Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/464

442 442 HISTORY OF THE proportion to these attractions, bound the young people to them with more or less of constancy and cxclusiveness ; their lovers found an entertain- ment in their society which naturally rendered, them little anxious to form a regular matrimonial alliance, especially as the legitimate daughters of Athenian citizens were still brought up in a narrow and limited manner, and with few accomplishments. The fathers either allowed their suns a reasonable degree of liberty to follow their own inclinations and sow their wild oats, or through parsimony or morose strictness en- deavoured to withhold from them these indulgencieS; in the midst of all which it often happened that the old man fell into the very same follies which he so harshly reproved in his son. In these domestic intrigues the slaves exercised an extraordinary influence : even in Xenophon's time, favoured by the spirit of democracy, and as it seems almost stand- ing on the same footing with the meaner citizens, they were still more raised up by the growing degeneracy of manners, and the licence which universally prevailed. In these comedies, therefore, it often happens that a slave forms the whole plan of operations in an intrigue ; it is his sagacity alone which relieves his young master from some disagreeable embarrassment, and helps to put him in possession of the object of his love : at the same time we are often introduced to rational slaves, who try to induce their young masters to follow the suggestions of some sudden better resolution, and free themselves at once from the exactions of an unreasonable het&ra* No less important are the parasites, who, not to speak of the comic situations in which they are placed by their resolution to eat without labouring for it, are of great use to the comedian in their capacity of a sort of dependents on the family : they are brought into social relations of every kind, and are ready to perform any service for the sake of a feast. Of the characters who make their appearance less frequently, we will only speak here of the Bramarbas or miles glo- riosus. He is no Athenian warrior, no citizen-soldier, like the heroes of the olden time, but a homeless leader of mercenaries, who enlists men- at-arms, now for king Seleucus, now for some other crowned general ; who makes much booty with little trouble in the rich provinces of Asia, copy {Sat. V. 161). In this passage Persius has Menander immediately in his eye, and not the imitation in Terence's Eunuch, act i. sc. 1, although Terence's Phsedria, Parmeno, and Thais, correspond to the Cha?restratus, Daos, and Chrysis of Menander. In Menander, however, the young man takes counsel with his slave at a time when the helcera had shut him out, and on the supposition that she would invite him to come to her again : in Terence the lover is already invited to a reconciliation after a quarrel. This results from the adoption by Terence of a practice common with the Latin comedians, and called conlaminatio ; he has here combined in one piece two of Menander's comedies, the Eunuch and the Ko/cuc* Accordingly he is obliged to take up the thread of the Eunuch somewhat later, in order to gain more room for the develcpement of his double plot. In the same manner the Adelphi of Terence is made up from the Viuoyl; of Menander and the ~2.vvuvohwr.<;vTi; of Diphilus.
 * As in Menander's Eunvch, in the scene of which Persius gives a miniature