The Classical Quarterly

http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ

Additional services for The Classical Quarterly:

Email alerts: Click here

Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here

POETS AND POETRY IN LATER GREEK COMEDY

Matthew Wright

The Classical Quarterly / Volume 63 / Issue 02 / December 2013, pp 603 - 622

DOI: 10.1017/S000983881300013X, Published online: 08 November 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S000983881300013X

How to cite this article:

Matthew Wright (2013). POETS AND POETRY IN LATER GREEK COMEDY. The
Classical Quarterly, 63, pp 603-622 doi:10.1017/S000983881300013X

Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAQ, IP address: 128.205.114.91 on 23 Mar 2014

Classical Quarterly 63.2 603–622 © The Classical Association (2013) 603
doi:10.1017/S000983881300013X

POETS AND POETRY IN LATER GREEK COMEDY

The comic dramatists of the fifth century B.C. were notable for their preoccupation with
poetics – that is, their frequent references to their own poetry and that of others, their
overt interest in the Athenian dramatic festivals and their adjudication, their penchant
for parody and pastiche, and their habit of self-conscious reflection on the nature of
good and bad poetry. I have already explored these matters at some length, in my
study of the relationship between comedy and literary criticism in the period before
Plato and Aristotle.1 This article continues the story into the fourth century and beyond,
examining the presence and function of poetical and literary-critical discourse in what is
normally called ‘middle’ and ‘new’ comedy.
These conventional labels ‘middle’ and ‘new’, a legacy of Hellenistic literary scholarship,
are unsatisfactory in all sorts of ways. They are significant in the sense that they acknowledge a
degree of change and development in the comic genre over time; but an evolutionary model of
literary history, artificially divided into distinct (and more or less arbitrary) periods, seems
neither appropriate nor useful.2 This is why I prefer the formulation ‘later Greek comedy’.
Nevertheless, one of the recurrent questions which scholars rightly ask of this material, and
which is relevant to our topic here, is the extent to which comedy changed after the fifth cen-
tury. Did comedians of the fourth century and later continue to write about literary matters in
the same way as their predecessors, or can we detect significant changes in their attitudes?
One might reasonably expect to see some changes, perhaps, given that the intellec-
tual context of the later Classical period was different in some respects from the world of
Aristophanes and his contemporaries. As we are informed by numerous scholarly
accounts, literary criticism and literary scholarship had become firmly established by
the mid to late fourth century as distinct disciplines, incorporating a greatly developed
interest in literary aesthetics, style, rhetoric and related concerns. The Greeks had moved
closer to a culture of written texts, readers and book ownership. A number of works
and theories seem to be based on the concept of ‘literature’ as an entity, and on the
related idea of ‘classic’ texts and authors. The dramatic festivals themselves now
included an increasing number of revivals of great works of old drama.3 Surely enough,

1
M.E. Wright, The Comedian as Critic: Greek Old Comedy and Poetics (London, 2012).
2
For a couple of excellent critiques of these labels, see K. Sidwell, ‘From Old to Middle to New?
Aristotle’s Poetics and the history of Athenian comedy’, in F.D. Harvey and J.M. Wilkins (edd.), The
Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy (London, 2000), 247–58; E. Csapo, ‘From
Aristotle to Menander: genre transformation in Greek comedy’, in M. Depew and D. Obbink (edd.),
Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 115–33.
3
On all such matters see (e.g.) I. Gildenhard and M. Revermann (edd.) Beyond the Fifth Century
(Berlin, 2010); A. Ford, The Birth of Criticism (Princeton, 2002); R. Pfeiffer, A History of Classical
Scholarship I (Oxford, 1968); T.B.L. Webster, Art and Literature in Fourth-Century Greece (London,
1956); H. Yunis (ed.), Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece (Cambridge,
2003).
604 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

as we shall see, all these currents are reflected in the remains of the comedy of the
period. But actually (as I have already shown elsewhere) most of them were already pre-
sent, in one form or another, in fifth-century comedy. It seems to me that the importance
of the fourth century as a time of intellectual change has been overemphasized, and that
the emergence of literary criticism (as such) needs to be backdated by a few decades. At
any rate, in the area of poetics the later comedians seem to resemble their predecessors
extremely closely in comic technique and subject matter. The same old ideas and jokes
are continually being recycled. There are a few new variations on old themes, of course,
but what is really interesting is how little change and development we see in later
comedy in this particular area. Instead there is a remarkable degree of continuity.
A number of recurrent literary themes can be detected in the comedy of the fourth
century and later: a concern with originality (or the lack of it); a particular (but not
exclusive) focus on books and readers; an interest in the effect of poetry on its audience;
the selective use of poetry as a source of moral guidance; the synkrisis of comic and
tragic genres; and a heavy reliance on intertextuality, allusion, quotation, pastiche and
parody (especially of Euripidean tragedy). All of these themes find parallels in the
work of fifth-century comedians. The fragmentary nature of the evidence means that
it is often impossible to see how these themes are being developed by the later poets.
It is also very difficult to discern differences in treatment between different authors. It
seems that they were all drawing on the same shared repertoire of material,4 but no dis-
tinctive voices or perspectives seem to stand out from the crowd. Of course, the problem
is not simply due to the poor state of the evidence. Even if the plays survived intact, we
would still have to deal with the interpretative difficulties associated with the very nature
of comedy as a genre: the jokes, the irony, the absence of a clear authorial voice, the
typical obliqueness of the comedians’ approach to their subject matter and so on.
All the same, the surviving material, such as it is,5 can reveal a great deal to the student
of comedy or the historian of ideas. In the first place, it shows us that the later Greek
comedians continued to function as literary critics (of a sort), engaging with the intellec-
tual and cultural world around them, and reflecting or popularizing – or perhaps criticizing
– current ideas. Our material also provides a valuable indication of audience tastes in this
period. It is clear that people continued to find literary-based humour appealing, at a time
when other comic themes (e.g. politics and sex) seem, for whatever reason, to have fallen
out of favour. This fact is suggestive in terms of the social and political context of comedy
as well as the composition of the audience (or ‘target’ audience).6

II

The question of poetic originality is one which arises very frequently in poetry of all
types and periods, often with a concomitant sense of anxiety or awkwardness.7 How

4
Cf. M. Heath’s discussion of the shared repertoire of fifth-century comedians, in ‘Aristophanes
and his rivals’, G&R 38 (1990), 143–58.
5
Note that all comic fragments are cited from the multi-volume edition of R. Kassel and C. Austin,
Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin and New York, 1983–), with the exception of Menander, whose plays
and fragments are cited from W.G. Arnott’s Loeb edition (Cambridge, MA, 1979–2000).
6
On the importance of distinguishing between the audience as a whole and the ‘target’ audience of
each comedian, see Wright (n. 1), 3–5, 55–60.
7
See H. Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence (New York, 1975) and now The Anatomy of Influence
(New Haven, 2011). A. D’Angour’s excellent new book, The Greeks and the New (Cambridge,
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 605

to be truly original when so many others have already gone before? Poets (like scholars)
often confront this problem by making exaggerated statements about the novelty or
importance of their own work. Such statements are of course rhetorical rather than lit-
eral: they have to be read as a form of agonistic self-defence, not as straightforward
self-description.
A number of fourth-century comedians can be seen drawing their audiences’ atten-
tion to poetic novelty, but it is never absolutely clear what they want us to think about
the concept. In Amphis’ comedy Dithyrambos (fr. 14) one of the characters is a chor-
egos who sees novelty (in terms of musical accompaniment) as one of the criteria that
will help his production to win a prize.8 It is unclear to what extent this character is to be
seen as a counterpart to Amphis himself, but the poet’s implied attitude to novelty seems
broadly approving. In a similar vein, someone in Anaxilas’ Plousioi (fr. 27) declares that
μουσική (poetry, literature or music), like Libya in the proverb, is always bringing forth
something new. A character in Antiphanes’ Alcestis (fr. 30) advocates the principle that
in everything one should aim at originality (τὸ καινουργεῖν), words which have nor-
mally been read as a metapoetic or programmatic statement.9 Elsewhere Antiphanes
praises the dithyrambic poet Philoxenus for his originality, claiming that his novelty
and his music mark him out as the best of all poets by far (Tritagonistes fr. 207).
In these and other fragments where novelty is discussed, it is not always obvious
what sort of originality is meant. Does the concept denote new ideas, new styles of writ-
ing, new jokes, new types of subject matter or characters, or something else? Sometimes
it is connected specifically with musical innovations,10 but often it is left vague.
Probably this vagueness is deliberate, in the interests of rhetorical effect: the poets’
claims of originality might sound less plausible if one were to start probing too deeply
into the details. Nevertheless, novelty – whatever form it may take – is presented as a
seemingly admirable characteristic to which a poet might aspire, and it may be that
some of these poets genuinely thought they were doing something new.
In fact, comic references to novelty are among the oldest jokes in the book. For many
decades comedians had been making tongue-in-cheek claims about the supposed
novelty of their own work, while accusing everyone else of staleness or plagiarism.11
Even in the fifth century such jokes were decidedly old hat, though that seems to
have been part of the fun – for it is clear that we are dealing with a system of stock
jokes or running gags. The calculated repetition of familiar material can be a fruitful
source of humour if well handled,12 and old jokes about novelty embody a pleasing
sense of irony and paradox. The later comedians can be seen as adding to this long

2011) is also relevant for its depiction of ancient responses to the challenge (or problem) of novelty in
all its forms.
8
The fragment is discussed by P. Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia (Cambridge,
2000), 68–70; cf. M.E. Wright, ‘Literary prizes and literary criticism in antiquity’, ClAnt 28
(2009), 138–77, at 167–9.
9
See Kassel–Austin, ad loc. (2.326). The speaker may be a poet, though J.M. Edmonds, The
Fragments of Greek Comedy II (Leiden 1957), ad loc. (= fr. 29) suggested that it is the Muse, addres-
sing the poet in the play’s prologue.
10
As in several fifth-century comedies: e.g. Pherecrates, Cheiron fr. 155, id., Corianno fr. 84, Ar.
Nub. 1353–65, etc., though these earlier references are less obviously approving in nature.
11
Earlier jokes contrasting new and old material include: Callias fr. 26; Cratinus, Odysseis fr. 153;
Metagenes, Philothytes fr. 15; Eupolis, Autolycus fr. 60, Helots fr. 148, frr. 326, 366; Platon,
Peisander fr. 106; Ar. Eq. 518–25, Nub. 895–7, 1353–65, Ran. 1–20, etc.
12
See especially B. Kawin, Telling it Again: Repetition in Film and Literature (Ithaca, NY, 1972).
Repetition and recognition are key elements in several theoretical definitions of humour: see H.
606 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

tradition of running jokes, in which case their talk of originality will have come across
as transparently silly or disingenuous. However, it may be that at least some of these
jokes stimulated certain audience members to think more seriously about the nature
of poetic originality and its anxieties and pressures.
Antiphanes’ treatment of the theme in Poiesis (fr. 189) provides a good example of
the problems faced by anyone who would try to pin down a fragmentary comedian to a
definite point of view. One of his characters in this play, apparently a comic poet,13 is
not talking directly about the originality of his own work but about the difficulty
inherent in trying to saying anything original at all. Tragedians, he says, have it easy,
because they take their material directly from myths that everyone knows, in contrast
to comedians, who have to invent all their own material (17–18: ἡμῖν δὲ ταῦτ’ οὐκ
ἔστιν, ἀλλὰ πάντα δεῖ | εὑρεῖν, ὀνόματα καινά κτλ). Comic invention is hard work.
Even though the comedians have total freedom of invention, this freedom seems to
bring with it a risk of inhibition or creative paralysis. Paradoxically, it is said to be
the tragedians who can do anything they please, even though they are restricted far
more severely by the formal conventions of their genre.14
It is hard to know what to make of this striking fragment. All we can say for certain is
that Antiphanes is playing around (in some way) with a literary-critical idea that will
already have been familiar to most of the people in his audience. We would certainly
not be justified in interpreting these lines as embodying Antiphanes’ own views on
poetry. Even if the speaker could be identified straightforwardly with the real-life author
himself (which would be impossible, even if the character’s name were ‘Antiphanes’),
we would still have to allow room for humour, irony and exaggeration. The lack of a
dramatic context in which to place the lines makes it even harder to understand just
what is going on. It has been assumed, on the basis of its remarks about tragedy, that
this fragment comes from an agon with a tragic poet,15 but even if it is from an agon
scene, there is no particular need for us to assume that the contest was that of comedy
vs tragedy. It could equally be a case of comedy vs comedy, with the poet character
defending himself against (real or hypothetical) accusations of staleness and using tra-
gedy merely for purposes of illustration or contrast. Perhaps it might be thought that
Antiphanes is depicting a fourth-century comedian who has run out of new ideas – in
which case one could make some sort of link between his character’s attitude and
that of certain other poets who complain that everything they want to do has already
been done by someone else.16 But was it really more difficult to be original in the fourth
century than in the fifth? Perhaps the joke depends on a quite different underlying atti-
tude: it could just as plausibly be read as an indirect assertion of the comedian’s own
superiority (despite the difficulty of his task), rather than as anxious apologetics.

Bergson, Laughter (London, 1913), N. Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957); cf. Wright
(n. 1), 70–102.
13
So H.-G. Nesselrath, Die attische mittlere Komödie: Ihre Stellung in der antiken Literaturkritik
und Literaturgeschichte (Berlin and New York, 1990), 239–41, who discusses this fragment in detail;
cf. S.D. Olson, Broken Laughter (Oxford, 2007), 172–5.
14
For this view cf. Diphilus, Elaionephrourountes fr. 29, where someone (a comedian?) complains
that the tragedians alone have the licence to say or do anything they like.
15
See R.L. Hunter, The New Comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 1985), 158.
16
Cf. the fourth-century tragedian Astydamas, who wrote an often-cited epigram expressing the
wish that he had been born earlier, so as to compete on equal terms with the great fifth-century tra-
gedians (TrGF 1.60 T 2a–b). Earlier poets had already bemoaned the fact that nearly everything worth
saying had been said before: e.g. Choerilus fr. 1 Bernabé; Bacchyl. Paean fr. 5 Maehler; Ar. Danaides
fr. 265.
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 607

Or maybe Antiphanes is not actually saying anything at all about novelty, as such, but
merely having fun with us, provocatively recycling an old joke on a subject of perennial
interest to poetry lovers.

III

Originality is also mentioned by the character in Xenarchus’ Porphyra who says

(fr. 7.1–3):

οἱ μὲν ποιηταὶ λῆρός εἰσιν· οὐδὲ ἓν

καινὸν γὰρ εὑρίσκουσιν, ἀλλὰ μεταwέρει
ἕκαστος αὐτῶν ταὔτ’ ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω.

Poets are just a load of nonsense. They fail to come up with a single thing that is new: instead,
each of them rearranges the same material, moving it around in some way or another.

As before, it is far from easy to discern what (if anything) is being said about poetic
novelty, but it is possible to observe that Xenarchus develops the theme in a slightly
different direction from Antiphanes and the others. The speaker here is seemingly not
a poet but a fishmonger: the fragment continues with a long, eulogistic description of
the resourcefulness and genius of fishmongers as a general class, and it is explicitly
said that poets are utterly worthless by comparison. The fact that fishmongers are
described as a ‘rather philosophical’ category of person (wιλοσοwώτερον γένος) may
make us wonder whether there is a specific type of novelty at stake here: is the speaker
implying that poetry lacks conceptual or intellectual novelty in particular? (One recalls
that several decades earlier Aristophanes had claimed precisely this type of originality
for himself, in contrast with his less sophisticated rivals.17) But in fact fishmongers and
chefs are often described in comedy as astonishingly clever or learned individuals (invari-
ably with a ludicrous degree of exaggeration),18 so it may be that there is no special signifi-
cance to the description. It is also impossible to identify the anonymous ‘poets’ who are
being denigrated here. It seems likely that some form of pointed comment is intended.
But does Xenarchus have particular individuals in mind? The generalizing form of
expression (οἱ not οὗτοι) makes it unlikely but not absolutely out of the question. Or is
it that tragedians are being criticized for their lack of invention, in implicit contrast with
comedians (as in Antiphanes fr. 189)? Or is it, perhaps, that poets nowadays are being com-
pared unfavourably with the great poets of old (as in Antiphanes fr. 207)?19 Or is the fish-
monger dismissing the art of poesy tout court as being inferior to the art of cuisine? None of
these explanations can be ruled out. But it is clear, at least, that here novelty is being linked
to the language and imagery of food as a way of exploring poetic ideas.
Xenarchus was not alone in inviting his audience to make a connection (of some
sort) between poetry and cookery. This connection had already been firmly established

17
Ar. Nub. 547–8; cf. Vesp. 1043–50.
18
e.g. Posidippus fr. 1, Euphron, Adelphoi fr. 1, Damoxenus, Syntrophoi fr. 2, Sosipater,
Katapseudomenos fr. 1; Straton, Phoinicides fr. 1, Athenion, Samothracians fr. 1, etc.; see
Nesselrath (n. 13), 257–8 and J.M. Wilkins, The Boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Greek
Comedy (Oxford, 2000), 382–91, 396–408.
19
Xenarchus fr. 4 may also be relevant: it suggests that the author was interested in ‘generation
gap’ comedy and the supposed depravity of modern youth. See Olson (n. 13), 342–4.
608 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

by earlier comedians, who made great play with the conceit that literature was food.
Numerous passages and fragments of fifth-century comedy depend on the idea that
the poet is a chef, that poetry and drama of various types can be ‘consumed’ by its audi-
ence, and that literary preferences can be discussed in terms of ‘taste’.20 These earlier
comedians, who may well have invented the metaphor themselves, exercised an enor-
mous influence on the language of later (ancient and modern) literary criticism.21 But
by the fourth or third century, the idea would perhaps have seemed a commonplace,
even a cliché. Comedians such as (for instance) Euphron, who makes one of his char-
acters declare that there is no difference between the cook and the poet (fr. 10), or
Anaxilas, who compares little baked fish with the works of Aeschylus (Mageiroi fr.
19), or Straton, who likens lentil soup to tragedy (fr. 1), cannot have been presenting
their audience with anything very surprising.
Nevertheless, the concept of food-as-literature was not entirely past its sell-by date.
We can detect a little development in the use of the metaphor. One important change is
that the figure of the poet and the figure of the chef (or fishmonger, or breadmaker) are
no longer always treated as exact counterparts. In fact, as in the Xenarchus fragment just
quoted, they now seem to be regarded as rivals. Both of these figures are competing to
be seen as superior in techne and originality – and both seem to be trying a bit too hard
to impress. Indeed, the boastful chef becomes a familiar stock figure in his own right in
later Greek comedy;22 and although it cannot be said that the comic mageiros invariably
possesses a metaliterary significance, it is still notable that he recurrently functions as a
focal point for ideas about novelty, inventiveness and skill.23 The comedians obviously
still regard these concerns as central to their genre, even though their attention is shifting
away from poets themselves onto other sorts of artist.
The other main change in the presentation of the comic chef is that he is increasingly
mentioned in connection with books. This theme continues the long association of cook-
ing and writing, but it also reflects the emergence of the cookery book (or food writing
in a broader sense) as a new literary genre in the fourth century,24 and of the increasing
tendency (which I have already mentioned) to view poetry in terms of books and read-
ers. It is hard to judge the comedians’ attitude to these new developments, but the por-
trayal of chefs as bibliophiles, authors or intellectuals seems to have become quite
common. For example, Platon’s Phaon (fr. 189) features a man who is quietly reading
a new cookery book by Philoxenus.25 The section that he is reading happens to be about
aphrodisiac foodstuffs and their effect on the male anatomy, so perhaps it is no wonder
that he wants to be left on his own to get on with it; but what makes the fragment inter-
esting for our purposes is that it is one of the earliest recorded references to silent

20
e.g. Pherecrates, Krapataloi fr. 101; Callias fr. 26; Metagenes, Philothytes fr. 15; Ar. Eq. 537–9,
Gerytades fr. 595; Cratinus, Pylaia fr. 182 (and many others). See Wright (n. 1), 129–39 for detailed
discussion.
21
On the complex afterlife of the metaphor of ‘taste’, see esp. D. Gigante, Taste: A Literary History
(New Haven, 2005); cf. E. Gowers, The Loaded Table (Oxford, 1993), 40–9.
22
See Wilkins (n. 18), esp. 387–408.
23
e.g. Philemon, Stratiotes fr. 82; Eubulus, Oedipus fr. 72; Alexis, Phugas fr. 259; Archedicus,
Thesauros fr. 2.
24
Mithaecus, Heracleides, Glaucus and others started producing cookery books around the turn of
the century: see S.D. Olson and A. Sens, Archestratos of Gela: Greek Culture and Cuisine in the
Fourth Century BCE (Oxford, 2000).
25
Which Philoxenus? Several candidates are possible, all of whom are connected (somehow) with
food in the ancient tradition. See R. Hunter and D.A. Russell (edd.), Plutarch: How To Study Poetry
(Cambridge, 2011), 70–1 for useful discussion.
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 609

reading in antiquity.26 Elsewhere Philemon (fr. 114) writes about an astonishingly well-
read chef who has not written a book but talks like one: his vocabulary, including rare
words (γλῶτται) from Homer, is so recondite that his interlocutor needs to consult the
works of Philitas of Cos in order to find out what he means.27 Another learned chef in
Damoxenus’ Syntrophoi (fr. 2) is well versed in Epicurean philosophy and has read all
the books of Democritus, as he expects all other chefs worthy of the name to have done.
Most of these clever chefs are actually rather silly, irritating characters,28 which makes
one wonder just what to make of their special association with book learning. The
humour could be interpreted in various ways. Does it arise from the incongruity of ser-
vants who (like Wodehouse’s Jeeves) are better educated than their masters?29 Or is it
being implied that cooks should leave books and philosophy to those who properly
understand them? Or are books (in general) being seen as the special preserve of pom-
pous show-offs? No doubt different audience members (and readers) will have found
these scenes amusing for different reasons.
Alexis’ Linus (fr. 140) contains a delightful exchange between Heracles and his tea-
cher Linus, which takes place in the library of Linus’ house.30 Linus invites Heracles to
go and select a book roll by reading the labels quietly to himself and deciding which one
best suits his taste. The library contains books divided into categories by author and
genre, including both prose and poetry, an arrangement which may be representative
of a typical fourth-century private book collection:

(Λι.) Ὀρwεὺς ἔνεστιν, Ἡσίοδος τραγωιδίαι

Ἐπίχαρμος Ὅμηρος Χοιρίλος συγγράμματα
παντοδαπά· δηλώσεις γὰρ οὕτω τὴν wύσιν
ἐπὶ τί μάλισθ’ ὥρμηκε. (Ηρ.) τουτὶ λαμβάνω.
(Λι.) δεῖξον τί ἐστι πρῶτον. (Ηρ.) ὀψαρτυσία,
ὥς wησι τοὐπίγραμμα. (Λι.) wιλόσοwός τις εἶ,
εὔδηλον, ὃς παρεὶς τουσαῦτα γράμματα
Σίμου τέχνην ἔλαβες. (Ηρ.) ὁ Σῖμος δ’ ἐστὶ τίς;
(Λι.) μάλ’ εὐwυὴς ἄνθρωπος. ἐπὶ τραγωιδίαν
ὥρμηκε νῦν καὶ τῶν μὲν ὑποκριτῶν πολὺ
κράτιστός ἐστιν ὀψοποιός, ὡς δοκεῖ
τοῖς χρωμένοις, τῶν δ’ ὀψοποιῶν ὑποκριτής …

LINUS: Orpheus is there; Hesiod; tragedies; Epicharmus; Homer; Choerilus; prose works of
various kinds. If you select one in this way, you will reveal your nature by the type of work
that attracts you the most. HERACLES: I’m having this one. LINUS: Show me what it is
first. HERACLES: It’s a cookery book, according to the label. LINUS: You’re a philosopher,

26
Cf. Antiphanes, Sappho fr. 194.17–21 with Olson (n. 13), 203; see also Alexis, Linus fr. 140
(discussed below). See A.K. Gavrilov, ‘Techniques of reading in classical antiquity’, CQ 47
(1997), 56–73.
27
Cf. Ar. Banqueters fr. 233 for γλῶτται in this sense (also the title of a work by Philitas). Another
comic chef employs obscurely learned terminology (though without explicit reference to books) at
Antiphanes, Aphrodisius fr. 55.
28
On the alazoneia of the comic chef, see Ath. 7.288c–293e and 9.376c–383f, with Wilkins (n.
18), 408–9. Cf. E. Handley, The Dyskolos of Menander (London, 1965), 199: ‘Cooks are experts,
and like other experts ancient and modern, they can be amusing when they exaggerate their own
skill and importance … Most of them, as seen by Comedy, have a dash of sophistry and
pretentiousness.’
29
This is more or less the view of G.W. Dobrov, who views the mageiros as the prototype of the
servus callidus of later (especially Roman) comedy: ‘Μάγειρος ποιητής: language and character in
Antiphanes’, in A. Willi (ed.), The Language of Greek Comedy (Oxford, 2002), 169–90.
30
According to Athenaeus (4.164b–d), who cites the fragment.
610 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

clearly, since you have chosen the art of Simus in preference to so many other writings.
HERACLES: Who is Simus? LINUS: An extremely clever fellow! Lately he’s turned to tra-
gedy, and he is by far the most able cook among actors, and also the best actor among
cooks, according to those in the know … (fr. 140.5–16)

Here is it more obvious that the so-called cleverness of the literate cook Simus is being under-
mined or ridiculed.31 To be named the best cook among actors or the best actor among cooks
is scarcely the most glowing of accolades. All the same, Simus is bound to strike us as an
extraordinary individual, even if he was not regarded as a total success: few people of this
date will have been versatile enough to combine careers as cooks, writers and tragic actors.32
(However, Alexis’ readers may well have reflected that in a sense most comedians, including
Alexis himself, combined the same interests – food, poetry and tragedy.)
Heracles’ choice of reading matter fits in with his depiction elsewhere in comedy
(especially in the literary-themed Frogs of Aristophanes) as a glutton; but the fact
that Heracles picks out a cookery book ‘in preference to so many other writings’
shows that there is an implicitly agonistic model of literature underlying the scene.
Heracles is, in effect, being asked to adjudicate between different authors and genres
of literature. What sort of literature is best? Now there are no comedians represented
in Linus’ library (apart from Epicharmus, who is probably regarded here as an author
of moralizing maxims rather than comedy),33 but it is hard to avoid remarking on
their absence. This library consists mainly of improving, serious literature representing
genres (epic, tragedy etc.) that were widely used for educational purposes. But why
should comedy not be included? By conspicuously omitting comedy from the list,
Alexis can be seen as establishing an implicit contest (as seen so often elsewhere)
between comedy and other ‘higher’ or more respectable forms of literature.34
The presence of Linus as the title character means that education and μουσική would have
featured prominently in the play, but it is not clear how this scene, or the play as a whole,
developed. After the lines just quoted, Linus exclaims that Heracles is obviously ravenous
(βούλιμός ἐσθ’ ἅνθρωπος, 17). This comment seems so abrupt that a lacuna has been sus-
pected, though the most recent editor suggests that ‘we are to imagine some sudden action
on Heracles’ part – such as eating the papyrus book roll’.35 This suggestion is attractive: it
would fit in with what we know of Heracles’ voracious appetite (a frequent source of humour
elsewhere), and it would underline the analogy between food and literature in a funny and
pointed manner if the hungry hero were literally to attempt to eat Linus’ book.36
There are other points of interest in the fragment, including its physical description of
fourth-century book rolls, as well as the anachronism of introducing books into the

31
So Olson (n. 13), 268.
32
Simus is normally assumed to be a real-life person: he is not attested elsewhere, but the manner
in which he is discussed by Linus implies that he really did exist. The word τέχνη in the fragment,
which I translated ‘art’, may have been the actual title of Linus’ book (cf. the use of Techne as the
title of rhetorical works by e.g. Antiphon, Aristotle, Isocrates and others).
33
So Olson (n. 13), 267; cf. ibid. 61–3 on [Epicharmus], Gnomai frr. 244–73.
34
e.g. in Antiphanes, Poiesis fr. 189 (quoted above); but on the question of generic rivalry more
broadly see (e.g.) H. Foley, ‘Tragedy and politics in Aristophanes’ Acharnians’, JHS 108 (1988), 33–
47; C. Platter, Aristophanes and the Carnival of Genres (Baltimore, 2007); M.E. Wright, ‘Comedy vs
tragedy in Wasps’, in E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Teló (edd.), Greek Comedy and the Discourse
of Genres (Cambridge, 2013), 205–24).
35
J. Rusten (ed.), The Birth of Comedy: Texts, Documents, and Art from Athenian Comic
Competitions, 486–280 (Baltimore, 2011), 544.
36
A close parallel is provided by Ar. Gerytades fr. 163, in which poets eat their own writing
tablets.
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 611

pre-literate world of the mythical past, but most important, perhaps, is the suggestion
that one’s choice of reading matter is an indication of one’s character. Discussions of
literature’s moral effect on its audience are found widely in antiquity, as is the idea
that literature or style is a clue to the character (or even the dress sense) of the author;37
but the notion that literature can reveal something about its reader is much less fre-
quently encountered. The context in which Platon introduces this idea may make us
wonder whether it is a product of the growth of book ownership and the transformation
of ‘audiences’ into ‘readers’. It could be argued that the activity of silent reading, as
depicted in several of the passages mentioned above, was essentially a matter of per-
sonal, private choice, in contrast with the more inclusive, social world of performance
culture and dramatic festivals. Nevertheless, one must beware of making huge interpret-
ative leaps on the basis of such scant evidence; and in fact a number of fifth-century
comedians had already made the connection between a person’s poetic preferences
and his personality, without any reference at all to books or readers.38
The emergence of ‘reading culture’ out of ‘performance culture’ represents a com-
plex process of social and intellectual change. Even though many comedies of the fourth
century and later seem to reflect this process in some way, it has to be admitted that the
reflections are rather dim and blurry, and it can scarcely be claimed that our fragments
help us to produce neat and tidy accounts of literary history. All the same, it does seem
significant that the collective sort of literary preference, as exemplified by the award of
prizes at festivals, is rather lost sight of in later comedy. Apart from the perfunctory and
formulaic tailpieces, containing requests for applause or prayers to Nike, that are found
at the end of certain plays,39 there is no sign that the comedians were interested in the
circumstances of the festival in which they were competing. This is in marked contrast
to the work of earlier comedians, to whom the paraphernalia of the festivals and the out-
come of the competitions were matters of explicit interest; indeed, for such playwrights
the contests seem to have been influential in shaping their views on poetics in general.40
After the fifth century we do not find any surviving references to the competitions from
within the plays; no comedian now seems to say anything about the qualities of his own
poetry (except by implication); no comedian ever refers to his rivals or their works; and
(crucially) the parabasis, in which the poet figure ‘steps forward’ to address the audi-
ence, seems to disappear altogether from the formal structure of comedy.41
Of course, these changes are not entirely due to the fact that the comedians were writ-
ing for a reading public. Other equally important reasons have been suggested.42 In the

37
See (e.g.) Ar. Thesm. 148–72, with the commentary of C. Austin and S.D. Olson (Oxford, 2005),
ad loc.; cf. N. Worman, The Cast of Character: Style in Greek Literature (Austin, 2002).
38
e.g. Ar. Nub. 1353–65, Ran. 771–6; Eupolis, Helots fr. 148, incert. fab. frr. 326, 395.
39
Men. Dyskolos 968–9, Misoumenos 465–6, Sikyonios 422–3, Samia 736–7, fr. 771; Posidippus,
Apokleiomene fr. 6.
40
See (most recently) K. Sidwell, Aristophanes the Democrat: The Politics of Satirical Comedy
during the Peloponnesian War (Cambridge, 2009); Z. Biles, Aristophanes and the Poetics of
Comic Competition (Cambridge, 2011). However, I have argued elsewhere that the rhetoric of com-
petition, though extremely prominent in fifth-century comedy, is not always to be taken at face value:
see Wright (n. 1), 31–69.
41
One must beware of the argument from silence: the fact that we are dealing with fragments can-
not be emphasized enough. Nevertheless, the total absence of references to festivals or prizes from the
fragments of later comedy contrasts with the frequent presence of such material in the fragments of
fifth-century comedy.
42
See esp. N.W. Slater, ‘The fabrication of comic illusion’, in G.W. Dobrov (ed.), Beyond
Aristophanes: Transition and Diversity in Greek Comedy (Atlanta, 1995), 29–45; id., ‘Play and
612 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

first place, any comedy or tragedy might now be reperformed frequently, in a wide var-
iety of settings, after its premiere. The ‘exportability’ of drama might well explain the
removal of self-conscious references to the specifics of the original context. It has
also been argued that later comedy becomes more interested in dramatic realism, in con-
trast with earlier comedy where the illusion is constantly being broken. Furthermore, it is
important to stress that these comedians were not writing solely for readers.43
Performance was alive and kicking, and it is clear that the dramatists will still have
been concerned with popular approval – some more than others. One ancient biographer
records that Anaxandrides would not even allow his plays to circulate as texts unless
they had done well in the competition: if he failed to win the prize, he would have
the scripts cut up and used for scrap paper rather than revising them as most other
poets did.44 The historical value of this anecdote may well be questionable,45 but it
reminds us that the textual afterlife of plays remains tied up with their performance con-
text and popular reception.
The discussion above raises important questions about the relationship between the
comedians and their audience. What sort of person were they writing for, and how did
they imagine that people would engage with their work? The plays themselves provide
clues of a sort, because of their reliance on intertextual games, allusions and parodies.
Even in fragmentary form they obviously contain a very large number of (often
recherché) quotations and references to other texts,46 including authors as diverse as
Homer,47 Chaeremon,48 Aeschylus,49 Sophocles,50 Sosiphanes,51 Theodectes,52
Sappho,53 Choronicus54 and Euripides.55 In other words, they seem to have been
aimed at a target audience of people who were well versed in poetry and drama and
who were sufficiently familiar with the material to identify the allusions and appreciate
all the literary in-jokes. But we do not know enough about the composition of theatre
audiences or the reading habits of fourth-century Athenians to be able to pursue these
questions, or their consequences, very far.

playwright references in Middle and New Comedy’, LCM 10 (1985), 103–5; O.P. Taplin, Comic
Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Painting (Oxford, 1993); id., Pots
and Plays (Malibu, 2007); E. Csapo, Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theatre (Oxford, 2010).
43
Note, however, Demetrius, On Style 193 for the intriguing (and seemingly unparalleled) sugges-
tion that some comedies are naturally more suitable for a reading audience: he claims that actors prefer
Menander but readers prefer Philemon.
44
Chamaeleon fr. 43 Wehrli (quoted by Athenaeus 9.373f = Anaxandrides T2 K.–A.).
45
See G. Arrighetti, Poeti, eruditi e biografi (Pisa, 1987), 141–59 on ancient biography and the
problems of Chamaeleon’s evidence.
46
Sometimes the joke also seems to depend on deliberate misattribution of a quotation, as in
Antiphanes fr. 205 (is a certain phrase from Euripides or Philoxenus?); cf. Antiphanes fr. 1 (‘dithyr-
amb sold as Sophocles’: so Dobrov [n. 29], 189); Diphilus, Synoris fr. 74 (a character questions
whether a quotation is really from Euripides: see Olson [n. 13], 180, who thinks the quotation is
fabricated).
47
Ephippus fr. 10, Eubulus fr. 118, Philemon fr. 98, etc.
48
Ephippus fr. 9, Eubulus fr. 128, etc.
49
Alexis fr. 183, Anaxilas fr. 19, etc.
50
Eriphus fr. 1, Antiphanes fr. 228, Alexis fr. 157, etc.
51
Nicostratus fr. 41.
52
Antiphanes fr. 111.
53
Epicrates fr. 4, Menander, Leukadia fr. 1; Amphis, Antiphanes, Diphilus, Ephippus and
Timocles all wrote plays called Sappho.
54
Alexis fr. 19.
55
See §§ IV and V below. Olson (n. 13), 178–9 supplies a useful list of comic references.
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 613

IV

However, several of the comedians show an interest in the effect of poetry and drama on
the audience. (For this purpose it does not always seem to matter whether we think in
terms of spectators or readers.) This sort of concern is central to the literary criticism of
Plato and Aristotle, who were concerned with the social utility of literature, its moral
influences (for good or evil) and its psychological effects. Fifth-century writers, includ-
ing comedians, had also been interested in such matters. Gorgias and other sophists, for
instance, had explored the psychological power of drama and rhetoric, and the nature of
illusion.56 A particularly prominent theme in Aristophanic comedy is the idea that comic
and/or tragic drama might be useful for the citizen body, either in terms of the political
guidance that it provides or in terms of its moral content more generally.57 These
fifth-century theories are not seen in the remains of later comedy.58 The playwrights
remain interested in the moral effects of drama, but the emphasis now seems to have
shifted away from its social and civic benefits. Instead, several comedians talk about
drama’s ability to improve the personal well-being or inner life of the individual.
The language of medicine is used in this context in a few important comic fragments,
where tragic drama in particular is presented as having some sort of therapeutic effect on
the mind. For example, Timocles, Dionysiazousai fr. 6 is an important fragment featur-
ing a fairly lengthy (19-line) monologue on the benefits of tragedy. (There may have
been much more in the same vein, to judge by this play’s metaliterary title, though
no other fragments survive.) The speaker begins by observing that mankind is naturally
prone to suffering, and proceeds to explain that tragedy has been invented so as to pro-
vide a source of comfort or distraction from one’s worries (παραψυχὰς … wροντίδων,
fr. 6.4). It is specifically the mind (νοῦς) of the spectator or reader that is said to undergo
alteration:

ὁ γὰρ νοῦς τῶν ἰδίων λήθην λαβὼν

πρὸς ἀλλοτρίωι τε ψυχαγωγηθεὶς πάθει,
μεθ’ ἡδονῆς ἀπῆλθε παιδευθεὶς ἅμα.

When the mind forgets about its own concerns and is distracted by somebody else’s suffering, it
goes away feeling pleasure and also educated at the same time. (fr. 6.5–7)

The speaker goes on to declare that tragedy benefits everyone, and gives specific
examples of tragic characters and situations (Telephus, Alcmeon, Philoctetes, etc.) to
illustrate his point. All of these examples denote extremes of misfortune or physical

56
Gorg. B11, B23 DK; cf. Dissoi Logoi 90. 3.10 DK. See e.g. M. Pohlenz, ‘Die Anfänge der grie-
chischen Poetik’, NGG 1920: 142–78 (reprinted in Kleine Schriften 2 [Hildesheim, 1965], 436–72);
C.P. Segal, ‘Gorgias and the psychology of the logos’, HSPh 66 (1962), 99–155.
57
Ar. Ach. 497–503, 651; Eq. 510–11; Nub. 575–94; Pax 736–58; Ran. 686–7, 1008–10 (and pas-
sim); Vesp. 1030–43, etc.; cf. Thesm. 372–458 and Ran. 1030–88 for the related idea that Euripidean
tragedy has harmed the citizens. Eupolis, Maricas frr. 192, 205 also contains the idea of comic ‘teach-
ing’. All such claims can be read either seriously or ironically, of course: see Wright (n. 1), 16–24.
58
That is, unless P Köln VI.242A (= TrGF 2.F646a) is to be attributed to a comedy of c. 400 B.C.,
as suggested by A. Bierl, ‘Dionysus, wine, and tragic poetry: a metatheatrical reading of P. Köln
VI.242A = TrGF II F646a’, GRBS 31 (1990), 353–84 (followed by Slater [n. 42], 42–4). Bierl inter-
prets this fragment as a comic critique of theatrical illusion or realism in Euripidean tragedy, based on
its allusion to a ‘bard from Salamis’ (ἀοιδὸς Σαλαμῖνος, 19) and references to some sort of ‘decep-
tion’ or ‘lies’ (ἀπάτας and ψευδομέναις, 20–1; cf. Gorgias’ use of ἀπάτη to denote theatrical illusion:
B23 DK). This interpretation is ingenious and attractive, but can hardly be regarded as certain.
614 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

suffering: the point is that no one in real life can possibly have suffered as much as these
wretched characters, and thus they are bound to recognize that they are fortunate by
comparison.
It has been suggested that this fragment marks a specific allusion to, or even a parody
of, the Aristotelian theory of katharsis.59 This theory itself is not easy to interpret with
confidence,60 and it is considerably more complex and ambitious than what we
see in Timocles, but there are several apparent points of similarity between the two
authors – the focus on psychology and mental transformation; the discussion of pleasure
and education as potential effects of literature on their audience (whether as separate enti-
ties or in combination); the attempt to explain why it is that one can get pleasure from
painful or distressing subject matter; the binary schema of positive vs negative emotions
or experiences; the particular choice of tragic paradeigmata; and the allusion to psycha-
gogia. However, there are also important differences. Timocles is essentially talking
about distraction or consolation by means of situational contrast,61 which is not quite
the same thing that Aristotle seems to mean by katharsis (he is probably talking about
a more profound sort of inner transformation or cognitive shift, however difficult it
may be to pin down the details). Of course, the comedian may be simplifying or distorting
Aristotle in the interests of humour. But even so, a more crucial factor is that Timocles
does not mention the key term katharsis itself; nor is there any mention of pity or fear.
These are the really distinctive elements in Aristotle’s theory, so if this really is a parody
of Aristotle, surely it would be extraordinary for the comedian not to have included them,
even if only to give his audience a clear signal of the target of parody. (Of course, these
key words may have featured in the portion of the play that does not survive – but that line
of argument does not get us very far.)
Even if no specific engagement with Aristotle can be proved, Timocles’ comedy
seems to reflect contemporary intellectual developments. The idea of drama as curative
or therapeutic may owe something to Hippocratic medicine and the dissemination of
medical writing and ideas in society more broadly.62 We could also see it as a develop-
ment of a theme in earlier comedy, where the dramatists sometimes presented their work
as a ‘cure’ for social ills;63 or of Gorgias’ comparison of the power of words to the
power of drugs;64 or, indeed, of a much older concept in Greek poetics – the idea
that poetry’s function is to soothe, enchant or distract from one’s worldly cares.65

59
Arist. Poet. 6.1449b24–8. K. Gutzwiller, ‘The tragic mask of comedy: metatheatricality in
Menander’, ClAnt 19 (2000), 102–37 argues for a definite Aristotelian influence on comedians
such as Timocles and Menander not just in respect of katharsis but also in their shared use of
other vocabulary (hamartia, anagnorisis, etc.). Cf. A. Barigazzi, La formazione spirituale di
Menandro (Turin, 1965), who interprets Menander’s plays specifically as dramatizations of problems
in Peripatetic ethics, and W. Stockert, ‘Metatheatrikalisches in Menanders Epitrepontes’, WS 110
(1997), 5–18, whose focus is on pity and fear.
60
See F.S. Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics (London, 1986), 349–55 for a useful summary and critique
of several types of interpretation.
61
So Olson (n. 13), 169, with ref. to Stobaeus (4.56.19), who cites the fragment in a section ‘On
sources of consolation’.
62
J. Clarke Kosak, Heroic Measures: Hippocratic Medicine in the Making of Euripidean Tragedy
(Leiden, 2004) is an excellent discussion of the way in which medical and non-medical writers in clas-
sical Greece shared the same patterns of thought.
63
e.g. Ar. Vesp. 650–1; R. Janko, ‘A new comic fragment (Aristophanes?) on the effect of tra-
gedy’, CQ 59 (2009), 270–1 suggests persuasively that Olympiodorus’ commentary on Pl. Gorg.
(33.3) preserves a fragment of comedy concerned with the cathartic power of tragedy.
64
Gorg. Hel. (B11 DK §14); cf. n. 56 above.
65
e.g. Hom. Od. 1. 325–52, 8.477–51; Stesich. fr. 210; Theognis 531–4; Hes. Theog. 98–103; Pl.
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 615

The nature of the evidence, and the fact that Timocles and the other comedians are
playing around with their material in a light-hearted way, means that is hard to be
very precise about their influences, or about the significance of their own treatments
of the idea.
The analogy between drama and medicine underlies a joke in Axionicus’ comedy
Phileuripides (‘The Euripides fanatic’), even though the humorous twist is that this
form of ‘treatment’ does not always work. On the contrary: here (fr. 3) we are told
about people who have become ‘sick’ (νοσοῦσιν) as a result of their excessive admira-
tion for Euripidean lyric songs. One is reminded of the reported outbreak of ‘Euripides
fever’ in Abdera, when (according to Lucian) people were so affected by a performance
of the Andromeda that they became temporarily insane and ran around singing
Euripides’ lyrics, imagining themselves to be characters in the play.66 (I wonder if
this story actually owes something to the plot of Axionicus’ comedy: is life imitating
art, or vice versa?67)
The poetry-as-therapy motif is also exploited by Philippides (fr. 18) in a way that
seems remarkably similar to Timocles’ version above:

ὅταν ἀτυχεῖν σοι συμπέσηι τι, δέσποτα,

Εὐριπίδου μνήσθητι, καὶ ῥάιων ἔσηι·
οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις πάντ’ ἀνὴρ εὐδαιμονεῖ,
εἶναι δ’ ὑπόλαβε καὶ σε τῶν πολλῶν ἕνα.

Whenever you find yourself in an unfortunate situation, sir, just remember Euripides, and you’ll
feel better. ‘No man exists who is fortunate in every respect’ – so understand that you are one
among many.

At first sight, this fragment seems to contain exactly the same idea as the passage above
– tragedy as a source of consolation or cure in times of trouble – but there are a few
significant differences. First of all, it is Euripidean tragedy that is seen here as especially
therapeutic; by contrast, Timocles had emphasized the universal benefits of tragedy in
general. Second, whereas Timocles had used tragic situations to provide contrast with
real life (people in tragedy have it much worse than we do), Philippides is using tragedy
to make a direct comparison with real life (people in tragedy are essentially the same as
you and me). Third, the nature of the ‘prescription’ is different in each case: whereas
Timocles seems to envisage people in distress going to watch whole plays (or contem-
plating tragic plots or situations in their entirety), Philippides is talking about the selec-
tive quotation of efficacious excerpts. This method of reading differs notably from the
outlook of Aristotle’s Poetics, which, by emphasizing the importance of plot and the
selection and arrangement of material, encourages the reader to look at the play as a
whole. (That is not to say, of course, that these different reading practices are to be
regarded as mutually exclusive.)

Ion 536a, etc. Noted by Gutzwiller (n. 59), 114; cf. G.B. Walsh, The Varieties of Enchantment: Early
Greek Views of the Nature and Function of Poetry (Chapel Hill, 1984).
66
Lucian, Hist. conscr. 59.1. This psychological condition, a morbid sense of being overcome by
art or beauty, is now known as Stendhal’s Syndrome, after the novelist who fell prey to it while travel-
ling in Florence: see G. Magherini, La Sindrome di Stendhal (Florence, 1989).
67
There is no explicit indication that Lucian had Axionicus in mind, but in general Lucian
acknowledges the influence of Greek comedy on his own work: see Bis Accus. 33, Pisc. 25. On
Lucian’s use of comic material see K. Sidwell, ‘Athenaeus, Lucian, and fifth-century comedy’, in
D.C. Braund and J.M. Wilkins (edd.), Athenaeus and His World (Exeter, 2000), 136–52.
616 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

The nature of the benefit that might be conferred on the reader is suggested by the
type of quotation that is being used here: it is the opening line of Euripides’ Stheneboea,
but it is also a moralizing maxim (gnome).68 Tragedy is full of generalizing statements
of this type, which seem to embody a concise (if sometimes cryptic) gobbet of wisdom
about the nature of the world, of human beings and their limitations, of the capricious
behaviour of the gods, of the changeability of life or similar themes.69 Such maxims
were often excerpted from the plays in which they appeared and treated by readers
(of various sorts) as if they represented independent statements from the author’s
mouth, or general pieces of advice for life. To treat decontextualized excerpts as
straightforwardly embodying the play’s teaching or authorial message is bound to strike
us as a crude oversimplification, but it was obviously a common mode of reading
throughout antiquity (and beyond).70 If Philippides and his contemporaries perceived
Euripides as an unusually therapeutic tragedian, it may well have been, in part, because
his plays contain considerably more maxims than those of other tragedians.71
It is not just the comedians who use tragic quotations in this way. In fact, the majority
of tragic verses quoted by authors in the fourth century and later are treated as a source
of moral wisdom or guidance.72 Tragedy is used either as a source of illustrative or para-
digmatic material, to help people understand their own life better, or as a repository of
maxims, to be dipped into at will whenever advice or encouragement is required. This
tendency is normally taken as an indication that certain works of fifth-century tragedy,
notably the works of Euripides, had by this period attained the status of literary classics.
This selective mode of reading had already been reflected – and sometimes undermined
– in fifth-century comedy.73 In later comedy it is harder to detect anything akin to criticism
of the habit. Most of the characters, at least, seem to assume that it is perfectly legitimate to
use tragedy in this way. Nevertheless, one can find the occasional note of irony – as in
Diphilus, Synoris (fr. 74), which features the following exchange between two characters
immediately after some Euripidean (or pseudo-Euripidean) lines have been quoted:

– πόθεν ἐστὶ ταῦτα, πρὸς θεῶν;

– τί δέ σοι μέλει;
οὐ γὰρ τὸ δρᾶμα, τὸν δὲ νοῦν σκοπούμεθα.

(A.) Where the hell are those lines from?

(B.) What is it to you where they’re from? We’re not looking at the play but at the sense.

68
Eur. fr. 661 (cf. P Oxy. 2455 = TrGF 5.T iia). The same line is quoted repeatedly throughout
antiquity, e.g. (from comedy) Ar. Ran. 1217, Men. Aspis 407, etc. (see TrGF ad loc. for a complete
list).
69
See H. Friis Johansen, General Reflection in Tragic Rhesis: A Study of Form (Copenhagen,
1959).
70
See Plutarch, How to Study Poetry for perhaps the best surviving example of this tendency, as
well as the various instances of gnomologia from later antiquity. See K. Wachsmuth, Studien zu den
griechischen Florilegien (Berlin, 1882) and, more recently, D. Konstan, ‘Excerpting as a reading prac-
tice’, in G. Reydams-Schils (ed.), Thinking Through Excerpts: Studies on Stobaeus (Turnhout, 2011),
9–22.
71
See G.W. Most, ‘Euripide Ο ΓΝΩΜΟΛΟΓΙΚΩΤΑΤΟΣ’, in M.S. Funghi, Aspetti di letteratura
gnomica nel mondo antico (Florence, 2003), 141–66.
72
See (esp.) A. Scafuro, The Forensic Stage (Cambridge, 1997), on the use of tragic texts by rhet-
oricians: cf. S. Perlman, ‘Quotations from poetry in the Attic orators of the fourth century BC’, AJPh
85 (1964), 155–72; P.J. Wilson, ‘Tragic rhetoric: the use of tragedy and the tragic in the fourth cen-
tury’, in M.S. Silk (ed.), Tragedy and the Tragic (Oxford, 1996), 310–31.
73
e.g. Ar. Ran. 1050–88; Thesm. 177–8, 193–201, 383–432, 443–56.
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 617

It seems clear that a distinction is being made between νοῦς (the meaning of individual
verses) and δρᾶμα (the play as a whole), and that character B, who is a parasite, is being
mocked for twisting the sense of the quotation to suit his own ends. Another comedian
who seems to be poking fun at the habit of excerption is Nicostratus (fr. 29), who quotes
exactly the same line from the Stheneboea as Philippides in the fragment above:

οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις πάντ’ ἀνὴρ εὐδαιμονεῖ·

νὴ τὴν Ἀθηνὰν συντόμως γε, wίλτατε
Εὐριπίδη, τὸν βίον ἔθηκας εἰς στίχον.

‘No man exists who is fortunate in every respect’ … yes, by Athena, that’s right! My dear
Euripides, how very neatly you have managed to put the whole of life into one line.

No matter what the speaker’s own character or tone was meant to be (sincere? ironic?
faux naïf ?),74 it seems that we are likely to question whether a single line of tragedy
can really sum up the whole of life. Indeed, the more one contemplates this
Euripidean line, the more banal or obvious it comes to seem – but one could say the
same of many other gnomai.
Menander’s comedies provide several particularly good examples of paradigmatic or
gnomic citation. In the middle of the recognition scene in Epitrepontes, for instance,
Syros tries to justify his behaviour by mentioning tragic characters, such as Neleus
and Pelias, who found themselves in a comparable situation to his own: τεθέασαι
τραγωιδούς, οἶδ’ ὅτι, | καὶ ταῦτα κατέχεις πάντα (‘You have seen tragedies, I know
that, and so you will understand all this’, 325–6). Even though Syros’ comparison is
not entirely accurate, it explicitly depends on the view that tragedy corresponds directly
to life, and his employment of tragic paradeigmata in the cause of self-defence is the
same technique that a forensic orator might use.75 No particular tragedy is definitely
being alluded to here,76 but later in the same play (1123–6) another character attempts
to explain complicated plot developments by quoting specifically from Euripides’ Auge
(fr. 920):

ἡ wύσις ἐβούλεθ’, ἧι νόμων οὐδὲν μέλει·

γυνὴ δ’ ἐπ’ αὐτῶι τῶιδ’ ἔwυ. τί μῶρος εἶ;
τραγικὴν ἐρῶ σοι ῥῆσιν ἐξ Αὔγης ὅλην
ἂν μή ποτ’ αἴσθηι …

‘It was the will of nature, which cares nothing for laws; woman was born for this very thing.’
How can you be so foolish? I’ll quote you the whole tragic speech from Auge, if you haven’t
grasped it by now!

This citation, which is simultaneously paradigmatic and gnomic, functions in much the
same way as the reference to the Tyro story above (and numerous other citations in
comedy): if one knows tragedy, one will be able to cope with life more successfully.77

74
Cf., perhaps, the excessive (ironic?) enthusiasm shown by Daos in Men. Aspis 408: after quoting
the same Euripidean fragment, he exclaims εὖ διαwόρως (‘Oh, jolly good!’; cf. ὑπέρευγε, ibid. 412).
75
Cf. the very similar mode of citation, and wording, of Dem. Meid. 149–50.
76
A.W. Gomme and F.H. Sandbach, Menander: A Commentary (Oxford, 1973), ad loc. suggest
that Sophocles’ Tyro is meant, but they point out that various other tragedies on the same theme
existed (by e.g. Astydamas and Carcinus.).
77
Cf. also Men. Samia 588–96 (Demeas’ use of Danae as paradeigma); Aspis 407–33 (Daos
quotes a long string of tragic gnomai in the context of a lament); Diphilus fr. 88 (consolatory use
618 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

An additional feature of interest is that both these speakers, Syros and Onesimos, are
slaves, as is Daos, the character in Aspis (407–33) who recites an extraordinarily long
stream of gnomic quotations from Euripides, Chaeremon, Aeschylus and Carcinus. It is
clear that Philippides fr. 18 (quoted earlier) also features a slave offering his master gno-
mic advice from tragedy. It seems significant that the sort of characters who know litera-
ture best, and who can mobilize this knowledge most intelligently, are very often of low
social status.78 The significance of this fact in literary-critical terms (if any) is not easy to
discern, though it is obviously connected to the recurrent comic theme (as encountered
earlier in the figure of the mageiros) of servants who are cleverer than their masters.
In general, then, the comedians seem to be implying that tragedy can genuinely help
one to come to terms with one’s life. But in Menander’s comedies the question of tragedy’s
relevance to the life of the audience is complicated by the fact that ‘real life’, as depicted
within the plays, is not entirely real. The distinctive, oddly context-free world in which
Menander’s plays are set, even though it superficially resembles contemporary Athens,
owes a great deal to tragedy. Despite the frequent references (ancient and modern) to
Menander’s supposed realism, it makes better sense to see his plays as taking place in a
highly stylized parallel world, made up largely of elements, situations and devices taken
from the world of tragedy (whether or not they are explicitly identified as such). As
Kathryn Gutzwiller has put it, in a brilliant study of comic metatheatricality, Menander’s
plays are based on the conceit that ‘life is like a tragedy’.79 We know that this is not literally
true, and so we cannot necessarily trust the lessons that the characters themselves find in the
texts of tragedy. Any lessons that we, the real-life audience, take away from the plays will
have to be based on our own (complex and individually variable) understanding of the dis-
tance that actually separates the world of literature from the world of real life.
It will be obvious from the discussion above that the comedians’ scattered remarks
about the benefits of drama all concern tragedy. Nothing is said explicitly about the
benefits of comedy or other types of poetry. Nevertheless, it is striking that comedy in
the fourth century and later started to include excerptable maxims of its own.80 (There
are almost no gnomai in fifth-century comedy apart from paratragic ones – a very signifi-
cant fact.) It might be concluded from this new development that the later comedians saw
it as their purpose to assume some of the didactic or utilitarian function of tragedy.81

of the gnomic Euripidean fragment 916); Eubulus fr. 115 ( paradeigmata from tragic myth used to
compare good and bad sorts of women); Eriphus, Aeolus fr. 1 (parody of a Sophoclean gnome), etc.
78
It is not just a comic theme: cf. Euripides’ portrayal of several unusually well-educated female
slaves with knowledge of literature and art: Alc. 445–54, 962–72; Hipp. 451–56.
79
Gutzwiller (n. 59), 105. Cf. S.M. Goldberg, The Making of Menander’s Comedy (Berkeley,
1980), 15–28, who sees a mixture of tragic and comic ‘modes’ as central to the overall effect of
Menander’s comedy. There have been numerous studies of Menander’s use of tragic themes and
topoi in general, notably A. Katsouris, Tragic Patterns in Menander (Athens, 1975); A. Hurst,
‘Ménandre et la tragédie’, in E. Handley and A. Hurst (edd.), Relire Ménandre (Geneva, 1990),
93–122; R. Hunter and M. Fantuzzi, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge,
2004), 426–30. It is not clear how unusual or distinctive Menander will have been in this respect,
but there is certainly plenty of evidence of paratragedy in the other comedians’ remains.
80
Many of the book fragments of later comedians come from gnomic anthologies. The subject of
comic maxims requires further study; but (for Menander) see G. Pompella (ed.), Menandro sentenze:
introduzione, traduzione, e note (Milan, 1997); V. Liapis, Menandrou gnomai monistichoi: eisagoge,
metaphrase, scholia (Athens, 2002).
81
This is more or less the view of T.B.L. Webster, Art and Literature in Fourth-Century Athens
(London, 1956), 135–45, though it seems to me that he veers between claiming that Menander is
and is not a serious ethical writer. Webster’s view that comedy was the only ‘live’ fourth-century
drama, and that tragedy ‘had practically ceased to be a live art’ (135–6), is also highly questionable:
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 619

Whether or not they were completely serious in this purpose, it seems that the ongoing
rivalry between the comic and tragic genres had taken a new direction in this period.

Greek comedy, almost from its origins, seems to have been preoccupied with the concept
of literary genre, and with intergeneric dialogue: the poets repeatedly explored the limits
of their own genre by playing around with elements from other genres. This sort of exper-
imentation seems to have become particularly common in the last few decades of the fifth
century. Apart from numerous examples of epic and tragic parody on a large or small scale
(including, no doubt, many of the so-called ‘mythological comedies’), one encounters
generic hybrids (such as Alcaeus’ Komoidotragoidia), comedies which ironically pre-
sented themselves as tragedies (such as Callias’ Grammatike Tragoidia, Strattis’
Lemnomeda, Philoctetes, Phoinissai and others), and comedies which pretended to be
satyr plays (Cratinus, Ecphantides and Phrynichus all wrote comedies called Satyrs).
Aristophanes is particularly notable for his engagement with tragedy, especially
Euripidean tragedy, and it has been argued that he saw his own type of comedy (which
he calls ‘trygoidia’) as an alternative to tragedy.82
All of these trends are perpetuated, more or less unaltered, in the comedy of the
fourth century and later. Titles such as Antiphanes’ Poiesis (discussed above),
Anaxandrides’ Tragikomoidia, Eubulus’ Antiope, Timocles’ Orestautokleides,
Eriphus’ Aeolus, Alexis’ Lover of Tragedy, Timocles’ Ikarioi Saturoi and others (to
name but a few) seem to indicate more of the same cross-generic playfulness. To
judge by the distribution of titles, there was even more of a preoccupation with tragedy
and tragic pastiche than ever before.83 The way in which tragic texts are manipulated in
the surviving fragments suggests that the comedians continued to use tragedy in the
same ways as their predecessors – to draw attention to its artificial conventions and high-
falutin diction; to evoke its extreme depiction of emotions as a foil to the comic char-
acters’ feelings; to offer an alternative, or subversive, interpretation of tragic myth; to act
as a rival to comedy for serious attention or acclaim; or simply to demonstrate the come-
dians’ own detailed and impressive knowledge of literature.84
As I have already pointed out, there no longer seems to be very much focus on con-
temporary tragedy: most (but not all85) of the tragedians mentioned in later comedy are
‘classic’ authors of the fifth century. We have already seen (in § IV above) how the
works of these great poets often seem to be treated with a naïve attitude amounting

see P.E. Easterling, ‘The end of an era? Tragedy in the early fourth century’, in A.H. Sommerstein
et al. (edd.), Tragedy, Comedy, and the Polis (Bari, 1993), 559–69.
82
M.S. Silk, Aristophanes and the Definition of Comedy (Oxford, 2000); cf. Foley (n. 34), Platter
(n. 34). Nevertheless, S. Miles, ‘Strattis, tragedy, and comedy’ (Diss., Nottingham, 2009) has shown
that Aristophanes was not unique in his preoccupation with tragedy or Euripides: her work adds valu-
able depth and detail to our understanding of generic interplay in fifth-century drama.
83
See W.G. Arnott, ‘From Aristophanes to Menander’, G&R 19 (1972), 65–80, at 73–6.
84
For detailed discussion of these topics, see (on Menander) Hurst (n. 79), Katsouris (n. 79); the
commentaries of R. Hunter on Eubulus (Cambridge, 1983) and W.G. Arnott on Alexis (Cambridge,
1996) are also full of excellent material on individual fragments and their context.
85
One finds scattered references to (e.g.) Chaeremon (Ephippus, Epheboi fr. 9, Eubulus fr. 128),
Dionysius (Ephippus fr. 16, Eubulus’ Dionysius), Theodectes (Antiphanes, Kares fr. 111), Theodorus
(Ephippus fr. 16).
620 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

to uncritical admiration or reverence.86 This attitude might extend, in certain cases, to

the poets themselves. Euripides, indeed, seems to have become especially popular
among the later comedians and their audiences. The extraordinary frequency with
which his plays were quoted and adapted testifies to his status as a classic, but he is
also openly praised by numerous comedians, either in general or for specific aspects
of his art. Philemon (fr. 153) makes one of his characters declare that Euripides alone
understands how to write speeches, and similarly Diphilus, in his Parasitos (fr. 60),
praises Euripides’ diction, awarding him the honorific epithet ‘golden Euripides’.
Axionicus and Philippides both wrote comedies called Phileuripides (‘The Euripides
fanatic’ or ‘The lover of Euripides’?), suggesting that Euripides was seen as the sort
of poet who could inspire deep personal devotion among his readers and fans, even post-
humously. The person in Nicostratus fr. 28 (quoted earlier) who apostrophizes the tra-
gedian as wίλτατε Εὐριπίδη is treating him not just as if he were still alive but as if he
were a close personal friend. But the most striking expression of pro-Euripidean senti-
ment comes from a character in one of Philemon’s plays (fr. 118), who says:

εἰ ταῖς ἀληθείαισιν οἱ τεθνηκότες

αἴσθησιν εἶχον, ἄνδρες, ὥς wασίν τινες,
ἀπηγξάμην ἂν ὥστ’ ἰδεῖν Εὐριπίδην.

Gentlemen, if it were genuinely true, as some people claim, that dead people can still sense
things, I would have hanged myself in order to see Euripides.

This fragment is nowadays well known because it was quoted by an ancient biographer
of Euripides (who treated the lines as representing Philemon’s own feelings) as ‘proof ’
of the increased popularity of the tragedian after his death.87
It might be supposed, on the basis of this sort of evidence, that a profound shift in
critical attitudes had taken place since the days of Aristophanes, in whose plays
Euripides often seems to come across as a problematic or maverick figure – the
woman hater, the atheist, the chatterer, the pseudo-intellectual, the corruptor of public
morals, the sort of man whom Nietszche saw as the ‘destroyer’ of tragedy.88 It might
appear that, in the eyes of the later comedians, Euripides’ image has undergone a
total transformation, from being out of step with dominant fifth-century trends to
being the quintessential representative of his genre (perhaps it is no coincidence that
Aristotle, writing in roughly the same period, was able to describe Euripides as ‘the
most tragic of the tragedians’89).
However, it is possible to take a slightly different view of the evidence, and it is
important not to overemphasize this apparent change in attitude. In the first place,
Aristophanes’ attitude to Euripides was not straightforwardly hostile or negative: his
sustained interest in Euripidean tragedy, and his deep knowledge of the texts, could

86
This attitude is called ‘nostalgic adoration’ by J. Hanink, ‘The classical tragedians from Athenian
idols to wandering poets’, in Gildenhard and Revermann (n. 3), 39–67.
87
Vit. Eur. 31. See J. Hanink, ‘The Life of the author in the letters of “Euripides”’, GRBS 50
(2010), 537–64, at 547.
88
Aristophanes’ portrait is not to be taken at face value; but the comedian had a huge influence on
the subsequent reception of Euripides: see R. Hunter, Critical Moments in Classical Literature
(Cambridge, 2009), 29–36; A.N. Michelini, Euripides and the Tragic Tradition (Madison, 1987).
89
Poetics 13.1453a30 (though Aristotle seems to be talking about Euripidean endings in
particular).
 P O E T S A N D P O E T RY I N L AT E R G R E E K CO M E DY 621

equally be taken as signs of critical admiration and respect.90 The later comedians seem
to be simply continuing the tradition that Aristophanes had started, rather than offering a
radical reassessment of Aristophanic criticism. Furthermore, it is clear that the later
comedians’ attitude to Euripides is not one of undiluted veneration or esteem. Several
fragments contain more negative criticism or disparaging comments. Euripides’ suppo-
sedly problematic attitude to women remains a subject for humour, as in Diphilus,
Synoris (fr. 74), where several Euripidean verses are quoted as ‘evidence’ of the
poet’s own misogyny. It appears that not everyone would willingly have committed
suicide in order to meet Euripides in person: indeed, one of the characters in
Ephippus’ Homoioi (fr. 16) lists ‘having Euripides as a dinner guest’ as one of the
items in a list of terrible punishments (which also include having to learn the tragedies
of Dionysius of Syracuse by heart or listen to the tragedian Theodorus reciting
speeches).91 Not just the man and his supposed opinions but also his style of writing
was ridiculed: Eubulus draws attention to Euripides’ excessive sigmatism in
Dionysius fr. 26 (just as Platon had done in his Heortai, fr. 29), quoting a couple of par-
ticularly hissy verses from Medea and Andromeda and implying that they lack poetic
skill (sophia).92
But even if, in general, Euripides still emerges as a classic, we are not obliged to
view the classicizing tendency as a distinctively ‘fourth-century’ phenomenon, tied
up with conventional literary narratives of creative stagnation and nostalgia for the
past. In this as in so many other respects, our authors can actually be seen as continuing
a trend from earlier comedy. Aristophanes’ Frogs has been seen as extremely influential
in the classicizing process, in that it opened up questions of posthumous survival and
enduring status for great poets of the past.93 In fact Frogs was not unique in this respect.
The same comedian’s earlier play Gerytades, for instance, was also intensely concerned
with dead poets and their legacy, and it has been argued that fifth-century comic parody
and quotation in general tended to function as, inter alia, a mechanism of popularization
and the establishment of a ‘fan club’ for particular poets and their works.94 The later
comedians, by quoting, parodying and reworking earlier tragedies, are consolidating
and perpetuating the status of authors who were already seen as great poets, but they
are not attempting to revise or re-evaluate the ‘canon’ (by, for example, adding or
removing authors). Nor do they seem to be doing anything substantially different

90
So Silk (n. 82), passim; cf. Wright (n. 1), 143–62 on the essentially non-hostile nature of
Aristophanic parody.
91
Csapo (n. 42), 171–2 sees this fragment as reflecting the fourth-century ‘privatization’ of tra-
gedy, i.e. private, sympotic performances at court. I wonder whether Euripides’ unpopularity as a din-
ner guest may be connected to another fragment (Ephippus, Epheboi fr. 9) in which someone called
Euripides is seen as having a problem with heavy drinking. There is some uncertainty about which
Euripides is denoted (see Ath. 11.482b–c), but the fact that he appears in the company of another tra-
gedian (Chaeremon) is significant. Antiphanes, Traumatias fr. 205 also mentions the tragedian
Euripides in connection with drinking.
92
Hunter (n. 84) prints Eubulus fr. 26 as two separate fragments (26.1–2 and 26.3–4), suggesting
that Euripides himself is the speaker of the second part, defending himself against his critics’ mockery:
see his commentary ad loc. for detailed discussion.
93
Most recently by Hanink (n. 86), 43–4; cf. Hunter (n. 88).
94
R. Rosen, ‘Aristophanes, fandom, and the classicizing of Greek tragedy’, in L. Kosak and J. Rich
(edd.), Playing Around Aristophanes (Oxford, 2006), 27–47. Cf. recent studies suggesting that par-
ticular comedians had their own favourite author whose work they helped to popularize: e.g. Silk
(n. 82) on Aristophanes and Euripides; E. Bakola, Cratinus and the Art of Comedy (Oxford, 2010),
24–9 on Cratinus and Aeschylus.
622 M AT T H E W W R I G H T

from their predecessors, either in terms of literary technique or in terms of commentary

on these authors and their work.

VI

A few words of conclusion are in order, and also a word of warning. The impression that
I have given of poetic discourse in later Greek comedy must be regarded as tentative and
provisional, owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence and its interpretative dif-
ficulties. Nevertheless, a consistent and coherent picture seems to emerge from the mea-
gre remains. Until some more texts should come to light, it is hard to identify any major
advances in the treatment of poets and poetry in the work of the later comedians, but it is
clear that these writers continued to demonstrate a lively interest in literary-critical mat-
ters. The value of this material lies chiefly in the fact that it suggests a certain type of
narrative of fourth-century literary history: above all, it is a narrative of continuity and
stability. This has important consequences, I think, for our views of the genre of Greek
komoidia as a whole. Of course, we are dealing with a living, popular form of entertain-
ment, and of course some changes occurred across the course of many decades, but the
comedians’ intellectual and poetic outlook, at least, seems to have remained remarkably
stable. In this particular respect (to return to the theme of ‘labels’ with which I began),
there seems to be no justification for bracketing off ‘middle’ or ‘new’ comedians as sep-
arate categories from their ‘old’ comic predecessors. At the end of this survey, I feel
convinced more than ever that the late fifth century – the exciting, conceptually inven-
tive golden age of Athens – was the period of really significant change, both in comedy
and in poetic theory.

The University of Exeter MATTHEW WRIGHT

m.wright@ex.ac.uk