We have no Iolaus in the city
To singe the necks from which these pests arise,
In whom foul lives alone secure the prize.”
As students of the Classics themselves find great difficulty in drawing strict boundaries between the Old and Middle Comedy, we need not pay careful attention to exact dates, but accept the general idea that one passed into the other at about the time the Peloponnesian War ended.
This was 404 B.C. and Middle Comedy may be said to extend from that date until the overthrow of the Athenians by Philip of Macedon in 338 B.C.
The most distinguished poet of the Middle Comedy was Antiphanes, who lived in the Fourth Century, B.C.
His lines are epigrammatic and frequently refer to the prevailing theme of drunkenness.
“No trade more pleasant is, no art,
Than ours who play the flatterer’s part.
The painter overworked gets cross,