Some Thoughts on New Comedy and its Public

Abstract

If we say that the writers of New Comedy (Menander and his older contemporaries Philemon and Diphilos) represent the end of a dramatic tradition, they are also poets of the Hellenistic Age, standing at the beginning of another tradition, one that is widely documented over about a millennium. That tradition is seen in the remains of copies of plays excavated in Egypt as well as of theatre-buildings in all parts of the Greco- Roman world ; a diverse interest in the theatre is attested by representations of dramatic scenes, actors and masks ; we can add Latin versions of Greek plays, play-readings, excerpts in anthologies, passages given to school-children to learn or copy ; New Comedy is recalled in other writings of all kinds, from epigram to satire, from oratory to popular philosophy. The growing population of papyri gives scope for thought about the typology of books, their ownership and use. All the testimonia prove the sustained interest in Menander, but also in Philemon and Diphilos.