11. To conclude; as in Attica, so among the Dorians, comedy connected itself with the country festivals of Bacchus; and, as Aristotle says,[1626] originated from the extemporaneous songs of those who led the Phallic processions, which were still customary in many Greek cities at the time of that philosopher. Of this, Sicyon furnishes an example. There was there a dance called Ἀλητὴρ,[1627] which was probably of a Phallic nature; and also a comic entertainment, called the Phallophori,[1628] in which the actors, with their heads and faces adorned with flowers, but unmasked, came into the theatre, in stately garments, some at the common entrance, some at the scene-doors; the Phallophorus, his face smeared with soot, walked first from among them, and, after giving notice that they came with a new song in honour of Bacchus, they began to ridicule any person they chose to select. Thus too the Phlyaces of Tarentum were probably connected with the worship of Bacchus, whose festivals were accompanied with similar rejoicings in Sicily.[1629]
Yet the rites of Demeter sometimes gave rise among the Dorians to lascivious entertainments of this kind, as we learn from the description in Herodotus of the Æginetan choruses of women at the festival of Artemis and Auxesia, which provoked others of their sex [pg 353] by riotous and insulting language.[1630] These mockeries were, however, only the humour of the moment, and were merely accessaries to certain dances and songs; but among the Megarians, comedy, we know not by what means, obtained a more artificial character, and a more independent form.
Chapter VII.
§ 1. Origin of comedy at Megara. § 2. Life and drama of Epicharmus. § 3. Traces of theatrical representations on painted vases. § 4. Political and philosophical tendency of the drama of Epicharmus. § 5. Mimes of Sophron. § 6. Plays of Rhinthon. § 7. Origin of tragedy at the city festivals of Bacchus. § 8. Early history of the Doric tragedy. § 9. Character of the Doric lyric poetry. § 10. Doric lyric poets. § 11. Origin of the Doric lyric poetry. § 12. Character of the Doric style of sculpture.
1. At Athens, a coarse and ill-mannered jest was termed a Megarian joke;[1631] which may be considered as a certain proof of the decided propensity of that people to humour. This is confirmed by the claims of the Megarians, who disputed the invention of comedy with the Athenians,[1632] and perhaps not without justice, if indeed the term invention be at all applicable [pg 354] to the rise of the several branches of poetry, which sprung so gradually, and at such different times, from the particular feelings excited by the ancient festival rites, that it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to fix upon the period at which the species of composition to which each gave rise was sufficiently advanced to be called a particular kind of poetry. Yet it is in the highest degree probable that the Athenians were indebted for the earliest form of their comic poetry to the Megarians. The Megarian comedy is ridiculed by Ecphantides, one of the early comic poets of Athens, as rude and unpolished, which circumstance alone makes its higher antiquity probable.[1633] Ecphantides, whom Aristophanes, Cratinus, and others, ridicule as rough and unpolished,[1634] looks down in his turn on those who had introduced comedy from Megara, and claims the merit of first seasoning the uncouth Megarian productions with Attic salt. But one of the earliest introducers of comedy was, according to the most credible and authentic accounts, Susarion, a native of Tripodiscus, an ancient village in the Megarian territory;[1635] in Attica he made his first appearance in the village of Icaria,[1636] situated on [pg 355] the borders of Megaris and Bœotia;[1637] where it is known from mythological fables, that the rural festival of Bacchus had been celebrated from an early period. The argument for its Doric origin, derived from the name κωμῳδία, “the village-song” (the Peloponnesians calling their villages κῶμαι, and the Athenians δῆμοι), is by no means conclusive, as the derivation of that name from the word κῶμος, a tumultuous festival procession, is far more probable. The early time at which comedy must have flourished may be seen from the fact, that it passed over to Athens in the 50th Olympiad;[1638] but of its character we should form a very partial judgment, if we trusted implicitly to the accounts of the Athenian neighbours; and yet we have no other means of information.
The ancient comedy of Susarion, and of the Megarians, was (as is clear from the passage of Ecphantides) founded on a dramatic principle; although a species of lyric poetry, also called comedy, had existed from an early period among the Dorians and Æolians;[1639] nor can I admit the opinion of Aristotle, [pg 356] that Epicharmus and Phormis were the first who wrote a comedy with a plot or story; previously to those poets, only some extempore and abusive speeches (ἰαμβίζειν) were, according to his view of the subject, introduced between the songs of the chorus; but if this had been the case, the Megarian comedy would not have differed materially from the Sicyonian sports of the Phallophori, nor have attracted so much attention as it actually did. A Megarian actor, named Mæson, is often mentioned by the ancients as the inventor of masks of certain characters of low comedy, as cooks, scullions, sailors, and the like.[1640] Hence it may be inferred that these Megarian farces, with their established or frequently recurring characters, had some resemblance to the Oscan Atellane plays.
2. It is indeed very probable that the Megarian furnished the first germ and elements of the Sicilian comedy, as perfected by Epicharmus. For the Megarians in Sicily, as well as those near Athens, laid claim, according to Aristotle,[1641] to the invention of comedy, and there is no doubt that a communication was kept up between those two states. Now it is possible that comedy was brought from Megara to Syracuse, when Gelon (484 or 483 B.C.)[1642] transplanted the inhabitants from the former to the latter city; and thus the elements of comedy which existed in the choruses and iambic speeches, were, by their subsequent combination with a more improved species of poetry, brought to maturity. This supposition, [pg 357] however, rests upon mere conjecture. Epicharmus, the son of Helothales,[1643] must have gone to Syracuse at this emigration, having formerly resided at Megara; but he cannot be considered as the person who really introduced comedy at Syracuse, as he had lived only a short time at Megara; he was, as we are credibly informed, a native of Cos,[1644] and went to Sicily with Cadmus, that is, about, or soon after, 480 B.C.,[1645] and he must at this time have been at least a youth, in order to have acquired a name and influence in the reign of Hieron (between 478 and 467 B.C.)[1646] In confirmation of the statement that he was a native of Cos, it may be remarked, that he was likewise a physician, which was the regular profession of his brother, his family being probably connected with that of the Asclepiadæ. Phormis, or Phormus, who by Aristotle and others is often mentioned with Epicharmus, appears to have been earlier than that poet by some Olympiads, having been the friend of Gelon, and tutor to his children;[1647] but his fame was so completely [pg 358] eclipsed by that of his successor, that there is scarcely anything remaining of his plays, except a few titles,[1648] which however show that he parodied mythological subjects.
But Epicharmus is much less known and esteemed than his peculiar style of writing and dramatic skill deserve; and those authors greatly err, who fix upon the period when his peculiar kind of poetry had arrived at perfection, as the commencement of the Athenian comedy, and attribute the clumsy and rustic simplicity from which the latter emerged, to the Sicilian style, which had enjoyed all the advantages which the life of a city and court could afford.[1649] Before, therefore, we enter into details respecting the dramas, of Epicharmus, we will say a few words on the nature of his subjects, and his mode of handling them.
The subjects of the plays of Epicharmus were chiefly mythological, that is, parodies or travesties of mythology, nearly in the style of the satyric drama of Athens. Thus in the comedy of Busiris, Hercules was represented in the most ludicrous light, as a voracious glutton, and he was again exhibited in the same character (with a mixture perhaps of satirical remarks on the luxury of the times) in “the Marriage of Hebe,” in which an astonishing number of [pg 359] dishes was mentioned.[1650] We can however form a better notion of the drama called “Hephæstus, or the Revellers,” chiefly by the help of some ancient works of art, which have come down to us. The play began we are told, with Hephæstus chaining his mother Here by magical charms to a seat, from which he only released her after long entreaties.[1651] Now on a vase discovered at Bari in the kingdom of Naples, and now preserved in the British Museum,[1652] Here, with the superscription ᾽ΗΡΑ,[1653] is seen seated on a throne; on her right is a clown fantastically dressed, whom his pointed cap marks as a servant of Hephæstus, and his name, Dædalus, is written over his head;[1654] on her left is Mars, dressed, with the exception of his helmet, in the same fashion (with the superscription ΕΝΕΥΑΛΙΟΣ); both these figures are armed, and endeavouring, the one to dissolve, the other to strengthen the charm by which Here is held. The whole scene is evidently supposed to take place on a stage, leading to which there are some steps; and as there were no other Sicilian or Italian comedies on the same subject, it may without hesitation be considered as a representation of the first part of the Hephæstus of Epicharmus.