τί φῄς; σὺ ταυτὶ προσδοκᾷς πείθειν ἐμέ,
ὡς ἔστ’ ἐραστὴς ὅστις, ὡραῖον φιλῶν,
τρόπων ἐραστής ἐστι, τὴν ὄψιν παρείς;
ἄφρων γ’ ἀληθῶς. κ.τ.λ.
[Fr. 2.]
But the clearest proof of all is that furnished by the fact that Plato himself, and Sappho, whose style of love was, as we have already had occasion to observe,[263] recognised as similar in spirit to that advocated by the philosopher, are, perhaps, the two favourite butts for the wit of the Middle Comedy. That the Plato of Aristophon, like the Hedychares of Theopompus, of which we have already spoken, and the Sapphos of Antiphanes, Amphis, Ephippus, and Timocles, were, at least some of them, in part devoted to this subject, it seems only reasonable to believe, while sporadic allusions to the matter are, of course, sufficiently common. The one possible exception to this general rule appears in the Helene of Alexis, where a character is introduced upholding the Platonic view of love; but it would be bold, in the face of so much evidence on the other side, to assert that this isolated statement in any way indicates the general tone of the comedy in question. It is far more likely that the champion of these views (perhaps Theseus[264]) was made to see the error of his ways and repent his lost opportunities before the play was out.
And akin in spirit to the above is the tendency, so common that it hardly needs special illustration, to throw ridicule on the married state and on family life in general.[265] When the man, who is called the originator of the erotic element in Middle Comedy, can write words like these:
ὅστις γαμεῖν βουλεύετ’, οὐ βουλεύεται
ὀρθῶς, διότι βουλεύεται χοὔτω γαμεῖ,
(Anaxandrides, Incert. 1.)