Menander in the context of Classicist

Ancient Greek comedy (Ancient Greek: κωμῳδία, romanized: kōmōidía) was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece; the others being tragedy and the satyr play. Greek comedy was distinguished from tragedy by its happy endings and use of comically exaggerated character archetypes, the latter feature being the origin of the modern concept of the comedy. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods; Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven extant plays of Aristophanes; Middle Comedy is largely lost and preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis; New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. A burlesque dramatic form that blended tragic and comic elements, known as phlyax play or hilarotragedy, developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia by the late 4th century BC.

The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Poetics (c. 335 BC) that comedy is a representation of laughable people and involves some kind of blunder or ugliness which does not cause pain or disaster. C. A. Trypanis wrote that comedy is the last of the great species of poetry Greece gave to the world.

Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, the Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.

The lyric poets Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar were highly influential during the early development of the Greek poetic tradition. Aeschylus is the earliest Greek tragic playwright for whom any plays have survived complete. Sophocles is famous for his tragedies about Oedipus, particularly Oedipus the King and Antigone. Euripides is known for his plays which often pushed the boundaries of the tragic genre. The comedic playwright Aristophanes wrote in the genre of Old Comedy, while the later playwright Menander was an early pioneer of New Comedy. The historians Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Thucydides, who both lived during the fifth century BC, wrote accounts of events that happened shortly before and during their own lifetimes. The philosopher Plato wrote dialogues, usually centered around his teacher Socrates, dealing with various philosophical subjects, whereas his student Aristotle wrote numerous treatises, which later became highly influential.

Euripides (/jʊəˈrɪpɪdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Eὐριπίδης, romanized: Eurīpídēs, pronounced [eu̯.riː.pí.dɛːs]; c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three authors of Greek tragedy for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Nineteen plays attributed to Euripides have survived more or less complete, although one of these (Rhesus) is often considered not to be genuinely his work. Many fragments (some of them substantial) survive from most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined: he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.

Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He was referred to by Aristotle as "the most tragic of poets", probably in reference to a perceived preference for unhappy endings, but Aristotle's remark is seen by Bernard Knox as having wider relevance, since "in his representation of human suffering Euripides pushes to the limits of what an audience can stand; some of his scenes are almost unbearable." Focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown, Euripides was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.

Publius Terentius Afer (/təˈrɛnʃiəs, -ʃəs/; c. 195/185 – c. 159 BC), better known in English as Terence (/ˈtɛrəns/), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six comedies based on Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. All six of Terence's plays survive complete and were originally produced between 166–160 BC.

According to ancient authors, Terence was born in Carthage and was brought to Rome as a slave, where he gained an education and his freedom; around the age of 25, Terence is said to have made a voyage to the east in search of inspiration for his plays, where he died either of disease in Greece, or by shipwreck on the return voyage. However, Terence's traditional biography is often thought to consist of speculation by ancient scholars who lived too long after Terence to have access to reliable facts about his life.

Dyskolos (Greek: Δύσκολος, pronounced [dýskolos], translated as The Grouch, The Misanthrope, The Curmudgeon, The Bad-tempered Man or Old Cantankerous) is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander, the only one of his plays, and of the whole New Comedy, that has survived in nearly complete form. It was first presented at the Lenaian festival in Athens in 316 BCE, where it won Menander the first prize.

It was long known only through fragmentary quotations; but a papyrus manuscript of the nearly complete Dyskolos, dating to the 3rd century, was recovered in Egypt in 1952 and forms part of the Bodmer Papyri and Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The play was published in 1958 by Victor Martin.

The Dishna Papers, also often known as the Bodmer Papyri, are a group of twenty-two papyri discovered in Dishna, Egypt in 1952. Later, they were purchased by Martin Bodmer and deposited at the Bodmer Library in Switzerland. The papyri contain segments from the Old and New Testaments, early Christian literature, Homer, and Menander. The oldest, P dates to c. 200 AD. Most of the papyri are kept at the Bodmer Library, in Cologny, Switzerland outside Geneva.

In 2007, the Vatican Library acquired Bodmer Papyrus 14–15 (known as P and as the Mater Verbi (Hanna) Papyrus). Since the papers are held not only at the Bodmer Library, but also at the Vatican, Oslo, Barcelona, and other locations, many scholars have preferred the term Dishna Papers since the mid-2010s.

Apollodorus of Carystus (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ Καρύστιος) in Euboea, was one of the most important writers of the Attic New Comedy, who flourished in Athens between 300 and 260 B.C. He is to be distinguished from the older Apollodorus of Gela (342—290), a contemporary of Menander who was also a writer of New Comedy. He wrote 47 comedies and obtained the prize five times. Terence's Hecyra and Phormio were adapted from the Hekyra and Epidikazomenos of Apollodorus.

The Tanagra figurines are a mold-cast type of Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BC, named after the Boeotian town of Tanagra, where many were excavated and which has given its name to the whole class. However, they were produced in many cities. They were coated with a liquid white slip before firing and were sometimes painted afterward in naturalistic tints with watercolors, such as the famous "Dame en Bleu" ("Lady in Blue") at the Louvre. They were widely exported around the ancient Greek world. Such figures were made in many other Mediterranean sites, including Alexandria, Tarentum in Magna Graecia, Centuripe in Sicily and Myrina in Mysia.

Although not portraits, Tanagra figures depict real women—and some men and boys—in elegant but everyday costume, with familiar accessories like hats, wreaths or fans. Some character pieces may have represented stock figures from the New Comedy of Menander and other writers. Others continued an earlier tradition of molded terracotta figures used as cult images or votive objects. Typically they are about 10 to 20 centimetres high.

Apollodorus of Gela (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ὁ Γελῷος), Magna Graecia, in Sicily was a New Comedy playwright. According to Eudokia Makrembolitissa and the Suda, he was a contemporary of Menander, and accordingly lived between the years 340 and 290 BC.

Both the Suda and Eudokia attribute to him seven comedies, of which they give the titles. But while the editors of the Suda ascribes them to Apollodorus of Gela, they assign one of these same comedies in another passage to Apollodorus of Carystus. Other writers also frequently confound the two comic poets.

Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") is a variation of a Latin phrase (iacta alea est [ˈjakta ˈaːlɛ.a ˈɛs̺t]) attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on 10 January 49 BC, as he led his army across the Rubicon river in Northern Italy, between Cesena and Rimini, in defiance of the Roman Senate and beginning a long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase is often used to indicate events that have passed a point of no return.

According to Plutarch, Caesar originally said the line in Greek rather than Latin, as ἀνερῥίφθω κύβος anerrhī́phthō kýbos, literally "let a die be cast", metaphorically "let the game be played". This is a quote from a play by Menander, and Suetonius's Latin translation is slightly misleading, being merely a statement about the inevitability of what is to come, while the Greek original contains a self-encouragement to venture forward. The Latin version is now most commonly cited with the word order changed (Alea iacta est), and it is used both in this form, and in translation in many languages. The same event inspired another related idiom, "crossing the Rubicon".

In English literature, the term comedy of manners (also anti-sentimental comedy) describes a genre of realistic, satirical comedy that questions and comments upon the manners and social conventions of a greatly sophisticated, artificial society. The satire of fashion, manners, and outlook on life of the social classes, is realised with stock characters, such as the braggart soldier of Ancient Greek comedy, and the fop and the rake of English Restoration comedy. The clever plot of a comedy of manners (usually a scandal) is secondary to the social commentary thematically presented through the witty dialogue of the characters, e.g. The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), by Oscar Wilde, which satirises the sexual hypocrisies of Victorian morality.

The comedy-of-manners genre originated in the New Comedy period (325–260 BC) of Classical Greece (510–323 BC), and is known from fragments of works by the playwright Menander, whose style of writing, elaborate plots, and stock characters were imitated by Roman playwrights, such as Plautus and Terence, whose comedies were known to and staged during the Renaissance. In the 17th century, the comedy of manners is best realised in the plays of Molière, such as The School for Wives (1662), The Imposter (1664), and The Misanthrope (1666), which satirise the hypocrisies and pretensions of the ancien régime that ruled France from the late 15th century to the 18th century. In the early 18th century, William Congreve's play The Way of the World (1700) became popular among the public for its strong depiction of the comedy of manners genre.

Perikeiromene (Ancient Greek: Περικειρομένη, romanized: Perikeiroménē), translated as The Girl with her Hair Cut Short, is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander (342/41 – 292/91 BC) that is only partially preserved on papyrus. Of an estimated total of between 1030 and 1091 lines, about 450 lines (between 40 and 45%) survive. No act has been preserved in its entirety, but there are still individual passages from each of the five acts. Most acts lack their beginning and end, except that the transition between act I and II is still extant. The play may have been first performed in 314/13 BC or not much later.

The Bodmer Papyri are a set of Greek and Coptic manuscripts, ranging from the 2nd to the 7th-centuries. These manuscripts were collected between the 1950s and 1960s by Swiss bibliophile, Martin Bodmer, who obtained them across Egypt. Many of these manuscripts are unique or early attestations of important Christian works, such as The Vision of Dorotheus or the Biblical 𝔓, described by the Bodmer Foundation (French: Fondation Bodmer) as "highly important for the history of early Christianity", alongside several classical or Egyptological works, such as the works of Menander and Egyptian land and financial registers. Many of these papyri are parts of larger papyrus codexes, such as the Bodmer Composite Codex or Codex of Visions. These manuscripts, since Bodmer's death, have been scattered across several collections; primarily in the Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, these papyri are also found in the Chester Beatty Library, libraries in Mississippi, Cologne, Barcelona and the Vatican. Because of the efforts of the Fondation and many scholars, these manuscripts have been prepared into editiones principes and digitized, allowing for scholarly access.

The following list is based on the catalogues of the Bodmer Lab, Brent Nongbri and Albert Pietersma. The numbering system is based on the abbreviation "Papyrus Bodmer" with an Arabic numeral (e.g. Papyrus Bodmer 23). Where a date range for a papyrus can be ascertained, it is included. The "citation(s)" section refers to the editio princeps of the papyrus, alongside later text revisions or additions. When a papyrus is part of a larger codex, that codex's name is added.

Cephisodotus, son of Praxiteles, brother of Timarchos and grandson of Cephisodotus the Elder. None of his work remains in originals, but in later, mostly Roman copies. He was in a team with his brother a prolific sculptor of the latter part of the 4th century BC, especially noted for portraits, of Menander (ca. 80 remaining ancient replices), of the orator Lycurgus, and others.

Cephisodotus the Younger is said by some to be a candidate for the famous statue of Two Wrestlers (at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy), found in a Roman marble but believed to have originally been cast in bronze.