''Epitrepontes'' (translated as ''The Arbitration'' or ''The Litigants'') is an

Ancient Greek comedy Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, a ...

by Menander, of which only fragments of papyrus were preserved. It is one of Menander's best preserved plays, and was found in 1907, alongside '' Perikeiromene'' and '' Samia'' in the ''

Cairo Codex The Cairo Codex is a manuscript discovered in 1907 that contained the first significant fragments of plays by the ancient Greek playwright Menander, including parts of ''Epitrepontes'' (Men at Arbitration), ''Perikeiromene ''Perikeiromene'' ( ...

''. 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.

Plot

Five months after his wedding, Charisios goes on a business trip. While he was out of town, his wife

Pamphile Pamphile ( el, Παμφίλη), ''Panphyle, Plateae filia'' or ''Latoi filia'', was the daughter of Platea, or of Apollo (Latous),Longman, 1827 ''Classical Manual; or, a mythological, historical, and geographical commentary on Pope's Homer and D ...

gives birth to a child, whom she reluctantly abandons in order to preserve her reputation and her marriage.

References

External links

*
From Mount Sinai to Michigan: the rediscovery of Menander’s Epitrepontes (part 1)

Plays by Menander Plays set in ancient Greece {{play-stub