Institutio Oratoria

Indeed, those critics are no fools who think the speeches attributed to Charisius [*]( A contemporary of Demosthenos; his speeches have not survived, but were considered to resemble those of Lysias. ) were in reality written by Menander. But I consider that he shows his power as an orator far more clearly in his comedies; since assuredly we can find no more perfect models of every oratorical quality than the judicial pleadings of his Epitrepontes, [*]( The greater portion of the Epitrepontes has been recovered from a papyrus. The other plays are lost. The names may be translated: The Arbitrators, The Heiress, The Locri, The Timid Man, The Lawgiver, The Changeling. ) Epicleros and Locri, or the declamatory speeches in the Psophodes, Nomothetes. and Hypobolimaeus.

Still, for my own part, I think that he will be found even more useful by declaimers, in view of the fact that they have, according to the nature of the various controversial themes, to undertake a number of different roles and to impersonate fathers, sons, soldiers, peasants, rich men and poor, the angry man and the suppliant, the gentle and the harsh. And all these characters are treated by this poet with consummate appropriateness.

Indeed, such is his supremacy that he has scarce left a name to other writers of the new comedy, and has cast them into darkness by the splendour of his own renown. Still, you will find something of value in the other comic poets as well, if you read them in not too critical a spirit; above all, profit may be derived from the study of Philemon, [*]( Philemon of Soli (360–262); Menader of Athens (342– 290). ) who, although it was