From pain and evil, then thou seekest this,—
To be a god, or die."[1]
One does not wonder that Horace, when he shut himself up in his country villa in December, to escape from the noisy riot of the Saturnalia at Rome, took with him into his retirement a copy of Menander as well as of Plato. No doubt he read and appreciated the philosopher; and the manuscript looked well upon his table when his friends called. But we may be sure that the dramatist was his favourite companion. In him Horace found a thoroughly congenial spirit; and we shall probably never know how far he was indebted to him for his turn of thought.
Menander's private habits seem to have been too much those of an Epicurean in the lower sense of the term; and if Phædrus is to be trusted in the sketch which he gives of him in a couple of lines, he had a good deal of the foppishness not uncommon to popular authors. Phædrus describes him as "scented with delicate perfumes, wearing the fashionable flowing dress, and walking with an air of languor and affectation."[2]
It is possible, indeed, that the philosophic and didactic character of Menander's comedies may have been one reason why they failed so often to win popular applause. Horace himself must have been the poet of the court, and of what we call "Society," rather than of the million. The comedy of manners, which deals with the problems of domestic life—and such is the comedy of Menander—had not so strong an attraction
