[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].]