MENANDER'S PLAYS OF RECONCILIATION? BY T. B. L. WEBSTER, M.A.. F.S.A., HULME PROFESSOR OF CREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER: I ENANDER was born in 342 B.C. Four years later M Philip of Macedon defeated the Athenian and Boeotian armies at Chaeronea and became master of Creece ; in 336 B.C. he was assassinated and was succeeded by Alexander. The hopes that the Creeks had of regaining freedom came to nothing and Alexander appointed his father's general Antipater as gover- nor of Macedonia and supervisor of Creece ; two years later Alexander started his Eastern campaigns. While Athenian external policy had to conform to Macedonian requirements, the orator Lycurgus (with Demosthenes in the background) aimed at restoring Athenian strength and Athenian morale ; he rebuilt the theatre of Dionysus in stone, set up in it the statues of the three classical tragedians, &chylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and arranged for the production of official texts of t their plays (a classical tragedy had been produced every year along with the new plays since 386 B.c.). At the same time Aristotle, who had been provided by Alexander with school, library and coIIections when he returned to Athens in 335-334 B.c., was lecturing and writing on dramatic theory as well as on ethics and politics. Thus Menander (and his fellow-poets of the New Comedy) could steep themselves both in the practice and the theory of classical tragedy. Athenian politics ebbed and flowed with the news of Alexander's successes. In 330 B.c., after the decisive victory of Alexander over the Persians, &chines of the pro-Macedonian party thought that the time had come to crush Demosthenes and brought a lawsuit against Ctesiphon, who had proposed I giving Demosthenes a golden wreath for his services to Athens. Ctesiphon was acquitted ; Eschines went into exile and ' A lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library on the 12th of December. 370 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY Demosthenes was appointed corn commissioner in 328. In 326, possibly because Alexander was not expected to return from India, the anti-Macedonia party came to power. Alexander did return and his corrupt finance minister Harpaltls fled to Athens, offering money and troops for war against Alexander; Demosthenes, among others, was implicated and on Harpalus' death went into exile. When Alexander died in 323, the anti-Macedonian party under Hyperides formed a new Hellenic League against the Macedonians. Aristotle, now unprotected, fled to the Mace- donian stronghold of Chalcis and died ; in due course he was succeeded by Theophrastus, the teacher of Menander. In 322 the Athenians were defeated by land and sea, and Antipater im- posed an oligarchic constitution with the franchise restricted to the 9000 citizens liable for heavy-armed service. In the next year Menander produced his first play. Antipater's death in 319 was the cause of a democratic re- volution in Athens, which was put down in the next year by Antipater's son Cassander, who installed Demetrius of Phalerum, a pupil of Theophrastus, as the governor of Athens : he imposed a moderate oligarchy with the franchise restricted to those who had 1000 drachme and over. During this period Menander won his first victory in 315. Meanwhile the wars among Alexander's generals had continued : Antigonus the One-eyed, who ruled most of Asia, invaded Attica unsuccessfuIly in 313,. having proclaimed that he would continue Alexander's policy of treating the Creek states as free allies, and in 307 his son, Demetrius the Besieger, ' liberated ' Athens. Demetrius of Phalerum fled to Ptolemy in Egypt and was put in charge of the library of Alexandria. In the general excitement and rejoicing Theophrastus was also banished but was recalled the next year. In 306 Epicurus, the founder of the Epicurean school, started to teach in Athens and in 301 Zeno founded the Stoic school. The defeat of Antigonus by Cassander and his allies at the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. caused another oligarchic revolution in Athens. When, after the death of Cassander, Demetrius the Besieger again captured Athens in 294, he no longer trusted her as a free ally and installed a Macedonian garrison. Menander died in 292. .