Athenian Comedy in the Roman Empire

Athenian comedy is firmly entrenched in the classical canon, but imperial authors debated, dissected and redirected comic texts, plots and language of Aristophanes, Menander, and their rivals in ways that reflect the non-Athenocentric, pan-Mediterranean performance culture of the imperial era. Although the reception of tragedy beyond its own contemporary era has been studied, the legacy of Athenian comedy in the Roman world is less well understood.

This volume offers the first expansive treatment of the reception of Athenian comedy in the Roman Empire. These engaged and engaging studies examine the lasting impact of classical Athenian comic drama. Demonstrating a variety of methodologies and scholarly perspectives, sources discussed include papyri, mosaics, stage history, epigraphy and a broad range of literature such as dramatic works in Latin and Greek, including verse satire, essays, and epistolary fiction.

Tom Hawkins is Associate Professor of Classics at Ohio State University, USA, and the author of Iambic Poetics in the Roman Empire (2014).

C. W. Marshall is Professor of Greek at the University of British Columbia, Canada. His publications include The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (2006), Classics and Comics (2011) and No Laughing Matter (Bloomsbury, 2012).

1. Introduction: C. W. Marshall, University of British Columbia, Canada, and Tom Hawkins, Ohio State University, USA
2. Selectivity and survival: Aristophanes and Menander: Alan Sommerstein, University of Nottingham, UK
3. Understanding Old Comedy in the Roman Empire: Ralph M. Rosen, University of Pennsylvania, USA
4. Comic papyri: Susan A. Stephens, Stanford University, USA
5. Comedies and comic actors in the Greek East: an epigraphical perspective: Fritz Graf, Ohio State University, USA
6. Actors' repertory and 'new' comedies under the Roman Empire: Sebastiana Nervegna, University of Sydney, Australia
7. Natio comoeda est: Juvenal, Menander, and the Revival of Greek New Comedy at Rome: Mathias Hanses, Columbia University, USA
8. Parrhesia and Pudenda: Genital Pathology and Satiric Speech, from Old Comedy to Juvenal: Julia Nelson Hawkins, Ohio State University, USA
9. Lucian and Old Comedy: Ian Storey, Trent University, Canada
10. Comic Eunuchism and the Adultery Plot in the Biographical Tradition of the Eunuch Sophist Favorinus: Ryan Samuels, Harvard University, USA
11. Comedy Repurposed: Evidence for Comic Performances in the Second Sophistic and Aristides' On the Banning of Comedy: Anna Peterson, Loyola University, USA
12. Dio Chrysostom and the Naked Parabasis: Tom Hawkins, Ohio State University, USA
13. New Comic Stock Characters in Alciphron's Letters: Melissa Funke, University of British Columbia, Canada
14. Aelian and Comedy: C. W. Marshall, University of British Columbia, Canada
15. Two Clouded Marriages: Aristainetos' Allusions to Aristophanes' Clouds in Letters 2.3 and 2.12: Emilia A. Barbiero, University of Toronto, Canada
Bibliography
Index