B 178 .G7 Copy 1 B 178 .G7 Copy 1 THE TREATMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHERS BY THE GREEK COMIC JPOETS A DISSERTATION Presented to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy W. R. GREY Professor of Latin and French in Davidson College BALTIMORE l'HE FRIEDENWALD COMPANY 1896 II* .6)1 THE TEEATMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHERS BY THE GEEEK COMIC POETS A DISSERTATION Presented to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy BY W. R. GREY Professor of Latin and French in Davidson College baltimore the friedenwald company i8q6 I THE LlBK - \ v OF CON ok r .- - , Washington! ■ ■■ 'it ■ i . . i — i < n Bibliography. The following are the principal works used in preparing this dissertation : Ritter and Preller. Historia Philosophiae Graecae. Gothae, 1888. Mullach. Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum. 3 vols. Paris, 1860- 1881. Zeller, Ed. Die Philosophic der Griechen in ihrer Geschichtlen Ent- wicklung. Vol. I, ed. 4. Leipzig, 1876. Zeller, Ed. Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. Translated by Sarah F. Alleyne and Evelyn Abbott. New York, 1886. Lorenz, A. O. F. Leben und Schriften des Koers Epicharmus. Berlin, 1864. Ahrens, H. L. De Dialecta Dorica, p. 435 foil, (fragments of Epichar- mus' works). Gottingae, 1843. Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta. Th. Koch. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1880-88. Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum. Ed. Minor. Aug. Meineke. Berlin, 1847. Bergh, Th. Commentationum de Reliquiis Comoediae Atticae Antiquae Libri Duo. Leipzig, 1838. Diogenes Laertius. Ed. Htibner. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1828-31. Aihenaeus. Ed. Kaibel. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1887-90. Couat, A. Aristophane et l'Ancienne Comedie Attique. Paris, 1889. Denis, J. La Comedie Grecque. Vol.11. Paris, 1886. Ditandy, A. Etudes sur la Comedie de Menandre. Paris, 1854. LC Control Number tmp96 028831 Comedy and Philosophy in Sicily. In beginning a study of the treatment of philosophy and philo- sophers by the Greek comic poets, it will be sufficient if we go back to the time when we first find comedy in a formulated state ; when it seemed to have lost almost all kinship with the rude forms from which it was developed and was recognized and culti- vated as a branch of literature. But it is not to Athens that we must go to find comedy in the early part of the fifth century B. c. as something more than the farces of Megarian youths or the loosely constructed scenes of a Susarion. For this we must go to Sicily. The period that we have to consider is the period in which fall the brilliant reigns of Gelon and Hieron. Athens had not yet reached the height of her greatness, but in power and in the encouragement given to literature and art, Syracuse was the first of Grecian cities. It was here that Simonides and Bacchylides, attracted by the fame of the latter of these two rulers, came to add to the splendor of the already famous city. It was here that Pindar composed odes in honor of the victories of Hieron and Chromius, or again to console Hieron when prostrated by a severe illness ; here Aeschylus wrote and put on the stage some of his tragedies, and here the only Sicilian comic poets of this period labored and wrote. In Epicharmus we have, if not the creator of comedy, the first great comic poet among the Greeks, and in him we find what half a century later in Athens would have been almost an impossibility, a comic poet and philosopher in one person. As such he was recognized in antiquity. Plato in the Theaetetus (152 E) speaks of him as 6 axpoq rrjq xajfiajdtaq, and he also men- tions his philosophical views. Diogenes Laertius (VIII 3) says that he was a disciple of Pythagoras and numbers him among the philosophers. In III 12 he calls him a comic poet. Iam- blichus (v. P. XXXVI 266) and Plutarch (Numa VIII) mention him as a Pythagorean. But whether he can be put with a definite school is doubtful, as his fragments do not show a slavish adher- ence to any philosophy. In some cases he appears as an inde- 4 pendent thinker ; here he shows kinship with Pythagoras, here with Heraclitus, and here perhaps with Xenophanes. But there can be no doubt that he was more deeply influenced by the philo- sophy of Pythagoras than by that of Heraclitus or Xenophanes. When Epicharmus came from Megara in Sicily to Syracuse in 483 b. c, the latest date at which he could have come, the doc- trines of Pythagoras had been known in Italy and very probably in Sicily for nearly fifty years. Pythagoras was dead, but the association which he had founded in Lower Italy lived on for nearly half a century. The man who had worked a revolution in restoring law and order in Crotona and whose fame had spread over all Lower Italy, 1 could not have remained unknown in the neighboring island of Sicily. We are told that he visited several Sicilian communities, and that the people of Himera, Agrigentum, and Tauromenium, on becoming imbued with his doctrines, overthrew the tyrants ruling in those cities, 2 and that Pythagoras himself joined the people of Agrigentum in a war with Syracuse. 3 Porphyry, in his " Life of Pythagoras" (27), speaks of his miraculous appear- ance on the same day to his followers in Mctapontum in Italy and in Tauromenium in Sicily. Probably little weight can be attached to any of these reports, yet they serve to show that Pythagoras stood in close relations with the Sicilian as well as with the Italian Greeks. Xenophanes, after coming to Magna Graecia, spent part of his time in Sicily. He is said to have lived in Catana and in Zancle (Diog. Laert. IX 18), and later in life we find him at the court of Syracuse, where, as in other places, he recited his poems express- ing his philosophy of the universe. Here, too, he found afield foi philosophical investigations; for in the impressions of fish and other marine animals found in the rock quarries of Syracuse ting proofs of his theory that the world had once been dissolved in water.* Empedocles did not begin his career as a philosopher until later, but his popularity contributes some- thing towards showing that philosophy was not regarded with disfavor at this time in Sicily as in Athens in the latter pari of the Bame century. Political freedom had come to an end i ie, but there was still room (or tree thinking. We see here no opposition to those who departed from national and 1 Porphyry, v. P ■ Porphyry, v. P, 21. : 1). I.. VIII 40. io~TLv 00 x«#' iv fiovov i aXX* o(>(7o. icep Zfj Tcdvra y.ai yvcifiav syet, xa) ydf) to &9jku ra» dXexropidoiV yivoq, ai Xjjs xarafiad-etv are^iq, 00 tiztsi tIxvo. £<£>"', all 1 i-cu^st xai rzoisl >q ob TCd&OtS a otdlv XOxdv xar&avdtv ' &vat rd rtvtufta dtajttvtl /.a-' obpaviv t Again in 152, cun'.ir; y'h^iTolc; CTTt, 'Sec Wccklcr, 353. In 126, Govexpt&y) xal diexpid-T) xaizrjXd-ev , o$ev 7]Xftev, 7rdXcv } yd [ih el<; ydv, 7tvedfia d' avco, xi xwvde %aXe7iov ; obdk ev. Finally in fragment 147, obdev ixtpebyec xo $e7ov * xouxo yiyvcuGxew xu del ' abxoq £ auXyav; abXyzdz pafrcb'; 7) opyjifftv dp^Tjffzdq ztq 7) -Xoxzuq ~Xj)xdv 7) ~dv y l oixoiujq zibv zoiouzcuv, o, zi zb Xf^q oux abzoq sI'tj y } a ziyya zeyvtxoq ya [xdv. The dialectical method pursued here is very much like that followed by Plato, and it serves to show something of the philo- sophical mind of the poet, but whether Plato made use of Epi- charmus to get new ideas in this line cannot be known, and it is not of vital importance here. Diogenes Laertius has preserved another fragment (Ah. 94), but this reflects the philosophy of Heraclitus: ■>.ov iv A, at 7:07' apiftfidv zic -zpiaaov, at dz Xjjs zov apri icor&ifiev Xf t d(pov 7) xa\ zdv b-apyouadv Xaf3e\ 7j ooxzl xai rot zoy wbzbq elpz-s ) B. oux Ipiv zdya. A. oboe fidv obiV at TCOTi flirpov Ttayualov -<>z>> Xjj tic are pov fiaxoz 7 t too izpoad-* 16vto$ d-ozafizr; h'zt y' Ondpyot xelvo z<) fiirpov \ B, ob yap, A. woe vuv op7] xai zoc dx'/poj-ouc ' 6 ftkv yap aoqzb\ 6 oY ya fidv (fi'Jivzt, h pzzaXXaya dz ~d>zzq ivri ~d^za rbv %p6vOV. 6 dz iizzo.XXd<7(7Z'. xo.zd (f'HTV; XWOTtOX 1 iv TWOTtp fliv§t t azzpo's zr/j XCt Tdd* ijdy TOO ~ y't ~ &Xkot xai >■>'■> aXXot zzXIUopeq /oh'/'.- u/.Xm /.<»•>-<>/' UtUTo) [r.//'Vo;/.:r j XtETtdv Xoynv. The fragments preserved by Clemena AJexandrinus and Plu- tarch were probably taken from a didactic poem, llepl Qbaetos, which Epicharmua is supposed to have written. Diogenes Laer- VIII 78) says of him that he left writings in which he dis- -9 coursed on nature, and Ennius entitled "Epicharmus " a didactic poem in which he set forth doctrines of a Pythagorean stamp. Ennius wrote this in trochaic tetrameter, and it is probable that he found both the form and the substance of his poem in a work of the same kind by Epicharmus. Lorenz (p. 165) points out the fact that while no philosopher of this period used trochaic tetrameter for didactic verse, yet it had been used by Archilochus in works of an erotic, parainetic, and satirical nature, and by Solon in poems in which he defended himself against the attacks of his enemies. He thinks therefore that Epicharmus, who had a decided preference for this meter, introduced it into didactic poetry. Whatever may have been the nature of the poem or poems from which the fragments pre- served by Clemens Alexandrinus and Plutarch were taken, there is little doubt that those preserved by Diogenes Laertius (Ah. 94, 95* 96, 97) were taken from comedies. Both the dialogue which occurs in them and the meter (iambic trimeter) of two of them exclude the supposition that they were taken from a didactic poem. 1 Alcimus quoted the last fragment in support of his view that Plato got his doctrine of the flux of all sensible objects of percep- tion from Epicharmus. Lorenz (p. 116) sees in this as well as in the preceding fragment only a piece of dialectical sport, and refers to it the Xoyoq avgavd/ievoq so often used by the sophists, and attributed by Plutarch (Adv. Stoic, de Comm. Natt. 1083) to Epicharmus. But we cannot deny that we have here the Herac- litean doctrine of the constant flux of all things. Plato, in the Theaetetus, 152 E, in speaking of this doctrine, says that it was held by Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Epicharmus. Whether Plato had in mind the passage from Epicharmus when he wrote the Theaetetus, or whether Alcimus had in mind the passage from the Theaetetus when he quoted these lines from Epicharmus, makes little difference. Plato gives it as the doctrine of Epichar- mus, and there can be no doubt that he was well informed on the subject. These fragments from the comedies of Epicharmus show that he did not confine himself to the Pythagorean school, but that he studied other systems as well ; and that while following his pro- fession as a comic poet he uttered here and there sayings, whether put in the form of dialogue or otherwise, which show 1 Lorenz, p. 100. 10 that he was deeply influenced by the philosophical speculations of his age. But it is not necessary to conclude that he designed to impart philosophical truths from these thoughts embodied in his comedies. He was first and foremost a comic poet. The testimony of antiquity, and the lines left from his poems, unite in placing this beyond doubt. His great aim as a comic poet must have been to amuse his hearers, but despite this fact, if he was influenced by philosophy, his writings would show more or less his philosophical tendencies. But we have seen from Diogenes Laertius (VIII 78) that he did not confine himself entirely to comedy. His object in writing the book or books men- tioned was evidently to express his views on nature. Nothing can be more striking than the difference between Epicharmus and the comic poets who came after him. They confined them- selves, even in their attacks upon the philosophers, mostly to absurdities. If we judge of their knowledge of philosophy from their writings, we conclude that they knew almost nothing about it, and it is not until we come to the very close of Greek comedy that we find a change in this respect. But the poet who " endued comedy with a plot and imparted unity to it" was also a philo- sopher. The Treatment of Philosophy in Old Comedy. Comedy in Sicily seems to have died with Epicharmus. There was no great comic poet to take his place, and during the short reign of Thrasybulus and the supremacy of the democracy which followed it, few inducements were offered to poets in Syracuse in comparison to those offered there during the reign of Hieron. It was at this time that oratory began to be recognized as an art, and the literary talent of Syracuse as well as that of Leontini was exerted principally in that direction. The theatre of comedy was now transferred to Athens, and there its surroundings were entirely changed. Epicharmus wrote his comedies to please the court of Hieron. Politics were of course excluded, and he was restricted ly to the " representation of Sicilian character and life." In Athens the poets wrote to win popular applause, and then was no tion as to the subjects of which they might treat. Greece at that time in the midst of the religious revival that sprang up the Persian wars, and while the Sicilians had appeared indif- ' to the spread <.i" new doctrines, the Athenians were ready parture from the religion of their fathers. After II the reign of Hieron no inducements were offered to philosophers to go to Syracuse except such as may have presented themselves to the wandering sophists, but the glory which the Athenians had gained in beating back the Persian invasions, the genius of such men as Themistocles and Pericles, and the enthusiasm that per- vaded the whole Athenian people, had placed Athens at the fore- front of Grecian states. Here, as nowhere else, the sophists saw an inviting field, and we find that Protagoras made it one of his principal lecturing points during the forty years that he travelled through Hellas. Here we find Gorgias of Leontini, Hippias of Elis, Prodicus of Ceos, and Thrasymachus of Chalcedon. Anaxa- goras, the friend and probably teacher of Pericles, made Athens his home for the thirty years following 462 B. C. Parmenides and Zeno the Eleatic spent some time here (Plat. Parm. 127 B), and it is also here that we find in the time of Old Comedy the atheistic philosopher Hippo. In addition to these men, Athens had in Socrates a philosopher of her own. If we add to the circle of young men who gathered around him the disciples of each of these philosophers and sophists, we see that here, as nowhere else, philosophy was attracting attention. Such a state of things as existed in Sicilian comedy, a comic poet and philosopher in one person, would have been almost an impossibility in Athens. The Attic comic poets were eager to gain popular applause, and no one of them would have been willing to hazard his chance of success by assuming the role of a philosopher in addition to that of a comic poet. Comedy in Athens was a state institution, and the state was opposed to philosophy, at least to philosophy as taught by Hippo and Anaxagoras. The poet who first attacked the philosophers from the stage and began the war upon them, which lasted almost as long as Attic comedy itself, was Cratinus. It would be interesting to know whether the popular outburst of indignation which resulted in the banishment of Anaxagoras was preceded and influenced by the attack of Cratinus upon Hippo. The date of the Panoptae, in which he satirized the philosopher as well as the time when Hippo was in Athens, is unknown. It was brought out before the Clouds of Aristophanes, as we learn from the scholium to line 96. From line 1044 of the Wasps we infer that it preceded the Clouds a considerable time. Aristophanes there professes to have given his hearers something new in comedy when he brought out the Clouds, which he could not have claimed if the Panoptae had been 12 fresh in the memory of the people. The comedy very probably belongs to the early part of the poet's career, coming near the time of the Thracian Women. In this, Cratinus took the initiative in political comedy, and then his satire knew no bounds. He attacked everything that afforded material for comedy, and it is not strange that he soon saw in Hippo an object for satire. From the fragments left from the Panoptae we do not know whether Cratinus attacked other philosophers who may have been in Athens or devoted the whole play to Hippo. Even of the treat- ment that Hippo received the fragments give us no clear notion, as they are scant and his name does not appear in them. We learn more from two scholia than from the fragments of the play. One of these scholia is to line 96 of the Clouds of Aristophanes, and from it we learn that Cratinus ridiculed Hippo for teaching that the heavens were an oven and that men were charcoal to be con- sumed in it. Aristophanes in 1. 96 of the Clouds represents Socrates as teaching the same thing. The scholiast to Clemens Alexandrinus Protrepticus 20 states that Cratinus charged Hippo with impiety. Of Hippo's philosophy or of the extreme to which he went in opposing the Hellenic religion we know very little. Aristotle (Met. I 3) places him in the same school with Thales, but adds that he is not worthy to be compared with Thales as a philosopher. Athenaeus (610 6~) calls him 6 &&eoq. From the scholia referred to, Hippo received, to some extent at least, the same treatment that Socrates received in the Clouds. Whether he was represented as professing to teach how to make the worse cause appear the better we cannot tell ; this, however, is the opinion of the scholiast. The following fragment from the Panoptae (K, I 61) was directed against the investigating spirit of philosophy which was not con- tent with searching for the causes of natural phenomena, but was also attacking the national religion : xpavia dtfftrd popelv, dq a6yjip.ov(bv kv Toiq Kifioveioiq avr^p kpenzioiq. No mention is made of Hippo in connection with these passages, but it is improbable that they were directed against any one else than the philosopher or one of his disciples. Bergk (183 fol.) discusses these lines and concludes that Cratinus represented Hippo here as addicted to shameful lust, in order to show how far the pursuit of philosophy alienated men from honesty and piety. But from such fragments we cannot draw satisfactory conclusions, and even with the help of the scholiasts referred to, the knowledge of the treatment that Hippo received is very meagre. This much, however, is clear: that just as Cratinus stands as the pioneer in political comedy, so he stands as the pioneer of the comic poets in their opposition to philo- sophy, and that the characteristics that he ridiculed were similar, in some respects at least, to those ridiculed by Aristophanes in the Clouds. The Panoptae is not only the predecessor of the Clouds, but very probably the model on which it was formed. The example set by Cratinus and the attitude of the state must have exerted great influence on Aristophanes. Of the two poets we should expect more violent opposition to philosophy from Crati- nus, for he had lived through the Persian wars, through times when there were no philosophers in Greece, and would naturally have been more hostile to the changes that he saw going on around him than Aristophanes, who was born after philosophy gained a foothold in Athens. We have seen that the atheistic teaching of Anaxagoras met with decided opposition from the state, and how dangerous such teaching was regarded may be seen from the fact that in 411 B. c, when Protagoras was banished from Athens, his books were brought into the market-place and I H publicly burned. 1 Some features of sophistic teaching were odious to conservative Athenians, and that an orator like Eual-. thus 2 was supposed to have acquired his art, and doubtless to some extent his character, in the school of Protagoras, could not have added to the popularity of the wandering professors. It was therefore quite natural for the comic poets to denounce the philo- sophers, but it would be unfair to say that in arraying themselves on the popular side they were merely seeking the favor of the people. They were men, and as such were interested in the wel- fare of their state. It would, however, be far from true to con- clude that they were actuated from patriotic motives alone in their attacks upon philosophy. The state was opposed only to certain features of philosophic teaching, and in later comedy not even to these. But the comic poets went beyond the opposition of the state and continued to ridicule the philosophers when opposition from the state had ceased. In some cases, especially in early comedy, they were doubtless sincere, but we must grant that the desire to gain applause, to make the subject in hand ridiculous, and to raise a laugh, outweighed every other consider- ation. Aristophanes himself recognized this as one of the essen- tials in comedy, as he tells us in the Knights (525) that Magnes lost his popularity in his old age because he had ceased to be amusing. This, together with the facility with which the charac- teristics touched on could be turned into ridicule, will account for much of the satire directed against the philosophers. Again, the ill-feeling between the two departments seems to have been mutual. In the Clouds (296) Socrates is represented as speaking of the comic poets as a contemptible set, and Aelian (v. H. II lys that he went to the theater only when Euripides brought out a new play. Athenaeus (220 a) tells us that most of the philosophers were abusive of the comic poets. The fact that comedy was a state institution only gave the poeis a better oppor- tunity lor inveighing against a class by whom they themselves abused. The liberty granted to the poets of Old Comedy imply boundless. No man was so inoffensive, so retired or so influential that he might not be dragged upon the stage to make sport lor the people. I low much the people themselves I in this personal abuse may be seen from the fact that 1 1 . 1 . . XI V 19. ■The scholiast to Ar. Was; s 590 ipetkl of him as ftfyrop cvKotpavrrjc, and and Ar. says about as DO Q< 1). Sec l>crgk, 97 foil. 15 the law passed in 440 B. c. to restrict the license of comedy was repealed after three years. 1 We may infer that not even Pericles, who was doubtless influential in having the law passed, was able to withstand a demand for its repeal. Aristophanes stands, whether justly or not, as the principal char- acter in Old Comedy in its opposition to philosophy. When he brought out the Clouds he had before him the example of Cratinus in his attack upon Hippo, and he knew the attitude of the state towards such philosophers as Anaxagoras. Before this he had written mostly political comedies, the last being the Knights, in which he followed the custom of the comic poets and selected as the principal character a well-known contemporary. For the Clouds he wanted a representative philosopher. Socrates was at this time the only one of any importance in Athens. Gorgias and Protagoras were there only occasionally, and being foreigners, neither was so well suited as Socrates, whose personal appearance and peculiarities, together with the circle of young men gathered around him, made him well known to all classes of citizens. What Aristophanes wished to show the Athenians was how the teaching of one of their fellow-citizens threatened the welfare of the state. These, says Couat (279), are the reasons that governed the poet in selecting his leading character. The philosophers whom Aristophanes attacks in the person of Socrates are Hippo, Anaxagoras, Diagoras and Protagoras, the only philosophers who had been prominent in Athens. In lines 94-97 of the Clouds, Socrates is represented as teaching that the heavens are an oven and that men are simply charcoal to be consumed in it. This, as we have seen, is to be referred to the teachings of Hippo. Socrates is also represented here as taking I money for his instruction, and as teaching how to make the worse cause appear the better, charges that were brought against the j sophists, especially against Protagoras. 2 In lines 248-53 he is rep- resented as denying the existence of the gods and introducing new divinities, the clouds. We recognize in this the teachings of Dia- goras, 3 and in line 830 Socrates is called 6 M-jXioq. In line 225 he is engaged in speculating about the sun, and here we see the philosophy of Anaxagoras, who taught that the sun was a red-hot mass of metal. 4 The only passage that bears any resemblance to the teaching of Socrates is in line 227 foil., where he gave as Scholia Ar. Wasps, 67. 2 Arist. Rhet. II 24, 11. Gell. N. A. V 3, 7. 3 See Scholia to Ar. Frogs, 320. 4 Sotion in Diog. Laert. II 12. i6 his reason for suspending himself in a basket, that he could not carry on his investigations properly if he did not suspend his mind and mix the subtle thought with the kindred air, that he must be out of reach of the influence of the earth, inasmuch as it had a tendency to draw the moisture of the thought to itself. This bears some resemblance to what Socrates is represented as saying in the Phaedo (66 A) in reference to the soul's being hindered in its search for the truth by the body. Couat (287) says that Aristophanes having selected Socrates as the principal character for the comedy, could not avoid inconsis- tencies, and that in giving him the characteristics of the different sophists and philosophers he simply collected the current reports about him without taking pains to verify them. Whether the cold reception of the Clouds was due in any measure to the unfairness of the play or not, Aristophanes had overestimated the popular feeling against philosophy. He had been too zealous, and he received a rebuke for it. That he felt this keenly can be seen from the parabasis of the Clouds as it now.stands,and also from the parabasis of the Wasps. But his remarks here show that his disappointment arose solely from the fact that he had not been awarded the first prize for a comedy which he regarded as his best work. In the Wasps (1047) he tells the spectators that they had never heard better comic verses, and that he considered them clever enough to see the merits of the play. He had given them something new, and such a poet deserved to meet with success. But they had rejected him and given the first and second prizes to Cratinus and Ameipsias, vulgar fellows, he calls them (Clouds 520 f.). Little importance can be attached to the absurd things Socrates is represented as doing, as they were necessary to the success of the play, and it may be questioned whether he himself regarded the whole play as of much consequence. But as Couat (311) says, his reference to it in the Apology shows that neither he nor the Athenians had forgotten it. He regarded, however, with more seriousness the reports that his enemies had secretly circu- lated about him — reports told the jurors when they were children and more likely to believe false representations. In consequence of this they had grown up with false notions about his teachings. Denis takes this as an attempt on the part of Plato to show that Aristophanes was not responsible for the charges brought against Socrates. It is worthy of note that Aristophanes did not abandon the Clouds after the first attempt, but reproduced it. Diodorus (XIII 8), in giving an account of the events of the year 415 b. C, states that Diagoras of Melos was accused of atheism and fled from Athens, whereupon the Athenians offered a talent to any one who should kill him. Aristophanes in the Birds (1072) refers to the same thing, and in the Clouds (830) he calls Socrates 6 M-jXtoq. Bergk (176) infers from this that the second edition of the Clouds was brought out shortly after Diagoras fell into disre- pute. Assuming this— and it is the most natural inference — the attitude of the state towards Diagoras was what induced Aristo- phanes to reproduce the play, having found, as he thought, a favorable time for attacking the philosophers. Ameipsias, as has been mentioned, brought out the Connus at the same time that Aristophanes brought out the Clouds, and from Athenaeus (218 c) we infer that several philosophers or disciples of a philosopher were introduced in the play. From the fragments left we know only of Socrates, and it is probable that he and his disciples formed the group of investigators referred to by Athenaeus. That these two plays, both ridiculing Socrates, were brought out at the same time may seem to indicate that philosophy was attracting more than usual attention, but it has no more significance than that the unique character of Socrates presented a good subject for comedy and that he was the principal philosopher in Athens. The offences for which he was ridiculed in the fragment from the Connus (K, I 602) were his idleness and indifference to personal comfort : Zcuxpareq avdpwv fiiXTtGT* oltywv, noXXaJv 8e p.aTai6raQ\ fjzetq xai ffb itpbq yp-aq; xapTsptxoq y } el, rzodev av goi yXaiva yevoiro • B. tout), to xaxdv twv axoTOTop.u)v xolt* iTtrjpecav ysyivvjTac. ovToq fiivToc TZEivtbv ovTioq obTZUiTZOT* etXtj xoXaxeuaai. According to Diogenes Laertius (II 27), Socrates was intro- duced here in the garb of a philosopher, but it is not probable that he was ridiculed on account of his philosophical views. His reference in the Apology to a certain comic poet indicates that Aristophanes stood alone in making an attack upon his philo- sophy through the medium of comedy. Connus was the music teacher of Socrates, and it is known that Socrates did not study music until late in life. Plato in the Euthydemus (277 C) repre- sents him as saying that his youthful schoolfellows jeered him i8 and called Connus an old man's teacher. It must have been an amusing sight to see an old man trudging to school with a crowd of boys, and we may safely conclude that it was this side of Socrates' life that was ridiculed by Ameipsias. From the infor- mation given by Plato and Xenophon, he was represented here just as he appeared to the Athenians. The last verse of the frag- ment is quite different in tone from the ridicule to which the philosopher was subjected in the Clouds ; it praises him in one respect, and we have no reason for doubting that it is genuine praise. This play was awarded the second prize over the Clouds (Arg. V), which was awarded the third. We know nothing of its artistic merits, but it was superior to the Clouds in at least one respect, it came near representing Socrates as he was, and this was a point in its favor. Aristophanes and Ameipsias were not the only comic poets who ridiculed Socrates. In a fragment from an unknown comedy of Eupolis' (K, I 351) he is ridiculed for the same thing as in the fragment from the Connus of Ameipsias, but the tone is much more severe, and approaches that at the close of the Clouds: jugo) dk xal zw Zujy.pd.TrjV zov ~zwybv ddo)J ian Tlpcoraydpaq 6 Tyjtoq oc dkaZovsuerai pev dXtryjpcoq Tzspl twu p.srewpwv, rd ds ^apd^sv ia&tst. This bears some resemblance to the lines in the Clouds (95-97) in which Socrates is first mentioned : ivrav^ kvor/.ovff } avdpsq 01 rbv oupavov Xiyovreq auaneuS-ouffiv ax; eariv ixviyebq xaffrcv 7tsp\ 7)p.dq ouroq, y]p.$lq <5' avd-paxeq. It is almost identical with a line from an unknown play of Aris- tophanes' (M. 337), evidently directed against some philosopher: 6q rd pkv d -rcoyov adoXiff^TjV — nor the abuse that we find in Aristophanes, but not a single poet of this period shows that he regarded philosophy with favor. Eupolis had called Socrates a beggarly prater, and Alexis, in a fragment from the Parasite (K, II 364), refers to the work car- ried on by Plato and his disciples as idle talking : 7] fierd (IXdrwyos ddoXetfyeiv xatd fidvas. In a fragment from the Ankylion of Alexis (K, II 297) we find Xiysts ~zn'i u>\> <>>)/. olff&a* aufpevou zpiywv UXdrwvt % xa) yvibati kit pov y.ai xpdfifwov. "23 The second verse of this probably refers to Plato's teaching of concepts, an example of which we have in a fragment from a comedy of Epicrates, but the object here is to ridicule Plato's teaching as utterly useless, and Denis (II 368) is right when he takes Xirpov xai xpoppoov as equivalent to nothing. In a fragment from the Dexidemides of Amphis(K, II 239) Plato is ridiculed for his sullen look, and from this passage we see that he was a character in the play : cue. oudh ola&a 7iXr}V crxu$po7zd^£iv povou, axTTtsp xoyXiaq q inypzcbq rdq opcpuq. According to a fragment from Ophelio (K, II 294), Plato's books are dull, Xtftuxov re ninept, ftupiapa, fitfiXtov UXdrcovoq lp.fi povr-qro\>. In a passage from the Antaeus of Antiphanes (K, II 23) we have a satire on the daintiness of Plato or some philosopher of the Academy: w rdv } xaravo£iq ziq 7ror' iariv ovroal 6 yipcov ; fi. and rrjq ph ocp£coq 'EXXyvwoq' Xsuxij %Xaviq, (po.bc, yircoviaxoq xaXdq, mXidiov anaXov, evpud-poq fiaxr-qpia, fiefiaia rpdn£^a' re paxpd del Xiy£cv ; oXcoq abr-qv opav yap rrp> ^Axadyjpeiav doxco. In a fragment from the Nauagus of Ephippus (K, II 257) we find the following satire on Plato and his disciples : £7T££t' dvacrrd.q £varo%oq v£o.v(aq rtuv £*£ , Axady]p.£tac riq bno UXdrcova xai fipV6covo$pa()i>p.o.y£ioX-qcpix£ppArcov nX-qy£iq aydyxr h X-q(ptXoyop.icr&cp r£%yfl $iXtitittdou IS, otrrai; £v Jj/iipats dXlyais vexpobf notels ; Plato is here perhaps represented as setting forth the merits of his school, but this is only a matter for conjecture, and all that is clear is that he or one of his associates is represented as under- taking some absurdity. 25 Some of the references to Plato are almost void of ridicule. In a passage from the Hedychares of Theopompus (K, I 737), who belongs to Old as well as to Middle Comedy, a certain character says: iv yap iffziv obdk ev, zd 3e duo poXiq ev £ %Aeud^e dcpopiZeadai rcvoq iffzl yhooq ' ol 8k dtfjpouv. This bears a slight resemblance to the scene in the Clouds of Aristophanes (185 foil.) where the disciples of Socrates are rep- resented as investigating the things under the earth, and the whole piece is nothing less than a satire on the foolishness of Plato's teaching. The poet has some knowledge of the method followed in the Academy, the teaching of concepts, but while he ridicules the method, he spares Plato and gives us a different pic- ture of the philosopher from that given in the Dexidemides of Amphis, where he is ridiculed for his sullen look. From these examples we see that the ridicule to which Plato was subjected was not severe, and that they give us a correct notion of the treatment that he received may be inferred from the fact that Diogenes Laertius quoted some of them to show that he was ridiculed by the comic poets. Eleven poets of the period mention Plato in their comedies, and of the number Alexis men- tions him most frequently, or in five plays. But his criticisms are not more severe than those of the other poets, and to judge from the fragments of his works, he did not bring him upon the stage as a character in any of his comedies. He was doubtless brought on the stage in the Plato of Aristophon, and we see that he was one of the characters in the Dexidemides of Amphis. Alexis did not restrict his ridicule to Plato and the Pythago- reans. He represented the sophists in the Lyceum and Odeum as well as those in the Academy as engaged in idle talking. This fragment is from the Asotodidaskalos (K, II 306), and in it a certain house-servant urges his comrades to abandon philosophy and enjoy life ; -27 re rauza X-qpelq, xdrco Auxecov, 'Axadijpetav, ^Qtdetou izuXaq, Xrjpooc; v ; ob de Iv tovtiov xaXov, 7Ztv(Ofi£v } ifnrivcofxsVy ivraudd T££, &q v. touto) rdXavrov dobq fiad^rrjq yiverac 6 deff-OTrjq. But Aristippus probably received no more censure from the comic poets than from others, for from Athenaeus (544 d) we learn that his philosophy of life, especially as practiced by him- self, did not meet with universal approbation. Alexis wrote a play called the Phaedrus, in which he intro- duced a certain character philosophizing about the nature of love (K, II 245). The name of the play and the nature of this fragment make it probable that we have here a reference to the Socratic Phaedrus, or that the Platonic dialogue of this name suggested the subject of the comedy to Alexis. The character in the passage attempts to define love, and Denis (II 369) sees in this an evident trace of a lecture of Plato's. One sect of philosophers that escaped ridicule in the preceding period was the Pythagoreans. When it became popular for the Old Comic poets to ridicule the philosophers from the stage, the Pythagorean association in Lower Italy had been broken up, its members had been killed or scattered, and the school was prob- ably regarded as dead. Philolaus, who came to Thebes about 440 B. C, committed the doctrines of the sect to writing, but to a people not interested in philosophic speculations, the doctrines were as dead as the sect itself, and Old Comedy was not disposed to deal with dead theories any more than with dead men. Plato (Phaedo, 59 C) represents the Pythagoreans, Cebes and Simmias, as being in Athens at the time of the death of Socrates, but with the exception of these two, we know the names of no members of this school who were there during the time of Old Comedy. Not a single fragment has been left us from the comedies of this period in which these philosophers are mentioned. In Middle Comedy no sect was ridiculed more than the Pythagoreans. Whole plays, as we have seen, were devoted to them by Alexis, Aristophonand Cratinus junior. It is a subject of which the comic poets seem never to tire, and from the number of plays devoted to it, one 2 9 might infer that the followers of Pythagoras were at this time as well known in Athens as in Crotona in the time of Pythagoras himself, and that they were as strict in the observance of the regu- lations of their order as in the early days of its existence. Whether Pythagoreans were attracted to Athens through the close relations between the Older Academy and Pythagoreanism, or because of commercial relations between Athens and Taren- tum, we do not know. We have no evidence that an association of this order existed there during Middle Comedy, unless we find such in the comic fragments. Alexis in the Tarentini mentions several men in Athens as members of this school, but from the nature of the passage it cannot be known whether the poet is in earnest. The other poets in their ridicule do not mention par- ticular persons, but it is not probable that they would have paid so much attention to the subject if there had been no Pythagoreans nearer than Tarentum. In the plays devoted to these philosophers the ridicule was not provoked so much by hostility as by contempt, and the desire to excite laughter was the ruling motive. It was not their doctrine that was ridiculed, but what they ate and wore — their abstinence from flesh and wine, their scanty fare, their poor clothes, their dirt and their lice. From the fragments left we cannot tell whether the poets knew anything about their philosophy or not. They knew the Pythagoreans as vegetarians and as opposed to the use of wine ; these were popular notions about them, and just such characteristics could most easily be turned into ridicule. If the poets had been opposed to their teaching, we should expect here as well as in the case of Plato something more than this shallow criticism. They found in the philosophers a vast storehouse from which to draw material for their comedies, and it would not be far from right to conclude that they would have shed tears of genuine though perhaps selfish sorrow over the grave of the last philo- sopher. The Pythagoreans are never mentioned by the comic poets as immoral or ungodly, on the contrary they are commended for their piety ; this, however, is coupled with ridicule and may have been invented for the occasion. The reference to their piety occurs in a fragment from the Pythagorean of Aristophon (K, II 28b) : ep eie rwv vewripiov. In another fragment from the same play (K, II 279) we have the same kind of ridicule : izpbq raiv OeuJv olopeda robs TzdXai xore rob<; Uvdayopiaraq ytvopivouq oorioq fioizav £xovraq } 9] firj xaretrdiaxjt xai robq daxruXouq, idiXa) xp£pao~6at dexdxtq. In a third fragment (K, II 278) he compares them to Phidippides on account of their abstinence. Alexis in the Tarentini (K, II 378) ridicules their frugality ; lJuftayopiC axobopev, our* oov iaOiooatv our' dXX' obde iv 3i ejuL(pv%ov, olvov r' ob%i izivouaiv fiouot. B. 'E7U%aptd7]<; ij.£vtoi xbvaq xazeffdcet, rcbv Uo^ayopiaraiv si?. A. dnoxTsiva^ yi ttov' ovx ert yap ear' £fi(poyov. Of the men whom Alexis mentions here as Pythagoreans, noth- ing further is known. The real design of the last fragment was to ridicule Epicharides, whom Alexis mentions in a passage from the Phaedrus as being such a spendthrift that he squandered his paternal estate in five days. Antiphanes in a fragment from the Monuments (K, II 76) also makes sport of their vegetarianism : ra»v IJudayoptffraJv 8' stu%ov adXtoi riveq h rrj %apddpa rpcuyovreq aXtfia xai xaxd Toiavra ffuXAiyovre^ iv r

TOv p.kv &0 puiizov Oeov. ydfxooq, ioprdq, cruyyeve'c;, izalSaq, (piXouq, TtXourov, byieiav, ffTrov, olvov, rjdovrjv aurrj didcocn' raura izdvr* dv ixXtTrrj, ridvrjxe xoivfj Tzdc 6 rmv £(uvra)v /5Yoc. Philemon may have expressed here his view as to the utility of philosophy, but it is more probable that the philosophers were brought in to help out the situation. The real design of the piece seems to have been to deprecate the unsettled condition of things in Athens at the time, and to advocate peace. The tone is somewhat like that of Dicaeopolis in the opening of the Achar- nians of Aristophanes. There is no statement as to the time when the Pyrrhus was brought out, but the reference to the Stoic school in apery xai £ffrtv, zoozo zdyadov. ' 'E~txoopoc £?.£y£ zaod 1 a vov iyu> Xdyto, el zoozo> ZZwv Tzdvreq o> lyco £a> j3{o'/ } our' aroitoq r t v av ooz£ fiotxdq obdk ere. Again from the Philetaeri of Hegesippus (K, III 314) — ' Eizizoupoq 6 crocoz dciajaa'/zoq rtvoq £ : .~£~> tzooz abzov o, ft 7COT* c<7z\ zdyad6'/ ) Bid zi/.oo, el~£> ijdovrjv. £0 y\ Co xpariffr 1 avOpw-e xai (Towcuzaze ' zoo ydo pa.aaadat xpeXrrov obx k'crz' obdk c> ayo.06'/ ' —poceGzv; jjdovfi yap zdyaOdv. In a fragment from the Synexapaton of Bato (K, III 328) a slave who has ruined the youth entrusted to his care, on being remonstrated with by his master, defends his course by professing to have followed the philosophy of Epicurus : o.-ii/.w/.zy.aq zb fietpdxtdv poo icapaXa^tbv t av&pa>ice t xa\ -ir.t'./.az i/Mtl.^ etc fiiov aXXovptov adzou, xal —bzooz Ituftivobs -(>£'. d'.a dk vuv f 7tp6repov obx i&tafilvov, II. z]z f ei fiepLd&qxe, ditrnora, C^, iy/.alt'z ; A. ^7/y o' Itz\ zb TOtau&'' t 1>. i»$ XfyoutFtv ol aocpoi, 6 youv } Elt(xoup6$ yqfftv el>at zdyaUb> z/y jjdovijv dTJirou&ev obx icrtv <> syetv vaOrrjv Lzipw>')z>, i/. de zoo C^> -ay/.dJ.ujc Iffax; (L-a/ZO.Z eUTUYttV dwrrztq iflOt, _ 37 In the latter part of the same fragment the philosophers are represented as carrying out this popular notion of Epicureanism to such an extent that they even get drunk. But the sweeping nature of the statement and the special reference to the Stoics show- that there was little seriousness in it. It is only a joke at the expense of these sober philosophers : icopaxag ovv (piXoaocpov, eliti /not, rtva [led-bovT* im rovrotq #' olq Xeystq xyjXoupevov ; B. aizavxac, ' ol youv raq dcppoq i7t7]px6re^ xai rov cppovtpov ^-qrouvreq k\> rolq iteptTzdrotq xat ralq dtarptfialq maizep ditodedpaxora. Athenaeus (279) quotes these lines to show that the comic poets were not in sympathy with the philosophy of Epicurus, for he says that they inveighed against pleasure and incontinence. Whatever may be said of the first two fragments, the third cannot be taken as expressing a favorable opinion of Epicureanism. It is nothing less than condemnation of this doctrine, and it shows the result of such a theory when put into practice. If we form an opinion of Epicurus from the references of the comic poets, we conclude that he was a voluptuary, and that his aim was to take in the whole round of pleasures in life. We get no idea of the sober philosopher, whose philosophy aimed not at the gratifica- tion of individual appetites, but at the happiness of a whole life, and who regarded happiness and virtue as necessarily concomitant. 1 According to Athenaeus (278), Epicurus stated his doctrine in such a way that this popular notion could be taken of it, and it was just this view that presented features suitable for comedy. The comic poets took, as it were, the place of a press. What they uttered on the stage reached the whole people, and Denis is right in saying they contributed as much as the philosophers of the Academy and the Stoics in giving Epicurus the bad reputation which follows him still. The fact that Epicurus defined pleasure as the greatest good gave the poets ample room for invention, and that they distorted the correct view was quite natural, as we do not expect a true reproduction of any philosophy on the comic stage. With the exception of Bato, none of the poets of New Comedy have -left anything that is to be taken as a censure of the philo- sophy of Epicurus. But it may be well to state that only four of J D. L. X 138. 38 them mention him at all, and one of these is Menander. None of them, however, have left us any favorable comments on the Stoics. This is just what we expect if Epicurus was in their eyes the ideal philosopher, for no two systems stood in stronger con- trast. In a fragment from the Syntrophi of Damoxenus (K, III 350) the philosophy of Epicurus is compared with that of the Stoics : y Enixoopoq ooxoj xaxeizbxvoo xtjv ydovTJv' ipaffax' i-ipsXcus, elds xayad-ov fiovoq EXSlvoq (HOV kffXlV' Ol S' eV T£ axoa ^■qrouai (Tuve/ajq o\6v lax* obx sidoxsq. obxoov y } oux eyooatv, dyvoobat di y odd' av iripa) doi-qaav. B. ootid (juvdoxel. A fragment from the Manslayer of Bato (K, III 326) was directed against the Stoics : xoj>> ep.7topov xaxolq. iycb dk xdq ~po(j6dou<; psftbajy xaXdq 7:oiu). In a fragment from the Pilargyrus of Theognetus (K, III 364) a certain character is associated with a member of the Stoic school. The Stoic puts into practice his philosophy and tries to impress his views upon his companion. But the latter is disgusted with such a partner and passionately bursts out with : uyftpcorf d-oleTq fie, x&v ydp ix x7,q 7rotxiXr]<; Gxods Xoyapiwv dveTzeizeizXrfaiievos voffelq ' " dXXoxpiov ctf#' 6 nXouxoq dvftpwxuj, ~d%vr) ' ao(pia (V tdtov, xpuaxahXos. obdels -xcurroxe Taurrjv Xafiwv dn6Xz<7\" oj xdXa-z tytu t ino) ;i 6 daifimv ov ' obz eizeid-ero. This is satire called forth by inconsistencies betweeen the theory and practice of members of the Stoic school. The philo- sophers, especially the Stoics, were doubtless guilty of many things that seemed to the people to be foolishness, and it was just these peculiarities, more striking in a philosopher than in any one else, that formed the standard by which they were often judged. 1 The voluntary deaths of Zeno and Cleanthes, the life led by the Cynic Crates and his eccentric wife who followed him everywhere, gave the people grounds for regarding these philosophers as abnormal specimens of humanity. It is not strange, therefore, that we find in the Thunderbolt of Anaxippus (K, III 299) the following comment on the philosophers in practical life : oI'/jloCj cptXoGocpelq, dXXd rouq ye (piXoa6v Ttarpida dooXoffu^iqq pbaad<\ 6 d } acppoabvrjq. These references leave no doubt as to Menander's attitude towards these two philosophers. His intimacy with them would have prevented an unfavorable criticism of their philosophy even if he had been disposed to ridicule their profession, but other philosophers were spared as well as these. He rarely refers to the philosophers except as ol aocpoi, or ol rdq 6 0iX(ou, v to yap UTZoXrupd-kv Tixpov elvat Ttdv £» i> d.v&pd)7toiq ipuan. Again (K, III 195): ItoXX&V

')(T£L zolq 1ta aopdrcuv -pa.yfj.drwv. In the second: ou Travroq aya&ou Try tzpovoiav afcfav zp{vo)v av dp&wz 6itoka§£iv riq p.01 doxet, aXX 1 ecrrc xai ravrofiarov evia ^pijfftfiov. According to Ditandy (196) the influence of Theophrastus is seen in his art rather than in his philosophy, as he gave the poet, either verbally or in his work on comedy, excellent advice as to the construction of a play, and it is from the same source that Menander learned the art of portraying the passions and charac- ters of men. 1 D. L. X 125. LIBRARY OF 029 5S1 W 1 \ LO' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 029 561 160 1 METAL EDGE, INC. 2008 PH 7.5 TO 9.5 RAX