Chapter VII: Part 7

[52] It may be argued that in a work intended “for the use of schools” the erotic passages would naturally be cut out. But even granted that this collection was made for the use of schools, the system of expurgation, which, while striking out the passages dealing with women, has left what would nowadays be considered so much more objectionable, is in itself sufficiently noteworthy. The next schoolmaster who undertakes a school edition of Theocritus may lay this to heart.

[53] How different is the treatment of boy-love both in Book I. and also in Book II., which is specially devoted to it, will be dwelt upon later. [p. 88.]

[54] Vide Excursus A.

[55] Cp. Aristoph. _Vesp._ 1217 _seqq._

[56] The only exception, rather an interesting one, is _Scol._ 20, which, evidently modelled on the one that precedes it, is the answer of a woman-lover. But here again the vagueness (merely καλὴ γυνή, anyone will do) shows what the singer means.

[57] Perhaps, too, those of Althaea (in the _Syotherae_) and Medea (_Fr._ 54).

[58] _Fr._ 68; to the same poem evidently belongs _Fr._ 85.

[59] There is really no adequate reason for disbelieving the story in Ptol. Hephaest. iv. (Gale, _Hist. poet. script. ant._ p. 320; cf. Bergk. _ad Stesich._ _Fr._ 26.) What that story seems to imply is that Helen of Himera deserted the poet, who was thereby induced to moralise on the innate faithlessness of Helens in general. A subsequent reconciliation with the lady in question then led to the celebrated apology. The greater influence which women seem to have had over old men than over young, will already have been noticed in the cases of Alcman and Anacreon. The phenomenon could easily be explained, if it were necessary to explain it.—Vide _e.g._ Eur. _Suppl._ 1098 _seqq._

[60] That in the original form of the legend Daphnis refuses to yield to love, and dies sooner than submit, has been shown by Reitzenstein, _Epig. u. Skol._ p. 193 _seqq._

But the passage from Aelian (_Var. Hist._ x. 18) never says that Stesichorus told the story of Daphnis. It says he wrote bucolic poetry, which is not necessarily the same thing. If only Theocritus, who wrote bucolic poetry, had told some more of the story of Daphnis, the necessity of reading a great quantity of literature on the subject would have been spared us.

[61] It is rather tempting to think of this story as a Greek version of Tristan and Isolde. Rhadina is going from Samos to be married to the King of Corinth, and travels out with her cousin Leontichus on the same ship. There the fatal mischief is done; they separate for a while, but the charm is irresistible, and her lover hurries from Delphi to meet his death at the hands of the Corinthian “King Marc.”

[62] The name of Cycnus seems at first sight suggestive, but the story as related in the Scholiast on Pindar unfortunately proves nothing.

[63] He seems to have discussed or commented on the habits of the Spartan ladies (_Fr._ 61), but whether to praise or blame we do not know.

[64] _e.g._ _Fr._ 37, where he makes Achilles marry Medea; or _Fr._ 38, where Hermione becomes the wife of Diomed.

[65] _Fr._ 13, _ad fin._ The Ἐρωτικά of Bacchylides are not very elevated in character, but they are interesting as furnishing what is, perhaps, the first complimentary notice of the ἑταίρα in literature. (_Fr._ 24.)

[66] The Sicilian Telestes makes rather an interesting remark about Athene when she throws away the flute because it spoils her looks:

τί γάρ νιν εὐηράτοιο κάλλεος
ὀξὺς ἔρως ἔτειρεν,
ᾇ παρθενίαν ἄγαμον καὶ ἄπαιδ’ ἀπένειμε Κλωθώ;

But, as we have already seen, men took more interest in women in Magna Graecia than in Greece itself.

[67] The _Phaedra_, _Oenomaus_, and perhaps the _Colchides_.

[68] Among the extant plays there is only the _Hippolytus_, and even in this, probably to the Greek mind a great part of the interest centred in the relations between Hippolytus and Theseus, and in their argument, where both start from the assumption that it would be absurd to suppose that the former could possibly have been in love with Phaedra. Of the lost plays it is hard to speak with confidence, but certainly the _Andromeda_, _Phoenix_, and _Aeolus_, seem to have been the only three in which the love element was at all the leading motive. The heroine of the _Meleager_ was probably Althaea, not Atalanta. The _Stheneboea_ merely describes the vengeance of Bellerophon for the treachery of his hosts. In the _Antigone_ the “love-story” has all taken place before the action begins. Of the _Alcestis_ and the _Protesilaus_ we shall speak elsewhere, pp. 57, 99.

[69] That is to say, two only in which it furnished the main interest. That it lent a peculiar character to various other tragedies will be shown further on.

[70] Cp. what has been said above (p. 35) in the case of Ibycus; the parallel is a remarkable and important one.

[71] The statement to this effect in Aristoph. _Ran._ 1044, is so definite that it seems necessary to infer from it that, in spite of the words in Schol. _ad Apoll. Rhod._ i. 773, the erotic incident in the _Hypsipyle_ was very little emphasised.

[72] _Suppl._ 996 _seqq._

[73] _Theb._ 182 _seqq._

[74]

πῶς οὐχὶ τἀνάλωμα γίγνεται πικρόν,
ἄνδρας γυναικῶν οὕνεχ’ αἱμάξαι πέδον;

_Suppl._ 476.

καὶ γυναικὸς οὕνεκα
πόλιν διημάθυνεν Ἀργεῖον δάκος.

_Agam._ 823.

[75]

οὕτω γυναικὸς οὐ προτιμήσω μόρον
ἄνδρα κτανούσης.

_Eum._ 739.

To his views as to the physical unimportance of the mother, as compared with the father (_e.g._ _Eum._ 657 _seqq._), I shall have occasion to refer later. See Excursus. [This Excursus does not seem to have been written.]

[76] How far Aeschylus has followed the _Oresteia_ of Stesichorus, and how far he has modified it, cannot now be known; but it seems reasonable to suppose that, in all probability, the Clytemnestra of the latter poet was a good deal more in love with Aegisthus than is the Clytemnestra of the former. This would explain some incongruities in the Aeschylean character, such as her sudden protestations of affection for Aegisthus when dead, after her apparent indifference to him when living. (_Cho._ 893, etc.) That she should kill Agamemnon out of revenge for the death of Iphigeneia and through jealousy of Cassandra, are perhaps additions of Aeschylus, to whose Athenian mind it seemed impossible that a woman should murder her husband merely because she was fond of another man.

[77] One may say, of course, if one likes, that this is all ironical, that she does not mean it, and that in reality she is as jealous as anyone else could be, as her subsequent actions show. Personally, I do not believe that the passage is meant to be in the least ironical; the absence of jealousy is always a feature of the model wife (_cp._ Eur. _And._ 222, and numerous similar passages); but even if this be granted, it makes no difference to the point at all. Whatever the audience are to think, the characters on the stage are supposed to take her seriously; and this fact throws a sufficient light on what was then thought to be the duty of a loving wife.

It is satisfactory to notice that neither does Heracles attach any undue importance to Iole. In his last words to Hyllus, after elaborate instructions as to how his funeral-pyre is to be built, he adds casually—

ἀλλ’ ἀρκέσει καὶ ταῦτα· πρόσνειμαι δέ μοι
χάριν βραχεῖαν πρὸς μακροῖς ἄλλοις διδούς.

“Just marry Iole for me, will you?” (l. 1216.)

[78] In this same play, the reader must be careful not to misunderstand the motives of Haemon’s suicide. He does not kill himself out of grief for Antigone, but out of shame (αὑτῷ χολωθείς) at having attacked his father. That love for a woman should have made him so far forget himself was a disgrace not to be borne.

[79] The words of l. 144 _seqq._ at once suggest Catullus lxii. esp. 39 _seqq._ But this poem of Catullus is generally admitted to be, if not an actual translation, at least a paraphrase of Sappho; hence it is far more probable that Sophocles copied Sappho here, than that Catullus copied Sophocles there.

Another instance in which a tragedian copied an _Epithalamium_ of Sappho is furnished by Aesch. _Suppl._ 998. _Cp._ Sappho _Fr._ 91, Longus _Past._ 3, 33, and my _Apospasmata Critica_ (Oxford, Blackwell, 1892), p. 5.

[80] A great deal of light would be thrown on all this intricate subject if only one could find out how far, if at all, Sophocles was influenced by Euripides. Euripides, as we shall see later, was always ready to sympathise with women who suffered from the unreasonable treatment of the time, but it does not seem _prima facie_ probable that this particular trait should have had influence on anyone so Athenian as Sophocles. Anyhow, these two passages prove nothing.

[81] This is exactly the idea of the well-known Ἔρως chorus in the _Antigone_. (l. 781). There, too, love is unavoidable (καί σ’ οὔτ’ ἀθανάτων φύξιμος οὐδεὶς, οὔθ’ ἁμερίων σέ γ’ ἀνθρώπων), it results in madness (ὁ δ’ ἔχων μέμηνεν, “the stricken one is mad,” as the Romans said “habet” of their gladiators), and the chief damage it does is to property (ὃς ἐν κτήμασι, πίπτεις). Like Eresichthon’s father, what the Chorus most object to is the expense.

[82] [p. 38.]

[83] Vide Excursus B.

[84] This feature is of course by no means peculiar to Sophocles; it is prominent both in Aeschylus and Euripides (_e.g._ the pathetic passage in _Orest._ 1041 _seqq._), and doubtless for the same reason. In Sophocles, however, perhaps owing merely to the chance which has preserved certain plays while others have been lost, it plays a particularly important part. Not only are the _Antigone_ and the _Electra_ almost entirely devoted to it, but the one ray of light in the 1800 lines of the _Oedipus Coloneus_ is the farewell of Polynices to his sister. (l. 1414 _seqq._)

[85] Soph. _Ant._ 909 _seqq._ This seems the natural and obvious way of taking these words, but whichever way one takes them they do not imply any very great respect for matrimony.

Whether the lines are Sophocles’ or not is of course indifferent in this connection, as everyone is agreed that, if an interpolation, they are a very early one.

[86] This is not, I think, saying too much. A story like that of Canace, however powerfully it might affect its audience, was, after all, even in later times, looked upon as something quite exceptional in Greece. (Cp. the later Athenian view on the subject as illustrated by Plaut. _Epid._ v. i. 45, _seqq._)

[87] It is worth while, however, to notice that even the women themselves in Aristophanes are made to confess that this so-called misogyny is, in truth, merely realism. Cp. _e.g._ Aristoph. _Thesm._ 389 _seqq._, _Eccl._ 214 _seqq._

[88] _e.g._ _Fr._ 822, etc.

[89] _Fr._ 321.

[90] _Hipp._ 373 _seqq._ Tempting as it is to take this passage as ironical, it would almost certainly be wrong to do so.

[91] _Hec._ 342 _seqq._

[92] See Excursus C. It is true that in the intrigue of Macareus and Canace there is some reason to believe that the former was, contrary to the usual habit of these legends, the leading spirit; but in the _Aeolus_ of Euripides this beginning of the story seems to have only been alluded to in the prologue, and not to have formed part of the action.—Cp. Antiphanes, _Aeol. Fr._ 1.

[93] The most striking example is perhaps the _Iphigeneia in Aulis_, but there are plenty of others.

Instances in which women are represented as in love with men are somewhat commoner, as they were commoner in the legends; but the part they play in Euripides, as a whole, has been greatly exaggerated. Cp. p. 38.

[94] ἤρων· τὸ μαίνεσθαι δ’ ἄρ’ ἦν ἔρως βροτοῖς.—_Fr._ 161 (_Antigone_). Cp. _Hipp._ 443 _seqq._

[95] Suidas (s.v. Ἀναγυράσιος) τούτου δὲ (τοῦ θεοῦ) ἐξέκοψέ τις τὸ ἄλσος· ὁ δὲ τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ ἐπέμηνε τὴν παλλακήν ... ἱστορεῖ δὲ Ἱερώνυμος ἐν τῷ περὶ τραγῳδοποιῶν, ἀπεικάζων τούτοις τὸν Εὐριπίδου Φοίνικα. Cp. id. s.v. ἐναύειν. Vide Nauck, _Trag. Graec. Frag._ p. 621.

[96] The difference is described with wonderful force by Maximus Tyrius (xxv. 4): ὁ μὲν ἐφ’ ἡδονὴν οἰστρεῖ, ὁ δὲ κάλλους ἐρᾶ· ὁ μὲν ἄκων νοσεῖ, ὁ δὲ ἑκὼν ἐρᾷ· ὁ μὲν ἐπ’ ἀγαθῷ ἐρᾷ τοῦ ἐρωμένου, ὁ δὲ ἐπ’ ὀλέθρῳ ἀμφοῖν.—I have spoken here merely of women because we have so little absolute evidence as to men, but what little we have all goes to prove that their view of “love” was at least as sensual as that of the women, and if anything even more brutal; and, anyhow, there is no evidence of the contrary. It is very hard satisfactorily to compare Euripides with people like Asclepiades, who are the earliest representatives we know of the modern spirit, for this very reason, that while the former nearly always discusses the matter from the point of view of the woman, the latter do so with almost equal regularity, as far as we can now judge, from the point of view of the man. One thing, however, is clear enough at the very outset. While Euripides regards the relation between man and woman as entirely based on the sexual instinct, the Alexandrians have from the first imported into it that further feeling of comradeship and mutual self-sacrifice which had before been peculiar to the relation between man and man. For obvious reasons this great change first became noticeable on the side of the man (for the influence of Sappho’s school had probably by this time become inappreciable), but its effects are evident enough as soon as the Alexandrians begin to talk of a woman’s love. The difference between, say, the Medea of Apollonius and the most refined heroine of the Attic drama is one, not of degree, but of kind.

[97] _Andr._ 205 _seqq._

[98] The early Greek view of “love” is put here with almost revolting crudeness. Hermione’s devotion to her husband and Helen’s desertion of hers, are due to one and the same cause—sensual passion.

[99]

γυναῖκα γὰρ χρὴ πάντα συγχωρεῖν πόσει,
ἥτις φρενήρης.

(_Elect._ 1052.)

[100]

ἀλλ’ ἐς τοσοῦτον ἥκεθ’ ὥστ’ ὀρθουμένης
εὐνῆς γυναῖκες πάντ’ ἔχειν νομίζετε,
ἢν δ’ αὖ γένηται ξυμφορά τις ἐς λέχος κ.τ.λ.

(_Med._ 569.)

ΙΑ. λέχους σφε κἠξίωσας οὕνεκα κτανεῖν;

ΜΗ. σμικρὸν γυναικὶ πῆμα τοῦτ’ εἶναι δοκεῖς;

ΙΑ. ἥτις γε σώφρων.

(_ibid._ 1367.)

[101] πᾶσα γὰρ δούλη πέφυκεν ἀνδρὸς ἡ σώφρων γυνή.—_Fr._ 545 (_Oedipus_).

[102] Cp. Andromache in _Tro._ 642 _seqq._ Other instances are numerous. This view and that as to jealousy evidently hang together, for it must be admitted that if a wife considers it her duty to become so supremely uninteresting and stupid as such a method of life must inevitably make her, it is also her duty to be lenient to her husband if he occasionally seeks for entertainment outside the domestic circle.

[103]

οὐ γὰρ ποτ’ ἄνδρα τὸν σοφὸν γυναικὶ χρὴ
δοῦναι χαλινοὺς.

_Fr._ 463 (_Cressae_); cp. _Fr._ 464.

[104] _Tro._ 1012 _seqq._; cp. _Hipp._ 419 _seqq._

[105] _i.e._ her means of livelihood.

τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα δεύτερ’ ἂν πάσχοι γυνή·
ἀνδρὸς δ’ ἁμαρτάνουσ’ ἁμαρτάνει βίου.

(_Andr._ 372; cp. _ibid._ 904.)

[106] _Fr._ 402 (_Ino_).

[107] Cp. _Andr._ 1279 _seqq._; _Fr._ 215 (_Antiope_), &c.

[108]

οὐκ ἔστι τοῦδε παισὶ κάλλιον γέρας,
ἢ πατρὸς ἐσθλοῦ κἀγαθοῦ πεφυκέναι,
γαμεῖν τ’ ἀπ’ ἐσθλῶν· ὃς δὲ νικηθεὶς πόθῳ
κακοῖς ἐκοινώνησεν, οὐκ ἐπαινέσω,
τέκνοις ὄνειδος οὕνεχ’ ἡδονῆς λιπεῖν.

(_Heracl._ 297.)

[109] To what extent it also figured in that strange play, the _Protesilaus_, cannot now be known, but it is only probable that it was prominent there also.

[110] Here again one almost marvels at the way in which Euripides misses an opportunity. The contrast between the joy of Alcestis at saving Admetus’ life, and her grief for her ruined ideal, would have furnished as splendid a conflict of emotions as any dramatist could desire. Athenian taste, however, preferred that she should die congratulating him on having had such a wife, while he stands by expressing his deep regret that he cannot accompany her, as Charon does not issue return tickets. For a further examination of the motives of Admetus, however, see p. 101.

[111] It must be admitted that Jason has a higher opinion of his own influence (_Med._ 942 _seqq._), if, indeed, this be the right way to take the passage.

[112] This seems to have been still more the case in the first version of the play, where Hippolytus appears actually as a βουκόλος, or ascetic worshipper of Artemis, and where he is promised immortality as the reward of his constancy. See Reitzenstein, _Epig. u. Skol._ p. 210 _seqq._ and Excursus D.

[113]

oἱ σώφρονες yὰp οὐχ ἑκόντες, ἀλλ’ ὅμως
κακῶν ἐρῶσι.

(_Hipp._ 358.)

[114] One may argue, of course, that Hippolytus, as a devotee of Orpheus, etc., would be naturally more prone to ignore the “love-element” than a person of more human passions, and that this strange disproportion in his speech is a mark of his character. Personally I doubt this, as, firstly, the characters of the Athenian drama, when making their set speeches, generally quite forget who they are—indeed, the wonder is they don’t sometimes slip into an ἄνδρες δικασταί—and, secondly, if Hippolytus had been meant to slur over an important part of his subject, his reasons for so doing would have been more definitely explained. The conclusion seems to me inevitable, that neither Hippolytus nor Theseus thought the possibility of the former’s having been in love with Phaedra worthy of serious discussion.

[115] Mahaffy, _Class. Gr. Lit._ vol. i. p. 370.

[116] It is true that, later on, the magnificent heroism of Iphigeneia extorts from Achilles what is perhaps one of the earliest declarations of love from a man to a woman that we know:

Ἀγαμέμνονος παῖ, μακάριόν μέ τις θεῶν
ἔμελλε θήσειν, εἰ τύχοιμι σῶν γάμων·
ζηλῶ δὲ σοῦ μὲν Ἑλλάδ’, Ἑλλάδος δὲ σέ.

(l. 1405.)

But this utterance, made under such exceptional circumstances, cannot counteract the effect of what has gone before; and, anyhow, it is a curiously isolated expression, and rather a qualified one.

[117] Worthy of notice is the excellent touch which makes this man, though poor, yet a member of a good family. (l. 37.) As Euripides knew well enough, a son of the soil would have been incapable of even this much refinement of feeling. We may observe, by the way, that Orestes expresses himself as very sceptical of the whole story—anyhow as far as motives go. (l. 253 _seqq._)

[118] _Hel._ 566 _seqq._ Still more offensive, of course, are the suggestions of Ion to his mother (_Ion_ 1523 _seqq._); but there the offence is against decency, not against romance.

[119] Except occasionally, as already noticed, in the case of close blood-relations.

[120] Such erotic legends as he does introduce are treated with strangely little sympathy. The best (in the extant odes) is that of Pelops and Hippodameia (_Olymp._ 1), where the writer has, perhaps, been roused to a little warmth by the story of Pelops and Poseidon that has immediately preceded. The legend of Peleus and Hippolyte (_Nem._ 5) is noticeable as being, strangely enough, the only one in which the woman is represented as taking the initiative; but this is doubtless to be explained by the fact that nearly all these stories are descriptive of the amours of _gods_. The story of Jason and Medea is utterly spoiled in _Pyth._ 4. In that of Apollo and Coronis (_Pyth._ 3) only the unfaithfulness of the nymph and her punishment are dwelt upon. The other erotic stories told—_i.e._ those of Apollo and Euadne (_Olymp._ 6), Apollo and Cyrene (_Pyth._ 9), Zeus and the daughter of Opoeis (_Olymp._ 9), Ixion and Hera (_Pyth._ 2), are merely concerned with seductions of the most commonplace kind. The story of Rhoecus and the Hamadryad (_Fr._ 165) is the only one of importance alluded to in the fragments; but here it is uncertain how far Pindar told the story, and how far he merely alluded to it.

[121] [On the position occupied by women in the Old Comedy compare _Women in Greek Comedy_, § 3, 4.]

[122] Cp. Theocr. vii. 39.

[123] One or two points are perhaps worth noticing in this connection. It is usual to assume that the Battis of Philetas was an Hetaera; but the evidence seems rather to suggest that she was his wife. The way in which she is spoken of in Ovid, _Trist._ i. 6, 2, _Pont._ iii. 1, 57, (in the former place coupled with the Lyde of Antimachus,) seems to support this view; and, at any rate, there does not appear to be any evidence to the contrary. The personal character of Philetas, as we learn it from various notices of him, seems also rather to point in the same direction; though this is not, of course, an argument that can be pressed. (It would be interesting to know whether the fact that Philetas is apparently never alluded to under a nickname, like so many others of the Alexandrian writers, was due to this austerity of character.)

Whether these elegies were as sober and as little sensual in tone as those of Antimachus (cp. _infra_, p. 110), it is impossible now to say; though the two passages cited from Ovid both seem indirectly to imply that they were, and there is certainly nothing in the fragments of Philetas which would lead one to infer that they were not. It need hardly be added that the passage in Ovid, _Ars Amat._ iii. 329 _seqq._ proves nothing, for the “lascivia” there ascribed to Sappho is obviously not meant to apply to all the other poets mentioned in the list, or Vergil’s name would hardly appear in it.

[124] In the poems of Theognis, which are practically epigrams, in the later sense of the word. The epigrams of Plato, if genuine, would be another even more striking instance.

[125] Whether the words are to be taken as really seriously meant is, of course, doubtful, though one’s instinctive distrust of their sincerity is perhaps misplaced; for, after all, this is very primitive poetry of its kind. That such words should have been written at all is the remarkable point about them.

[126] [Cp. p. 81, n. 1.]

[127] Vide _e.g._ _Anth. Pal._ v. 158.

[128] The reading ποτέ is certainly happier than παρά. _Cp. Theocr._ xxix. 39; vide _infra_ p. 84.

[129] xii. 153 is further interesting as one of the very few of the earlier epigrams, which profess to describe the woman’s feelings.

[130] In the _Antilais_; vide Meineke, _Com. Fr._ iii. p. 365.

[131] The above instances may serve to give some idea of the prevailing character of Asclepiades’ epigrams; on the wonderful grace and charm of this new love-poetry, it is needless to dwell. The best and truest description of Asclepiades and his followers ever given, is that of Meleager, when he calls them the wild-flowers in his Garland.

ἐν δὲ Ποσείδιππόν τε καὶ Ἡδύλον, ἄγρι’ ἀρούρης,
Σικελίδεώ τ’ ἀνέμοις ἄνθεα φυόμενα.

_Anth. Pal._ iv. 1, 45.

[132] Those who do not care to read the proof of this really self-evident fact, can skip the next 28 pages, and pick up the thread again on p. 103.

[133] _Vide_ Rohde, _Der griech. Roman_, p. 42.

[134] His sorrow for Briseis does not, of course, as already observed, go very deep, as is sufficiently shown by the little effect which her restoration has on him; and his indignation at her loss is doubtless due to wounded self-love, more than to love of any other description. But, none the less, the introduction of such an incident shows clearly how little the purely military hero was in sympathy with Greek ideas.

[135] There is an elaborate analysis of this erotic element in Max. Tyr. xxiv. 8: καὶ τὸν ἀνδρεῖον (ἔρωτα) ἐπὶ τῷ Πατρόκλῳ, τὸν πόνῳ κτητόν καὶ χρόνῳ, καὶ μέχρι θανάτου προερχόμενον, νεῶν καὶ καλῶν ἀμφοτέρων, καὶ σωφρόνων, τοῦ μὲν παιδεύοντος, τοῦ δὲ παιδευομένου, ὁ μὲν ἄχθεται, ὁ δὲ παραμυθεῖται, ὁ μὲν ᾄδει, ὁ δὲ ἀκροᾶται. ἐρωτικὸν δὲ καὶ τὸ τυχεῖν ἐθέλοντα ἐξουσίας πρὸς μάχην, δακρῦσαι ὡς οὐκ ἀνεξομένου τοῦ ἐραστοῦ· ὁ δὲ ἐφίησι, καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῦ ὅπλοις κοσμεῖ, καὶ βραδύνοντος περιδεῶς ἔχει, καὶ ἀποθανόντος ἀποθανεῖν ἐρᾷ, καὶ τὴν ὀργὴν κατατίθεται. ἐρωτικὰ δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐνύπνια, καὶ τὰ ὀνείρατα, καὶ τὰ δάκρυα, καὶ τὸ τελευταῖον δῶρον ἤδη θαπτομένῳ ἡ κόμη.

It need hardly be pointed out that this central pair is not an isolated phenomenon. Ajax and Teucer (of whom we shall have occasion to speak again, p. 99), Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomed and Sthenelus, are obvious examples of similar relations among the subordinate characters.

[136] Its prevalence among the Lacedaemonians, in spite of the influential position of women in that state, is vouched for by the usage of the word λακωνίζω. Vide Meineke, _Com. Fr._ ii. pp. 200, 1088. (The derivation mentioned by Photius, Meineke _l.c._, seems due to Aristophanes, and need not be taken seriously.)

[137] Athen. xiii. 561 E. On this principle, the Ἱεpὸς Λόχος founded by Epaminondas was composed entirely of youths and their lovers, παιδικῶν γὰρ παρόντων ἐραστὴς πᾶν ὁτιοῦν ἕλοιτ’ ἂν παθεῖν ἢ δειλοῦ δόξαν ἀπενέγκασθαι. Athen. xiii. 602 A, cp. 561 F; Max. Tyr. xxiv. 2.

[138] Athen. xiii. 561 D. Cp. Paus. ix. 31, p. 771.

[139] Athen. xiii. 609 F.

[140] Schol. _ad Theocr._ xii. 29.

[141] This view was, of course, especially prominent at Athens, where Harmodius and Aristogeiton had become well-nigh the ‘patron saints’ of the democracy. Very interesting in this connection is the remark in Ath. xiii. 562 A, that the Peisistratidae, after their expulsion, were the first persons who ventured to slander this form of intimacy. Cp. too Max. Tyr. xxiv. 2. The important part that it played in, at any rate, the old-fashioned Athenian education is shown by more than one passage in Aristophanes, of which the most striking is perhaps _Nubes_, 972 _seqq._; cp. 1002 _seqq._

[142] Athen. xiii. 602 D. διὰ τοὺς τοιούτους οὖν ἔρωτας οἱ τύραννοι (πολέμιοι γὰρ αὐτοῖς αὗται αἱ φιλίαι) τὸ παράπαν ἐκώλυον τοὺς παιδικοὺς ἔρωτας, πανταχόθεν αὐτοὺς ἐκκόπτοντες.

[143] The gymnasium is always a prominent feature in this connection. Cp. Catull. lxiii. 64; _Anth. Pal._ xii. 123; Ach. Tat. ii. 38, πάσης δὲ γυναικῶν μωραλοιφίας ἥδιον ὄδωδεν ὁ τῶν παίδων ἱδρώς.

[144] Athen. _loc. cit._

[145] Athen. xiii. 561 D. σεμνόν τινα τὸν Ἔρωτα καὶ παντὸς αἰσχροῦ κεχωρισμένον. Very characteristic in this respect is the story of Agesilaus, related in Xen. _Ages._ v. 4, 5; cp. Max. Tyr. xxv. 5, xxvi. 8. Other noticeable instances will appear in the next few pages.

[146] Demosth. 1401.

[147] Hence it is not without significance that, according to a common story, the originator of this form of intimacy was said to be Orpheus. See Ovid, _Met._ x. 83; Phanocles, _Fr._ 1.

[148] Antimachus already seems to have been inclined to ridicule the story of Heracles and Hylas. (Vide _Fr._ 8.) Plato and “Platonic” love are, of course, stock subjects throughout the Middle Comedy. (Vide _e.g._ Amphis, _Dithyramb. Fr._ 2; Meineke, _Com. Fr._ iii. p. 307.) The nature of this general attack on the philosophers must not be misunderstood. It is an error to suppose that the more old-fashioned among the Athenians disapproved, in the first instance, of the philosophers because they were paederasts; it would be truer to say that they turned against paederasty because it was so intimately associated with philosophy.

[149] The poems of Strato form, of course, an exception; but then the incidents on which they are based are professedly the product of his own, not always very charming, imagination. Cp. _Anth. Pal_. xii. 258. A further fact worth noticing is that abstract love-poems (_e.g._ xii. 50) are regularly placed among the Παιδικά.

[150] The reader will perhaps be thinking of another love “passing the love of women.” One might write many pages on the differences between these two similar emotions.

[151] Whatever opinion one may have as to Homer’s own intention, it cannot be denied that this was the Greek view of the relation between Achilles and Patroclus from a very early period. This is clearly shown by the fact that Aeschylus of all people treated it in this way in his _Myrmidones_. That the attachment was further regarded as a perfectly pure one might be equally proved from the fragments of that tragedy, if indeed proof were necessary. Insinuations like those elaborated at the end of Lucian’s _Amores_ are a much later aftergrowth.

[152] Vide _supra_, pp. 21, 22.

[153] Vide _supra_, p. 24.

[154] Theocr. xxix. and xxx.

[155] _E.g._ the image of Time with wings on his shoulders (xxix. 29). For this reason I have not cared to urge the expression Ἀχιλλέϊοι φίλοι in xxix. 34, as a proof that Alcaeus took this view of the relation between Achilles and Patroclus. (Vide _supra_, p. 82.)

[156] Thus Maximus Tyrius (xxiv. 9) compares the love of Sappho to that of Socrates. ὁ δὲ τῆς Λεσβίας (ἔρως) ... τί ἂν εἴη ἄλλο, ἢ ἡ Σωκράτους τέχνη ἐρωτική; δοκοῦσι γάρ μοι τὴν κατὰ ταυτὸ ἑκάτερος φιλίαν, ἡ μὲν γυναικῶν, ὁ δὲ ἀρρένων, ἐπιτηδεῦσαι.

[157] Vide _supra_, p. 35.

[158] Cp. Theocr. xxix. 10,

ἀλλ’ εἴ μοί τι πίθοιο νέος προγενεστέρῳ.

[159] A striking record of temptation resisted is to be found in l. 949 _seqq._, but this is almost certainly by a later hand.

[160] l. 237 _seqq._

[161] For an examination of the Second Book of Theognis, vide Excursus E.

[162] Athen. xv. p. 694 _seqq._ This number excludes the poems of Hybrias and Aristotle, which are different in character from the rest.

[163] Of the remaining ten, the first four are religious, and only three contain any mention of women, two of these being coarse.

[164] [p. 31.]

[165] For, as we have seen, one of the first of these canons was that the public expression of private emotions was an offence against art no less than against decency, and this would tend to exclude from the stage all forms of love equally. In the case of woman-love there were, of course, special objections; that was why the _Myrmidones_ was the first erotic play of any kind produced; but this is beside the present issue.

[166] For the story in Aelian, _Var. Hist._ ii. 21, as to the relation between Euripides and Agathon, does not seem to be more than a vague piece of scandal.

To this must be added the fact that the earlier part of the century was the time when such a subject would most readily have appealed to the Athenian imagination. Later on, and especially from the fourth century onwards, the changed position of women was beginning to make itself felt in the way we have seen.

[167] Athen. xiii. 601 A, where it is further noted that these plays were received with applause.

[168] According to Schol. _Ar. Ran._ 911, first of all, μέχρι τριῶν ἡμερῶν οὐδὲν φθέγγεται.

[169] The reader must be careful here to give the proper sense to σέβας ἁγνόν, translating “ne sancta quidem reverentia qua casta atque intemerata tua femora servavi, te movit, ingrate, etc.” _Fr._ 136, whether genuine or not—it reads very like a misquotation of its predecessor—must obviously mean the same, in spite of Theomnestus and Lucian.

[170] Athen. xiii. 601 B.

[171] Startling as it appears at first sight, this is probably the simplest way of understanding Athenaeus’ τὸν τῶν παίδων (_sc._ ἔρωτα). Those who have properly appreciated what such ἔρως meant to the early Greeks, will not be surprised to find the term applied to the affection of an elder for a younger brother.

[172] Plut. _Amor._ 17, p. 760 D, τῶν μὲν γὰρ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους Νιοβιδῶν βαλλομένων καὶ θνησκόντων ἀνακαλεῖταί τις οὐδένα βοηθὸν ἄλλον οὐδὲ σύμμαχον ἢ τὸν ἐραστήν.

[173] Cp. Aristoph. _Vesp._ 579.

[174] The marked differences in the versions of the legend, and the fact that it appeared in the _Theogamia_ of the pseudo-Peisander—a writer who seems to have drawn his materials in most cases from early sources—seem to show that it must have been of a certain antiquity, and anyhow was not a pure invention on the part of Euripides. The evidence of Aelian (_N. H._ vi. 15), though of little value, is to the same effect: Λάϊος δὲ ἐπὶ Χρυσίππῳ, ὦ καλὲ Εὐριπίδη, τοῦτο οὐκ ἔδρασεν, καίτοι τοῦ τῶν ἀρρένων ἔρωτος, ὡς λέγεις αὐτός, καὶ ἡ φήμη διδάσκει, Ἑλλήνων πρώτιστος ἄρξας.

[175] The remark of the Scholiast that the behaviour of Laius to Chrysippus was parallel to that of Zeus to Ganymede, like the similar remark in Cicero (_loc. cit._), belongs of course to an age when the primitive meanings of the legends had long been forgotten. The allusion to the legend in Aristoph. _Pelargi_, _Fr._ 1 is too general to give evidence either way. See Meineke, _Com. Fr._ ii. p. 1126 _seq._

[176] That this is the relation between Ajax and Teucer in Homer already, is pretty clear. Vide _e.g._ _Il._ ix. 266 _seqq._; cp. Schol. _Theocr._ xii. 29. This, no doubt, accounts for the frequent mention of Ajax in the _Scolia_ (cp. p. 90).

[177] Supposing Tecmessa appeared as champion for the dead Ajax, everyone would acknowledge this, and no one would find the situation dull: only people will not understand that Teucer meant as much, and more, to the Greeks, than Tecmessa would to us.

[178] The position of Alcestis has already been partly discussed on p. 57.

[179] Vide Call. _Hymn. in Apoll._ 49; Panyasis, _Fr._ 15 (Dübner); Schol. _ad Eur. Alc._ 2; Lact. i. 10, 3.

[180] Cp. _supra_, pp. 24, 31.

[181] When the Scholiast (_ad Eur. Alc._ 1) says that the version of the story of Apollo’s servitude given in the Prologue is the usual one (ἡ διὰ στόματος καὶ δημώδης), he need mean no more by this than the fact that this was the case at the time of writing, when the influence of Euripides had naturally superseded all others. The Scholiast cannot be taken as throwing light on the state of feeling in Athens at the time when the _Alcestis_ was produced.

[182] I am not concerned here to write an apology for Admetus, or I might add much that would militate against the ordinary, somewhat flippant, view taken of his character. One point, however: many readers do not seem to notice that the original question of dying or not is never in the play left to Admetus at all, but is settled by Apollo on his own responsibility. Cp. Eur. _Alc._ 11 _seqq._, 32 _seqq._

[183] Cp. Eur. _Alc._ 10, etc.

[184] Cp. the lengthy comments on the play in Lucian, _Amores_ 47, vol. ii. p. 450.

[185] On this point cp. above, p. 48.

[186] An exception to this general rule is, perhaps, Theocritus; whether, or how far, this was due to the influence of Aratus is an interesting question, but one for the discussion of which the evidence has yet to be collected.

[187] _Fr._ 125.

[188] And the interval is in reality even longer, for but little of the later work of Aristophanes has survived.

[189] For an examination of the fragments of the Middle Comedy, _vide_ Excursus F.

[190] It may not be out of place to emphasise here once more the difference that exists between regarding women as an object of interest or importance, and regarding them as an object of love; for the two have been confused by many, not only in estimating the influence of Euripides (cp. _supra_, pp. 40, 50), but also in considering the events of the earlier part of the fourth century. Thus many have pointed to the agitation in favour of “women’s rights” satirised in the _Ecclesiazusae_, or to the great social importance of the Hetaerae (as illustrated in the Middle Comedy, &c.), or to the generally ameliorated condition of women of every class, as proofs of the existence at this period already of the romantic feeling. But to those who care to consider the matter clearly, it must be apparent that all these things are really beside the question. The improved state of women and their increasing power may have helped, and doubtless did help, to spread the romantic feeling when once it had originated; but they were in the first instance entirely independent of it. One does not _ipso facto_ feel a romantic attachment for people because one is compelled to recognise them socially, while in these days of extended franchises it is surely not necessary to repeat that political recognition is not the same as love.

[191] Cp. Quint. x. 1, 53; _Anth. Pal._ vii. 409, &c.; vide Dübner, _Asii &c. Frag._ p. 28 _seqq._ (at the end of Didot’s _Hesiod_).

If the epigram attributed to Antimachus in _Anth. Pal._ ix. 321, be really his, he must further be regarded as one of the originators of the Dedicatory Epigram. Cp. Reitzenstein, _Epig. u. Skol._ p. 131.

[192] For a full account of it, vide Bach, _Philetas, &c._, Epimetrum iii. (p. 240); Dübner, _op. cit._ p. 40.

[193]

Λύδης δ’ Ἀντίμαχος Λυσηΐδος ἐκ μὲν ἐρωτος
πληγεὶς Πακτωλοῦ ῥεῦμ’ ἐπέβη ποταμοῦ.
Σαρδιανὴν δὲ θανοῦσαν ὑπὸ ξηρὴν θέτο γαῖαν,
Τμώλιον αἴζαον δ’ ἦλθεν ἀποπρολιπὼν
ἄκρην ἐς Κολοφῶνα, γόων δ’ ἐνεπλήσατο βίβλους
ἱράς, ἐκ παντὸς παυσάμενος καμάτου.

(Hermesianax, iii. 41.)

Ἀντίμαχος ὁ ποιητὴς, ἀποθανούσης τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Λύδης,
πρὸς ἢν φιλοστόργως εἶχε, παραμύθιον τῆς λύπης αὑτῷ ἐποίησε
τὴν ἐλέγειαν τὴν καλουμένην Λύδην, ἐξαριθμησάμενος τὰς ἡρωϊκὰς
συμφορὰς, τοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις κακοῖς ἐλάττω τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ποιῶν λύπην.

(Plut. _Cons. ad Apoll._ p. 106 B.)

The very important detail that he _married_ her is confirmed by the passage in Athen. xiii. 597A, where the Lyde of Antimachus is expressly contrasted with τὴν ὁμώνυμον ταύτης ἑταῖραν Λύδην.

Cp. too Ovid, _Trist._ i. 6, 1:

nec tantum Clario Lyde dilecta poetae,
nec tantum Coo Battis amata suo est,
pectoribus quantum tu nostris, uxor, inhaeres.

[194] This respect for marriage (if one extends the idea of marriage sufficiently to cover every form of union which is faithfully observed—whether actually legalised by some particular ceremony or not, is, in this connection, not very material) will, I think, be found underlying the whole Greek conception of romance. This is, of course, diametrically opposed to the view of the mediaeval barbarians, who held that the one woman in the world one could not love was one’s wife. Whether Lyde or Isolde be the higher ideal is, perhaps, a matter of taste; _magno se iudice quaeque tuetur_. That I personally prefer the Greek to the barbarian is perhaps due to prejudice, but it is prejudice for which I am very grateful.

A further illustration may be found in the Latin elegiac poets. Propertius, the “Roman Callimachus,” who is always calling attention to the Greek sources of his inspiration, addresses all his love-poems to the Hetaera Cynthia, to whom he remained faithful to the end. Ovid only invokes the Greeks (Antimachus in _Trist._ i. 6, 1; Philetas in _Trist._ i. 6, 2, _Pont._ iii. 1, 58) when addressing his wife. Tibullus and Catullus, the poets of adultery, never acknowledge in their love-poems their Greek predecessors, and Catullus even goes out of his way to abuse one of them.

[195] The _Cleitophon and Leucippe_ of Achilles Tatius is, of course, an exception (the only extant one) to this rule, but then this late and curious work differs in other respects also from the typical Greek novel.

[196] It is most interesting to note how that, while in the earlier comedy marriage is the one great subject of ridicule, in the new comedy marriage is the hero’s one great ambition.

[197]

Ναννοῦς καὶ Λύθης ἐπίχει, δύο καὶ φιλεράστου
Μιμνέρμου καὶ τοῦ σώφρονος Ἀντιμάχου.

_Anth. Pal._ xii. 168.

For φιλεράστου Cod. Vat. gives φερεκάστου, which might also, perhaps, be retained in this sense.

[198] _De Compos. Verb._ p. 300. He is here, of course, speaking primarily of the literary style; but literary style is in most cases more or less a reflection of literary treatment.

The severe style of Antimachus’ _Thebaid_ is well known. (Vide Quint, x. 1, 53; _Anth. Pal._ vii. 409, 4.)

[199] Ἀντιμάχου τοῦ Κολοφωνίου καὶ Νικηράτου τινὸς Ἡρακλεώτου ποιήμασι Λυσάνδρια διαγωνισαμένων ἐπ’ αὐτῷ (sc. Λυσάνδρῳ) τὸν Νικήρατον ἐστεφάνωσεν· ὁ δὲ Ἀντίμαχος ἀχθεσθεὶς ἠφάνισε τὸ ποίημα. Πλάτων δὲ νέος ὢν τότε καὶ θαυμάζων τὸν Ἀντίμαχον ἐπὶ τῇ ποιητικῇ, βαρέως φέροντα τὴν ἧτταν ἀνελάμβανεν καὶ παρεμυθεῖτο, τοῖς ἀγνοοῦσι κακὸν εἶναι φάμενος τὴν ἄγνοιαν, ὡς τὴν τυφλότητα τοῖς μὴ βλέπουσιν.—Plut. _Lysand._ 18.

Nec enim posset idem Demosthenes dicere, quod dixisse Antimachum, Clarium poetam, ferunt; qui cum, convocatis auditoribus, legeret eis magnum illud quod novistis volumen suum, et eum legentem omnes praeter Platonem reliquissent, Legam, inquit, nihilominus; Plato enim mihi unus instar est omnium milium.—Cic. _Brutus_, 51, 191.

Ἡρακλείδης γοῦν ὁ Ποντικός φησιν ὅτι τῶν Χοιρίλου τότε
εὐδοκιμούντων Πλάτων τὰ Ἀντιμάχου προὐτίμησεν, καὶ αὐτὸν ἔπεισε
τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐς Κολοφῶνα ἐλθόντα τὰ ποίηματα συλλέξαι τοῦ
ἀνδρός.—Proclus, _Comm. in Plat. Tim._ i. p. 28.

Whether these anecdotes are actually true or not does not much matter. That the friendship between Antimachus and Plato was a well-known fact would be sufficiently proved by their invention; but there is nothing really contradictory or improbable in them, as some have asserted. In the story from Plutarch there is no need to suppose that Plato was actually present at Samos; he may very well have met Antimachus afterwards elsewhere. The evidence of Proclus again merely says that Plato, in opposition to the prevailing opinion of his time, preferred Antimachus to Choerilus, and that he sent Heracleides to Colophon to make a collection of the works of the former, evidently after his death. It is consequently quite possible to reconcile all three narratives. Antimachus was defeated by Niceratus at the Lysandria, an event which, owing to his celebrity at the time (404 B.C.), naturally excited remark. Subsequently he met Plato, who, when the conversation turned on his defeat, complimented him in the way described—a compliment which Antimachus returned on another occasion (that alluded to by Cicero). Lastly, after Antimachus’ death, Plato caused a collection of his works to be made. Where Plato met Antimachus is not quite clear, but the ascription to the former of the epigram in Athen. xiii. 589 C (_Anth. Pal._ vii. 217) would almost seem to imply that there was, at any rate, a tradition that Plato visited Colophon. If that was actually the case, he would naturally have come across Antimachus there.

[200] _Anth. Pal._ xii. 168.

[201] Cp. p. 70.

[202] _I.e._ Peloponnesian War, 431-403; Lacedaemonian and Theban Supremacy, 405-336; Macedonian Age, 336 onwards.

[203] Of the sense in which the unfortunate word “romantic” has to be understood we have already spoken elsewhere. [p. 2.]

[204] It may be remarked in passing that this ideal character of the “New” Comedy is not, as a rule, sufficiently recognised. People speak as if they thought that the stories in Menander, for instance, represented the ordinary events of life at Athens at the end of the fourth century. It need hardly, perhaps, be remarked that it would be about as reasonable to endeavour to get an idea of the ordinary life of English people at the present day by studying an Adelphi melodrama. As long as comedy at Athens confined itself to social satire, it is obvious that the social scenes it depicted must have been, even if somewhat burlesqued, yet, on the whole, true to life. When once it had abandoned this object, and began to aim at telling an exciting story, calculated to interest its audience in proportion to the strangeness and novelty of its _dénouement_, it is equally obvious that it must very soon have been compelled to abandon the ordinary affairs of everyday life. In taking over the business of the Epic, Comedy took with it the license of that form of composition and of its offspring, Tragedy. While no one will deny that incidents like those described by Menander may have occasionally taken place at Athens in the fourth century, just as some of them might conceivably take place in England at the present day, there can be hardly any real doubt that the stories of romantic comedy were as little true to the ordinary life of the time they professed to depict, as, say, the novel of Xenophon was to the ordinary life of the Roman provinces under the Antonines.

[205] It is true, of course, that the “New” Comedy took over from its predecessor certain characters (_e.g._ the parasite or the cook) and certain other features, practically unchanged; but all this was confined to minor points of detail, and any similarity between the two forms of art which such transference of ready-made _specialités_ may cause is a purely superficial one. The main subject of romantic comedy, and the treatment there of that main subject, are entirely distinct from everything that had gone before.

[206] Thus the Megarian Comedy dates from the expulsion of Theagenes (Arist. _Poet._ iii. 5), while the Athenian reappears, after a silence of some 70 years, on the expulsion of Hippias.

[207] The titles of the plays attributed to Chionides do not in themselves contradict this view. The _Heroes_ describes life as it would be in a state engaged in war, but there is no reason to believe that the play discussed any real phase of any contemporary war. The _Persae_, too, to judge by its second title of _Assyrii_, was devoted rather to ridiculing Persian customs than to dealing with the Persian War. In like manner the _Lydi_ of Magnes introduced the Lydian dances to Athens (cp. Hesych. λυδίζων, χορεύων, διὰ τοὺς Αυδούς _sc._ Μάγνητος), while the _Barbatistae_ appears to have been equally aimed at the aesthetic tastes of some part of the community. Titles again, like _Ornithes_, _Batrachi_, and _Psenes_, give no suggestion of political motives, any more than does the _Satyri_ of Ecphantides.

[208] τῷ χαρίεντι τῆς κωμῳδίας τὸ ὠφέλιμον προσέθηκε τοὺς κακῶς πράττοντας διαβάλλων καὶ ὥσπερ δημοσίᾳ μάστιγι τῇ κωμῳδίᾳ μαστίζων (Anon. _de Com._ p. 32). οὐ γὰρ ὥσπερ ὁ Ἀριστοφάνης ἐπιτρέχειν τὲν χάριν τοῖς σκώμμασι ποιεῖ ... ἀλλ’ ἁπλῶς καὶ κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν γυμνῇ κεφαλῇ τίθησι τὰς βλασφημίας κατὰ τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων (Platon. _de Com._ p. 27).

[209] τοιοῦτος οὖν ἐστὶν ὁ τῆς μέσης κωμῳδίας τύπος, οἷός ἐστιν ... οἱ Ὀδυσσεῖς Κρατίνου (Platon. _de Com._ p. 34). οἱ γοῦν Ὀδυσσεῖς Κρατίνου οὐδενὸς ἐπιτίμησιν ἔχουσι, διασυρμὸν δὲ τῆς Ὀδυσσείας Ὁμήρου (_ibid._ p. 35).

The elaborate details as to cookery in the fragments of this play are also very suggestive of one of the features of “Middle” Comedy.

[210] It is further to be observed that, though Cratinus nearly always indulges in personal abuse, this abuse is by no means necessarily directed against _political_ characters. Any person, whatever his capacity, who was sufficiently well known to be recognised by the Athenian audience, was liable to be the butt of his scurrility.

[211] Arist. _Poet._ v. 5. As Meineke (_Com. Fr._ i. 59) well expresses it: “Cratetem primum apud Athenienses exstitisse qui Epicharmi exemplo comicae poeseos materiam a singulorum hominum irrisione ad generales morum notationes rerumque descriptiones traduceret.” Crates thus differs from Cratinus in that his plays were not political, while he differs from the earlier comedians in that he avoided personalities and treated of general subjects, and this is the meaning of the word πρῶτος in Aristotle, _l.c._

[212] ἐζήλωκε Κράτητα. Anon. _de Com._ p. 29.

[213] The law of Morychis, during the operation of which this play, like the _Odysses_ of Cratinus and various others, seems to have been brought out, is interesting as an early instance of the influence of political events upon the development of early Athenian comedy, an influence entirely absent in the case of the romantic comedy.

[214] Thus the final disappearance of the _parabasis_, though an important enough event for the history of the form of Comedy, is but an incident in the real development of the art. This is shown by the fact that, when, under the law of Morychis, the _parabasis_ was temporarily suspended, the result was the immediate appearance, at this date already, of plays which belong, in spirit, entirely to “Middle” Comedy.

[215] This means the school of Cratinus, when unrestricted by legislation, and allowed to take its own course. Prohibitive legislation naturally tended to put the two schools of comedy on much the same footing.

[216] The few exceptions will be considered presently. [p. 127.]

[217] [The author contemplated, but does not seem to have written, an Excursus on “Pericles and Aspasia.”]

[218] In neither of these must it, of course, be supposed that the erotic element was at all the leading motive. Most of the fragments of the _Nemesis_ seem to refer to events which must be supposed to have taken place some time after the erotic incident had been closed, while in the _Seriphii_ the description of Andromeda as δελέαστρα (_Fr._ 12) is the only allusion to her preserved. Indeed, it is vain in Cratinus to look for any leading motive at all, for, as Platonius says of him (_de Com._ p. 27), εὔστοχος ὢν ἐν ταῖς ἐπιβολαῖς τῶν δραμάτων καὶ διασκευαῖς, εἶτα προϊὼν καὶ διασπῶν τὰς ὑποθέσεις οὐκ ἀκολούθως πληροῖ τὰ δράματα.

[219] The apparent allusion to the Hetaera Myrrhina in Eupolis, _Autolycus_, _Fr._ 10, is too uncertain to be of any value.

[220] The _Tyrannis_ (another suggestive title) also satirised the drunkenness of women (cp. the fragment _ap._ Athen. xi. 481 B). It may be remembered in this connection, that the introduction of drunken persons on the stage was an invention of his master Crates.

[221]

τὸν ἰδρῶτα καὶ τὴν ἄρδαν ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ σπόγγισον.

The tone of address will surprise no one who remembers the scene between Diphilus and Gnathaena (_ap._ Athen. xiii. 583 F), and others like it. [This subject was to have been dealt with further in an Excursus.]

[222]

κἂν μὲν σιωπῶ, δυσφορεῖ καὶ πνίγεται,
καὶ φησι, τί σιωπᾷς; ἐὰν δ’ ἀποκριθῶ,
οἴμοι τάλας, φησίν, χαράδρα κατελήλυθεν.

[223] The precise nature of the differences between these early “Hetaera-plays” and those generally in vogue at a later date, will be examined when we come to consider the latter class of composition. [p. 153.]

[224] One can at least gather from _Fr._ 1, 2, 3, that the coming together of the women was made the occasion of a series of jokes at their expense, something after the manner of Mnesilochus and the baby in Thesmoph. 689 _seqq._

[225] This seems to have been one of the main motives of the _Lemniae_; at any rate, the nature of Aeschylus’ play on the same subject would have afforded an excellent opportunity of the kind—Αἰσχύλος δ’ ἐν Ὑψιπύλῃ ἐν ὅπλοις φησὶν αὐτὰς [τὰς Λημνίας] ἐπελθούσας χειμαζομένοις [τοῖς Ἀργοναύταις] ἀπείργειν, μέχρι λαβεῖν ὅρκον παρ’ αὐτῶν ἀποβάντας μιγήσεσθαι αὐταῖς. Schol. _ad Apoll. Rhod._ I. 773.

[226]

ἰδού, δίδωμι τήνδ’ ἐγὼ γυναῖκά σοι
Φαίδραν· ἐπὶ πῦρ δὲ πῦρ ἔοιχ’ ἥξειν ἄγων.

(_Polyid._ _Fr._ 2.)

[227] Cp. _Geras_, _Fr._ 5, 6, 7.

[228] Cp. _e.g._ the remarks of Phocion to his son: ἐμοῦ μέν, ὦ παῖ, τὴν σὴν μητέρα γαμοῦντος οὐδ’ ὁ γείτων ᾔσθετο. Plutarch. _Phoc._ 30.

[229] _Vide e.g._ _Nubes_, 973 _seqq._, 1002 _seqq._

[230] Cp. the speech of Mnesilochus, _Thesmoph._ 466 _seqq._, the spirit of which, all allowance for comic exaggeration being made, cannot be mistaken.

[231] _Vide_ _Thesmoph._ 383 _seqq._ The subject and style of the _Daedalus_ were equally uncomplimentary. Cp. _Fr._ 3.

[232] κωμῳδεῖται δὲ (ὀ Ἀριστοφάνης) ὅτι καὶ τὸ τῆς Εἰρήνης κολοσσικὸν ἐξῆρεν ἄγαλμα, Εὔπολις Αὐτολύκῳ, Πλάτων Νίκαις. Schol. _Plat. Apol._ p. 331.

[233] It is worth noticing that, while a man who seduced an Athenian citizen seems to have been legally bound to marry her, and therefore, to a certain extent, there was no great virtue in his action if he did so, at the same time this legal necessity was never, so far as we know, in any way urged in any play of the New Comedy. The point will be more fully discussed when we come to this part of our subject. [See p. 169.]

[234] Minos, quod Daedali opera multa sibi incommoda acciderunt, in Siciliam est eum persecutus petiitque a rege Cocalo ut sibi redderetur. cui cum Cocalus promisisset et Daedalus rescisset, ab regis filiabus auxilium petiit. illae Minoem occiderunt. Hygin. _Fab._ 44.

Μίνως δὲ, ὁ τῶν Κρητῶν βασιλεύς, θαλαττοκρατῶν κατ’ ἐκείνους τοὺς χρόνους καὶ πυθόμενος τὴν Δαιδάλου φυγὴν εἰς Σικελίαν, ἔγνω στρατεύειν ἐπ’ αὐτήν ... ὁ δὲ Κώκαλος, εἰς σύλλογον προσκαλεσάμενος καὶ πάντα ποιήσειν ἐπαγγειλάμενος, ἐπὶ τὰ ξένια παρέλαβε τὸν Μίνω. λουομένου δ’ αὐτοῦ, Κώκαλος μὲν παρακατασχὼν πλείονα χρόνον ἐν τῷ θερμῷ τὸν Μίνωα διέφθειρε, καὶ τὸ σῶμα ἀπέδωκε τοῖς Κρησί, πρόφασιν ἐνεγκὼν τοῦ θανάτου διότι κατὰ τὸν λουτρῶνα ὠλίσθηκε καὶ πεσὼν εἰς τὸ θερμὸν ὕδωρ ἐτελεύτησε. (Diodorus, iv. 79.)

The story is told somewhat differently in Zenobius iv. 92. There Minos, in order to discover Daedalus, goes about the world offering large rewards to anyone who can run a linen thread through a spiral shell, being convinced that no one but Daedalus would be able to do such a thing. When he comes to Sicily, Cocalus, in order to gain the reward, gives the shell to Daedalus, who bores a hole at the end, ties the linen thread to an ant, and so does what is required. λαβὼν δὲ ὁ Μίνως τὸν λίνον διειρμένον ᾔσθετο εἶναι παρ’ ἐκείνῳ τὸν Δαίδαλον καὶ εὐθέως ἀπῄτει. Κώκαλος δὲ, ὑποσχόμενος δώσειν, ἐξένισεν αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ λουόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν Κωκάλου θυγατέρων ἀνῃρέθη ζέουσαν πίσσαν ἐπιχεαμένων αὐτῷ.—This is the version of the story followed by Sophocles in the _Camici_. (Cp. _Fr._ 301, 302.)