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Updated: June 18, 2025
Its season of comparative brilliance was the period shortly before and after the first Punic war; yet Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius and generally the whole body of the national Roman authors down to Varro and Lucretius in all branches of poetical production, not excepting even the didactic poem, attached themselves, not to their Greek contemporaries or very recent predecessors, but without exception to Homer, Euripides, Menander and the other masters of the living and national Greek literature.
In this sense Menander was also a philosophical comic writer; and we may boldly place the moral maxims which remain of his by the side at least of those of Moliere. But no comedy is constructed of mere apophthegms. The poet must be a moralist, but his personages cannot always be moralizing.
There was in creed and purpose the virility that creates a state, and, as Menander says, the country which is cultivated with difficulty produces brave men; but we leave out an important element in the lives of the Pilgrims if we overlook the means they had of living above their barren circumstances.
The Eunuch was even acted twice the same day , and earned more money than any comedy, whoever was the writer, had ever done before, namely, eight thousand sesterces ; besides which, a certain sum accrued to the author for the title. But Varro prefers the opening of The Adelphi to that of Menander.
The broad allusions and rough fun of Aristophanes were much more intelligible to a Roman public than the refined criticism and quiet satire of Menander, even supposing the poet able to reproduce these.
She utterly ruined how long ago is it? the unfortunate Menander, my poor Ismene's young husband. You know them both, Hermon. Here, of course, you scarcely heard how she lured him from his wife and the lovely little girl who bears my name. She tempted the poor fellow to her ship, only to cast him off at the end of a month for another.
Without any outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of the instruction the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus acquired to dive into that Greek literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander.
In the details also he borrowed what pleased him partly from Menander, partly from the older national literature.
But it certainly was not love in those nobler forms to which it has since elevated itself. Menander painted truly the degenerate world in which he lived, actuated by no mighty impulses, no noble aspirations. He was contemporary with Epicurus, and their characters had much in common; both were deficient in the inspiration of high moral ideas.
There was in creed and purpose the virility that creates a state, and, as Menander says, the country which is cultivated with difficulty produces brave men; but we leave out an important element in the lives of the Pilgrims if we overlook the means they had of living above their barren circumstances.
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