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Menander
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Menander is the only Yavana (person of Greek origin in Indian language) king who has become celebrated in ancient Indian literature. He is known as `Milinda' who had his capital at Sakala (modern Sialkot in Pakistan, Euthymedia in Greek). He one of the two leading characters of a Pali (ancient language of India) treatise Milindpanha (Questions of Milinda). This book describes fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy which is narrated in form of a dialogue between King Milinda and Buddhist scholar Nagasena. Thus Menander is well known for Indian historians as a philosopher with superior knowledge in various schools of thought and not as a mighty conqueror. He was born at Charikar, a country between Kabul and Panjshir rivers, a connecting link between Bactria and India.
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Menander was the author of more than a hundred comedies, but only won the prize at Lenaia eight times. His rival in dramatic art (and in the affections of Glycera) was Philemon, who appears to have been more popular. Menander... believed himself to be the better dramatist, and, according to Aulus Gellius, used to ask Philemon: "Don't you feel ashamed whenever you gain a victory over me?" According to Caecilius of Calacte (Porphyry in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica) Menander was guilty of plagiarism, his The Superstitious Man being taken from The Augur of Antiphanes. But, although he attained only moderate success during his lifetime, he subsequently became the favorite writer of antiquity. Copies of his plays were known to the compiler of the Suda and to Eustathius (10th and 11th centuries), and twenty-three of them, with commentary by Michael Psellus, were said to have existed at Constantinople in the 16th century.
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In 321 BCE, at about age 20, Menander won his first drama-victory, when his comedy Anger (not extant today) took first prize at an Athenian festival. His surviving masterpiece, The Misanthrope, won first prize in 316 BCE, at the midwinter festival called the Lenaea. Among his plays that survive in part today are The Woman from Samos, The Hated Lover, and The Girl with the Short Haircut.
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In the second half of the fourth century B.C., the so-called New Comedy of Menander (?344/43–292/91 B.C.) and his contemporaries gave fresh interpretations to familiar material. In many ways comedy became simpler and tamer, with very little obscenity. The grotesque padding and phallus of Old Comedy were abandoned in favor of more naturalistic costumes that reflected the playwrights' new style. Subtle differentiation of masks worn by the actors paralleled the finer delineation of character in the texts of New Comedy, which dealt with private and family life, social tensions, and the triumph of love in a variety of contexts.
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Menander (342291 BC), Greek dramatist, the chief representative of the New Comedy, was born in Athens. He was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso. He doubtless derived his taste for the comic drama from his uncle Alexis.
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NOTE: Since the publication of this article, the complete text of Dyskolos, a play by Menander, has been rediscovered. It is the only example of New Comedy to have survived in its entirety. A few long fragments by Menander have survived as well from such plays as The Arbitration, The Girl from Samos, The Shorn Girl, and The Hero.
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Menander