Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/287

 GREEK PLAYS IN GENERAL. 261 play of Menander turned, may have been stolen like that in the Curculio of Plautus (ii. 3. 81)^ Of the dresses in the Old Comedy we have no monumental illustrations^, but the allusions in Aristophanes tell us how extra- vagant they must have been, and in what unrestrained obscenity the poet and his patrons indulged. The numerous scenes from the New Comedy, which are still preserved in ancient works of art, show that though the language became more reserved and better regulated, the eyes of the audience were not treated with much respect. The actors often wore harlequinade dresses, with trowsers fitting close to the leg, and with protuberances and indecent appendages, indicating clearly enough the phallic origin of Greek Comedy. The most interesting examples of the costume of Comedy are furnished by two pictures representing scenes of a very similar character, one of which has been referred to a (fiKva^ rpayiKo^;, or tragic foolery of Ehinthon^; and the other to the Althcea of Theo- pompus, a poet of the Middle Comedy*. In the former of these, Jupiter, attended by Mercury, is about to climb to the chamber of Alcmena, who is looking out of a window in full dress as an hetmra^, Jupiter, who has a bearded mask with a modius on his head like Serapis, is bearing a ladder, with his head between the 1 This interpretation is due to Visconti, Mus. Pio-Clem. Tom. in. p. 37. 2 The rejiresentation of the first scene of the Frogs of Aristophanes, on a painted vase (Gerhard, Denkm. n. Forsch. 1849, Taf. iii. No. i ; Wieseler, Theatergeh. a, 25), Fig. 25. is hardly an exception, for it does not correspond to the text, and is obviously a later production. 3 Winckelmann, Momcm. iiied. P. i. No. 190; Miiller, Denkmaler d. alt. Kunst, 11. PI. III. No. 49; Wieseler, Taf. ix. 11. ^ She wears an ornamented cap or /jt-lrpa, which is referred to this character by Pollux, IV. § 154: i} di 8idfi€Tpos (eralpa) /mirpq. iroLKikr} tt)u K€(par]u KaTeiXrjTTTai. Cf. bervius ad Verg. ^n. iv. 216; Juvenal, Sat. ill. 66: ite quibus grata est picta lupa barbara mitra.
 * Panofka, Cab. Pourtales, PI, x. ; Wieseler, Taf. IX. 12.