The comic poet Diphilus is definitely making a comeback, after a long period of comparative neglect. The first volume of a comprehensive commentary on his fragments appeared early in 2024, as part of the Fragmenta Comica series; two further volumes are in preparation. In spring 2023 M. published a revised form of his doctoral thesis on Diphilus, submitted in 2018 at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. M.’s book is not a commentary on Diphilus’ textual remains, although he has efficiently performed the work of a commentator for sundry fragments and titles of comedies included in the discussion. Neither is it a general monograph on Diphilus’ work and dramatic art, in the manner, for example, of I. Storey’s study of Eupolis (2003) or I. Amouroux’s thesis on Antiphanes (1995). Rather, the book offers a diptych of specialised inquiries into documentary aspects of the comic poet’s theatrical career and the fate of his work in the Hellenistic and Roman age. On the one hand M. concentrates on Diphilus’ biography and on his reactions to the historical and social reality of his time, as reflected in his fragments. On the other hand he surveys the transmission and reception of Diphilus’ plays in ancient Greece and Rome, as attested by literary sources, inscriptions and papyri. In a way, M.’s work brings to mind the format of continental European dissertations of the past, in which the candidate would offer an assortment of Quaestiones selectae on one or more fragmentary comic poets, customarily touching on biographical, prosopographical and other factual issues. M. revives this academic genre of writing, equipped with the full arsenal of modern philological scholarship and its technical disciplines.
In the first part of the book M. investigates the biographical data about Diphilus preserved in grammatical or lexicographical sources and in inscriptional records of ancient festivals, with a view to establishing the chronology of the poet’s life and career. Meticulously comparing testimonia that are often vague and only imperfectly reconcilable, M. does not hide the uncertainties and equivocal issues raised by the material. He nevertheless reaches a plausible conclusion: Diphilus’ birth must be placed between c. 350 and 340 bce; his first victory at the Lenaea occurred in or shortly after 319/8 and was probably followed by a Dionysian victory between 316 and 312. Like many other ambitious young playwrights of classical Greek comedy since the age of Aristophanes and Eupolis, Diphilus must have started producing plays in his twenties.
A large section of the book is devoted to historical persons and events, political or social institutions and other topical elements mentioned in Diphilus’ fragments. M. thus attempts to anchor the poet’s writings within the contemporary Greek world and map the reverberations of real life on his comic fictions. Not all of the material adduced is appropriate for this purpose. In the comedy called Sappho, which portrays the poetess as a hetaira carousing in symposia and having anachronous love-affairs with Archilochus and Hipponax, the Archaic lyric poets are clearly treated as figures of legend, not very different from the travestied gods and heroes of mythological burlesque. Such a scenario cannot be placed on a par with comedies referring to figures of contemporary history and living celebrities of Hellenistic Athens. The titles of two plays are Persian names (Amastris and Tithraustes), which, in M.’s view, point to historically attested magnates of the Achaemenid Empire in the early Hellenistic age. This seems hardly persuasive in view of what is generally known about the plots of New Comedy. It is more likely that the names belonged to fictitious characters of a made-up plot, in which Persians and their country would have been involved in the intrigue in the manner, for example, of the storyline of Plautus’ Persa. Alexander’s Persian campaign and the fall of the Achaemenid Empire would have made such strokes of topicality popular in the theatre during the early years of Diphilus’ career.
M. provides detailed commentary for the play titles and fragments cited in this part, explicating textual problems, quoting parallel passages and amply documenting factual references, although he rarely touches on linguistic and stylistic issues. His rich encyclopaedic notes on prosopography, cultural themes and other Realien (from Ctesippus, the son of general Chabrias, to the presence of Persians in the ancient comic corpus, from elements of onomasti kōmōidein in New Comedy to mentions of Byzantium, the Adonia festival and the book trade) are particularly valuable; they include full collections of related comic passages and pertinent bibliography and are bound to be copiously cited in future commentaries. His discussions of fr. 125, pronounced by a magical healer-priest in high-style hexameters, and of the gnomic fr. 101 (on the faithlessness of hetairai), which M. compares with an array of apt parallels, are exemplary. On the other hand, the point of the reference to the culinary tastes of the Rhodians (fr. 17.6–10, in a cook’s tirade) is not that these people are unrefined and fond of low-value fish (pp. 163–4). The two species of fish mentioned in this passage, the silouros (sheatfish) and the lebias (a kind of cod or hake, said by Archestratus, fr. 28 Olson–Sens, to be quite good around Tenos and Delos), are very suitable for making soup, which is what Diphilus’ cook recommends. The meaning is apparently that Rhodian guests like a rich, nourishing bowl of fish broth; this does not contradict Plutarch’s remarks on the Rhodians’ culinary sumptuousness (Mor. 525b).
In the second half of the book M. investigates the survival of Diphilus’ works in the Greek and Roman worlds after the playwright’s death. Inscriptions attest the restaging of Diphilus’ comedies in the 230s and their circulation in book form as late as the first century bce. However, papyri transmitting citations from Diphilus are scant, and the sporadic attempts to connect adespota on papyri with his lost plays are inconclusive. M. also analyses the Latin adaptations of Diphilus’ scripts by the writers of the palliata and summarises what can be plausibly considered as Diphilean material in the Roman versions. M.’s mastery of epigraphic and papyrological technicalities is admirable, but his principal contribution lies in the methodical presentation of known data and earlier scholarly discussions, rather than in the breaking of new ground. Nevertheless, a solid perspective is established as to the destiny of Diphilus’ writings in the ripe Hellenistic age. His texts remained easily available and popular during the third and second centuries bce, although their subsequent course through the imperial period is hard to follow.
The most interesting chapter, in this latter part of the book, concerns Diphilus’ inclusion into the so-called ‘canons’ of New Comedy, the lists of the top representatives of the genre, which are offered by later grammatical and antiquarian sources. As M. points out, the canonical triad of the leading New Comedy poets (Menander, Philemon, Diphilus) is first mentioned by Velleius Paterculus in an excursus on literary history (1.16.3). Afterwards, it resurfaces only in Latin grammarians, always in conjunction with the much more famous and widely cited triumvirate of Old Comedy (Aristophanes, Cratinus, Eupolis), which clearly served as its model. M. is right to detect Varro’s seminal role in diffusing the concept of a canonical triad of New Comedy in Rome, although its Alexandrian origins remain obscure.
M.’s philological competence and sound learning are evident on every page of the book. What is missing is an appreciation of Diphilus as a literary author and dramatic artist, a craftsman of comic plots and characters – in so far as these qualities may be discerned from the extant fragments and the Roman adaptations. There has not been a synthetic contribution of this kind since the essays of T.B.L. Webster and W.T. MacCary in the 1970s. Some of the topics examined in the book afford good opportunities for a foray into this field. The fictitious Corinthian law of fr. 31 (pp. 146–53) could have generated an extravagant comic situation, comparable to the utopian social fantasies of Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae and Plutus. The homoerotic themes of the Paiderastai (pp. 194–8) might have been contrasted with the increasing expurgation and bowdlerisation of comic theatre in the early Hellenistic age, evidenced also by the disappearance of the phallus from the actors’ costumes. The discussion of particular character types, such as the hetaira (pp. 51–5), might have triggered a comparison between Diphilus and other poets of New Comedy regarding their portrayal. M. did not set out to fulfil this task, but it would be a worthwhile pursuit.
