Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/184

 166 THE COMEDIANS WHO PRECEDED OR WERE or ninety-seven years old wlien lie died The Comedies of Epi- charmus'' were partly parodies of mythological subjects, and as such, not very different from the dialogue of the satyrical drama ; partly political, and in this respect may have furnished a model for the dialogue of the old Athenian Comedy. He must have made some advance towards the Comedy of Character, if it be true that the Mencechmi of Plautus was founded upon one of his plays ^, and Mullcr has therefore well remarked"*, that although " the Sicilian Comedy in its artistic development preceded the Attic by about a generation, yet the transition to the middle Attic Comedy, as it is called, is easier from Epicharmus than from Aristophanes, who appears very unlike himself in the play which tends towards the form of the Middle Comedy." It is not stated expressly that he had choruses in his Comedies; it seems, however, pro- bable from the title of one of them (the Kco/j,acrTai) that he had^. His style was not less varied than his subjects; for while, on the one hand, he indulged in the wildest buffoonery, he was fond, on the other hand, of making his characters discourse most philo- sophically on all topics, and we may discern in many of his remaining lines that moral and gnomic element which contributed so much to the formation of the dialogue in the Attic Tragedy^. Aristotle charges him with using false antithesis'^, the eifect per- haps of his acquaintance with the forced and artificial rhetoric of the Sicilians. The titles of thirty-five of his Comedies are known®. Although Epicharmus is mentioned as the inventor of Comedy, 1 Diog. Laert. (viii. 78) gives the former number ; Lucian (INIacrob. xxv.) the latter. 2 On the nature of the Comedy of Epicharmus, see Miiller, Dor. TV, 7, §§ 2, 3, 4 ; Mist. Lit. Gr. 11. pp. 44 [56 new ed.] sqq. 3 Prolog. MencBchni. 12. ^ Hist. Lit. Gr. 11. p. 46 [59 new ed.]. 5 See above, p. 71. ^ See the passages in Clinton, F. H. Ii. p. xxxvi. note (g). '' Rhetoric, iii. 9. ^ These titles are as follows : I. 'Akvu)u, 2. "AfJiUKO^, 3. 'AraXavTai, 4. Ba/cxai, 5. Bovcripis, 6. Ta Kal QaXaa(xa, 7. L.l6vv<xol, 8. 'Eris ■;7 IWovtos, 9. "H/Sas yd/uLos, 10. 'HpaKXijs tlapdcpopos, ir. Ki^/cXwi/', 12. KcofiacTTat 77 "HcpaiaTOS, 13. M^yapis, 14. Movaai, [5. Nt6/3?7S ydfios, 16. 'Odvaaei/s avTOfxoXos, 17. 'Odva-aeds uavayos, 18. Upo/xrjdevs UupKaevs, 19. Xeipiji'es, 20. liKlpoov, 21. 20i'7^, 22. TpQes, 23. ^ioKTriTr]s, 24. ' Ay pucrrXvoi, 25. 'Apvayai, 26. AicpiXos, 27. 'EopT-/i, 28, Qeupol, 29. Aoyos rj AoyLK-q, 30. NStrot, 31. 'OpTja, 32, HeplaWos, ^^. Uepaai, 34. Ilidoou, 35. Xvrpat. See Fabricius, II. p. 300, Harles, where however there are some repetitions of names.