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List Of Extant Ancient Greek And Roman Plays
While most ancient Greek and Roman plays have been lost to history, a significant number still survive. These include the comedies of Aristophanes and Menander, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the Roman adaptations of Plautus, Terence and Seneca the Younger, Seneca. In total, there are eighty-three mostly extant plays, forty-six from ancient Greece and thirty-seven from ancient Rome. Furthermore, there are seven lost plays with extensive surviving fragments, as well as thirteen mimes. They range from the 472 BC tragedy ''The Persians'', written by the Greek playwright Aeschylus, to ''Querolus'', an anonymous Roman comedy from late antiquity. Greek Comedies Ancient Greek comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old, Middle and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives through the eleven extant plays of Aristophanes and New Comedy through two mostly extant works of Menander. While Old Comedy parodied contemporary Athenian politics, leaders, and institutio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving plays belong to the genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are considered its most valuable examples. Aristophanes' plays were performed at the religious festivals of Athens, mostly the City Dionysia and the Lenaia, and several of them won the first prize in their respective competitions. Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes wrote plays that often dealt with real-life figures, including Euripides and Alcibiades, and contemporary events, such as the Peloponnesian War. He has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His plays are characterized by preposterous premises, explicit language, wordplays, and political satire. His powers of ridicule ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Clouds
''The Clouds'' (, ''Nephelai'') is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423BC and was not as well received as the author had hoped, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. It was revised between 420 and 417BC and was thereafter circulated in manuscript form. No copy of the original production survives, and scholarly analysis indicates that the revised version is an incomplete form of Old Comedy. This incompleteness, however, is not obvious in translations and modern performances. Retrospectively, ''The Clouds'' can be considered the world's first extant "comedy of ideas" and is considered by literary critics to be among the finest examples of the genre. The play also, however, remains notorious for its caricature of Socrates, and is cited by Plato in the ''Apology'' as a contributing factor to the philosopher's trial a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Misoumenos
''Misoumenos'' (), translated as ''The Hated Man'', is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander (342/41 – 292/91 BC). Once considered lost, fragments of more than 400 verses of the play have been found. However, most of these are seriously damaged, making it difficult to reconstruct the plot of the play. Separate lines from the prologue also survived by being quoted by later writers. The surviving sources do not provide information regarding the time when the play was written and staged. At the same time, one of the fragments mentions royal power in Cyprus, which was abolished in 310/309 BC, so the action of the play takes place no later than this moment. Modern scholars date the play to approximately 300 BC. ''Misoumenos'' seems to have been very popular in late antiquity, judging from the numerous papyrus fragments that have been recovered. A scene from act 5 of the play is depicted in a mosaic in the House of Menander The House of Menander (Italian: Casa del Menandro) is one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epitrepontes
''Epitrepontes'' (, translated as ''The Arbitration'' or ''The Litigants'') is an Ancient Greek comedy, written c. 300 BCE by Menander. Only fragments of the play have been found, primarily on papyrus, yet it is one of Menander's best-preserved plays. Fragments of roughly 750 lines, accounting for about half of the play, were found in 1907, alongside '' Perikeiromene'' and '' Samia'' in the '' Cairo Codex''. Additional fragments of the play have been found since its initial discovery. In 2012, the ''Michigan Papyrus'' was published, giving better readings to Acts 3 and 4 of the play. Epitrepontes (Greek: "arbitration") features a conflict - and attempts to resolve that conflict - between two Athenian households, as well as depicting conflicts in a marriage. The play's most famous incident features a comical scene of legal arbitration. Two parties want the court to decide who should take ownership of goods found alongside an abandoned baby. The play gradually reveals the baby's h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aspis (Menander)
''Aspis'' (), translated as ''The Shield'', is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander (342/41 – 292/91 BC) that is only partially preserved on papyrus. Of a total of lines, about 420 lines survive, including almost all of the first and second act and the beginning of the third act. It is unknown when and at which festival the play was first performed. Plot Set in Athens, the play is a comedy of intrigue that revolves around a greedy old miser, Smikrines, and two decent but impoverished young people, the mercenary soldier Kleostratos and his sister. Kleostratos' loyal slave, Daos, returns from war in Asia Minor with his master's battered shield; he believes that Kleostratos has fallen in battle (in a delayed prologue, the goddess Chance soon assures the audience that Daos is mistaken). The soldier's greedy uncle, Smikrines, wants to get his hands on the soldier's rich booty that Daos brought back as well. So he declares that he will marry the soldier's heiress, his sister. Smikrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samia (play)
''Samia'' (), translated as ''The Girl From Samos'', or ''The Marriage Connection'', is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander, who lived from - 290 BC. It is the dramatist's second most extant play with up to 116 lines missing compared to ''Dyskolos''’s 39. The date of its first performance is unknown, with 315 BC and 309 BC being two suggested dates. The surviving text of ''Samia'' comes from the Cairo Codex found in 1907 and the Bodmer Papyri from 1952. Plot ''Samia'' takes place in a street in Athens, outside the houses of Demeas, a wealthy bachelor, and Nikeratos, his less wealthy business partner. Prior to the events in the play Demeas had taken in a Samian girl, Chrysis, as his mistress despite misgivings. Chrysis becomes pregnant and was under orders from Demeas to dispose of the illegitimate child. At the same time Moschion, the adopted son of Demeas, seduced the daughter of Nikeratos, Plangon, and she too is pregnant. Both babies are born around the same time. Unfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dyskolos
''Dyskolos'' (, , translated as ''The Grouch'', ''The Misanthrope'', ''The Curmudgeon'', ''The Bad-tempered Man'' or ''Old Cantankerous'') is an Ancient Greek comedy by Menander, the only one of his plays, and of the whole New Comedy, that has survived in nearly complete form. It was first presented at the Lenaian festival in Athens in 316 BC, where it won Menander the first prize. It was long known only through fragmentary quotations; but a papyrus manuscript of the nearly complete ''Dyskolos, ''dating to the 3rd century, was recovered in Egypt in 1952 and forms part of the Bodmer Papyri and Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The play was published in 1958 by Victor Martin. The story of the play concerns a rich young nobleman, Sostratos, who falls in love at first sight with a village peasant girl and decides to marry her. Unfortunately, her father, Knemon, is reclusive, notoriously bad-tempered, and next to impossible to approach. Eventually, after winning over Knemon's stepson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutus (play)
''Plutus'' (, ''Ploutos'', "Wealth") is an Ancient Greek comedy by the playwright Aristophanes, which was first produced in 388 BC. A political satire on contemporary Athens, it features the personified god of wealth Plutus. Reflecting the development of Old Comedy towards New Comedy, it uses such familiar character types as the stupid master and the insubordinate slave to attack the morals of the time. Plot The play features an elderly Athenian citizen, Chremylos, and his slave Cario or Carion. Chremylos presents himself and his family as virtuous but poor, and has accordingly gone to seek advice from an oracle. The play begins as he returns to Athens from Delphi, having been instructed by Apollo to follow the first man he meets and persuade him to come home with him. That man turns out to be the god Plutus — who is, contrary to all expectations, a blind beggar. After much argument, Plutus is convinced to enter Chremylos's house, where he will have his vision restored ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assemblywomen
''Assemblywomen'' (Ancient Greek: Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι ''Ekklesiazousai''; also translated as, ''Congresswomen'', ''Women in Parliament'', ''Women in Power'', ''A Parliament of Women, Assembly-Women,'' and ''Women in the Assembly'') is a comedy written by the Greek playwright Aristophanes in 391 BCE. The play invents a scenario where the women of Athens assume control of the government and institute reforms that ban private wealth and enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive. In addition to Aristophanes' political and social satire, ''Assemblywomen'' derives its comedy through sexual and scatological humor. The play aimed to criticize the Athenian government's expropriation of land and wealth at the time.Zumbrunnen, John. "Fantasy, Irony, And Economic Justice In Aristophanes' Assemblywomen And Wealth." American Political Science Review 100.3 (2006): 319–333. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 25 Sept. 2016. Historical backgro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Frogs
''The Frogs'' (; , often abbreviated ''Ran.'' or ''Ra.'') is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in Athens, in 405 BC and received first place. The play features the comical katabasis of the god of theater Dionysus, with his slave Xanthias, in order to revive the late tragedian Euripides. Dionysus is frustrated with tragedy's decline in quality after the playwright's recent passing, and concerned about theatre's future as the city of Athens struggles in the Peloponnesian War. During the pair's journey through the underworld, the god cravenly and unsuccessfully attempts to evade trouble after masquerading as Heracles, still infamous for his prior kidnapping of the guard-dog Cerberus. At the palace of Pluto, Dionysus then adjudicates a fierce debate between Euripides and Aeschylus for the underworld's throne of tragic drama. Aeschylus wins due to his pragmatism, and Dionysus ends up reviv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thesmophoriazusae
''Thesmophoriazusae'' (; ''Thesmophoriazousai'', ), or ''Women at the Thesmophoria'' (sometimes also called ''The Poet and the Women''), is one of eleven surviving comedy plays by Aristophanes. It was first produced in 411 BC, probably at the City Dionysia. The play's focuses include the subversive role of women in a male-dominated society; the vanity of contemporary poets, such as the tragic playwrights Euripides and Agathon; and the shameless, enterprising vulgarity of an ordinary Athenian, as represented in this play by the protagonist, Mnesilochus. The work is also notable for Aristophanes' free adaptation of key structural elements of Old Comedy and for the absence of the anti-populist and anti-war comments that pepper his earlier work. It was produced in the same year as ''Lysistrata'', another play with sexual themes. How ''Thesmophoriazusae'' fared in the City Dionysia drama competition is unknown, but the play has been considered one of Aristophanes' most brilliant parodi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lysistrata
''Lysistrata'' ( or ; Attic Greek: , ''Lysistrátē'', ) is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was said to be the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to engage in a sex strike as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace – a strategy that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society. Its structure represents a shift from the conventions of Old Comedy, a trend typical of the author's career. It was produced in the same year as the '' Thesmophoriazusae'', another play with a focus on gender-based issues, just two years after Athens's defeat in the Sicilian Expedition. Plot The play begins with these lines spoken by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
