![]() Menander, however, believed himself to be the better dramatist, and, according to Aulus Gellius, used to ask Philemon: "Don't you feel ashamed whenever you gain a victory over me?" According to Caecilius of Calacte ( Porphyry in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica ) Menander was accused of plagiarism, as his The Superstitious Man was taken from The Augur of Antiphanes, but reworkings and variations on a theme of this sort were commonplace and so the charge is a complicated one. His rival in dramatic art (and supposedly in the affections of Glycera) was Philemon, who appears to have been more popular. Numerous supposed busts of him survive, including a well-known statue in the Vatican, formerly thought to represent Gaius Marius. According to the note of a scholiast on the Ibis of Ovid, he drowned while bathing, and his countrymen honored him with a tomb on the road leading to Athens, where it was seen by Pausanias. But Menander, preferring the independence of his villa in the Piraeus and the company of his mistress Glycera, refused. He also enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy Soter, the son of Lagus, who invited him to his court. He was the friend, associate, and perhaps pupil of Theophrastus, and was on intimate terms with the Athenian dictator Demetrius of Phalerum. He presumably derived his taste for comic drama from his uncle Alexis. Menander was the son of well-to-do parents his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso. – early 1st century A.D., Princeton University Art Museum Roman, Republican or Early Imperial, Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy, 1st century B.C. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |