[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