FOOTNOTES
[1] The expression is, of course, an awkward one, for the word “romance,” like “chivalry,” embodies the old superstition that such feelings were a product of the Christian Middle Ages; but this and similar expressions are so generally used in this connection, that there is little real risk of misunderstanding, and I cannot think of anything better.
[2] Among the many arguments in favour of the social emancipation of women at the present day, I have never heard it suggested that such an emancipation would inevitably lead to an increase of chivalrous feelings on the part of men; the general view seems to be that it would have just the contrary effect.
[3] Very noticeable is the preponderance of goddesses in the Greek Pantheon. The powers of nature, whether of sea, mountain, river, or forest, were almost invariably incarnated in the form of women.
[4] This change, retrograde or not, according to taste, may be exactly paralleled from the social history of the Arabs.
[5] It is both instructive and amusing to compare this primitive ideal woman with the contemporary Greek woman, as Hesiod himself knew and described her. A striking passage is Op. 693 seqq., and others will be mentioned in the next few pages.
[6] That this was the general character of the erotic legends introduced into the celebrated “Catalogus” ascribed to Hesiod, seems shown by the remark in Serv. ad. Aen. vii. 268: “Hesiodus etiam περὶ των γυναικῶν inducit multas heroidas optasse nuptias virorum fortium”; cp. the whole note.
[7] The parallel view, that if a man wished to really love anyone, the only worthy object he could find would be another man, was doubtless, in part, the result of a similar line of argument, though its true origin must of course be sought in something more inspiring than mere contempt for women. A further examination of this side of the question will be made later on.
[8] Zeus pays ἄποινα to Tros for his son (cp. Hymn. Hom. iv. 210); that the golden shower in which he visited Danae means as much, is hardly a primitive notion. The argument in Ach. Tat. ii. 37 is ingenious, but scarcely convincing.
[9] This version of the relations between Zeus and Minos is at least as old as the Odyssey. Cp. Odyss. xix. 179; Athen. xiii. 601E.
[10] Hymn. Hom. iv. 247 seqq.
[11] The general view that the erotic version of this story is not the original seems to rest on the sole authority of Aesch. Cho. 613 seqq. Probably one version is as old as the other, the one being perhaps Dorian, the other Ionian. Aeschylus’ treatment of Dorian erotic legends will be touched upon later. (Infra, [p. 42].)
[12] A man may sometimes commit suicide after the death of his lady; but that is a very different thing to dying because she declines to have anything more to do with him. Stories like that of Iphis and Anaxarete only appear at a very late period.
[13] Athen. xiv. 619C.
[14] Hermes. Leont. i. Fr. 3. (Ed. Bach.)
[15] Theocr. i. 82 seqq. Cp. Reitzenstein, Epigramm und Skolion, p. 212 seqq.
[16] Serv. ad Ecl. viii. 68.
[17] Theocr. vii. 72.
[18] The only real exceptions to this rule are, perhaps, Sappho and her followers!
[19] Theognis, 183; cp. Pseudo-Phocylides, 189. Very similar in spirit is Hesiod’s advice to the farmer to get
οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα γυναῖκά τε βοῦν τ’ ἀροτῆρα. Op. 403.
[20] That is to say, these feelings by themselves. As regards the first, no one, of course, would wish to deny that the sexual instinct, in its most sensual form, has often played a prominent part in what is unquestionably love-poetry; but the sexual instinct can never of itself supply the fundamental basis of the feeling necessary for the production of such poetry. Woman, regarded merely as a source of pleasure or convenience, can no more be an object of love than a bottle of brandy or a railway train.
[21] Cf. Hes. Op. 700, seqq. A comparison of that passage with the types mentioned in Simonides, i.e. the γυνὴ γηΐνη and the γυνὴ ἐξ ὄνου, would seem to show that the sense of δειπνόλοχος is not so much ‘fishing for invitations to dinner,’ i.e. fond of going out (so L. and S.), as ‘waylaying dinners,’ i.e. making havoc of the food, like Plautus’ ‘pernae pestis.’ Wastefulness in household matters was much more likely to ‘burn up’ a Greek husband, and bring him to a ‘cruel old age,’ than any amount of frivolity or flirtation. For the idea cp. Aristoph. Eccl. 226.
ἡ δὲ μελίσσης
οἰκόνομός τ’ ἀγαθὴ καὶ ἐπίσταται ἐργάζεσθαι·
ἧς εὔχου, φιλ’ ἑταῖρε, λαχεῖν γάμον ἱμερόεντα.
[Phoc. Fr. 3.]
ἱμερόεντα sounds to a modern ear almost like bitter irony.
[23] Nor, for that matter, is the Hetaera, whom later writers manage so to idealise, treated with any more respect or courtesy than the wife. Cp. Archil. Fr. 142, 184; Hippon. Fr. 110, 111. In curious contrast to what may be called the ‘wife-poetry’ of the early Greeks is the pretty picture in Hesiod (Op. 517, seqq.) of the unmarried girl, sitting at home, in every sense of the words κακῶν ἄπειρος. But strangest of all is the touch where, falling unconsciously into a manner of speech that dated from a very different social state, he calls her
οὔπω ἔργ’ εἰδυῖα πολυχρύσου (!) Ἀφροδίτης.
[24] “But even these are as nothing compared to the real gush of feeling when he describes his youthful passions, his love for Neobule, passing the Homeric love of women. Here he has anticipated Sappho and Alcaeus, &c.”—Mahaffy, Class. Gr. Lit. i. p. 160.
[25] Perhaps Glaucus, for there is at least as much reason for supposing that Glaucus was the object of Archilochus’ affection as that he was the object of his scorn. To see in him a prototype of the Egnatius of Catullus, as, for instance, Lafaye does (Catulle et ses Modèles, p. 29), is quite unwarranted by any evidence; for the epithet κεροπλάστης of Fr. 57 is not necessarily derogatory, while the tone of such passages as Fr. 54, 70, is certainly not that of invective.
[26] Fr. 100-3, 106-7, 109-10, 116.
[27] It may further be observed that the passage is to all appearances descriptive of the emotions of some person other than the writer himself, and there is certainly no reason to suppose that it was addressed to the woman in question. The difference between describing such an emotion generally, and describing it as one’s own, to the person who causes it, need hardly be dwelt upon.
[28] Cp. Fr. 71, 72.
[29] To endeavour, as some have done, to reconstruct the satires of Archilochus from those of Catullus, is simply labour thrown away, because between the periods in which the two poets lived, the whole way of regarding women had been revolutionised, and ideas which seemed obvious to the Latin writer would have been unintelligible to the Greek. To Catullus thwarted love was an agony; to Archilochus it was an insult, and no man of his time would, or could, have regarded it otherwise. Thus, to suppose, as Lafaye (op. cit. l.c.) does, that the satires of Archilochus were interspersed with erotic passages, like Catull. xxxix. (a poem he considers to be imitated from Archilochus), is to suppose an anachronism.
[30] His date, and the general character of his poems, make it more convenient to consider him here, than among the other choral lyric writers, of whom we shall speak later.
[31] Ἀρχύτας δὲ ὁ ἁρμονικός, ὥς φησι Χαμαιλέων, Ἀλκμᾶνα γεγονέναι τῶν ἐρωτικῶν μελῶν ἡγεμόνα, καὶ ἐκδοῦναι πρῶτον μέλος ἀκόλαστον, (ἀκόλαστον) ὄντα καὶ περὶ τὰς γυναῖκας, καὶ τὴν τοιαύτην μοῦσαν (εἰσαγαγεῖν) εἰς τὰς διατριβάς.
Athen. xiii. 600 F.
(The reading is uncertain.)
[32] It is noteworthy that Archytas (ap. Athen. l.c.), when wishing to illustrate Alcman’s love for this lady, can quote nothing more pointed than the lines
τοῦθ’ ἁδεᾶν Μωσᾶν ἔδειξεν
δῶρον μάκαιρα παρσένων
ἁ ξανθὰ Μεγαλοστράτα.
[Fr. 37.]
[33] The fragments which may with some confidence be assigned to these, probably early, poems, are 29 and 94. Besides this, the mention of Tantalus (87, to which belongs 100) may well have been introduced by the story of Ganymede; that of Niobe’s children (109) by the story of those loves of theirs of which Sophocles afterwards wrote. The expression ἐν Θεσσαλίῳ κλείτει (85) might well in such a poem have had reference to Apollo and Admetus, whose love is held up as a model, like that of the lovers in Theocritus xii. But most striking of all, perhaps, to the modern reader, is the feeling that prompts Alcman to speak of the Spartan girls as his “female boy-friends.” (καὶ Ἀλκμὰν τὰς ἐπεράστους κόρας ἀΐτας λέγει. Hypoth. ad Theocr. xii.)
[34] Aristides ii. p. 40, Dind.
[35] Cp. Fr. 26.
[36] Alcman seems somehow to speak of girls like an old man. To think of him so, renders far more natural the charming gallantry of his lines on Agido, or the ὑποκορισμός with which his maidens speak, or his confessions of how he likes his dinner served. One can think of those Spartan girls laughing at their old Lydian dancing-master, as they ran away down to the “baths of Eurotas,” while he went slowly home and made them immortal.
[37] Anyhow, not in primitive times. One must go a long way down the history of erotic poetry to find a “love-poet” who praises two ladies with such impartiality as Alcman does Agido and Agesichora.
[38] Cp. Reitzenstein, Epigramm und Skolion, p. 47 seqq.
[39] That the love thus generally recommended was purely sensual, goes without saying; the first two or three lines of the first fragment are proof enough of this.
In Fr. 1, l. 3, μείλιχα δῶρα is not very satisfactory, somehow. The passage in Hymn. Hom. x. 2, where the expression occurs again, is not quite parallel. In a less primitive poet, one would write without hesitation μείλιχ’ ἄδωρα. For this use of μείλιχα cp. Pind. Olymp. i. 49, and for the thought Anth. Pal. v. 29, &c., &c. Line 4 again might begin ἄνθε’ ἐπεί γ’ ἥβης.
[40] Leont. iii. 37, of which passage Poseidippus was doubtless thinking in his epigram Anth. Pal. xii. 168.
[41] Leont. iii. 27 seqq. 47 seqq. &c.
[42] Suidas, it may be remarked, flatly contradicts one half of this view when he says of Mimnermus ἔγραψε βιβλία πολλά.
[43] It is hardly justifiable to infer from the passage of Alexander Aetolus ap. Athen. xv. 699 C, that Mimnermus addressed love-poems to boys.
[44] It is as a philosopher that Horace (Ep. i. 6, 65) cites his opinion:
si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore iocisque
nil est iucundum;
“censet,” the regular word for a philosopher. It is further worth noticing that the Roman poets, when they mention Mimnermus, speak of him as the inventor of the elegiac metre, not as an erotic poet. Cp. e.g. Prop. i. 9, 11.
[45] That the ancients already recognised the importance of this particular feature in Anacreon is shown inter alia by the emphasis laid upon it by Critias (ap. Athen. xiii. 600 D).
[46] Vide e.g. Athen. xii. 540 E.
[47] Striking instances of this are to be found in Fr. 13, 76, etc.
[48] That this tone was specially characteristic of the poems addressed to women, if not actually confined to these, is shown by the contrast which the ancient critics made between Anacreon’s two styles of poetry. Cp. Plut. Amor. 4, and infra [p. 86].
[49] The arguments of Reitzenstein, Epig. u. Skol. p. 81 seqq., to prove that its date is not later than circa 400, are not very convincing.
[50] Vide Reitzenstein, op. cit. p. 52 seqq.
[51] The exceptions would be the late “sophistical” pieces, such as that in praise of wealth, 699 seqq. etc.
[52] It may be argued that in a work intended “for the use of schools” the erotic passages would naturally be cut out. But even granted that this collection was made for the use of schools, the system of expurgation, which, while striking out the passages dealing with women, has left what would nowadays be considered so much more objectionable, is in itself sufficiently noteworthy. The next schoolmaster who undertakes a school edition of Theocritus may lay this to heart.
[53] How different is the treatment of boy-love both in Book I. and also in Book II., which is specially devoted to it, will be dwelt upon later. [[p. 88.]]
[54] Vide [Excursus A].
[55] Cp. Aristoph. Vesp. 1217 seqq.
[56] The only exception, rather an interesting one, is Scol. 20, which, evidently modelled on the one that precedes it, is the answer of a woman-lover. But here again the vagueness (merely καλὴ γυνή, anyone will do) shows what the singer means.
[57] Perhaps, too, those of Althaea (in the Syotherae) and Medea (Fr. 54).
[58] Fr. 68; to the same poem evidently belongs Fr. 85.
[59] There is really no adequate reason for disbelieving the story in Ptol. Hephaest. iv. (Gale, Hist. poet. script. ant. p. 320; cf. Bergk. ad Stesich. Fr. 26.) What that story seems to imply is that Helen of Himera deserted the poet, who was thereby induced to moralise on the innate faithlessness of Helens in general. A subsequent reconciliation with the lady in question then led to the celebrated apology. The greater influence which women seem to have had over old men than over young, will already have been noticed in the cases of Alcman and Anacreon. The phenomenon could easily be explained, if it were necessary to explain it.—Vide e.g. Eur. Suppl. 1098 seqq.
[60] That in the original form of the legend Daphnis refuses to yield to love, and dies sooner than submit, has been shown by Reitzenstein, Epig. u. Skol. p. 193 seqq.
But the passage from Aelian (Var. Hist. x. 18) never says that Stesichorus told the story of Daphnis. It says he wrote bucolic poetry, which is not necessarily the same thing. If only Theocritus, who wrote bucolic poetry, had told some more of the story of Daphnis, the necessity of reading a great quantity of literature on the subject would have been spared us.
[61] It is rather tempting to think of this story as a Greek version of Tristan and Isolde. Rhadina is going from Samos to be married to the King of Corinth, and travels out with her cousin Leontichus on the same ship. There the fatal mischief is done; they separate for a while, but the charm is irresistible, and her lover hurries from Delphi to meet his death at the hands of the Corinthian “King Marc.”
[62] The name of Cycnus seems at first sight suggestive, but the story as related in the Scholiast on Pindar unfortunately proves nothing.
[63] He seems to have discussed or commented on the habits of the Spartan ladies (Fr. 61), but whether to praise or blame we do not know.
[64] e.g. Fr. 37, where he makes Achilles marry Medea; or Fr. 38, where Hermione becomes the wife of Diomed.
[65] Fr. 13, ad fin. The Ἐρωτικά of Bacchylides are not very elevated in character, but they are interesting as furnishing what is, perhaps, the first complimentary notice of the ἑταίρα in literature. (Fr. 24.)
[66] The Sicilian Telestes makes rather an interesting remark about Athene when she throws away the flute because it spoils her looks:
τί γάρ νιν εὐηράτοιο κάλλεος
ὀξὺς ἔρως ἔτειρεν,
ᾇ παρθενίαν ἄγαμον καὶ ἄπαιδ’ ἀπένειμε Κλωθώ;
But, as we have already seen, men took more interest in women in Magna Graecia than in Greece itself.
[67] The Phaedra, Oenomaus, and perhaps the Colchides.
[68] Among the extant plays there is only the Hippolytus, and even in this, probably to the Greek mind a great part of the interest centred in the relations between Hippolytus and Theseus, and in their argument, where both start from the assumption that it would be absurd to suppose that the former could possibly have been in love with Phaedra. Of the lost plays it is hard to speak with confidence, but certainly the Andromeda, Phoenix, and Aeolus, seem to have been the only three in which the love element was at all the leading motive. The heroine of the Meleager was probably Althaea, not Atalanta. The Stheneboea merely describes the vengeance of Bellerophon for the treachery of his hosts. In the Antigone the “love-story” has all taken place before the action begins. Of the Alcestis and the Protesilaus we shall speak elsewhere, pp. [57], [99].
[69] That is to say, two only in which it furnished the main interest. That it lent a peculiar character to various other tragedies will be shown further on.
[70] Cp. what has been said above ([p. 35]) in the case of Ibycus; the parallel is a remarkable and important one.
[71] The statement to this effect in Aristoph. Ran. 1044, is so definite that it seems necessary to infer from it that, in spite of the words in Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. i. 773, the erotic incident in the Hypsipyle was very little emphasised.
[72] Suppl. 996 seqq.
[73] Theb. 182 seqq.
πῶς οὐχὶ τἀνάλωμα γίγνεται πικρόν,
ἄνδρας γυναικῶν οὕνεχ’ αἱμάξαι πέδον;
Suppl. 476.
καὶ γυναικὸς οὕνεκα
πόλιν διημάθυνεν Ἀργεῖον δάκος.
Agam. 823.
οὕτω γυναικὸς οὐ προτιμήσω μόρον
ἄνδρα κτανούσης.
Eum. 739.
To his views as to the physical unimportance of the mother, as compared with the father (e.g. Eum. 657 seqq.), I shall have occasion to refer later. See Excursus. [This Excursus does not seem to have been written.]
[76] How far Aeschylus has followed the Oresteia of Stesichorus, and how far he has modified it, cannot now be known; but it seems reasonable to suppose that, in all probability, the Clytemnestra of the latter poet was a good deal more in love with Aegisthus than is the Clytemnestra of the former. This would explain some incongruities in the Aeschylean character, such as her sudden protestations of affection for Aegisthus when dead, after her apparent indifference to him when living. (Cho. 893, etc.) That she should kill Agamemnon out of revenge for the death of Iphigeneia and through jealousy of Cassandra, are perhaps additions of Aeschylus, to whose Athenian mind it seemed impossible that a woman should murder her husband merely because she was fond of another man.
[77] One may say, of course, if one likes, that this is all ironical, that she does not mean it, and that in reality she is as jealous as anyone else could be, as her subsequent actions show. Personally, I do not believe that the passage is meant to be in the least ironical; the absence of jealousy is always a feature of the model wife (cp. Eur. And. 222, and numerous similar passages); but even if this be granted, it makes no difference to the point at all. Whatever the audience are to think, the characters on the stage are supposed to take her seriously; and this fact throws a sufficient light on what was then thought to be the duty of a loving wife.
It is satisfactory to notice that neither does Heracles attach any undue importance to Iole. In his last words to Hyllus, after elaborate instructions as to how his funeral-pyre is to be built, he adds casually—
ἀλλ’ ἀρκέσει καὶ ταῦτα· πρόσνειμαι δέ μοι
χάριν βραχεῖαν πρὸς μακροῖς ἄλλοις διδούς.
“Just marry Iole for me, will you?” (l. 1216.)
[78] In this same play, the reader must be careful not to misunderstand the motives of Haemon’s suicide. He does not kill himself out of grief for Antigone, but out of shame (αὑτῷ χολωθείς) at having attacked his father. That love for a woman should have made him so far forget himself was a disgrace not to be borne.
[79] The words of l. 144 seqq. at once suggest Catullus lxii. esp. 39 seqq. But this poem of Catullus is generally admitted to be, if not an actual translation, at least a paraphrase of Sappho; hence it is far more probable that Sophocles copied Sappho here, than that Catullus copied Sophocles there.
Another instance in which a tragedian copied an Epithalamium of Sappho is furnished by Aesch. Suppl. 998. Cp. Sappho Fr. 91, Longus Past. 3, 33, and my Apospasmata Critica (Oxford, Blackwell, 1892), p. 5.
[80] A great deal of light would be thrown on all this intricate subject if only one could find out how far, if at all, Sophocles was influenced by Euripides. Euripides, as we shall see later, was always ready to sympathise with women who suffered from the unreasonable treatment of the time, but it does not seem prima facie probable that this particular trait should have had influence on anyone so Athenian as Sophocles. Anyhow, these two passages prove nothing.
[81] This is exactly the idea of the well-known Ἔρως chorus in the Antigone. (l. 781). There, too, love is unavoidable (καί σ’ οὔτ’ ἀθανάτων φύξιμος οὐδεὶς, οὔθ’ ἁμερίων σέ γ’ ἀνθρώπων), it results in madness (ὁ δ’ ἔχων μέμηνεν, “the stricken one is mad,” as the Romans said “habet” of their gladiators), and the chief damage it does is to property (ὃς ἐν κτήμασι, πίπτεις). Like Eresichthon’s father, what the Chorus most object to is the expense.
[83] Vide [Excursus B].
[84] This feature is of course by no means peculiar to Sophocles; it is prominent both in Aeschylus and Euripides (e.g. the pathetic passage in Orest. 1041 seqq.), and doubtless for the same reason. In Sophocles, however, perhaps owing merely to the chance which has preserved certain plays while others have been lost, it plays a particularly important part. Not only are the Antigone and the Electra almost entirely devoted to it, but the one ray of light in the 1800 lines of the Oedipus Coloneus is the farewell of Polynices to his sister. (l. 1414 seqq.)
[85] Soph. Ant. 909 seqq. This seems the natural and obvious way of taking these words, but whichever way one takes them they do not imply any very great respect for matrimony.
Whether the lines are Sophocles’ or not is of course indifferent in this connection, as everyone is agreed that, if an interpolation, they are a very early one.
[86] This is not, I think, saying too much. A story like that of Canace, however powerfully it might affect its audience, was, after all, even in later times, looked upon as something quite exceptional in Greece. (Cp. the later Athenian view on the subject as illustrated by Plaut. Epid. v. i. 45, seqq.)
[87] It is worth while, however, to notice that even the women themselves in Aristophanes are made to confess that this so-called misogyny is, in truth, merely realism. Cp. e.g. Aristoph. Thesm. 389 seqq., Eccl. 214 seqq.
[88] e.g. Fr. 822, etc.
[89] Fr. 321.
[90] Hipp. 373 seqq. Tempting as it is to take this passage as ironical, it would almost certainly be wrong to do so.
[91] Hec. 342 seqq.
[92] See [Excursus C]. It is true that in the intrigue of Macareus and Canace there is some reason to believe that the former was, contrary to the usual habit of these legends, the leading spirit; but in the Aeolus of Euripides this beginning of the story seems to have only been alluded to in the prologue, and not to have formed part of the action.—Cp. Antiphanes, Aeol. Fr. 1.
[93] The most striking example is perhaps the Iphigeneia in Aulis, but there are plenty of others.
Instances in which women are represented as in love with men are somewhat commoner, as they were commoner in the legends; but the part they play in Euripides, as a whole, has been greatly exaggerated. Cp. [p. 38].
[94] ἤρων· τὸ μαίνεσθαι δ’ ἄρ’ ἦν ἔρως βροτοῖς.—Fr. 161 (Antigone). Cp. Hipp. 443 seqq.
[95] Suidas (s.v. Ἀναγυράσιος) τούτου δὲ (τοῦ θεοῦ) ἐξέκοψέ τις τὸ ἄλσος· ὁ δὲ τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ ἐπέμηνε τὴν παλλακήν ... ἱστορεῖ δὲ Ἱερώνυμος ἐν τῷ περὶ τραγῳδοποιῶν, ἀπεικάζων τούτοις τὸν Εὐριπίδου Φοίνικα. Cp. id. s.v. ἐναύειν. Vide Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 621.
[96] The difference is described with wonderful force by Maximus Tyrius (xxv. 4): ὁ μὲν ἐφ’ ἡδονὴν οἰστρεῖ, ὁ δὲ κάλλους ἐρᾶ· ὁ μὲν ἄκων νοσεῖ, ὁ δὲ ἑκὼν ἐρᾷ· ὁ μὲν ἐπ’ ἀγαθῷ ἐρᾷ τοῦ ἐρωμένου, ὁ δὲ ἐπ’ ὀλέθρῳ ἀμφοῖν.—I have spoken here merely of women because we have so little absolute evidence as to men, but what little we have all goes to prove that their view of “love” was at least as sensual as that of the women, and if anything even more brutal; and, anyhow, there is no evidence of the contrary. It is very hard satisfactorily to compare Euripides with people like Asclepiades, who are the earliest representatives we know of the modern spirit, for this very reason, that while the former nearly always discusses the matter from the point of view of the woman, the latter do so with almost equal regularity, as far as we can now judge, from the point of view of the man. One thing, however, is clear enough at the very outset. While Euripides regards the relation between man and woman as entirely based on the sexual instinct, the Alexandrians have from the first imported into it that further feeling of comradeship and mutual self-sacrifice which had before been peculiar to the relation between man and man. For obvious reasons this great change first became noticeable on the side of the man (for the influence of Sappho’s school had probably by this time become inappreciable), but its effects are evident enough as soon as the Alexandrians begin to talk of a woman’s love. The difference between, say, the Medea of Apollonius and the most refined heroine of the Attic drama is one, not of degree, but of kind.
[97] Andr. 205 seqq.
[98] The early Greek view of “love” is put here with almost revolting crudeness. Hermione’s devotion to her husband and Helen’s desertion of hers, are due to one and the same cause—sensual passion.
γυναῖκα γὰρ χρὴ πάντα συγχωρεῖν πόσει,
ἥτις φρενήρης.
(Elect. 1052.)
ἀλλ’ ἐς τοσοῦτον ἥκεθ’ ὥστ’ ὀρθουμένης
εὐνῆς γυναῖκες πάντ’ ἔχειν νομίζετε,
ἢν δ’ αὖ γένηται ξυμφορά τις ἐς λέχος κ.τ.λ.
(Med. 569.)
ΙΑ. λέχους σφε κἠξίωσας οὕνεκα κτανεῖν;
ΜΗ. σμικρὸν γυναικὶ πῆμα τοῦτ’ εἶναι δοκεῖς;
ΙΑ. ἥτις γε σώφρων.
(ibid. 1367.)
[101] πᾶσα γὰρ δούλη πέφυκεν ἀνδρὸς ἡ σώφρων γυνή.—Fr. 545 (Oedipus).
[102] Cp. Andromache in Tro. 642 seqq. Other instances are numerous. This view and that as to jealousy evidently hang together, for it must be admitted that if a wife considers it her duty to become so supremely uninteresting and stupid as such a method of life must inevitably make her, it is also her duty to be lenient to her husband if he occasionally seeks for entertainment outside the domestic circle.
οὐ γὰρ ποτ’ ἄνδρα τὸν σοφὸν γυναικὶ χρὴ
δοῦναι χαλινοὺς.
Fr. 463 (Cressae); cp. Fr. 464.
[104] Tro. 1012 seqq.; cp. Hipp. 419 seqq.
[105] i.e. her means of livelihood.
τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα δεύτερ’ ἂν πάσχοι γυνή·
ἀνδρὸς δ’ ἁμαρτάνουσ’ ἁμαρτάνει βίου.
(Andr. 372; cp. ibid. 904.)
[106] Fr. 402 (Ino).
[107] Cp. Andr. 1279 seqq.; Fr. 215 (Antiope), &c.
οὐκ ἔστι τοῦδε παισὶ κάλλιον γέρας,
ἢ πατρὸς ἐσθλοῦ κἀγαθοῦ πεφυκέναι,
γαμεῖν τ’ ἀπ’ ἐσθλῶν· ὃς δὲ νικηθεὶς πόθῳ
κακοῖς ἐκοινώνησεν, οὐκ ἐπαινέσω,
τέκνοις ὄνειδος οὕνεχ’ ἡδονῆς λιπεῖν.
(Heracl. 297.)
[109] To what extent it also figured in that strange play, the Protesilaus, cannot now be known, but it is only probable that it was prominent there also.
[110] Here again one almost marvels at the way in which Euripides misses an opportunity. The contrast between the joy of Alcestis at saving Admetus’ life, and her grief for her ruined ideal, would have furnished as splendid a conflict of emotions as any dramatist could desire. Athenian taste, however, preferred that she should die congratulating him on having had such a wife, while he stands by expressing his deep regret that he cannot accompany her, as Charon does not issue return tickets. For a further examination of the motives of Admetus, however, see [p. 101].
[111] It must be admitted that Jason has a higher opinion of his own influence (Med. 942 seqq.), if, indeed, this be the right way to take the passage.
[112] This seems to have been still more the case in the first version of the play, where Hippolytus appears actually as a βουκόλος, or ascetic worshipper of Artemis, and where he is promised immortality as the reward of his constancy. See Reitzenstein, Epig. u. Skol. p. 210 seqq. and [Excursus D].
oἱ σώφρονες yὰp οὐχ ἑκόντες, ἀλλ’ ὅμως
κακῶν ἐρῶσι.
(Hipp. 358.)
[114] One may argue, of course, that Hippolytus, as a devotee of Orpheus, etc., would be naturally more prone to ignore the “love-element” than a person of more human passions, and that this strange disproportion in his speech is a mark of his character. Personally I doubt this, as, firstly, the characters of the Athenian drama, when making their set speeches, generally quite forget who they are—indeed, the wonder is they don’t sometimes slip into an ἄνδρες δικασταί—and, secondly, if Hippolytus had been meant to slur over an important part of his subject, his reasons for so doing would have been more definitely explained. The conclusion seems to me inevitable, that neither Hippolytus nor Theseus thought the possibility of the former’s having been in love with Phaedra worthy of serious discussion.
[115] Mahaffy, Class. Gr. Lit. vol. i. p. 370.
[116] It is true that, later on, the magnificent heroism of Iphigeneia extorts from Achilles what is perhaps one of the earliest declarations of love from a man to a woman that we know:
Ἀγαμέμνονος παῖ, μακάριόν μέ τις θεῶν
ἔμελλε θήσειν, εἰ τύχοιμι σῶν γάμων·
ζηλῶ δὲ σοῦ μὲν Ἑλλάδ’, Ἑλλάδος δὲ σέ.
(l. 1405.)
But this utterance, made under such exceptional circumstances, cannot counteract the effect of what has gone before; and, anyhow, it is a curiously isolated expression, and rather a qualified one.
[117] Worthy of notice is the excellent touch which makes this man, though poor, yet a member of a good family. (l. 37.) As Euripides knew well enough, a son of the soil would have been incapable of even this much refinement of feeling. We may observe, by the way, that Orestes expresses himself as very sceptical of the whole story—anyhow as far as motives go. (l. 253 seqq.)
[118] Hel. 566 seqq. Still more offensive, of course, are the suggestions of Ion to his mother (Ion 1523 seqq.); but there the offence is against decency, not against romance.
[119] Except occasionally, as already noticed, in the case of close blood-relations.
[120] Such erotic legends as he does introduce are treated with strangely little sympathy. The best (in the extant odes) is that of Pelops and Hippodameia (Olymp. 1), where the writer has, perhaps, been roused to a little warmth by the story of Pelops and Poseidon that has immediately preceded. The legend of Peleus and Hippolyte (Nem. 5) is noticeable as being, strangely enough, the only one in which the woman is represented as taking the initiative; but this is doubtless to be explained by the fact that nearly all these stories are descriptive of the amours of gods. The story of Jason and Medea is utterly spoiled in Pyth. 4. In that of Apollo and Coronis (Pyth. 3) only the unfaithfulness of the nymph and her punishment are dwelt upon. The other erotic stories told—i.e. those of Apollo and Euadne (Olymp. 6), Apollo and Cyrene (Pyth. 9), Zeus and the daughter of Opoeis (Olymp. 9), Ixion and Hera (Pyth. 2), are merely concerned with seductions of the most commonplace kind. The story of Rhoecus and the Hamadryad (Fr. 165) is the only one of importance alluded to in the fragments; but here it is uncertain how far Pindar told the story, and how far he merely alluded to it.
[121] [On the position occupied by women in the Old Comedy compare Women in Greek Comedy, § 3, 4.]
[122] Cp. Theocr. vii. 39.
[123] One or two points are perhaps worth noticing in this connection. It is usual to assume that the Battis of Philetas was an Hetaera; but the evidence seems rather to suggest that she was his wife. The way in which she is spoken of in Ovid, Trist. i. 6, 2, Pont. iii. 1, 57, (in the former place coupled with the Lyde of Antimachus,) seems to support this view; and, at any rate, there does not appear to be any evidence to the contrary. The personal character of Philetas, as we learn it from various notices of him, seems also rather to point in the same direction; though this is not, of course, an argument that can be pressed. (It would be interesting to know whether the fact that Philetas is apparently never alluded to under a nickname, like so many others of the Alexandrian writers, was due to this austerity of character.)
Whether these elegies were as sober and as little sensual in tone as those of Antimachus (cp. infra, [p. 110]), it is impossible now to say; though the two passages cited from Ovid both seem indirectly to imply that they were, and there is certainly nothing in the fragments of Philetas which would lead one to infer that they were not. It need hardly be added that the passage in Ovid, Ars Amat. iii. 329 seqq. proves nothing, for the “lascivia” there ascribed to Sappho is obviously not meant to apply to all the other poets mentioned in the list, or Vergil’s name would hardly appear in it.
[124] In the poems of Theognis, which are practically epigrams, in the later sense of the word. The epigrams of Plato, if genuine, would be another even more striking instance.
[125] Whether the words are to be taken as really seriously meant is, of course, doubtful, though one’s instinctive distrust of their sincerity is perhaps misplaced; for, after all, this is very primitive poetry of its kind. That such words should have been written at all is the remarkable point about them.
[126] [Cp. [p. 81, n. 1].]
[127] Vide e.g. Anth. Pal. v. 158.
[128] The reading ποτέ is certainly happier than παρά. Cp. Theocr. xxix. 39; vide infra [p. 84].
[129] xii. 153 is further interesting as one of the very few of the earlier epigrams, which profess to describe the woman’s feelings.
[130] In the Antilais; vide Meineke, Com. Fr. iii. p. 365.
[131] The above instances may serve to give some idea of the prevailing character of Asclepiades’ epigrams; on the wonderful grace and charm of this new love-poetry, it is needless to dwell. The best and truest description of Asclepiades and his followers ever given, is that of Meleager, when he calls them the wild-flowers in his Garland.
ἐν δὲ Ποσείδιππόν τε καὶ Ἡδύλον, ἄγρι’ ἀρούρης,
Σικελίδεώ τ’ ἀνέμοις ἄνθεα φυόμενα.
Anth. Pal. iv. 1, 45.
[132] Those who do not care to read the proof of this really self-evident fact, can skip the next 28 pages, and pick up the thread again on [p. 103].
[133] Vide Rohde, Der griech. Roman, p. 42.
[134] His sorrow for Briseis does not, of course, as already observed, go very deep, as is sufficiently shown by the little effect which her restoration has on him; and his indignation at her loss is doubtless due to wounded self-love, more than to love of any other description. But, none the less, the introduction of such an incident shows clearly how little the purely military hero was in sympathy with Greek ideas.
[135] There is an elaborate analysis of this erotic element in Max. Tyr. xxiv. 8: καὶ τὸν ἀνδρεῖον (ἔρωτα) ἐπὶ τῷ Πατρόκλῳ, τὸν πόνῳ κτητόν καὶ χρόνῳ, καὶ μέχρι θανάτου προερχόμενον, νεῶν καὶ καλῶν ἀμφοτέρων, καὶ σωφρόνων, τοῦ μὲν παιδεύοντος, τοῦ δὲ παιδευομένου, ὁ μὲν ἄχθεται, ὁ δὲ παραμυθεῖται, ὁ μὲν ᾄδει, ὁ δὲ ἀκροᾶται. ἐρωτικὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ τυχεῖν ἐθέλοντα ἐξουσίας πρὸς μάχην, δακρῦσαι ὡς οὐκ ἀνεξομένου τοῦ ἐραστοῦ· ὁ δὲ ἐφίησι, καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῦ ὅπλοις κοσμεῖ, καὶ βραδύνοντος περιδεῶς ἔχει, καὶ ἀποθανόντος ἀποθανεῖν ἐρᾷ, καὶ τὴν ὀργὴν κατατίθεται. ἐρωτικὰ δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐνύπνια, καὶ τὰ ὀνείρατα, καὶ τὰ δάκρυα, καὶ τὸ τελευταῖον δῶρον ἤδη θαπτομένῳ ἡ κόμη.
It need hardly be pointed out that this central pair is not an isolated phenomenon. Ajax and Teucer (of whom we shall have occasion to speak again, p. 99), Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomed and Sthenelus, are obvious examples of similar relations among the subordinate characters.
[136] Its prevalence among the Lacedaemonians, in spite of the influential position of women in that state, is vouched for by the usage of the word λακωνίζω. Vide Meineke, Com. Fr. ii. pp. 200, 1088. (The derivation mentioned by Photius, Meineke l.c., seems due to Aristophanes, and need not be taken seriously.)
[137] Athen. xiii. 561 E. On this principle, the Ἱεpὸς Λόχος founded by Epaminondas was composed entirely of youths and their lovers, παιδικῶν γὰρ παρόντων ἐραστὴς πᾶν ὁτιοῦν ἕλοιτ’ ἂν παθεῖν ἢ δειλοῦ δόξαν ἀπενέγκασθαι. Athen. xiii. 602 A, cp. 561 F; Max. Tyr. xxiv. 2.
[138] Athen. xiii. 561 D. Cp. Paus. ix. 31, p. 771.
[139] Athen. xiii. 609 F.
[140] Schol. ad Theocr. xii. 29.
[141] This view was, of course, especially prominent at Athens, where Harmodius and Aristogeiton had become well-nigh the ‘patron saints’ of the democracy. Very interesting in this connection is the remark in Ath. xiii. 562 A, that the Peisistratidae, after their expulsion, were the first persons who ventured to slander this form of intimacy. Cp. too Max. Tyr. xxiv. 2. The important part that it played in, at any rate, the old-fashioned Athenian education is shown by more than one passage in Aristophanes, of which the most striking is perhaps Nubes, 972 seqq.; cp. 1002 seqq.
[142] Athen. xiii. 602 D. διὰ τοὺς τοιούτους οὖν ἔρωτας οἱ τύραννοι (πολέμιοι γὰρ αὐτοῖς αὗται αἱ φιλίαι) τὸ παράπαν ἐκώλυον τοὺς παιδικοὺς ἔρωτας, πανταχόθεν αὐτοὺς ἐκκόπτοντες.
[143] The gymnasium is always a prominent feature in this connection. Cp. Catull. lxiii. 64; Anth. Pal. xii. 123; Ach. Tat. ii. 38, πάσης δὲ γυναικῶν μωραλοιφίας ἥδιον ὄδωδεν ὁ τῶν παίδων ἱδρώς.
[144] Athen. loc. cit.
[145] Athen. xiii. 561 D. σεμνόν τινα τὸν Ἔρωτα καὶ παντὸς αἰσχροῦ κεχωρισμένον. Very characteristic in this respect is the story of Agesilaus, related in Xen. Ages. v. 4, 5; cp. Max. Tyr. xxv. 5, xxvi. 8. Other noticeable instances will appear in the next few pages.
[146] Demosth. 1401.
[147] Hence it is not without significance that, according to a common story, the originator of this form of intimacy was said to be Orpheus. See Ovid, Met. x. 83; Phanocles, Fr. 1.
[148] Antimachus already seems to have been inclined to ridicule the story of Heracles and Hylas. (Vide Fr. 8.) Plato and “Platonic” love are, of course, stock subjects throughout the Middle Comedy. (Vide e.g. Amphis, Dithyramb. Fr. 2; Meineke, Com. Fr. iii. p. 307.) The nature of this general attack on the philosophers must not be misunderstood. It is an error to suppose that the more old-fashioned among the Athenians disapproved, in the first instance, of the philosophers because they were paederasts; it would be truer to say that they turned against paederasty because it was so intimately associated with philosophy.
[149] The poems of Strato form, of course, an exception; but then the incidents on which they are based are professedly the product of his own, not always very charming, imagination. Cp. Anth. Pal. xii. 258. A further fact worth noticing is that abstract love-poems (e.g. xii. 50) are regularly placed among the Παιδικά.
[150] The reader will perhaps be thinking of another love “passing the love of women.” One might write many pages on the differences between these two similar emotions.
[151] Whatever opinion one may have as to Homer’s own intention, it cannot be denied that this was the Greek view of the relation between Achilles and Patroclus from a very early period. This is clearly shown by the fact that Aeschylus of all people treated it in this way in his Myrmidones. That the attachment was further regarded as a perfectly pure one might be equally proved from the fragments of that tragedy, if indeed proof were necessary. Insinuations like those elaborated at the end of Lucian’s Amores are a much later aftergrowth.
[152] Vide supra, [pp. 21, 22].
[154] Theocr. xxix. and xxx.
[155] E.g. the image of Time with wings on his shoulders (xxix. 29). For this reason I have not cared to urge the expression Ἀχιλλέϊοι φίλοι in xxix. 34, as a proof that Alcaeus took this view of the relation between Achilles and Patroclus. (Vide supra, [p. 82].)
[156] Thus Maximus Tyrius (xxiv. 9) compares the love of Sappho to that of Socrates. ὁ δὲ τῆς Λεσβίας (ἔρως) ... τί ἂν εἴη ἄλλο, ἢ ἡ Σωκράτους τέχνη ἐρωτική; δοκοῦσι γάρ μοι τὴν κατὰ ταυτὸ ἑκάτερος φιλίαν, ἡ μὲν γυναικῶν, ὁ δὲ ἀρρένων, ἐπιτηδεῦσαι.
[158] Cp. Theocr. xxix. 10,
ἀλλ’ εἴ μοί τι πίθοιο νέος προγενεστέρῳ.
[159] A striking record of temptation resisted is to be found in l. 949 seqq., but this is almost certainly by a later hand.
[160] l. 237 seqq.
[161] For an examination of the Second Book of Theognis, vide [Excursus E].
[162] Athen. xv. p. 694 seqq. This number excludes the poems of Hybrias and Aristotle, which are different in character from the rest.
[163] Of the remaining ten, the first four are religious, and only three contain any mention of women, two of these being coarse.
[165] For, as we have seen, one of the first of these canons was that the public expression of private emotions was an offence against art no less than against decency, and this would tend to exclude from the stage all forms of love equally. In the case of woman-love there were, of course, special objections; that was why the Myrmidones was the first erotic play of any kind produced; but this is beside the present issue.
[166] For the story in Aelian, Var. Hist. ii. 21, as to the relation between Euripides and Agathon, does not seem to be more than a vague piece of scandal.
To this must be added the fact that the earlier part of the century was the time when such a subject would most readily have appealed to the Athenian imagination. Later on, and especially from the fourth century onwards, the changed position of women was beginning to make itself felt in the way we have seen.
[167] Athen. xiii. 601 A, where it is further noted that these plays were received with applause.
[168] According to Schol. Ar. Ran. 911, first of all, μέχρι τριῶν ἡμερῶν οὐδὲν φθέγγεται.
[169] The reader must be careful here to give the proper sense to σέβας ἁγνόν, translating “ne sancta quidem reverentia qua casta atque intemerata tua femora servavi, te movit, ingrate, etc.” Fr. 136, whether genuine or not—it reads very like a misquotation of its predecessor—must obviously mean the same, in spite of Theomnestus and Lucian.
[170] Athen. xiii. 601 B.
[171] Startling as it appears at first sight, this is probably the simplest way of understanding Athenaeus’ τὸν τῶν παίδων (sc. ἔρωτα). Those who have properly appreciated what such ἔρως meant to the early Greeks, will not be surprised to find the term applied to the affection of an elder for a younger brother.
[172] Plut. Amor. 17, p. 760 D, τῶν μὲν γὰρ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους Νιοβιδῶν βαλλομένων καὶ θνησκόντων ἀνακαλεῖταί τις οὐδένα βοηθὸν ἄλλον οὐδὲ σύμμαχον ἢ τὸν ἐραστήν.
[173] Cp. Aristoph. Vesp. 579.
[174] The marked differences in the versions of the legend, and the fact that it appeared in the Theogamia of the pseudo-Peisander—a writer who seems to have drawn his materials in most cases from early sources—seem to show that it must have been of a certain antiquity, and anyhow was not a pure invention on the part of Euripides. The evidence of Aelian (N. H. vi. 15), though of little value, is to the same effect: Λάϊος δὲ ἐπὶ Χρυσίππῳ, ὦ καλὲ Εὐριπίδη, τοῦτο οὐκ ἔδρασεν, καίτοι τοῦ τῶν ἀρρένων ἔρωτος, ὡς λέγεις αὐτός, καὶ ἡ φήμη διδάσκει, Ἑλλήνων πρώτιστος ἄρξας.
[175] The remark of the Scholiast that the behaviour of Laius to Chrysippus was parallel to that of Zeus to Ganymede, like the similar remark in Cicero (loc. cit.), belongs of course to an age when the primitive meanings of the legends had long been forgotten. The allusion to the legend in Aristoph. Pelargi, Fr. 1 is too general to give evidence either way. See Meineke, Com. Fr. ii. p. 1126 seq.
[176] That this is the relation between Ajax and Teucer in Homer already, is pretty clear. Vide e.g. Il. ix. 266 seqq.; cp. Schol. Theocr. xii. 29. This, no doubt, accounts for the frequent mention of Ajax in the Scolia (cp. [p. 90]).
[177] Supposing Tecmessa appeared as champion for the dead Ajax, everyone would acknowledge this, and no one would find the situation dull: only people will not understand that Teucer meant as much, and more, to the Greeks, than Tecmessa would to us.
[178] The position of Alcestis has already been partly discussed on [p. 57].
[179] Vide Call. Hymn. in Apoll. 49; Panyasis, Fr. 15 (Dübner); Schol. ad Eur. Alc. 2; Lact. i. 10, 3.
[180] Cp. supra, [pp. 24, 31].
[181] When the Scholiast (ad Eur. Alc. 1) says that the version of the story of Apollo’s servitude given in the Prologue is the usual one (ἡ διὰ στόματος καὶ δημώδης), he need mean no more by this than the fact that this was the case at the time of writing, when the influence of Euripides had naturally superseded all others. The Scholiast cannot be taken as throwing light on the state of feeling in Athens at the time when the Alcestis was produced.
[182] I am not concerned here to write an apology for Admetus, or I might add much that would militate against the ordinary, somewhat flippant, view taken of his character. One point, however: many readers do not seem to notice that the original question of dying or not is never in the play left to Admetus at all, but is settled by Apollo on his own responsibility. Cp. Eur. Alc. 11 seqq., 32 seqq.
[183] Cp. Eur. Alc. 10, etc.
[184] Cp. the lengthy comments on the play in Lucian, Amores 47, vol. ii. p. 450.
[185] On this point cp. above, [p. 48].
[186] An exception to this general rule is, perhaps, Theocritus; whether, or how far, this was due to the influence of Aratus is an interesting question, but one for the discussion of which the evidence has yet to be collected.
[187] Fr. 125.
[188] And the interval is in reality even longer, for but little of the later work of Aristophanes has survived.
[189] For an examination of the fragments of the Middle Comedy, vide [Excursus F].
[190] It may not be out of place to emphasise here once more the difference that exists between regarding women as an object of interest or importance, and regarding them as an object of love; for the two have been confused by many, not only in estimating the influence of Euripides (cp. supra, pp. [40, 50]), but also in considering the events of the earlier part of the fourth century. Thus many have pointed to the agitation in favour of “women’s rights” satirised in the Ecclesiazusae, or to the great social importance of the Hetaerae (as illustrated in the Middle Comedy, &c.), or to the generally ameliorated condition of women of every class, as proofs of the existence at this period already of the romantic feeling. But to those who care to consider the matter clearly, it must be apparent that all these things are really beside the question. The improved state of women and their increasing power may have helped, and doubtless did help, to spread the romantic feeling when once it had originated; but they were in the first instance entirely independent of it. One does not ipso facto feel a romantic attachment for people because one is compelled to recognise them socially, while in these days of extended franchises it is surely not necessary to repeat that political recognition is not the same as love.
[191] Cp. Quint. x. 1, 53; Anth. Pal. vii. 409, &c.; vide Dübner, Asii &c. Frag. p. 28 seqq. (at the end of Didot’s Hesiod).
If the epigram attributed to Antimachus in Anth. Pal. ix. 321, be really his, he must further be regarded as one of the originators of the Dedicatory Epigram. Cp. Reitzenstein, Epig. u. Skol. p. 131.
[192] For a full account of it, vide Bach, Philetas, &c., Epimetrum iii. (p. 240); Dübner, op. cit. p. 40.
Λύδης δ’ Ἀντίμαχος Λυσηΐδος ἐκ μὲν ἐρωτος
πληγεὶς Πακτωλοῦ ῥεῦμ’ ἐπέβη ποταμοῦ.
Σαρδιανὴν δὲ θανοῦσαν ὑπὸ ξηρὴν θέτο γαῖαν,
Τμώλιον αἴζαον δ’ ἦλθεν ἀποπρολιπὼν
ἄκρην ἐς Κολοφῶνα, γόων δ’ ἐνεπλήσατο βίβλους
ἱράς, ἐκ παντὸς παυσάμενος καμάτου.
(Hermesianax, iii. 41.)
Ἀντίμαχος ὁ ποιητὴς, ἀποθανούσης τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Λύδης, πρὸς ἢν φιλοστόργως εἶχε, παραμύθιον τῆς λύπης αὑτῷ ἐποίησε τὴν ἐλέγειαν τὴν καλουμένην Λύδην, ἐξαριθμησάμενος τὰς ἡρωϊκὰς συμφορὰς, τοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις κακοῖς ἐλάττω τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ποιῶν λύπην. (Plut. Cons. ad Apoll. p. 106 B.)
The very important detail that he married her is confirmed by the passage in Athen. xiii. 597A, where the Lyde of Antimachus is expressly contrasted with τὴν ὁμώνυμον ταύτης ἑταῖραν Λύδην.
Cp. too Ovid, Trist. i. 6, 1:
nec tantum Clario Lyde dilecta poetae,
nec tantum Coo Battis amata suo est,
pectoribus quantum tu nostris, uxor, inhaeres.
[194] This respect for marriage (if one extends the idea of marriage sufficiently to cover every form of union which is faithfully observed—whether actually legalised by some particular ceremony or not, is, in this connection, not very material) will, I think, be found underlying the whole Greek conception of romance. This is, of course, diametrically opposed to the view of the mediaeval barbarians, who held that the one woman in the world one could not love was one’s wife. Whether Lyde or Isolde be the higher ideal is, perhaps, a matter of taste; magno se iudice quaeque tuetur. That I personally prefer the Greek to the barbarian is perhaps due to prejudice, but it is prejudice for which I am very grateful.
A further illustration may be found in the Latin elegiac poets. Propertius, the “Roman Callimachus,” who is always calling attention to the Greek sources of his inspiration, addresses all his love-poems to the Hetaera Cynthia, to whom he remained faithful to the end. Ovid only invokes the Greeks (Antimachus in Trist. i. 6, 1; Philetas in Trist. i. 6, 2, Pont. iii. 1, 58) when addressing his wife. Tibullus and Catullus, the poets of adultery, never acknowledge in their love-poems their Greek predecessors, and Catullus even goes out of his way to abuse one of them.
[195] The Cleitophon and Leucippe of Achilles Tatius is, of course, an exception (the only extant one) to this rule, but then this late and curious work differs in other respects also from the typical Greek novel.
[196] It is most interesting to note how that, while in the earlier comedy marriage is the one great subject of ridicule, in the new comedy marriage is the hero’s one great ambition.
Ναννοῦς καὶ Λύθης ἐπίχει, δύο καὶ φιλεράστου
Μιμνέρμου καὶ τοῦ σώφρονος Ἀντιμάχου.
Anth. Pal. xii. 168.
For φιλεράστου Cod. Vat. gives φερεκάστου, which might also, perhaps, be retained in this sense.
[198] De Compos. Verb. p. 300. He is here, of course, speaking primarily of the literary style; but literary style is in most cases more or less a reflection of literary treatment.
The severe style of Antimachus’ Thebaid is well known. (Vide Quint, x. 1, 53; Anth. Pal. vii. 409, 4.)
[199] Ἀντιμάχου τοῦ Κολοφωνίου καὶ Νικηράτου τινὸς Ἡρακλεώτου ποιήμασι Λυσάνδρια διαγωνισαμένων ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (sc. Λυσάνδρῳ) τὸν Νικήρατον ἐστεφάνωσεν· ὁ δὲ Ἀντίμαχος ἀχθεσθεὶς ἠφάνισε τὸ ποίημα. Πλάτων δὲ νέος ὢν τότε καὶ θαυμάζων τὸν Ἀντίμαχον ἐπὶ τῇ ποιητικῇ, βαρέως φέροντα τὴν ἧτταν ἀνελάμβανεν καὶ παρεμυθεῖτο, τοῖς ἀγνοοῦσι κακὸν εἶναι φάμενος τὴν ἄγνοιαν, ὡς τὴν τυφλότητα τοῖς μὴ βλέπουσιν.—Plut. Lysand. 18.
Nec enim posset idem Demosthenes dicere, quod dixisse Antimachum, Clarium poetam, ferunt; qui cum, convocatis auditoribus, legeret eis magnum illud quod novistis volumen suum, et eum legentem omnes praeter Platonem reliquissent, Legam, inquit, nihilominus; Plato enim mihi unus instar est omnium milium.—Cic. Brutus, 51, 191.
Ἡρακλείδης γοῦν ὁ Ποντικός φησιν ὅτι τῶν Χοιρίλου τότε εὐδοκιμούντων Πλάτων τὰ Ἀντιμάχου προὐτίμησεν, καὶ αὐτὸν ἔπεισε τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐς Κολοφῶνα ἐλθόντα τὰ ποίηματα συλλέξαι τοῦ ἀνδρός.—Proclus, Comm. in Plat. Tim. i. p. 28.
Whether these anecdotes are actually true or not does not much matter. That the friendship between Antimachus and Plato was a well-known fact would be sufficiently proved by their invention; but there is nothing really contradictory or improbable in them, as some have asserted. In the story from Plutarch there is no need to suppose that Plato was actually present at Samos; he may very well have met Antimachus afterwards elsewhere. The evidence of Proclus again merely says that Plato, in opposition to the prevailing opinion of his time, preferred Antimachus to Choerilus, and that he sent Heracleides to Colophon to make a collection of the works of the former, evidently after his death. It is consequently quite possible to reconcile all three narratives. Antimachus was defeated by Niceratus at the Lysandria, an event which, owing to his celebrity at the time (404 B.C.), naturally excited remark. Subsequently he met Plato, who, when the conversation turned on his defeat, complimented him in the way described—a compliment which Antimachus returned on another occasion (that alluded to by Cicero). Lastly, after Antimachus’ death, Plato caused a collection of his works to be made. Where Plato met Antimachus is not quite clear, but the ascription to the former of the epigram in Athen. xiii. 589 C (Anth. Pal. vii. 217) would almost seem to imply that there was, at any rate, a tradition that Plato visited Colophon. If that was actually the case, he would naturally have come across Antimachus there.
[200] Anth. Pal. xii. 168.
[202] I.e. Peloponnesian War, 431-403; Lacedaemonian and Theban Supremacy, 405-336; Macedonian Age, 336 onwards.
[203] Of the sense in which the unfortunate word “romantic” has to be understood we have already spoken elsewhere. [[p. 2.]]
[204] It may be remarked in passing that this ideal character of the “New” Comedy is not, as a rule, sufficiently recognised. People speak as if they thought that the stories in Menander, for instance, represented the ordinary events of life at Athens at the end of the fourth century. It need hardly, perhaps, be remarked that it would be about as reasonable to endeavour to get an idea of the ordinary life of English people at the present day by studying an Adelphi melodrama. As long as comedy at Athens confined itself to social satire, it is obvious that the social scenes it depicted must have been, even if somewhat burlesqued, yet, on the whole, true to life. When once it had abandoned this object, and began to aim at telling an exciting story, calculated to interest its audience in proportion to the strangeness and novelty of its dénouement, it is equally obvious that it must very soon have been compelled to abandon the ordinary affairs of everyday life. In taking over the business of the Epic, Comedy took with it the license of that form of composition and of its offspring, Tragedy. While no one will deny that incidents like those described by Menander may have occasionally taken place at Athens in the fourth century, just as some of them might conceivably take place in England at the present day, there can be hardly any real doubt that the stories of romantic comedy were as little true to the ordinary life of the time they professed to depict, as, say, the novel of Xenophon was to the ordinary life of the Roman provinces under the Antonines.
[205] It is true, of course, that the “New” Comedy took over from its predecessor certain characters (e.g. the parasite or the cook) and certain other features, practically unchanged; but all this was confined to minor points of detail, and any similarity between the two forms of art which such transference of ready-made specialités may cause is a purely superficial one. The main subject of romantic comedy, and the treatment there of that main subject, are entirely distinct from everything that had gone before.
[206] Thus the Megarian Comedy dates from the expulsion of Theagenes (Arist. Poet. iii. 5), while the Athenian reappears, after a silence of some 70 years, on the expulsion of Hippias.
[207] The titles of the plays attributed to Chionides do not in themselves contradict this view. The Heroes describes life as it would be in a state engaged in war, but there is no reason to believe that the play discussed any real phase of any contemporary war. The Persae, too, to judge by its second title of Assyrii, was devoted rather to ridiculing Persian customs than to dealing with the Persian War. In like manner the Lydi of Magnes introduced the Lydian dances to Athens (cp. Hesych. λυδίζων, χορεύων, διὰ τοὺς Αυδούς sc. Μάγνητος), while the Barbatistae appears to have been equally aimed at the aesthetic tastes of some part of the community. Titles again, like Ornithes, Batrachi, and Psenes, give no suggestion of political motives, any more than does the Satyri of Ecphantides.
[208] τῷ χαρίεντι τῆς κωμῳδίας τὸ ὠφέλιμον προσέθηκε τοὺς κακῶς πράττοντας διαβάλλων καὶ ὥσπερ δημοσίᾳ μάστιγι τῇ κωμῳδίᾳ μαστίζων (Anon. de Com. p. 32). οὐ γὰρ ὥσπερ ὁ Ἀριστοφάνης ἐπιτρέχειν τὲν χάριν τοῖς σκώμμασι ποιεῖ ... ἀλλ’ ἁπλῶς καὶ κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν γυμνῇ κεφαλῇ τίθησι τὰς βλασφημίας κατὰ τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων (Platon. de Com. p. 27).
[209] τοιοῦτος οὖν ἐστὶν ὁ τῆς μέσης κωμῳδίας τύπος, οἷός ἐστιν ... οἱ Ὀδυσσεῖς Κρατίνου (Platon. de Com. p. 34). οἱ γοῦν Ὀδυσσεῖς Κρατίνου οὐδενὸς ἐπιτίμησιν ἔχουσι, διασυρμὸν δὲ τῆς Ὀδυσσείας Ὁμήρου (ibid. p. 35).
The elaborate details as to cookery in the fragments of this play are also very suggestive of one of the features of “Middle” Comedy.
[210] It is further to be observed that, though Cratinus nearly always indulges in personal abuse, this abuse is by no means necessarily directed against political characters. Any person, whatever his capacity, who was sufficiently well known to be recognised by the Athenian audience, was liable to be the butt of his scurrility.
[211] Arist. Poet. v. 5. As Meineke (Com. Fr. i. 59) well expresses it: “Cratetem primum apud Athenienses exstitisse qui Epicharmi exemplo comicae poeseos materiam a singulorum hominum irrisione ad generales morum notationes rerumque descriptiones traduceret.” Crates thus differs from Cratinus in that his plays were not political, while he differs from the earlier comedians in that he avoided personalities and treated of general subjects, and this is the meaning of the word πρῶτος in Aristotle, l.c.
[212] ἐζήλωκε Κράτητα. Anon. de Com. p. 29.
[213] The law of Morychis, during the operation of which this play, like the Odysses of Cratinus and various others, seems to have been brought out, is interesting as an early instance of the influence of political events upon the development of early Athenian comedy, an influence entirely absent in the case of the romantic comedy.
[214] Thus the final disappearance of the parabasis, though an important enough event for the history of the form of Comedy, is but an incident in the real development of the art. This is shown by the fact that, when, under the law of Morychis, the parabasis was temporarily suspended, the result was the immediate appearance, at this date already, of plays which belong, in spirit, entirely to “Middle” Comedy.
[215] This means the school of Cratinus, when unrestricted by legislation, and allowed to take its own course. Prohibitive legislation naturally tended to put the two schools of comedy on much the same footing.
[216] The few exceptions will be considered presently. [[p. 127.]]
[217] [The author contemplated, but does not seem to have written, an Excursus on “Pericles and Aspasia.”]
[218] In neither of these must it, of course, be supposed that the erotic element was at all the leading motive. Most of the fragments of the Nemesis seem to refer to events which must be supposed to have taken place some time after the erotic incident had been closed, while in the Seriphii the description of Andromeda as δελέαστρα (Fr. 12) is the only allusion to her preserved. Indeed, it is vain in Cratinus to look for any leading motive at all, for, as Platonius says of him (de Com. p. 27), εὔστοχος ὢν ἐν ταῖς ἐπιβολαῖς τῶν δραμάτων καὶ διασκευαῖς, εἶτα προϊὼν καὶ διασπῶν τὰς ὑποθέσεις οὐκ ἀκολούθως πληροῖ τὰ δράματα.
[219] The apparent allusion to the Hetaera Myrrhina in Eupolis, Autolycus, Fr. 10, is too uncertain to be of any value.
[220] The Tyrannis (another suggestive title) also satirised the drunkenness of women (cp. the fragment ap. Athen. xi. 481 B). It may be remembered in this connection, that the introduction of drunken persons on the stage was an invention of his master Crates.
τὸν ἰδρῶτα καὶ τὴν ἄρδαν ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ σπόγγισον.
The tone of address will surprise no one who remembers the scene between Diphilus and Gnathaena (ap. Athen. xiii. 583 F), and others like it. [This subject was to have been dealt with further in an Excursus.]
κἂν μὲν σιωπῶ, δυσφορεῖ καὶ πνίγεται,
καὶ φησι, τί σιωπᾷς; ἐὰν δ’ ἀποκριθῶ,
οἴμοι τάλας, φησίν, χαράδρα κατελήλυθεν.
[223] The precise nature of the differences between these early “Hetaera-plays” and those generally in vogue at a later date, will be examined when we come to consider the latter class of composition. [[p. 153.]]
[224] One can at least gather from Fr. 1, 2, 3, that the coming together of the women was made the occasion of a series of jokes at their expense, something after the manner of Mnesilochus and the baby in Thesmoph. 689 seqq.
[225] This seems to have been one of the main motives of the Lemniae; at any rate, the nature of Aeschylus’ play on the same subject would have afforded an excellent opportunity of the kind—Αἰσχύλος δ’ ἐν Ὑψιπύλῃ ἐν ὅπλοις φησὶν αὐτὰς [τὰς Λημνίας] ἐπελθούσας χειμαζομένοις [τοῖς Ἀργοναύταις] ἀπείργειν, μέχρι λαβεῖν ὅρκον παρ’ αὐτῶν ἀποβάντας μιγήσεσθαι αὐταῖς. Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. I. 773.
ἰδού, δίδωμι τήνδ’ ἐγὼ γυναῖκά σοι
Φαίδραν· ἐπὶ πῦρ δὲ πῦρ ἔοιχ’ ἥξειν ἄγων.
(Polyid. Fr. 2.)
[227] Cp. Geras, Fr. 5, 6, 7.
[228] Cp. e.g. the remarks of Phocion to his son: ἐμοῦ μέν, ὦ παῖ, τὴν σὴν μητέρα γαμοῦντος οὐδ’ ὁ γείτων ᾔσθετο. Plutarch. Phoc. 30.
[229] Vide e.g. Nubes, 973 seqq., 1002 seqq.
[230] Cp. the speech of Mnesilochus, Thesmoph. 466 seqq., the spirit of which, all allowance for comic exaggeration being made, cannot be mistaken.
[231] Vide Thesmoph. 383 seqq. The subject and style of the Daedalus were equally uncomplimentary. Cp. Fr. 3.
[232] κωμῳδεῖται δὲ (ὀ Ἀριστοφάνης) ὅτι καὶ τὸ τῆς Εἰρήνης κολοσσικὸν ἐξῆρεν ἄγαλμα, Εὔπολις Αὐτολύκῳ, Πλάτων Νίκαις. Schol. Plat. Apol. p. 331.
[233] It is worth noticing that, while a man who seduced an Athenian citizen seems to have been legally bound to marry her, and therefore, to a certain extent, there was no great virtue in his action if he did so, at the same time this legal necessity was never, so far as we know, in any way urged in any play of the New Comedy. The point will be more fully discussed when we come to this part of our subject. [See [p. 169].]
[234] Minos, quod Daedali opera multa sibi incommoda acciderunt, in Siciliam est eum persecutus petiitque a rege Cocalo ut sibi redderetur. cui cum Cocalus promisisset et Daedalus rescisset, ab regis filiabus auxilium petiit. illae Minoem occiderunt. Hygin. Fab. 44.
Μίνως δὲ, ὁ τῶν Κρητῶν βασιλεύς, θαλαττοκρατῶν κατ’ ἐκείνους τοὺς χρόνους καὶ πυθόμενος τὴν Δαιδάλου φυγὴν εἰς Σικελίαν, ἔγνω στρατεύειν ἐπ’ αὐτήν ... ὁ δὲ Κώκαλος, εἰς σύλλογον προσκαλεσάμενος καὶ πάντα ποιήσειν ἐπαγγειλάμενος, ἐπὶ τὰ ξένια παρέλαβε τὸν Μίνω. λουομένου δ’ αὐτοῦ, Κώκαλος μὲν παρακατασχὼν πλείονα χρόνον ἐν τῷ θερμῷ τὸν Μίνωα διέφθειρε, καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἀπέδωκε τοῖς Κρησί, πρόφασιν ἐνεγκὼν τοῦ θανάτου διότι κατὰ τὸν λουτρῶνα ὠλίσθηκε καὶ πεσὼν εἰς τὸ θερμὸν ὕδωρ ἐτελεύτησε. (Diodorus, iv. 79.)
The story is told somewhat differently in Zenobius iv. 92. There Minos, in order to discover Daedalus, goes about the world offering large rewards to anyone who can run a linen thread through a spiral shell, being convinced that no one but Daedalus would be able to do such a thing. When he comes to Sicily, Cocalus, in order to gain the reward, gives the shell to Daedalus, who bores a hole at the end, ties the linen thread to an ant, and so does what is required. λαβὼν δὲ ὁ Μίνως τὸν λίνον διειρμένον ᾔσθετο εἶναι παρ’ ἐκείνῳ τὸν Δαίδαλον καὶ εὐθέως ἀπῄτει. Κώκαλος δὲ, ὑποσχόμενος δώσειν, ἐξένισεν αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ λουόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν Κωκάλου θυγατέρων ἀνῃρέθη ζέουσαν πίσσαν ἐπιχεαμένων αὐτῷ.—This is the version of the story followed by Sophocles in the Camici. (Cp. Fr. 301, 302.)
It is worth noticing that Daedalus, according to Diodorus, iv. 78, made a cave at Selinus, in which patients were treated by being subjected to a gradually-increasing temperature. (τρίτον δὲ σπήλαιον κατὰ τὴν Σελινουντίαν χώραν κατεσκεύασεν, ἐν ᾧ τὴν ἀτμίδα τοῦ κατ’ αὐτὴν πυρὸς οὕτως εὐστόχως ἐξέλαβεν ὥστε διὰ τὴν μαλακότητα τῆς θερμασίας ἐξιδροῦν λεληθότως, καὶ κατὰ μικρὸν τοὺς ἐνδιατρίβοντας μετὰ τέρψεως θεραπεύειν τὰ σώματα, μηδὲν παρενοχλουμένους ὑπὸ τῆς θερμότητος.) It is, perhaps, not impossible that Aristophanes may have described Minos’ death as occurring in this cave.
[235] By the word “plot” as here used, must of course be understood merely the erotic incident. That the action was not confined to one subject of this kind is obvious to every reader of Aristophanes. Whatever may have been the treatment of the erotic element, there can be practically no doubt that this element was only one, perhaps not the most important one, among the many that went to make up the play.
[236] Fr. 4 seems to suggest that there may have been a regular trial instituted, as in the Vespae (cp. Vesp. 807 seqq. with Cocal. Fr. 12), at which Daedalus was accused of complicity in the murder, and his services to Cocalus as a builder (Fr. 5; cp. Diodorus, iv. 78) urged on his behalf. This trial may well have had features in common with the last scene in Euripides’ Andromeda.
[237] The fact that this play led to the abandonment of certain nocturnal orgies is, of course, no proof that such habits altogether ceased, even for a time; indeed, it is notorious that they did not.
[238] Even if it could be proved that the play ended with a wedding—such endings are, as we have seen, not uncommon in Aristophanes—and that this is what the grammarian means by his τἄλλα πάντα ἃ ἐζήλωσε Μένανδρος, this would not, in itself, be enough to make the play a romantic one after the manner of the later works. The marriage would have to be an act of reparation inspired by love, and it need hardly be remarked how utterly foreign any such feeling would be to the work of Aristophanes. Such a difference in spirit and motive, however, important and obvious as it seems to us, may very well have escaped the ancient critics, whose criticism of art was well-nigh exclusively concerned with its external and superficial qualities. Hence, if by any chance Aristophanes’ characters were despatched off the stage to the sounds of a wedding march, it is easy to see how clear a proof this would have seemed to them that the Cocalus belonged to the same phase of art as the plays of Menander, when, in reality, it did nothing of the kind.
[239] Cp. infra, [p. 189 seqq.]
[240] Thus, to quote one instance among many, the habit, common among the writers of the Empire, of describing Vergil as not only a supreme, but also a universal, genius, is sufficiently familiar. (Cp. Mart. viii. 18, &c.)
[241] τὸν μέντοι Κώκαλον, τὸν ποιηθέντα Ἀραρότι τῷ Ἀριστοφάνονς υἱεῖ, Φιλήμων ὁ κωμικὸς ὑπαλλάξας ἐν Ὑποβολιμαίῳ ἐκωμῴδησεν. (Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 267 [628].)
[242] ἐπεπόλαζε γὰρ τότε ταῦτα, Ἡρακλῆς πεινῶν, καὶ Διόνυσος δειλός, καὶ μοιχὸς Ζεύς. Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 740. The Zeus Cac. of Plato is said to have borne a close resemblance to the Daedalus of Aristophanes, which certainly contained matter of this kind. Cp. Aristoph. Daed. Fr. 3.
[243] It is interesting to observe the absence, as far as one can judge, of any reference to Sappho, the favourite butt of a somewhat later school of comedians. Could the fact of this absence be conclusively proved, it would afford valuable evidence for determining the date of the origin of the Phaon and Sappho legend. The earliest reference to it at present known is, perhaps, that in the Leucadia of Menander.
[244] We may further observe the mention of Lais in Fr. 10 of this play.
[245] Cp. Ovid, Met. X. 686 seqq. The incident might be utilised in various ways.
[246] Cp. Alciphron i. 39, 7. καταπαννυχίσασαι δ’ οὖν καὶ τοὺς ἐραστὰς κακῶς εἰποῦσαι ... ᾠχόμεθα ἔξοινοι.
[247] Vide Athen. xi. 470 F. σπινθήρ in l. 8 seems not to be the proper-name of a slave, but may simply be translated “spark.” The expression is as natural in Greek as in English, even if no other instance of this exact usage occurs.
[248] The “Hedychares” of the title seems to be Plato, so that it is rather tempting to imagine a scene something like the following. The hero, after dilating sufficiently on the virtues of “Platonic” love, is eventually discovered by one of the other characters, in company with a woman under circumstances which suggest the propriety of their getting married immediately—a fact which induces the intruder to exclaim:
φέρε σὺ τὰ καταχύσματα κ.τ.λ. (Fr. 3.)
The late date of this play (cp. Fr. 4) makes a plot of this kind by no means impossible, but, of course, hariolandi est infinita libertas.
[249] Great care must be taken not to misunderstand the causes of this prominence of the Hetaera in Middle Comedy. The fall of Athens, and the events immediately preceding it, resulted in a revolution of the Athenian social system, which was even more momentous than the political overthrow. From this time onwards, the individual appears at Athens as opposed to the state, in a manner that would not have been possible under the earlier régime. Hence in the Middle Comedy, which is perhaps the earliest individualistic poetry which Athens produced, ordinary habits and private life come to be treated with an interest and a realism which had never previously been attempted, and, as a consequence of this, the Hetaerae come to the fore in literature. This fact does not, therefore, imply that the position of these women in the thoughts of men was any higher than had previously been the case, or that there was a growing idea among the people that love for women was a worthy subject for artistic study and representation. It simply means, as will be abundantly clear later on, that the Hetaera was an important feature in private life, and that, therefore, when private life came to be represented on the stage, she was bound to appear there also, just in the same way and for the same reasons as the cook and the fishmonger, who are also such features of this literature.
[250] With the other distinctive features of Middle Comedy, though occasional reference may be made to them, we have less to do. It may not however be amiss, in passing, just to notice the spirit of the age, which, while it required personal attacks on men to be more or less veiled, allowed personal attacks of the fiercest description to be made on women openly by name. A remarkable instance of this is the Antilais of Epicrates, but it is far from being the only one. As for those Middle Comedies which are called after public men (e.g. the Theramenes of Cratinus junior), it would be easy to believe that these were all, as some of them certainly were, composed after the deaths of the persons whose names they bear, and that these names were simply used as types, in the way that Juvenal speaks of Tigellinus, &c.
[251] With regard to what we have described as the second feature of Middle Comedy, it may perhaps just be remarked that this constant habit of parodying and ridiculing love-stories would inevitably tend, in some sort, to bring the whole matter of love into contempt. And that the feelings of contempt so produced, and the similar feelings which originated them, would act and react on one another till both became even more accentuated, was equally inevitable. Nor must it be forgotten that the influence of tragedy, which might otherwise have served to counteract this tendency, was much less than it had been at an earlier period, for the revivals and imitations of Euripides, which held the tragic stage throughout the century, popular though some of them may have been, belonged in spirit to the previous generation, and were thus to a certain extent out of touch with contemporary feeling.
[252] Many plays of this class are called after real or imaginary Hetaerae, such as the Chrysis of Antiphanes, &c., &c., but these are, of course, not the only ones that deal with the subject.
[253] Ἀντιφάνης ὁ κωμῳδοποιὸς ὡς ἀνεγίνωσκέ τινα τῷ βασιλεῖ Ἀλεξάνδρῳ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ κωμῳδιῶν, ὁ δὲ δῆλος ἦν οὐ πάνυ τι ἀποδεχόμενος· δεῖ γάρ, ἔφησεν, ὦ βασιλεῦ, τὸν ταῦτα ἀποδεχόμενον ἀπὸ συμβόλων τε πολλάκις δεδειπνηκέναι καὶ περὶ ἑταίρας πλεονάκις καὶ εἰληφέναι καὶ δεδωκέναι πληγάς. (Athen. xiii. 555A.)
[255] No one who is familiar with the Middle Comedy is likely to wish to maintain that the words παρθένων φθοράς imply that the plays of Anaxandrides were similar in character to such plays as the Andria or the Adelphi of Menander. The exact nature of the παρθένων ἔρωτες of the Middle Comedy, which form, in fact, an infinitesimal part of the erotic element in that literature, will be fully discussed lower down. [pp. [159], [213].]
[256] Curious in this connection is the fact that, while the Captivi of Plautus is the only extant play derived from Anaxandrides, it is, at the same time, the only extant play of Latin Comedy which is not concerned with erotic subjects.
[257] That τραγήματα was merely a polite word for drinking, seems clear from Alexis, Polycleia:—
ὁ πρῶτος εὑρὼν κομψὸς ἦν τραγήματα·
τοῦ συμποσίου γὰρ διατριβὴν ἔξευρέ πως
κἀργοὺς ἔχειν μηδέποτε τὰς σιαγόνας.
[258] σῦκα, are doubtless used here in the same sense as “mariscae” in Iuv. ii. 13, or “ficus” in Mart. vii. 71.
[259] Or, perhaps, the νεανίσκος tries the effect of the θηρίκλεια on the girl herself (cp. the epigram of Hedylus, Anth. Pal. v. 199); sed haec omnia incerta. In any case, the scene seems somewhat to suggest that in Petr. 85 seqq.
ὅστις λέχη γὰρ σκότια νυμφεύει λάθρᾳ,
πῶς οὐχὶ πάντων ἐστὶν ἀθλιώτατος;
ἐξὸν θεωρήσαντι πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον,
γυμνὰς ἐφεξῆς ἐπὶ κέρως τεταγμένας,
ἐν λεπτοπήνοις ὕφεσιν ἑστώσας, οἵας
Ἠριδανὸς ἁγνοῖς ὕδασι κηπεύει κόρας,
μικροῦ πρίασθαι κέρματος τὴν ἡδονήν,
καὶ μὴ λαθραίαν κύπριν, αἰσχίστην νόσων
πασῶν, διώκειν, ὕβρεος οὐ πόθου χάριν.
[261] The one or two apparent exceptions to this rule, such as those in the Marathonii of Timocles or the Philaulus of Theophilus, are in reality no exceptions at all. This will be clear enough if we consider what is meant in these passages by a κόρη, and do not confuse the sentiment there expressed with a sentiment which does not occur till a later period. The κόρη in question (a κιθαρίστρια in the Philaulus) is merely an Hetaera in posse instead of in esse, an Hetaera who has not yet entered into regular business, and herein consists her superiority from the point of view of those who do not share Diogenes’ view as to the parallel between women and houses. That her attractions do not differ in kind from those of the regular Hetaera will be plain enough to anyone who takes the trouble to turn to the passage in the Marathonii, and that the character of the “love” she inspires is also similar will be equally apparent from the same lines. That this was the character of the παρθένων ἔρωτες with which, according to Suidas, Anaxandrides dealt, seems beyond question.
[262] Alexis himself says this, in almost as many words, in the passage quoted below, [p. 163].
[264] The “Platonic” nature of Theseus’ admiration for the undeveloped charms of Helen is a well-known feature of the legend. A comparison with Aristoph. Thesmoph. B, Fr. 26, seems to suggest a further reason why Theseus should have been introduced as a mock “Platonic” lover. Cp. Phot. s.v. κυσολάκων. τὸ δὲ τοῖς παιδικοῖς χρῆσθαι λακωνίζειν ἔλεγον. Ἑλένῃ (so Ruhnken for Μελαίνῃ) γὰρ Θησεὺς οὕτως ἐχρήσατο.
[265] In this connection we may remark that the tendency of the mythological stories commonly parodied by Middle Comedy was also almost entirely in this direction. The Ζεὺς μοιχός with whom the Athenian audience of the day was so familiar, was hardly the type of character to inspire respect for married life. How different was the New Comedy treatment of the adulterer, we shall see further on.
[266] Another phase of the Middle Comedy treatment of women, the discussion of which here would lead us too far away from our immediate subject, will be considered in [Excursus I].
[267] That the ψενδοκόρη, as the Athenian stage-managers rather quaintly called her—a class of character sufficiently common, it must be admitted—differs toto caelo from the regular Hetaera, is almost too obvious to need mention.
[269] Of the Casina, which would appear at first sight to belong to this class, we shall speak in another place. [The Excursus, dealing with this subject, seems not to have been written; comp. [Excursus K].]
[270] It is hard for us, in our generation, to realise what the first dawn of pure love for women must have meant to the men who saw it. It needs a conscious effort of will to clean away from one’s eyes and one’s heart the dust of the centuries, and to look back clearly; but if once the effort be successfully made, it is no longer hard to understand why, at the end of the fourth century, the pure girl was a more inspiring ideal than “the woman with a past,” and why the παρθένος; could stir depths of passion that the ἑταίρα had left untouched.
[271] These last lines are very suggestive of Theocr. viii. 53. It is worth noticing that in this play (v. 2, 72) the girl is specially asked whether she is willing to marry.
“patrue mi, ita me di amabunt ut, ego si sim Iuppiter,
iam hercle ego illanc uxorem ducam, et Iunonem extrudam foras!” etc.
[273] Probably by Menander. At any rate, Cistell. i. 1, 90 seqq. is a translation of Menand. Incert. 32.
“Glycerium vitiat Pamphilus,
gravidaque facta dat fidem, uxorem sibi
fore hanc,” etc.
[275] e.g. Ter. And. i. 5, 36 seqq., iv. 2, 11 seqq.
[276] In the Adelphi of Menander, this feature was, in all probability, even more prominent than it is in Terence’s contaminated version.
[277] Ter. Adelph. iii. 2, 34 seqq.; cp. iii. 4, 23 seqq.
[278] Plaut. Aulul. iv. 10.
[279] Cp. Ter. Eun. iv. 4, 26.
[280] Ter. Adelph. iv. 5, 62 seqq.
[281] Cp. Plaut. Aulul. iv. 7 and 10; the conclusion of the play, in which the marriage of the hero was finally settled, is lost.
[282] Ter. And. iv. 2, 14.
[283] Here, too, there can be little doubt that in the original (the Philadelphi of Menander), this erotic element was more prominent than it is in the Latin.
[284] Cp. Plaut. Trin. v. 1, 1 seqq.; 2, 64.
[285] Some further interesting evidence on this subject will be discussed later. [Cp. [p. 189]; but the reference seems to be to a part of the work which was not written.]
[286] In Tragedy, of course, the faithful and loving wife was not so entirely unknown. The Athenian might accept an Alcestis, who lived in prehistoric and heroic times, though even here his natural tendency was to jeer (cp. Aristoph. Equit. 1251); but, imagine such a character in Comedy, which was taken from real contemporary life? The idea was preposterous.
[287] It is of course obvious that characters such as Clitipho in the Heauton Timorumenus, or Lesbonicus in the Trinummus, do not regard matrimony with much enthusiasm, but, in all these cases, the reasons for their objection are so apparent that no one would consider them as real exceptions to the general rule that the young man of the New Comedy looks on marriage with favour.
[288] And here one may remark at once that the incontinence of women, which is one of the favourite subjects both of Aristophanes and of Euripides, is nowhere emphasised in New Comedy.
[289] Cp. Fr. 10.
[290] Cp. Ter. Eun. v. 4, 21 seqq.
[291] Ter. And. ii. 1, 15 and 25. [The author is assuming that the words “quam vellem!” in the latter passage, are spoken by Charinus, not by Pamphilus: the editors differ on this point.] This curious passage furnishes a further instance, if further instances be needed, of the fact that what the Greek required of a woman for a love-match was not so much physical purity as constancy to a particular lover. Hence we find that by far the greater mass of Greek romantic love-poetry is addressed, not to virgins, but to women to whom the writer is, in one way or another, married. Thus, too, in the romance of Xenophon Ephesius, the adventures of the lovers all take place after marriage (the wedding occurs already in chapter viii of book I.), and in this the Ephesiaca are at least as Greek as, if not more so than the Pastoralia of Longus, or the novel of Eumathius, where the most ridiculous and desperate expedients have to be resorted to in order that the heroine may preserve her virginity till the end of the last chapter. But this whole matter will be more fully discussed when we come to consider the Callimachean ideal of woman. [The reference is to a part of the work which was not completed.]
[292] Ter. Hec. v. 1, 24 seqq.; cp. i. 2, 82.
[293] The Casina (of Diphilus) and the Orge of Menander seem equally emphatic on the point, but as both these plays belong, strictly speaking, to Middle Comedy, which had other and less romantic reasons for decrying adultery, they need not be further noticed here.
[294] Cp. Ter. Heaut. Tim. ii. 4, 1 seqq.
edepol te, mea Antiphila, laudo et fortunatam iudico,
id cum studuisti, isti formae ut mores consimiles forent, etc.
words which raise strange memories of a well-known passage in the Dame aux Camélias.
[295] Cp. inter alia, v. 1, 30; 3, 35.
[296] ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν ἄειδε τοιαύτην, θεά, κ.τ.λ.
[297] “haec. (sc. Thais Menandri) primum iuvenum lascivos lusit amores;” where lusit must almost certainly mean “parodied” or “ridiculed,” and lascivos amores “Hetaera-loves” as opposed to the more orthodox amours of which the New Comedy proper treats.
[298] In any case, however, it is tempting to read in Prop. ii. 6, 3:
turba Menandreae fuerit nec Thaidos olim
tanta in qua populum lusit Erichthonium.
[299] E.g. Plaut. Cist. i. 1, 66.
Sl. at mihi cordolium est.
Gy. quid id? unde est tibi cordolium, commemora, obsecro,
quod neque ego habeo neque quisquam alia mulier, ut perhibent viri?
[300] E.g. Plaut. Trin. ii. 1, 15 seqq. etc., etc.
παιδισκάριόν με καταδεδούλωκ’ εὐτελές,
ὃν οὐδὲ εἷς τῶν πολεμίων οὐπώποτε. (Fr. 3.)
Cp. Arrian, Dissert. Epictet. iv. 1.
[302] Cp. Fr. 10, 11.
παρ’ ἐμοὶ γάρ ἐστιν ἔνδον, ἔξεστιν δέ μοι
καὶ βούλομαι τοῦτ’, οὐ ποιῶ δέ. (Fr. 5.)
[304] Vide Arrian, loc. cit. where the whole subject of Thrasonides is discussed.
[305] This is the view taken of the case by Diogenes Laertius (vii. 130), when he is discussing the Stoic doctrine of love.
εἶναι δὲ τὸν ἔρωτα ἐπιβολὴν φιλοποιΐας διὰ κάλλος ἐμφαινόμενον· καὶ μὴ εἶναι συνουσίας, ἀλλὰ φιλίας. τὸν γοῦν Θρασωνίδην, καίπερ ἐν ἐξονσίᾳ ἔχοντα τὴν ἐρωμένην, διὰ τὸ μισεῖσθαι ἀπέχειν αὐτῆς. εἶναι οὖν τὸν ἔρωτα φιλίας. κ.τ.λ.
[306] One need merely think of Thais, the ideal Hetaera, μηδενὸς ἐρῶσαν.
[307] That this is no mere coincidence is shown by the characters, of Stratophanes in Menander’s Sicyonius, and others, of whom we shall speak presently. [[p. 182.]]
[308] Plut. de Cupid. Div. 524 F.
[καίτοι πῶς οὐ μανικὸν οὐδὲ οἰκτρὸν τὸ πάθος, εἴ τις ἱματίῳ μὴ χρῆται διὰ τὸ ῥιγοῦν, μηδὲ ἄρτῳ διὰ τὸ πεινῇν, μηδὲ πλούτῳ διὰ τὸ φιλοπλουτεῖν; ἀλλ’ ἐν τοῖς Θρασωνίδου κακοῖς ἐστίν·
παρ’ ἐμοὶ γάρ ἐστιν ἔνδον, ἔξεστιν δέ μοι,
καὶ βούλομαι τοῦτ’ ...
ὡς οἱ ἐμμανέστατα ἐρῶντες,
... οὐ ποιῶ δε.... κ.τ.λ.]
[309] Misumenus, Fr. 6.
[310] Cp. Athen. xiii. 603 C, where not only is his continence emphasised, but also his treatment of his captives as if they were free. Cp. Menand. Sicyon. Fr. 3.
[311] Mimnermus, Anacreon, and Antimachus were all, of course, natives of Greek Asia, where the cult of women seems always, from the earliest times onwards, to have been more developed than in Greece itself. There is a certain grim irony in the tradition that would make Anaxandrides, too, a native of Colophon.
[312] Vide Fr. 3.
[313] Plaut. Epid. i. 2, 7.
[314] Cp. v. 1, 45, where the lover’s regrets are promptly answered by the assertion that there is another woman ready who will do just as well or better:
stultus, tace!
tibi quidem quod ames domi praesto.
[315] That the character of the soldier belonged essentially to erotic comedy is further shown by Plaut. Capt. prolog. 57:
hic neque periurus leno nec meretrix mala
neque miles gloriosus.
[316] This doubtless refers to some lines, now lost, which preceded the passage subsequently quoted.
[317] This is, of course, nothing but a versified version of the doctrine of the Stoic, Euclides. Cp. Diog. Laert. ii. 108.
[318] Mi. etiamne (a me didicisti) ut ames eam, quam nusquam tetigeris? nihil illuc quidem est.
Ag. deos quoque edepol et amo et metuo, quibus tamen abstineo manus. (i. 2, 69.) A remark in v. 4, 49, is similar in spirit.
[319] Plaut. Curc. i. 1, 50 seqq. Further moralisings on the power of a kiss (which almost suggest Daphnis in Longus’ Pastoralia, i. 18) occur in Menand. Incert. 7.
[320] Ter. Hec. i. 2, 60 seqq.; 85 seqq.
[321] e.g. the “Geta” in Menander’s Misumenus, Milphio in the Poenulus of Plautus, &c.
[322] Such a passage as Alexis, Incert. 35, would belong to this date. It is very different to the ribald remarks in the Philometor of Antiphanes.
[324] Ibid. p. 171.
[325] The “mater indulgens” is mentioned in Apuleius, Florid. 16, as one of the stock characters in Philemon.
[326] Menand. Incert. 109, 114, 115, are all equally to the point.
[327] Vide Ter. Hec. iv. 2, 1 seqq., a passage of great interest.
[328] Some further remarks on the family relations in New Comedy will be found in [Excursus K].
[Frequent reference is made in these pages to Plautus and Terence, as illustrating the New Comedy. The justification of such reference was to have been dealt with in an Excursus. The author was of opinion that the Latin comedians might be cited to illustrate plot and subject, though we could not be certain that the actual words or expressions in any given passage were due to Greek originals.]
[329] That there was no romantic element in Greek tragedy has already been shown at length. [See above, [pp. 37-67].]
[330] The claims of Diphilus need not be considered. His leanings towards Middle Comedy are generally admitted; in his fragments there is no suggestion of any romantic treatment of women. In fact, the only real reason for assigning him to New Comedy at all is, perhaps, the story of the Rudens, which, Arcturus states in the Prologue, is derived from this writer. Of the Casina we shall speak elsewhere. [See page 165, [note 2].]
[331] Poeta fuit hic Philemon, mediae comoediae scriptor; fabulas cum Menandro in scenam dictavit, certavitque cum eo, fortasse impar, certe aemulus. namque eum etiam vicisse saepenumero, pudet dicere. reperias tamen apud ipsum multos sales, argumenta lepide inflexa, agnatos lucide explicatos, personas rebus competentes, sententias vitae congruentes, ioca non infra soccum, seria non usque ad cothurnum. rarae apud illum corruptelae, et, uti errores, concessi amores. nec eo minus et leno periurus et amator fervidus et servulus callidus et amica illudens et uxor inhibens et mater indulgens et patruus obiurgator et sodalis opitulator et miles proeliator; sed et parasiti edaces et parentes tenaces et meretrices procaces. Apul. Flor. 16.
[332] A curious instance of this feeling is his often-expressed opinion that animals are happier than men. Cp. Incert. 3, 4, 8, etc.
[333] Cp. inter alia Apul. Flor. 16.
[334] Among many expressions to this effect, we need only mention that of Quintilian: atque ille quidem (sc. Menander) omnibus eiusdem operis auctoribus abstulit nomen et fulgore quodam suae claritatis tenebras obduxit. Inst. x. 1, 72.
[335] To take an instance from modern times. M. Daudet is said to have written his Sappho with the expressed object of showing that he, too, could produce a work which could not be left lying about. Similarly, M. Zola may be imagined to have produced La Rêve, in order to prove that even he could be decent if he tried. But any attempt to judge of the general character of these authors by the two books mentioned would be obviously futile. In like manner, in the case of Philemon, one has to consider how much of the romantic element in his comedies is due to conviction, and how much to a desire to show that romantic love-stories were a game two could play at.
[336] Platon. de Com. p. 30. ad fin. The passage distinctly suggests that these ninety-seven plays were not all that Philemon actually wrote. σώζεται δὲ αὐτοῦ (Φιλήμονος) δράματα ἑπτὰ πρὸς ἐνενήκοντα. Μένανδρος ... γέγραφε δὲ πάντα δράματα ρη΄.
The view that the total number of his plays was greater than ninety-seven seems to acquire further probability from the fact that he lived well-nigh twice as long as Menander, and continued to write up to the day of his death. Cp. Apul. Flor. 16.—It need hardly be remarked that if plays of Philemon were already lost in the time of Platonius, such plays were, in all probability, Middle rather than New Comedies.
[337] I have reserved the detailed proof of this fact, and the similar one concerning Menander, for another place, in order that the sequence of the argument may not be disturbed. Vide Excursus. [This Excursus does not appear to have been written.]
[338] It is hard to speak so positively of Philemon if, as is probable, he was merely the imitator and rival of Menander in this respect; but, of course, if it be granted that his romantic plays are subsequent to Menander’s introduction of the subject, it is a matter of indifference for the present argument whether he afterwards reverted to the older style or not.
[339] [Supra, [p. 107 seqq.]]
[340] The Scholiast here, and others, go so far as to assert that Theocritus was a pupil of Asclepiades as well as of Philetas.
[341] Φιλητᾶς ... ὢν ἐπί τε Φιλίππου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου. Suidas s.v.
[342] Cp. Anth. Pal. xii. 46.—The fact that Asclepiades was tired of life at twenty-one is, of course, no proof that he died early. Many people, especially poets, who were very anxious for death in their youth, have developed a wonderfully tenacious hold upon life as they grew older.
[343] Cp. Anth. Pal. ix. 63; supra, [p. 113].
[344] The fact that Menander called one of his plays Samia, a title which had not been used since the time of Anaxandrides, is one of those interesting coincidences that prove nothing at all.
[345] Ὑσμίνῃ παρθένῳ τῇ θυγατρὶ Σωσθένης οἰνοχοεῖν ἐγκελεύεται· ἡ δὲ ἀνεζώσατο τόν χιτῶνα, ἐγύμνωσε τὼ χεῖρε μέχρις ἀγκῶνος κ.τ.λ. Eumath. i. 8.
[346] ἔπιε μὲν οὖν ὁ Σωσθένης· οὐκ ἔπειθε γάρ με αὐτοῦ προπιεῖν. εἶτα καὶ ἡ Πανθία (ἡ τῆς Ὑσμίνης μήτηρ) συνέπιεν· ἐμὲ δὲ τρίτον εἶχεν ἡ πόσις. id. ibid.
[347] καὶ πίνων τὸν πόδα θλίβω τῆς κόρης, πόδα κατεπιθεὶς τὸν ἐμόν· ἡ δὲ σιγῶσα τῇ γλώττῃ, τῷ σχήματι λαλεῖ, καὶ λαλοῦσα σιγᾷ κ.τ.λ. id. iv. 1.
[348] “Und wie er (Euripides) in diesen alten Heroensagen die Liebe stark in den Vordergrund gerückt hatte, so wurde namentlich das alte Märchen von Perseus und Andromeda unter seinen Händen zu einem der glänzendsten Beispiele ritterlicher Liebe, &c.” Rohde, Der griechische Roman, p. 33.
[349] The dirtiness of his clothes, &c., is made a great point of. Cp. Hesych. περισχαδόν· τὸν ὑποκρινόμενον τόν Περσέα ὡς πτωχὸν καὶ φθισίμορφον. This too lends force to Lucian’s ὠχρῶν ἁπάντων καὶ λεπτῶν τῶν ἑβδομαίων ἐκείνων τραγῳδῶν. (De Conscr. Hist. 1, vol. 2, p. 2. Vide Nauck, Trag. Frag. pp. 392-3.)
Ἔρως γὰρ ἀργὸν κἀπὶ τοῖς ἀργοῖς ἔφυ;
φιλεῖ κάτοπτρα καὶ κόμης ξανθίσματα,
φεύγει δὲ μόχθους. ἓν δέ μοι τεκμήριον;
οὐδεὶς προσαιτῶν βίοτον ἠράσθη βροτῶν,
ἐν τοῖς δ’ ἔχουσιν ἡβητὴς πέφυχ’ ὅδε.
Eur. Fr. 322 (Danae).
Cp. Athen. vi. 270 C. Similar passages are very common—in fact, the view may be said to be a universal one; it arises, of course, from that purely sensual manner of regarding love, on which so much has already been said. Indeed, those who have read the early Greek literature with any attention, need perhaps hardly be reminded of how utterly foreign to the Greek of Euripides’ day is the conception of the “galante Ritter” setting out in search of ladies that want rescuing.
At the same time, it may not be amiss to emphasise a fact which, though sufficiently obvious, is yet often ignored. The fact that the Andromeda was looked upon as a romantic play some centuries later, even if it can be proved, is no proof that it was intended as such by its author, or so understood by its original audience. If Hermesianax could infer from the Odyssey that Homer was in love with Penelope, one may excuse the contemporaries of Lucian if they inferred from Euripides that Perseus was in love with Andromeda, but one need not necessarily regard their inference as a true one.
[351] One naturally thinks of Odysseus and Nausicaa, of Menelaus in the Helena (427 seqq.), &c.
[352] Fr. 129. The fact that this line was afterwards quoted ἐρωτικῶς (vide Nauck, ad loc.), is no proof that it had any such meaning in its original context.
[353] Fr. 132. There is no real objection to putting this fragment after his encounter with the monster, as the words τὰ ἐχόμενα (vide Fr. 129 Nauck) do not necessarily mean that it followed immediately after Fr. 129.
[354] i.e. πρὸς Ὄλυμπον, a very natural remark when one considers the manner of Perseus’ first arrival.
[355] Fr. 133. ἀλλ’ ἡδύ τοι σωθέντα μεμνῆσθαι πόνων.
[356] A very interesting parallel to this scene is furnished by the dream of Medea (Apoll. Rhod. iii. 625 seqq.); the resemblance is almost too great to be merely accidental. There too, of course, it need hardly be remarked, the initiative is on the side of the woman.
[357] [The reading λείπεις has considerable MS. authority, and is adopted by the majority of editors; the author is contrasting it with λείποις, the text of Dindorf, Nauck, and some others.]
[358] The MS. gives ουτοςετουταδικων (Bergk). Various readings of this have been given. The present one is mine.
[359] ἀπιὼν rather than ἀπεὼν. Cp. Prop. iii. 25, 7: flebo ego discedens.
[360] Altogether the resemblance between these poems and the Παιδικά of Theocritus is very marked. Even in the interesting passage (1367 seqq.), where the love of a boy is actually contrasted with that of a woman, the great charm of the former is said to lie not in κάλλος, but in χάρις, just as in Theocr. xxx. 4. Whether this resemblance is due to anything more than the similarity of subject is a difficult question, which need not be discussed here.
[361] Similarly, I may add, if anyone cares to regard the epigrams ascribed to Plato as genuine, he will find nothing in them but confirmation of what has already been gathered from works of less questionable authenticity.
[362] With comedy this is, of course, especially the case, for comedy appeals, in the main, to a lower intellectual class than tragedy, and is therefore compelled to be even more conservative.
[363] [Excursus G.: [page 219].]
[364] Is it merely a coincidence that this pioneer of a love-element, of a sort, in comedy, was a native of Colophon?
[365] The view that this erotic element was in no respect romantic, but dealt purely with the sensual side of the matter, is supported by (1) its inherent probability; (2) the absence of any evidence to the contrary, not only in the fragments of this writer, but also in those of Antiphanes and Alexis, who are known to have imitated him; (3) the epithet παμμίαρος applied to Anaxandrides. (Vide Meineke, Com. Fr. i. p. 369.) Though the general sense of Suidas’ words seems plain, their exact meaning is not so clear. Probably ἔρωτας refers to the introduction of ἑταῖραι and their admirers, whose mutual struggles de nocte locanda would then provide the action of the play. The sense of παρθένων φθοράς is even less evident; but the fact that it is mentioned specially, and after the word ἔρωτας, certainly seems to imply that the φθορά formed the climax of the action. In other words, the motive of the plot was the same as in the previous case, with the exception that the woman in question was a παρθένος instead of an ἑταίρα. If this were so, then these stories would, of course, differ toto caelo from those of the New Comedy, where the φθορά is an act of unpremeditated indiscretion which has taken place before the play begins, and is atoned for by the hero’s subsequent behaviour.
[366] Cp. Xenarchus, Pentathl. 1, where the same idea is developed. When one reads such lines as these, one is tempted to agree with Aristophon, that “love had been exiled from heaven.” (Pythag. Fr. 2.)
[367] There is, of course, plenty of grumbling at marriage in the New Comedy, but there the characters who give vent to it are the old men, who belong to the previous generation, and whose relations with their wives had consequently not come under the influence of romance.
[368] [This Excursus was originally written for the first Essay; the New Comedy is discussed in the second Essay. See above [p. 163].]
[369] [The author is following Meineke i. 404: the name “Amphis” is a conjectural emendation in the latter passage.]
[370] Cp. supra, [p. 227]. This feeling is, of course, common enough; cp. Alexis, Manteis, γυναιξὶ δοῦλοι ζῶμεν ἀντ’ ἐλευθέρων, κ.τ.λ.
[371] Plaut. Asin. i. 1, 53 seqq. (patres ut consueverunt, ego mitto omnia haec, l. 64); Bacch. v. 2, 89 seqq. (hi senes, nisi fuissent nihil iam inde a adulescentia, non hodie hoc tantum flagitium facerent canis capitibus, etc.) Of course, if anyone prefers to believe that these apologies are due to the Latin author, no one can very well contradict him.