Antimachus of Colophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry / A fragment printed for the use of scholars

by E. F. M. Benecke

IX. The Origins of the Romantic Comedy.

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

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

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

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

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

Now when we further reflect that it is not probable that, after a writer has once taken to a new and successful development of art, he will then fall back again to any considerable extent upon the old, and that therefore the Middle Comedies of Menander, and also of Philemon,[338] belong, in all probability, to their earlier period and are anterior to the introduction of the romantic element, it becomes obvious that the date of the introduction of this element into Comedy, (that is to say, the date of the birth of New Comedy,) must be put considerably later than is usually done, and that, instead of fixing this date at 330, or even at 322, we must rather fix it somewhere between the years 315 and 310. For assuming, as we seem in every way justified in doing, that about a quarter of the plays of Menander belonged in spirit still to Middle Comedy, and that his rate of production increased rather than diminished with advancing years, a simple calculation will enable us to put the date within these limits.

Granted then that the introduction of the romantic element into Comedy was due to Menander, and took place about the year 312, there remains the final question, Where did Menander get the idea from? It has, I trust, been made sufficiently clear by this time that he did not derive it from his predecessors in Comedy, nor yet from his favourite model Euripides. He may, of course, have evolved it independently for himself, but this, seeing that a similar conclusion had been arrived at some hundred years before, is not very probable. It has already been demonstrated that the romantic idea, (that is to say, the idea that a woman is a worthy object for a man’s love, and that such love may well be the chief, if not the only, aim of a man’s life,) had originally been propounded by Antimachus of Colophon at the end of the fifth century[339]; it seems, therefore, well-nigh certain that this idea must have been communicated in some way to Menander from Antimachus, and the only point that remains to be considered is the probable method of this communication.

It is possible that the influence may have been direct. It is possible that the accident of a copy of the Lyde coming into Menander’s hands may have suggested to him the idea which he subsequently developed with such success. It is possible, and, in the absence of evidence, one way or the other, it would be bold to assert that it was not the case; but, at the same time, it seems on the whole more probable that the influence was of a different kind, and that Menander’s attention was first called to the views propounded by Antimachus through the medium of some third person. While it is, of course, futile to expect proof in such a case as this, there is, perhaps, one personality among those we know belonging to the period, in favour of which, rather than of any other, the evidence seems to tend. This is Asclepiades, the originator of the erotic epigram, and a poet of great influence upon various contemporary writers. It is true that it is usual to place the date of Asclepiades somewhat later than that which we have decided must be fixed for the appearance of the New Comedy, but this later date does not rest on any very strong evidence. Asclepiades is mentioned along with Philetas in Theocritus vii. 40, in a way which, at any rate, does not exclude the possibility that he was a contemporary;[340] Philetas, as we know, was born in the reign of Philip,[341] say, 338; Asclepiades may have been born several years later, even in 330, and yet have had an influence on Menander, for, as we know, he began his career as an erotic poet at a very early age.[342] It is by no means improbable that he may have visited Athens to complete his education; his epigrams show an acquaintance with Athenian comedy and life as there described which could hardly have been acquired elsewhere; such visits were paid to Athens by Callimachus, Aratus, and others. It will, of course, be urged that the influence may have been just the reverse, and that Menander suggested the romantic idea to Asclepiades; but this is improbable for two reasons. In the first place, Asclepiades is known to have been a student of Antimachus,[343] while Menander, as far as we know, was not; in the second, though Asclepiades shows, as has been said, evident traces of the influence of comedy, such comedy is not New, but distinctly Middle Comedy, as is sufficiently plain from the drinking-scenes described in Anth. Pal. v. 181, 185, from the frequent, or rather, constant allusions to Hetaerae in his epigrams, and from the complete absence from them of those particular features of the romantic idea which Menander himself developed. It is therefore well-nigh certain that, if there was influence from either side,—and, when one considers the close sympathy between the ideals of the two writers, the conclusion that there was some more than merely fortuitous affinity between them is almost irresistible—such influence came from the side of the brilliant young Samian, who would thus deserve the credit of having originally inspired not merely the romantic epigram, but also the romantic drama.[344] That this was actually so, no one can of course affirm; but that it may have been, no one who is familiar with the “wild-flowers of Asclepiades” will be likely to deny.