The Birth of Comedy

A unique resource for the serious study of comedy, this book is vast in scope and of incalculable value for those who do not read Greek. Choice This book is a landmark, which has come to stay. Bryn Mawr Classical Review This volume, which is aimed at general readers... and whose generous dimensions rival the size of an Oxford Classical Dictionary, will be an essential resource for anyone who wants to inquire into what is known of Athenian comedy beyond the surviving plays of Aristophanes and Menander... Rusten offers a concise and balanced account. New England Classical Journal The Birth of Comedy is a singularly ambitious and very welcome work. Times Literary Supplement A true reference book, to be dipped into when certain facts or information are required and thoughtfully arranged in an accessible style. Scholarly and academic in both approach and scope, this is a valuable resource for anyone interested in or researching not only Ancient Greek comedy but also the history of comic plays, theatre and drama. After twenty years spent compiling the material it is a resource that will not date and one that should provide for interesting scholarly debate and research outcomes. Reference Reviews A valuable scholarly enterprise. Classical Journal It will certainly be appearing on my reading lists in future. Journal of Hellenic Studies

Jeffrey Rusten is a professor of classics at Cornell University. Jeffrey Henderson is the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University. David Konstan is a professor of classics at New York University. Ralph Rosen is the Vartan Gregorian Professor of the Humanities and Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Niall W. Slater is the Dobbs Professor of Latin and Greek at Emory University.

List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Symbols and Abbreviations Introduction Fragments of Comedy Principles of This Selection How to Use This Book List of Translators and Sections Plays and Fragments of Special Interest Sources of the Comic Fragments A Short History of Athenian Comedy Attested Dates of Athenian Comedies, 486-280 BCE Part I. Beginnings 1. Proto-Comedy 2. Epicharmus of Sicily Part II. Athenian Old Comedy Introduction 3. Festivals, Competitions, and Victory Lists 4. The First and Second Generations (except Cratinus) 5. Cratinus 6. Eupolis 7. Aristophanes 8. Phrynichus and Platon 9. Other Authors, ca. 420-390 BCE 10. Theater, Audience, Actors, Chorus, and Costume of Old and Middle Comedy 11. Scenes from Old or Middle Comedy on Fourth-Century South Italian Vases Part III. Middle Comedy Introduction 12. Anaxandrides, Eubulus, and Ephippus 13. Antiphanes 14. Timocles and Nicostratus 15. Alexis 16. Other Authors Part IV. Athenian New Comedy Introduction 17. Masks, Actors, Staging, and Scenes from New Comedy 18. Philemon 19. Menander 20. Diphilus of Sinope 21. Other Authors Epilogue 22. Survival of Comedy in Hellenistic Greece and Republican and Imperial Rome 23. Ancient Theories of Comedy and Laughter, and Ancient Writers on Comedy Komoidoumenoi Bibliography Illustration Credits Index