Menander: Epitrepontes

Alan H. Sommerstein

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350023659
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Antikes & klassisches Drama

This book introduces readers who may have no previous knowledge of Menander's comedies to Epitrepontes (The Arbitration), arguably the most exquisitely crafted of his better-preserved plays. It explains what we know about the play, how we know it, and how far we can tentatively fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Sommerstein analyses the nature of the dramatic genre (Athenian New Comedy) to which Epitrepontes belongs. He assesses the plot and the characters, every one of whom makes an essential contribution to the uplifting outcome, and the social and ethical assumptions that dramatist and audience shared. As well as looking at the influences of earlier drama and of contemporary philosophical and popular thought, he considers the afterlife of Menandrian comedy in general and of Epitrepontes in particular, both in antiquity and in modern times, but also in the long period in between, when Menander was the great dramatist whose plays were thought to have been irrevocably lost.

1

Menander the Athenian

Menander (Menandros), son of Diopeithes, an Athenian citizen of the deme (district) of Cephisia,¹ was born in the Athenian year corresponding to 342/1 BC² and died in his fifty-second year (291/0).³ During his lifetime the Greek world underwent profound changes. At the time of his birth it comprised a thousand or so city-states (poleis) in the old Greek homeland, on the coasts and islands of the Aegean, and at many other places (mostly on or near the sea) in the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, from Massalia (Marseilles) to Salamis on the east coast of Cyprus and from Cyrene (in modern Libya) to Borysthenes (at the mouth of the Dnieper in what is now Ukraine), in most of which Greek colonists had lived for two to four hundred years (in Cyprus for nearly a thousand); most of these remained fiercely independent of each other (though some were subject to foreign rulers – those on the mainland of Asia, for example, were part of the Persian empire) and most of them were what would now be called republics, either oligarchic (with all power in the hands of an aristocratic or wealthy minority) or, like Athens, democratic (with an assembly of all adult male citizens as the effective decision-making body). Athens was one of the largest of these poleis, and memories of the glorious days (478–405) when she had dominated two or three hundred tribute-paying ‘allies’ tempted Athenians to believe that their polis was, or ought to be, much more powerful than her resources actually allowed her to be.

By the time of Menander’s death all this had been utterly transformed. Defeat by Philip II of Macedon in 338 had made Athens, in effect, his vassal. Then, after Philip’s assassination in 336, his son Alexander III (‘the Great’) had invaded Asia and conquered the whole of the Persian empire, from Egypt to Tadjikistan and north-western India, only to die in 323, aged thirty-three, leaving no heir (his only son, born posthumously, was never more than a mascot and was quietly murdered at the age of about twelve). For some forty years thereafter Alexander’s generals, or their heirs, fought over the division of his dominions, which eventually crystallized into three major and several minor kingdoms, and sought to make allies, or vassals, of the principal poleis of old Greece.

Several of these poleis, including Athens, had revolted against Macedonian domination immediately after Alexander’s death, only to be defeated by his regent in the west, Antipater, who abolished Athens’ democracy (imposing a property qualification for political rights), had its leading statesmen executed or exiled (the most famous of them, Demosthenes, avoided either fate by taking his own life), and established a regime of willing collaborators whose position was assured by the posting of a Macedonian garrison on the hill of Munychia, dominating the Peiraeus. After Antipater’s death in 319, his successor Polyperchon allowed the democracy to be restored, and many of the collaborationist leaders were put to death, but scarcely a year later Antipater’s son Cassander gained control of Athens and appointed Demetrius of Phalerum, an intellectual (once a pupil of Aristotle) of broad interests and considerable talent, as ‘manager’ (epimelētēs) of Athens with autocratic power.

Demetrius governed Athens for ten years until 307. Another of the competing dynasts, Antigonus the One-Eyed, wishing to enlist the poleis of Greece as his allies, had promised them autonomy in a decree issued back in 315, and he now sent his son, another Demetrius (afterwards known as Demetrius the Besieger (Poliorkētēs)), to liberate Athens. Demetrius destroyed the fortress at Munychia, full democracy was restored, and the Athenians decreed extraordinary honours to Demetrius and his father, designating them ‘saviour gods’ and appointing a priest for their worship.

When Antigonus and Demetrius were defeated (Antigonus being killed) by a coalition of other kings (most of the Macedonian dynasts had by now taken this title) at Ipsus in 301, Athens declared itself independent, but soon afterwards, during a serious famine, a general named Lachares seized power⁴ (with the backing of Cassander) and ruled Athens until 295 when he was expelled by Demetrius. Demetrius re-established a garrison at Munychia and also at the Museum hill just outside the city itself. The democratic constitution was nominally retained (as it had been during the rule of Lachares), but Demetrius (now established as king of Macedonia) intervened increasingly to secure outcomes and leaders acceptable to himself. Thus during Menander’s adult lifetime Athens had experienced at least six regime changes, but in one respect things had not changed at all – she had virtually always been effectively dependent on some Macedonian overlord, though sometimes able to play off one dynast against another.⁵ It is striking that all regimes retained the basic institutions of the classical democracy, the assembly (ekklēsia) open to all qualified citizens and the council of five hundred (increased to six hundred in 307)⁶ and all described themselves as democracies, even that of 322–318 which deprived over half the citizen body of the right to speak and vote in the assembly.⁷

Menander survived all these vicissitudes, though on one occasion he got into difficulties. He was friendly with Demetrius of Phalerum, and it is noteworthy that two of his eight first prizes at the major state festivals were won in the first two years of Demetrius’ rule; when Demetrius fell, an attempt was made to put Menander on trial, but he was saved by the intervention of Telesphorus, a cousin of Demetrius Poliorcetes.⁸ That Menander was regarded as a sympathizer by opponents of full-blown democracy is suggested by the erection of a statue to him, prominently placed in the theatre of Dionysus, apparently quite soon after his death and therefore under the regime of 295–287 which was looked back on as an oligarchy. However, the most strongly political passage of his work that survives, the report of a local assembly meeting at Eleusis in Act IV of Sikyōnioi (The Sicyonians), has distinctly pro-democratic implications: the assembly takes a decision which is both humane and correct, there are frequent interjections from the floor which are all in support of the better cause, and a crusty oligarch who believes that tearful, emotional pleas are usually bogus (150–3) and that a small committee is more likely to get at the truth than a large assembly (154–5) is shown to be completely wrong.⁹ Very possibly this play was written between 307 and 301, the only substantial period during Menander’s career when a more or less unfettered democracy was in existence.

At the age of eighteen, like other boys of the better-off classes, Menander became one of the ‘ephebes’ (see Henderson 2020) who for two years lived a semi-segregated life of military training, garrison service, frontier patrols and various ritual activities; another member of this ephebic cohort was the future philosopher Epicurus. Before graduating into full adulthood, in the spring of 321, he had produced his first play, Orgē (Anger),¹⁰ the first time anyone had done so while still an ephebe.¹¹

Menander’s total output was stated by one ancient writer (Apollodorus of Athens, second century BC) to have been 105 plays; others put it at 108 or 109. This is far more than can have been staged at the major Athenian festivals, the Lenaea and City Dionysia, in a career of about thirty years (even if, improbably, Menander was selected as a competitor at every possible opportunity), and many of his plays must have had their first performance at local theatres in various parts of Attica (or even in other regions, if he either paid a visit or sent a script).¹² As mentioned above, he won only eight victories at the two major festivals, but probably none of his contemporaries did any better (see Konstantakos 2008); his most famous rival, Philemon, in a far longer career (he lived to be ninety-nine), was victorious at the Lenaea only three times. The early commissioning of a statue (see above), and the creation soon afterwards of a series of murals depicting scenes from his plays (see Chapter 9), suggest that by the time of his death he was regarded in influential circles as a dramatist of truly exceptional talent.

We have it on the authority of Plutarch (first/second century AD) that Menander improved with age. Speaking with special, but not necessarily exclusive, reference to Menander’s adaptation of style to his characters’ age and personality, Plutarch says that ‘if one compares Menander’s early works with his middle and later ones, one can judge how much further still he would have advanced had he lived longer’. Unfortunately we cannot in general date enough of Menander’s plays with enough accuracy to be able to follow any evolution in his style or technique. It does, admittedly, appear that satirical references to living individuals are found only in early plays (before about 314); but a play may have no such references and yet still be early, as is the case with Dyskolos (The Curmudgeon), produced in 316. Those who have speculated about the date of Epitrepontes have generally thought it to be a late play, but until recently there was no real evidence on the question. William Furley (2009a: 249) suggested that the metaphorical use of phrourarkhos ‘garrison commander’ might indicate the presence of a Macedonian garrison in Athenian territory, and therefore a date in or before 307 or (more likely) in or aft...