T C 357: Comedy, Ancient and Modern

Menander

Athens between Aristophanes and Menander

• Alexander the Great: Just-over-lifesize portrait head in Athenian funerary style, from a commemorative or funerary monument in the Eastern Mediterranean.
• Map showing campaigns of Alexander the Great
• Map of the Hellenistic Kingdoms

New Comedy in Performance

• The Theater of Dionysos
• Mosaic showing scene from Menander's Ladies at Lunch, based on painting by Dioskourides of Samos, from the Villa of Cicero, Pompeii.
• Mosaic showing scene from Menander's Theophoroumene
• Miniature terracotta comic masks of characters from New Comedy, from Lipari, 1st half of the 3rd cent. BC. Clockwise from top left:
  (1) "The rustic"
  (2) "The rustic
  (3) "The vainglorious soldier"
  (4) "The vainglorious soldier"
• Miniature terracotta comic masks of characters from New Comedy, from Lipari, 1st half of the 3rd cent. BC. Clockwise from top left:
  (1) "The flatterer" (kolax).
  (2) "The flatterer" (kolax).
  (3) "The flatterer" (kolax), with convivial crown.
  (4) "The parasite" (parasitos).
• Miniature terracotta comic masks of characters from New Comedy, from Lipari, 1st half of the 3rd cent. BC. Clockwise from top left:
  (1) "The elderly slave"
  (2) "The short-haired man"
  (3) "The head slave"
  (4) "The slave Maison / the cook"

The Rediscovery of Menander

• Mosaic of the 3rd c. AD depicting Menander; inscribed in Greek (MENANDROS). From the triclinium of the House of Menander, Mytilene.
• Mosaics of the 3rd c. AD from the triclinium of the House of Menander, Mytilene, each depicting a scene from a particular comedy. Left: Three figures from the Synaristosai, with Greek inscriptions (SUARISTVSVN M A, FILAINIS, PLAGGVN, PUYIAS). Right: Three figures from the Theophoroumene, with Greek inscriptions (YEOFOROUMENHS M B; LUSIAS, PARMENVN, KLEINIAS).
• Mosaics of the 3rd c. AD from the triclinium of the House of Menander, Mytilene, each depicting a scene from a particular comedy. Top left: Three figures from the Samia, with Greek inscriptions (SAMIAS M G, MAGEIROS, DHMEAS, XRUSIS). Top right: Three figures from the Synaristosai, with Greek inscriptions (EPITREPONTVN M B, SUROS, SMEIKRINHS, ANYRAKEUS). Bottom left: Three figures from the Encheiridion, with Greek inscriptions (ENXEIRIDIOU MEROS D, STRATVN, KERDVN, DERSIPPOS). Bottom right: Three figures from the Messenia, with Greek inscriptions (MESSHNIAS M E, SUROS, XAREINOS, TIBIOS).
• Menander portrait. Wall painting from an exedra in the House of the Menander, Pompeii.
• Menander, Karchedonios. From Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Papyrus roll. Iambic trimeters of a comedy. 1st half of the 1st cent. AD.
• Menander, Sikyonios. Papyrus from Sorbonne Inventory, 2272b. Later 3rd cent. BC. Fragments from papyrus rolls cut down to make cartonnage for a mummy.

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