Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/58

30 ganzas, which spared neither gods nor men, and were accompanied by every licence of dance and gesture. The composition of such dramas began almost simultaneously in Sicily and Athens. In the former the first author is believed to be Epicharmus (about B.C. 480). In Athens about forty names of the Old Comedy are known, but all that remain to us are the eleven plays of Aristophanes (about B.C. 444–380). Towards the end of his life the poverty of the state made the furnishing of choruses difficult, and the position of politics made the old personalities dangerous. In his last plays, therefore, the choric element is quite insignificant, and the plays them- selves are comedies of manners rather than political invectives. This change of fashion was followed by a number of writers of what is called Middle Comedy, in which political allusions still occurred, though with increasing rarity. About the middle of the fourth century B.C. the change became more complete. The chorus disappeared altogether, a prologue was introduced instead, and politics disappeared entirely. The most conspicuous among such writers was the Athenian Menander (B.C. 342–291). Others came from Sicily and different parts of Greece, the last known being Posidippus of Cassandria, who was living in B.C. 289. The plays of this New Comedy are only known to us in the Latin adaptations of Plautus and Terence.

Such, in brief outline, are the departments of literature in which Greek genius has abidingly influenced the spirit and form of all modern literature. This influence is more conspicuous still in art.