veiled in obscurity—is enabled to elude her vigilance.[259]

Further evidence as to the character of this style of art may be obtained by studying several of the plays of Plautus, such as the Truculentus, the Mercator, or the Mostellaria, which seem to have been adapted directly from Greek works of this class, without being in any way influenced by the later romantic ideas.

But while the incidents which occur in the individual plays are naturally of an endless variety, certain broad features are recognisable throughout this literature.

Firstly, not only is love for an Hetaera enthusiastically praised, but it is specially described as the one love in life worth loving. The advantage of the Hetaera over the wife is such a stock subject, that it will be unnecessary to do more than mention one or two of the most striking passages in which the feeling finds expression, such as that cited in Athenaeus, xiii. 559 A, from the Athamas of Amphis:

or that quoted in the same place from the Corinthiastes of Philetaerus:

But this is not all. The advantages of Hetaera-love over adultery are expounded after a fashion that cannot fail to be startling to anyone who has not formed a clear conception of what “love” meant in the Athens of Demosthenes. A striking instance of this occurs in the Nannion of Eubulus,[260] and the same idea is still further developed in the Pentathlus of Xenarchus.

As for that “love of a man for a maid,” which is, so to speak, the very essence of the love-element in later Greek literature, it is simply ignored in Middle Comedy. A girl that one is going to marry has all the disadvantages of a wife, but for one thing. While the wife in esse is, as a later writer feelingly expresses it, “an immortal necessary evil,” and, therefore, cannot be altogether escaped from, there is no need to meet troubles halfway by drawing attention to the wife in posse. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we marry; and while we do so, let us have no Alexandrian skeleton at the feast to remind us of the fatal hour. And so, if the question be asked, “What did the Middle Comedy writers think of such love?” the answer is, “They did not think of it at all.”[261]

And this will serve to introduce us to a further question, in the answer to which lies the key to the whole of this part of our subject. What is actually meant by the “love” which we hear so often expressed for these Hetaerae? The answer may be simple and brief: ornari res ipsa vetat, contenta doceri: the love of the Middle Comedy is animal passion, pure and simple; the Hetaera caters for the appetites of the time in exactly the same way, even if in a different sphere, as the cook and the fishmonger, of whom we also hear so much, both to praise and blame, in this literature.[262] Of love in the modern sense of the word, of love as distinct from lust, there is nowhere any suggestion in the writers of the Middle Comedy. This fact is so patent to anyone who is familiar with the plays of this period, that one may, perhaps, be spared the trouble of its illustration. If anyone is inclined to doubt it, let him open the third volume of Meineke’s Comic Fragments at random, and read; he will soon be satisfied.

When this is the case, it is not surprising that we find “Platonic” love held up to consistent ridicule during the time of the Middle Comedy. A sufficiently striking example of this method is the passage quoted in Athenaeus, xiii. 563 C, from the Dithyrambus of Amphis:

But the clearest proof of all is that furnished by the fact that Plato himself, and Sappho, whose style of love was, as we have already had occasion to observe,[263] recognised as similar in spirit to that advocated by the philosopher, are, perhaps, the two favourite butts for the wit of the Middle Comedy. That the Plato of Aristophon, like the Hedychares of Theopompus, of which we have already spoken, and the Sapphos of Antiphanes, Amphis, Ephippus, and Timocles, were, at least some of them, in part devoted to this subject, it seems only reasonable to believe, while sporadic allusions to the matter are, of course, sufficiently common. The one possible exception to this general rule appears in the Helene of Alexis, where a character is introduced upholding the Platonic view of love; but it would be bold, in the face of so much evidence on the other side, to assert that this isolated statement in any way indicates the general tone of the comedy in question. It is far more likely that the champion of these views (perhaps Theseus[264]) was made to see the error of his ways and repent his lost opportunities before the play was out.

And akin in spirit to the above is the tendency, so common that it hardly needs special illustration, to throw ridicule on the married state and on family life in general.[265] When the man, who is called the originator of the erotic element in Middle Comedy, can write words like these:

and mean them, there can be little doubt as to the tendency of that erotic element which he was the first to introduce. In fact, not only is marriage a favourite subject of ridicule, but it is one on which the writers of this period make some of their happiest remarks. There are few things in Antiphanes as good as the passage in the Philopator, where one man, meeting another, enquires after a friend, and hears that he has got married.

Alexis is seldom as amusing as when he proclaims (Incert. 34) marriage worse than disfranchisement.

Such, then, is the erotic element of the Middle Comedy—the praise of sensuality and the ridicule of all that is ennobling or virtuous. Alexis tells us all when he says:

Processit Vesper Olympo. It was time the Macedonian barbarians swept all this away and made place for cleaner things.[266]

VIII. The New Comedy.

The feeling on passing from the Middle to the New Comedy is like the fresh air on coming out of the bar of a public-house. The Middle Comedy is the last decaying branch of the old literature; the romantic New Comedy is one of the earliest and most vigorous offshoots of that new literature which sprang from the genius of Antimachus, and has continued to the present day. In the Middle Comedy, we are still face to face with the women of typical Athens, with the women of Aristophanes, at best with the women of Euripides,—and with the way in which typical Athens treated these women; in the New Comedy this is changed, and woman—the woman that can be loved as wife and mother—steps into her true place as object of, and partner in, the intensest and the purest passions of which humanity is capable.

It will be remembered that the Middle Comedy treatment, of women and love for women, had four main characteristics.

(1) The glorification of the Hetaera and of love for the Hetaera.

(2) The purely sensual nature of the love thus extolled.

(3) The ridicule of all love that was not sensual.

(4) The ridicule of family-life.

The New Comedy flatly contradicts every one of these principles. The love of which it treats is love for a virgin,[267] and the consummation of this love is marriage. Such love is by no means purely sensual; indeed, at times it is almost of a “Platonic” character. And lastly, not only is the sanctity of marriage strictly insisted upon, and the advantages of marriage as a system strongly maintained, but the family relations, anyhow among the younger generation, are often of a very pleasant character.

In fact, while the action of the Middle Comedy is concerned with a love, the consummation of which is a temporary sensual gratification, the action of the New Comedy is supplied by the efforts of its heroes and their adherents, to secure that the love which occupies so much of their thoughts may be made at once legitimate and permanent. It was New Comedy that first introduced on the stage the love of a life, as opposed to the love of an hour. If anyone were to ask what was the chief merit of Menander, the answer would be that he was the first to show the Athenians that “love for ever,” with which every poetaster and novel-reader has now been familiar for so many centuries.

But the differences between the treatment of women in the new literature, and that to which they were exposed in the literature we have just been studying, will be most readily made clear if we proceed at once to the detailed examination of the former.

The first and most prominent feature of the New Comedy treatment of the love of men for women is its insistance on marriage—that is to say, on a definite guarantee of permanence and constancy—as the one proper consummation of such love. In fact, as we have already had occasion to observe in another place, the idealisation of marriage is the basis of Greek romance.[268]

This insistance on marriage is, of course, most strikingly exemplified in the typical New Comedy plot, which is sufficiently familiar to every student of the Latin comedians. Thus, in five of these Latin plays, the Heauton Timorumenos (of Menander), the Phormio (of Apollodorus), the Rudens (of Diphilus), the Curculio, and the Poenulus,[269] the story is of exactly the kind that subsequently appears in the Greek novel—a young man falls in love with a virgin, and, after various misfortunes which threaten to separate the pair, they are eventually married, and live happily ever afterwards.

On this class of plot it is unnecessary to dwell, except that it may be worth while just to draw attention to the extremely passionate nature of the love which makes these young men so anxious to marry. The modern reader would instinctively expect that the confinement of love to these legitimate and, as one would now consider them, commonplace channels, would inevitably lead to a lessening of its charm, and a diminution of its force. As a matter of fact, the result was the very reverse. Not only has the character of man’s love for woman changed, but this love has developed an intensity of poetry and passion which has never belonged to it before.[270] Instances are easy to find; the most striking one is perhaps shown us at the meeting of Phaedromus and Planesium, in the Curculio (i. 3):

But there are others, almost equally forcible, in the Rudens (iv. 8)—where particular enthusiasm is expressed at the prospect of marriage, as opposed to the relation which had previously been the lover’s highest possible ideal,—the Poenulus (v. 4, 49)[272], and elsewhere.

But another and equally important type of story is that in which the man first seduces the woman, and then subsequently marries her. Plays of this description are the Andria, the Eunuchus, the Adelphi (all by Menander), the Aulularia, and the Cistellaria.[273]

Of these, the Cistellaria is different from the rest. Here, the girl Silenium, who, though supposed to be the daughter of a lena, has been brought up as a virgin (i. 3, 24), is induced by a promise of marriage to live with the man Alcesimarchus, a promise which is afterwards fulfilled only after a considerable delay. (i. 1, 90-100.) In the other four cases, however—and this is very important—the promise of marriage is subsequent to the seduction, and takes the form, not of an inducement to, but of a reparation for the latter. The lover regards the seduction as a crime, for which he is willing to make amends to the utmost of his power, while at the same time he is anxious to perpetuate and legalise his amour. He therefore adopts what we are accustomed in modern times to call an “honourable course,” and offers marriage to the woman whom he has loved and still loves. The importance of this feature is twofold—firstly, the close association thus brought about between marriage and love of the most “romantic” and unconventional description; and secondly, the perpetuation and legalisation of a form of love which is obviously by nature temporary and illegitimate. And thus the love-stories of the New Comedy may be said to begin where those of the Middle Comedy end; while the heroes of the latter are concerned with achieving the temporary satisfaction of their sensual desires, the heroes of the former are occupied in striving to make permanent atonement for the indiscretions which such desires have led them to commit.

To quote instances of what has been said: in the Andria the promise of marriage is distinctly an act of reparation, which the lover feels himself in duty bound to make. This is evident from the argument of Sulpicius Apollinaris,[274] and from various passages in the play.[275] The same is the case in the Adelphi.[276] Here Aeschinus, as soon as he considers what he has done, comes to the mother of Pamphila, and begs with tears to be allowed to marry her by way of reparation.[277] In the Aulularia, the petition of Lyconides to the miser Euclio is animated by a very similar spirit.[278] In the Eunuchus (which is, it must be remembered, the love-story of a boy of sixteen)[279], there is no opportunity for any such behaviour on the part of Chaerea, though his sincere regret (ii. 3, 33 seqq.), and his enthusiasm when the possibility of marriage becomes apparent (v. 8, 1 seqq.), show clearly enough that he is not intended to be an exception to the general rule.

It must not, however, be supposed that the feeling, which prompts the various characters of whom we have spoken to make reparation for their wrongdoing, is merely a feeling of repentance, or a regard for public opinion. It is love, and love of a most passionate kind, that makes them so anxious to marry the women they have wronged. Of the enthusiasm of the hero of the Eunuchus at the prospect of marriage we have already spoken; in the Adelphi, Aeschinus is equally elated under similar circumstances;[280] in the Aulularia, the anxiety and persistency of Lyconides are evidently inspired by the same feeling;[281] in the Andria, Pamphilus protests that nothing short of death will divide him from Glycerium.[282] That love which the Middle Comedy could not conceive of as outliving its sensual gratification, appears in the New Comedy, not weakened, but strengthened by time, and obstacles only serve to make the lover more determined to perpetuate and to legalise those emotions which had, to a previous generation, owed their chief charm to their freedom from the restraints of constancy and propriety.

In the Hecyra again, it is by marriage that, through a strange coincidence, the hero is eventually able to repair the wrong done to the heroine. In the Stichus, too, the plot turns on the constancy of two wives to their absent husbands,[283] while, in the Trinummus, there seems strong reason to believe, that it is not all love for Lesbonicus which makes Lysiteles so anxious to marry the former’s sister.[284]

To this evidence from the plays themselves may be added some further evidence of a more general kind. Marriage is mentioned by the anonymous author of the epigram in the C. I. G. 6083, as the most characteristic feature of Menander’s plays—

Still more emphatic is the testimony of Plutarch, who asserts (Sympos. vii. 712 C) that Menander is peculiarly suited for married men to hear and read—

ἔχει δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ παρ’ αὐτῷ καιρὸν πεπωκόσιν ἀνθρώποις καὶ ἀναπαυσαμένοις μετὰ μικρὸν ἀπιοῦσι παρὰ τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας ... αἵ τε φθοραὶ τῶν παρθένων εἰς γάμον ἐπιεικῶς καταστρέφουσι. κ.τ.λ.

Indeed, the essentially “proper” character of the Menandrean drama is emphasised by more than one ancient writer. That Comedy could be anything but indecent was a revelation to Athens of the fourth century, and it was a revelation for which she does not seem to have been particularly grateful; but the fact that it was a writer whose works were fit “pueris virginibusque legi,” who revolutionized the dramatic art, is one that a modern student of that revolution cannot afford to forget.[285]

Two of the plays mentioned above, the Hecyra and the Stichus, lead naturally to the consideration of another feature of the New Comedy treatment of marriage—a feature which, though less strongly marked than that of which we have just been speaking, is yet, if one considers what Greek feeling had previously been on this matter, perhaps even more remarkable. Not only is marriage held up as the lover’s ideal, but the actual married state is described as a state of happiness, and married people, even those who have been married for some time, are introduced to us as strongly attached to one another. How complete a revolution in Greek feeling such a state as this implies, need hardly be emphasised.[286] Yet, in the Stichus, we have a plot based on the determination of two women to remain faithful to their husbands (who have been absent for three years) in spite of the efforts of their father to induce them to do otherwise; they insist on remaining faithful, though their husbands are poor (Plaut. Stich. i. 2, 75 seqq.), and though they are uncertain whether their devotion is returned (i. 1, 36 seqq.). In the Hecyra again, it is the behaviour of Philumena after marriage which wins her husband’s heart (Ter. Hec. i. 2, 85 seqq.)—a remarkably modern form of love-story.

Various fragments, too, of Menander have a similar import, such as the famous passage from the Misogynes on the advantages of marriage—

or Menand. Incert. 73, where the husband takes up the cudgels in his wife’s behalf. Incert. 101, again, dwells on the close relationship existing between man and wife—

Incert. 100 points out that a wife must rule her husband by love—

and a careful reader will have no difficulty in finding other more or less important examples of the same spirit, both in Menander and in the Latin Comedians.

One important exception there is, of course, to this state of affairs, and that is the relation between the old men and their wives. The types of the hen-pecked husband and the Xanthippe-like wife are too familiar to need illustration. But here it is to be observed, that the husbands who appear in this position, are always old or elderly men, and this fact is probably not without its significance. In describing his elderly married men as unhappy, Menander was ridiculing, not marriage, but the mariages de convenance which had, before his time, been the regular thing at Athens. “These men are unhappy,” says Menander, “not because they are married, but because they have married wives whom they never loved, and whom they chose merely because of their money, or to please their relations. If they had married for love, the case might well have been different.” And thus the hen-pecked husband, who belongs to the old régime, is only a further argument in favour of the romantic love-matches of which Menander approved.

Of course the matter did not stop here. It was so easy to raise a laugh with a row between husband and wife, that Comedy was sure not to abandon the subject, even after its raison d’être had disappeared; and a modern audience, we know, is just as ready to laugh at the husband who has lost his latch-key as were the Athenians of the fourth century. But the point to be remembered is, that a pair of characters like Chremes and Sostrata in the Heauton Timorumenus, or Laches and Sostrata in the Hecyra, furnishes no real argument against the view that Menander and his followers of the New Comedy regarded marriage, if properly entered upon, as a state of happiness.

Another exception, and one that is perhaps in reality a more important one, is furnished by Menander’s Misogynes, a work which gained very great popularity, doubtless owing to the way in which it appealed to the lower instincts of the audience whom its author was trying to educate up; but here it has to be observed that, in the first place, as the play is lost, it is impossible to say what the actual dénouement was; while, secondly, there was no reason why a man of Menander’s versatile genius should not for once treat the subject of married life in an unusual manner, without in any way abandoning his general views on the subject.[287]

A further feature of the New Comedy treatment of marriage is the universal respect for its sanctity.[288] The adulterer, who is the favourite hero of mediaeval romance, is here invariably held up to contempt and hatred. The most familiar instance of this is, of course, the story in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, but it is far from being an isolated one. The Halieis of Menander evidently treated of a somewhat similar subject,[289] which appears once more in the Eunuchus.[290] In the Andria again, Charinus is horror-stricken at the idea of committing adultery with the woman he loves, though, when accused of seducing the same woman, his only regret is that he cannot plead guilty to the charge.[291] An even more remarkable instance, and one perhaps without parallel, is furnished by the Hecyra, where the Hetaera Bacchis asserts that she had refused to admit her lover, Pamphilus, as soon as she learned that he was married.[292] It may be argued, of course, that she did this out of pique, but the very cordial nature of the meeting between the two (Ter. Hec. v. 4, 16, seqq.), and the fact that Bacchis knew that her lover had abandoned her sorely against his will (i. 2, 45 seqq.), and was still devoted to her (i. 2, 82), seem to suggest that this is not the most natural explanation of her conduct.[293]

The passages just described may serve to introduce us to a further feature of our subject—a feature in which the New Comedy is, if possible, even more remarkably unlike the Middle Comedy than in those which have already been discussed. In the Middle Comedy, as we have already had frequent occasion to observe, the wife and the husband are invariably held up to ridicule when compared with the Hetaera and her lover; in the New Comedy we may find this position exactly reversed. Instances are rare, (as is indeed to be expected, when we consider, in the first place, the strong current of popular feeling on the subject, and, secondly, the personal relations between the leading writers of the New Comedy and the prominent Hetaerae of the time,) but they do unquestionably occur. The most striking example is perhaps that in the Heauton Timorumenus, where not only is the Hetaera contrasted unfavourably with the virgin, (as she herself admits,)[294] but her lover is made consistently ridiculous as compared with the lover who contemplates marriage, and in the end comes off badly in the extreme. Very similar evidence is furnished by the Hecyra. In the struggle for the love of Pamphilus, which takes place in that play between the wife and the Hetaera, the former is completely successful, and her victory is gained by sheer amiability of temper (Ter. Hec. i. 2, 85 seqq.); indeed, so charming is she, that the Hetaera is driven in the end to congratulate her husband on his good fortune in having married her. (v. 4, 22.) And this victory of the wife becomes the more remarkable, when we observe that the Hetaera is evidently intended to be a very favourable specimen of her class, in every way deserving of the lover she is compelled to lose.[295]

While on this point, it may not be amiss to remark that it is by no means impossible that the famous Thais of Menander really belonged to this class of plays, and that the Hetaera, who gives her name to the piece, is intended as a parody on the typical Hetaera of Middle Comedy. This view, which is not improbable in itself, receives some support from the mock-heroic tone of Fr. 1 of the Thais,[296] and still more from Mart. xiv. 187;[297] but cannot, of course, be regarded as more than a possible suggestion.[298]

Of mere vulgar ridicule or abuse of the ordinary Hetaera, as heartless,[299] mercenary,[300] and the like, there is, of course, enough and to spare; but it would be unjustifiable to claim expressions such as these as distinctive of New Comedy, in the face of passages like Epicrates, Antilais, 2, or Anaxilas, Neottis, 1. Menander indeed makes a more serious charge, perhaps, when one of his characters asserts that an Hetaera cannot be good, for she makes a trade of sin:

This is, however, an isolated expression, for Menand. Incert. 36, at first sight similar, is really different.

But, though the writers of the New Comedy are careful, as a general rule, to avoid anything that might have seemed too severe a stricture on that system of Hetaera-worship which was so distinctive a feature of the age, they are unmistakably emphatic in their assertion that such sensual love is not the only kind of love of which a man is capable. The chivalrous manner in which the lover of New Comedy often behaves to his lady, is one of the clearest features of the change which the authors of the romantic school had succeeded in bringing about on the Athenian stage.

At once the most striking and the most perplexing illustration of this is furnished by the character of Thrasonides in Menander’s celebrated play, the Misumenus. This Thrasonides, who belongs to the regular type of the Miles Gloriosus, is in love with a slave-girl, whom he has obtained in the course of his wars;[301] but he has so disgusted her with his boasting (like Leontichus in Lucian) that she has conceived a most violent hatred for him. He then, though she is his slave, and though his passion is so great that he cannot sleep for thinking of her,[302] instead of using his undoubted power to accomplish what he wishes,[303] tries every means that he can imagine in order to conciliate her, “sending her gifts, and weeping, and praying,”[304] that she may look more favourably upon him.

The dénouement of the play is lost. It is not impossible that in the end the slave-girl was identified as an Athenian, and carried off by some more acceptable lover, who thus profited by the chivalrous conduct of his rival, or she may even have turned out to be the soldier’s sister, as in the Curculio or the Epidicus, in either of which cases the scruples of Thrasonides would be necessary to the working of the plot. But all this is, for our present purpose, of no importance. What is of importance, and of the utmost importance, is the fact that Thrasonides, though he is so violently in love with the girl, will not make use of his unquestioned power to gratify this passion, because of the dislike which she feels for him. In fact, his love is of such a kind that he does not merely want to satisfy a sensual appetite—he wants to be loved. Unless he can feel that she loves him, none of those privileges, which, to the ordinary Hetaera-lover of the day, would have been of themselves the complete consummation of love, are of any value to him. ἔξεστί μοι τοῦτο καὶ βούλομαι, οὐ ποιῶ δέ.

The aim of the lover is not to gratify himself, but to inspire love.[305] That we are here face to face with a form of love which is not only actually absent from Middle Comedy, but is by nature absolutely foreign to that literature and could not possibly appear in it, is too obvious to need further emphasis.[306]

This much, then, is clear; but there remains a most perplexing question, which, though it is a little aside of our immediate subject, is yet too interesting to be passed by altogether. Why is it Thrasonides, the Miles Gloriosus whom all the Comedians are banded together to ridicule, who appears as the most chivalrous lover of the whole of New Comedy?[307] Why is a man who is universally regarded as a fool, made to give expression to such elevated sentiments, and to follow such a noble line of conduct? The first explanation that suggests itself is, of course, “Because he is a fool.” This view is certainly advanced in a passage of Plutarch, where Thrasonides is compared to the miser who starves rather than make use of the food he has in the house,[308] and seems to find favour too with Thrasonides’ own slave.[309] But this explanation is not a very satisfactory one, somehow. However great a fool Menander might wish to make of the mercenary soldier of the time, this does not seem the natural line for his folly to take, nor was it the line, as we know from historical evidence, that the folly of these people actually did as a rule take. A Pyrgopolinices must, one would have thought, have been a far more familiar figure to citizens who had enjoyed a Macedonian occupation, than a Thrasonides. One might, perhaps, imagine that the behaviour of Alexander to the wife and daughters of Darius—behaviour which was regarded in Greece as somewhat remarkable[310]—had suggested the character of Thrasonides, for, after all, the ideal soldier of the age, whether for good or evil, is always Alexander; only it seems doubtful whether a single action of an unusual kind could serve to form so constant a type as the chivalrous soldier-lover. At one time I thought that, as the soldier of New Comedy has generally served in Asia, perhaps he might be supposed to have imported his advanced romantic ideas from one of those Greek Asiatic cities which were, as we know, the original home of Greek romance, and indeed of all important developments of Greek erotic literature.[311] But there is to modern notions so great an incongruity in the idea of, say, the Colonel of a West India regiment so influenced by the latest school of literature as to model his life on it, that, though such a character would not, perhaps, have seemed so absurd to the Greeks as it does to us, still, in the absence of all definite evidence, I have preferred not to lay undue stress upon what is, after all, entirely a matter of conjecture. Indeed, the question remains to me a very obscure one, and I cannot at present see any satisfactory solution of it.

But, whatever may have been the causes which led to the creation of this particular character, the soldier-lover of a more or less Thrasonides type is an unquestionable feature of New Comedy. Besides the hero of the Misumenus, of whom we have spoken, in the Sicyonius (also by Menander) we find another soldier, Stratophanes, who buys a slave-girl, and then treats her as if she were a free woman.[312] To the same class of feeling, though expressed in a somewhat different way, belongs the remorse which the soldier Polemon (in the Periceiromene of Menander) feels for the wrong he has done to his αἰχμαλώτῳ ἐρωμένῃ.

A case in some respects similar, though in others different, is that of the soldier Stratippocles, in the Epidicus, who falls in love with his captive, but does not touch her.[313] The differences, of course, here are that, firstly, the play belongs to Middle Comedy, its moral being that Stratippocles will be happier with his fidicina than with the girl of high birth, for whom he has formed the chivalrous attachment;[314] while, secondly, the continence of the hero is not so much a feature of his character as a necessity for the development of the plot; and, thirdly, the soldier is here not a mercenary, but an Athenian citizen, who has been fighting against the Thebans. But though, therefore, the case of the Epidicus does not belong to the same category as those previously discussed, the association in it of the soldier with chivalrous behaviour towards women is yet worthy of notice, and, even if only a coincidence, is still an interesting one.[315]

Apart, too, from these very remarkable instances, there are not a few passages scattered about in the remains of the New Comedy which serve to show that the “love,” of which there is so much talk in that literature, is not the merely animal passion of an earlier period. Of these, a striking one is that preserved in Plutarch, ap. Stob. Flor. lxiii. 34:

τῶν Μενάνδρου δραμάτων, says Plutarch there, οὐκ ἴσως ἁπάντων ἓν συνεκτικόν ἐστιν ὁ ἔρως, οἷον πνεῦμα κοινὸν διακεχυκώς; ὃν οὖν μάλιστα θιασώτην τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὀργιαστὴν ἴσμεν, τὸν ἄνδρα συνεπιλαμβάνωμεν εἰς τὴν ζήτησιν, ἐπεὶ καὶ λελάκηκε περὶ τοῦ πάθους φιλοσοφώτερον. ἄξιον γὰρ εἶναι θαύματος φήσας τὸ περὶ τοὺς ἐρῶντας, ὥσπερ ἐστὶν ἅμα λαλεῖ. εἶτα ἀπορεῖ καὶ ζητεῖ πρὸς ἑαυτόν·

That is: Menander, a writer familiar with love in its most passionate forms (θιασώτην καὶ ὀργιαστήν), gives us a sober and serious view of the matter. After expressing his astonishment at the ways of lovers, he furnishes us with a realistic account of love as it actually is (ὥσπερ ἐστὶν ἅμα λαλεῖ),[316] and then proceeds to investigate its causes. For a moment he is puzzled, and questions with himself, but soon he finds the true answer. καιρός ἐστιν ἡ νόσος ψυχῆς. Love is an affection of the soul as distinct from the body, and has only an accidental connection with the latter.[317]

Equally forcible, though in another way, is a passage from the Poenulus. The lover and his slave are watching the two girls, and the slave expresses his utter contempt for his master’s “Platonic” affection, to which the latter answers that he loves Adelphasium as he loves the gods.[318] Another case is in the Curculio, where the love of Phaedromus for Planesium is fed on nothing more substantial than kisses;[319] another in the Hecyra, where it is distinctly pointed out that the love of Pamphilus for his wife is induced by other than sensual considerations.[320] Other instances, of more or less significance, every reader of the Latin comedians will be able to supply for himself; and it is further worth observing that when a New Comedy character, as occasionally does happen, is made to speak slightingly of “Platonic” love, such a character is always a slave, never a person of refinement.[321]

To proceed to the final point of essential difference between Middle and New Comedy, it will be remembered that, in the former class of literature, family life and the mutual relations of members of a family were among the stock subjects of ridicule, and that no remarks expressive of any other views on this matter are to be found there, at any rate before a very late period.[322] Family life, as depicted in the New Comedy, is by no means ideal; indeed, as we have already had occasion to remark, the unhappy relations between husband and elderly wife are, under certain circumstances, a favourite subject of ridicule, even with Menander.[323] But yet instances to the contrary are to be found, and are, in fact, by no means very uncommon. Not to speak of the cases of devotion of wife to husband and husband to wife—such as those in the Stichus, &c., already sufficiently discussed[324]—the relations between father and children, and, still more, mother and children,[325] are often described as of the most delightful character.

Of the former, there are interesting examples in Menand. Incert. 59:

Incert. 108:

Incert. 113:

Incert. 117:

The charming interview between the father and his two daughters in the Stichus (i. 2, 32 seqq.), is a further, equally striking instance.

Of the latter relation, that between mother and children, there is a good instance in this same play (i. 2, 51), where, after the father has propounded his intention of marrying again, his daughter reminds him that it will be hard for him to find a second wife like his first.

A still more striking case is that in the Hecyra, where the mother of Pamphilus, thinking that it is her presence which renders it impossible for her son’s wife to live with him, resolves to sacrifice herself, and go into voluntary exile into the country.[327] The same idea, though less pleasantly expressed, is apparent in Syrus’ remark in the Heauton Timorumenus (v. 2, 38):

But it is needless to multiply instances of a state of affairs with which every attentive reader of Plautus and Terence must be sufficiently familiar.[328]

IX. The Origins of the Romantic Comedy.

The above investigation into the nature of New Comedy, and into the points of difference between it and the earlier literature, leads naturally to the consideration of a further and final question—that of the origin of these differences which are so strikingly apparent. We have seen that the romantic New Comedy differs entirely in its treatment of women from every form of dramatic art which had preceded it.[329] In fact, we have seen that, while the Middle Comedy belongs still entirely to the first or classical period of Greek literature, the New Comedy, with its striking romantic features, belongs essentially to that second period, which it is usual to call the Alexandrian, and forms, indeed, one of the departments of literature in which the romantic tendencies of that period can be studied to the best advantage. What we have to consider is therefore this: How did Athenian Comedy acquire these romantic features which are so conspicuously absent from its earlier phases? when did it acquire them? and to whom was the acquisition due?

The last of these three questions may be best considered first. There seems every reason to believe that this introduction of the romantic element was due to Menander rather than to Philemon.[330] There can be no question that of the two writers, Philemon is the less distinctively romantic. Of the typical New Comedy love-stories preserved in Plautus and Terence, not one professes to be derived from him. The allusions to women altogether are proportionately much fewer in his fragments than in those of Menander; while a large proportion, again, of such allusions as there are, are either references to Hetaerae, or else belong to the old-fashioned misogyny of Middle Comedy. The detailed examination of his style of art, which occurs in the Florida of Apuleius, is altogether strongly suggestive of Middle Comedy;[331] indeed, Apuleius actually describes him as “mediae comoediae scriptor.” It is further to be remarked that the number of coarse allusions to women is proportionately far greater in Philemon than in Menander. Indeed, the whole study of Philemon’s treatment of women leaves one with the impression, not only that he was at heart a follower of the old school, but that even when he did for any reason adopt the romantic principle, he developed this principle from a more sensual point of view than Menander. That this tendency to coarseness is in sympathy with the earlier spirit of Athenian comedy, but is entirely foreign to its romantic development, need hardly be emphasised, after all that has already been said on the subject. And it may not be altogether beside the question here, to call attention to Philemon’s invariable pessimism—pessimism most characteristic of a conservative mind in an age of progress, but hardly consistent with such qualities as would be required of the originator of a great artistic and social revolution.[332] Furthermore, Philemon is regularly spoken of as the rival of Menander;[333] the reverse is never the case, notwithstanding the fact that the relative ages of the two playwrights would have made the latter the more natural way of putting the case. Again, the much greater success of Philemon at the time, notwithstanding the well-nigh unanimous contrary verdict of subsequent ages,[334] seems to show clearly that he was the more old-fashioned of the two; for, as is well known, originality is seldom very welcome on the stage. And lastly, the very large proportion of Philemon’s works which appear to have belonged to Middle Comedy pure and simple—a point which will be further discussed directly—seems to be further evidence that this was his natural métier, and that it was only a spirit of rivalry with Menander which made him turn his attention to a style of art with which he had no real sympathy.[335] As for the Hypobolimaeus, that proves nothing, for there is no evidence whatever by which to fix the date of this resuscitation of the Cocalus of Aristophanes; indeed, if anything, it rather suggests that Philemon found such subjects so little congenial, that he had to borrow his materials, instead of being able to produce them himself.

All this, it may be argued, proves little as to the claims of Menander over Philemon. Indeed, it may even be urged that the very fact that Philemon is the less distinctively romantic of the two, renders it probable that the first introduction of the romantic element was due to him. But such an argument, though at first sight plausible enough, rests on an imperfect comprehension of the real nature of the romantic principle in Greek comedy. Were this principle a direct development of tendencies characteristic of the earlier phases of the literature, it would doubtless be right to assume that its first appearance in any tangible shape would be of an unemphatic and tentative kind; but the romantic principle is no such development of previous tendencies. It is not a development, but a regeneration; it is not a growth from within, but an annex from without. Whatever anyone may suppose to be the origin of the romantic element, no one with any acquaintance with the subject is likely to wish to maintain that the virgin-love of New Comedy is developed out of the Hetaera-worship of its predecessor on the stage. Indeed, there can be little doubt that, so far from New Comedy appealing to those tastes which Middle Comedy had fostered, its remarkable success was in great part due to a strong reaction against the latter. And thus there is every reason to believe that, when once the new emotion found expression on the stage, such expression was immediately clear and unmistakable; and that therefore, in looking for the originator of the movement, one must look for that writer of the period whose works exhibit the romantic features most strongly and consistently, and must regard those other writers, in whom such features are less prominent, as more or less unwilling imitators. And if this be so, there can be little real doubt as to the validity of Menander’s claim.

The next question to be considered is—When was this introduction of the romantic element into Greek comedy first brought about? We know that Philemon began to exhibit in 330, and that the date of Menander’s first play is 322; but these facts do not of themselves furnish any information as to the origin of New Comedy proper. For it is an unquestionable fact, and one of the greatest importance in this connection, that both Philemon and Menander wrote plays which are not romantic, and which belong, therefore, to Middle, rather than to New Comedy. And on this fact hinges the whole question of the date of the introduction of the romantic element into Athenian Comedy.

Of the ninety-seven plays of Philemon, which Platonius states were in his time extant,[336] hardly fifty titles are preserved, and of these, well-nigh a third obviously belong to what were evidently Middle Comedies.[337] When we consider how extremely probable it is that the majority of the plays now entirely lost belonged also to this class (for it is obvious that a later age would tend to preserve such plays as were in harmony with the romantic tastes then prevailing, rather than those that were not), it becomes clear that a very large proportion of the plays of Philemon were not New Comedies at all. With Menander the same is to a certain extent, though not in an equal degree, also true. Of about a hundred plays that he produced during the thirty-two years of his literary activity, while a dozen or so, presumably unsuccessful efforts of his earlier years, are entirely lost, some twenty besides, of those whose titles we know, must be ranked with the old, rather than with the new form of dramatic art.