12 Facts About Menander

Menander was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy.

Menander wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times.

Menander was one of the most popular writers in antiquity, but his work was lost during the Middle Ages and is known in highly fragmentary form, much of which was discovered in the 20th century.

Menander 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.

Menander presumably derived his taste for comic drama from his uncle Alexis.

Menander was the friend, associate, and perhaps pupil of Theophrastus, and was on intimate terms with the Athenian dictator Demetrius of Phalerum.

Menander enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy Soter, the son of Lagus, who invited him to his court.

Menander is praised by Plutarch and Quintilian, who accepted the tradition that he was the author of the speeches published under the name of the Attic orator Charisius.

Menander was further credited with the authorship of some epigrams of doubtful authenticity; the letters addressed to Ptolemy Soter and the discourses in prose on various subjects mentioned by the Suda are probably spurious.

Menander [Caesar] declared in Greek with loud voice to those who were present 'Let the die be cast' and led the army across.

Menander's comedies were very different from the Old Comedies of Aristophanes.

The standard edition of the least-well-preserved plays of Menander is Kassel-Austin, Poetarum Comicorum Graecorum vol.