Menander

Menander (c. 342/341–c. 290 BC) was an ancient Greek playwright and the leading figure of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and won first prize at the Lenaia festival eight times; his record at the City Dionysia is not known. In antiquity, he was among the most popular and admired writers, but by the early Middle Ages his work was thought lost. Today, it survives only in Latin adaptations by Terence and Plautus, and in highly fragmentary Greek texts, most discovered on papyrus in Egyptian tombs during the early to mid-20th century. In the 1950s, classicists were thrilled to learn that a single play, *Dyskolos*, had been found intact enough to perform in the Bodmer Papyri.

Menander came from a wealthy family. His father, Diopeithes, may be the same Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese mentioned in a speech by Demosthenes. His uncle Alexis likely sparked his interest in comedy. He was a friend, associate, and possibly a student of Theophrastus, and was close to the Athenian ruler Demetrius of Phalerum. Ptolemy Soter invited him to court, but Menander preferred the freedom of his villa in Piraeus and the company of his mistress Glycera, so he declined. According to a scholiast on Ovid’s *Ibis*, he drowned while bathing; his countrymen honored him with a tomb on the road to Athens, which Pausanias later saw. Many supposed busts survive, including a well-known Vatican statue once thought to depict Gaius Marius.

His rival in drama—and reportedly for Glycera’s affections—was Philemon, who seems to have been more popular. Menander considered himself the better playwright and, according to Aulus Gellius, would ask Philemon, “Don’t you feel ashamed whenever you gain a victory over me?” Caecilius of Calacte (via Porphyry in Eusebius) accused Menander of plagiarism, claiming *The Superstitious Man* was taken from Antiphanes’ *The Augur*, but such reworkings were common, making the charge complicated. It is unclear how long complete copies of his plays survived, though 23, with commentary by Michael Psellus, were reportedly still in Constantinople in the 11th century. He is praised by Plutarch and Quintilian, who accepted the tradition that Menander wrote the speeches attributed to the orator Charisius.

An admirer of Euripides, Menander shared his keen observation of daily life, emotional analysis, and fondness for moral maxims—many became proverbial, such as “The property of friends is common,” “Whom the gods love die young,” and “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (from *Thaïs*, quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:33). These maxims, mostly monostichs, were later collected and edited as *Menander’s One-Verse Maxims*, a moral textbook for schools. The only surviving speech from his early play *Drunkenness* attacks the politician Callimedon in the bawdy style of Aristophanes, which Menander used in many plays.

He had many Roman imitators. Terence’s *Eunuchus*, *Andria*, *Heauton Timorumenos*, and *Adelphi*—called by Caesar “dimidiatus Menander”—were openly taken from Menander, though some combine multiple plays. For example, *Andria* merged *The Woman from Andros* and *The Woman from Perinthos*; *Eunuchus* combined *The Eunuch* and *The Flatterer*; and *Adelphi* drew from Menander and Diphilus. Terence’s *Hecyra* and *Phormio* likely come from Apollodorus of Carystus, not Menander. Plautus’ *Bacchides* and *Stichus* probably derive from Menander’s *The Double Deceiver* and *Brotherly-Loving Men*, but *Poenulus* and *Mostellaria* do not seem to be from *The Carthaginian* or *The Apparition*, despite similar titles. Caecilius Statius, Luscius Lanuvinus, Turpilius, and Atilius also imitated him. Some epigrams of doubtful authenticity are credited to him; letters to Ptolemy Soter and prose discourses mentioned by the Suda are likely spurious.

Most of Menander’s work did not survive the Middle Ages, except as short fragments. Federico da Montefeltro’s library at Urbino reportedly held a complete works, but this is questioned, and no trace remains after Cesare Borgia captured the city and the library moved to the Vatican. Until the late 19th century, all that existed were fragments quoted by other authors, collected by Augustus Meineke (1855) and Theodor Kock (1888)—about 1,650 verses or parts of verses, plus words quoted by ancient lexicographers.

This changed in 1907 with the discovery of the Cairo Codex, which contained large parts of *Samia*, *Perikeiromene*, and *Epitrepontes*; a section of *Heros*; and another fragment from an unknown play. A 115-line fragment of *Sikyonioi* was found in a mummy case’s papier-mâché in 1906. In 1959, the Bodmer papyrus was published, containing *Dyskolos*, more of *Samia*, and half of *Aspis*. In the late 1960s, more of *Sikyonioi* was discovered as filling for two mummies.