- 0 - 521 - 76028 - 7 - The Cambridge Companion to Greek

The only fully intact textual evidence from fifth-century and (very) early fourth-century comedy are the eleven completely preserved comedies by Aristophanes, who was born, in all likelihood, shortly after 450 bce and died after 388 bce.1 This is, in fact, not as thin a basis as one might initially think. For not only is the number of completely preserved Aristophanic comedies actually quite high: it amounts, after all, to about a quarter of Aristophanes’ total output of around forty comedies (contrast this with the seven plays we have by Sophocles and the six or seven we have by Aeschylus, both of whom wrote considerably more plays in total than Aristophanes). What is perhaps more is the fact that those eleven comedies are datable (in most cases very precisely), and that they happen to span the entire duration of Aristophanes’ artistic career, from the earlier part (Acharnians [425], Knights [424], Clouds [423], Wasps [422] and Peace [421]) via mid-career plays (Birds [414], Lysistrata [411], Women at the Thesmophoria [411] and Frogs [405]) to the early fourth-century plays (Assembly Women [393, 392 or 391?] and Wealth [388]). For the remainder of the fourth century, however, the textual evidence is largely fragmentary. There is one virtually complete comedy, preserved on papyrus, the Dyscolus by Menander (who lived from 342/1 bce to 292/1 bce or thereabouts). This comedy, which has been known only since the publication of the Bodmer papyrus codex in 1959, was performed in 316 bce (when it won first prize in Athens at the Lenaean festival). It is therefore quite an early Menander play. There are substantial parts of several other Menandrian comedies (Aspis, Samia, Men at Arbitration and