Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/403

NEW COMEDY 379 that the Middle Comedy began in years of dearth, and all literature shows us how half-starved men gloat upon imaginary banquets. There is as much suffering as jollification behind some of these long lists of fishes and entrees. Romantic and adventurous love formed a prominent motive in the plots of the New Comedy, and such love, under the conditions of the time, was generally found among troubled circumstances and damaged characters. In satirical pieces the heroine herself is often a ' hetaira.' In a great many more she is rescued from the clutches of ' hetairai ' and their associates. In a few, it would seem, she has ' a past,' but is nevertheless allowed to be 'sympathetic' In one or two, like the Amastris of Diphilus, she is a virtuous, or at least a respectable, princess, and the play itself is really a historic drama. Certainly the sentimental interest was usually greater than the comic. Philemon ultimately w^ent to Alexandria, and Machon lived there ; but they w^ere exceptions. Menander him- self stayed always in Athens. Our conception of the man is drawn as much from his famous statue, and from the imaginary letters w'ritten in his name by the sophist Alkiphron (about 200 A.D.), as from his own numerous but insignificant fragments. Very skilful the letters are, and make one fond of the cultured, critical, easy-natured man, loving nothing much except literature and repose and his independence, and refusing to live at the Alex- andrian court for any salary, or to w^ite down to the public in order to win as many prizes as Philemon. The same adventurous love interest which pervaded comedy also raised the elegiac and epic poetry of the