Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/455

433 LITERATURE OV ANCIENT GREECE. 433 and their jokes Maesonian (jj.aiacoviica.')* A considerable clement in such representations would consist of mimicry and absurd gestures, such as the Dorians seem to have been gencrallly more fond of than the Athenians ; the amusement furnished by the Spartan Deiceliclce (tao/Xt/w-ru) was made up of the imitation of certain characters taken from common life; for instance, the character of a foreign physician represented in a sort of pantomime dance, and with the vulgar language of the lower orders.f The more probable supposition is, that this sort of comedy passed over to Sicily through the Doric colonies, as it is on the western boundaries of the Grecian world that we find a general prevalence of comic dramas in which the amusement consists in a recurrence of the same character and the same species of masks. The Oscan pastime of the Atcllance, which went from Campania to Rome, was also properly designated by these standing characters ; and great as the distance was from the Dorians of the Peloponnese to the Oscans of Atella, wc may nevertheless discern in the character-masks of the latter some clear traces of Greek influence. J In Sicily, comedy made its first appearance at Sclinus, a Megarian colony. Aristoxenus, who composed comedies in the Dorian dialect, lived here before Epicharmus ; how long before him cannot be satisfactorily ascertained. In fact we know very little about him; still it is remark- able that among the few records of him which we possess there is a verse which was the commencement of a somewhat long invective against soothsayers ;§ whence it is clear that he, too, occupied himself with the follies and absurdities of whole classes and conditions of men. § 5. The flourishing period of Sicilian comedy was that in which Phormis, Epicha?vnus, and Deinolochus, (the son or scholar of the latter,) wrote for the stage. Phormis is mentioned as the friend of Gelo and the instructor of his children. According to credible autho- rities, Epicharmus was a native of Cos, who went to Sicily with Cadmus, the tyrant of Cos, when he resigned his power and emigrated to that island, about 01. 73, b.c. 488. Epicharmus at first resided a short time at the Sicilian Megara, where he probably first commenced his career as a comedian. Megara was conquered by Gelo, (01. 74, 1. or 2. e.c. 484, 483,) and its inhabitants were removed to Syracuse, and Epicharmn among them. The prime of his life, and the most flourishing period of his art, are included in the reign of Hiero, (01. 75, 3. to 01. 78, 2. b.c. p. 659, and Festus, s. v. Mason. f See Muller's Dorians, b. rv. eh. <>. § 9. + Among the standing masks of the Atellana was the Pappus, whose name is obviously the Greek •xa.nros, ami reminds u> of the namreviiXwas, the old leader of the satyrs, in the satyric drama ; the Maccus, whose name is explained by the Greek '{iukxiZv ; also the Simus, I at least in later times: Sueton. Galba, 13,) which was a peculiar epithet of the Satyrs from their flat noses. § la IleplueUion, Enchcir. p, 15, 2 F
 * The grammarian Aristophanes of Byzantium, quoted by Athenanis, XIV.,