grammarians has been given in chapter I above. They are of little or no weight here, as was there shown.
The evidence of chapter II is a positive indication which supplements strongly the negative results obtained in the first chapter. If we may judge by those criteria, as we seem justified in doing, no one can condemn Menander's diction without involving Thucydides and Aristophanes in the same condemnation. And in this connection another characteristic of his language remains to be mentioned. A comic poet's verse naturally approaches the speech of the common people whom he portrays. Menander was especially famous in antiquity for his ἠθοποιία.[1] As the colloquial language is the source out of which the Koine was in a large degree developed, it is to be expected that the vocabulary of comedy will show Koine elements. We should therefore a priori expect to find Menander's diction in a noticeable degree different from that of writers of the classical period. As a matter of fact, however, such tests as we have been able to apply do not fulfill this expectation. Instead therefore of accepting the judgment of that class of critics which denied to Menander a place among commendable Attic writers, we are led to the conclusion that the diction of Menander was good Attic Greek in the main; though it contained colloquial elements in a sufficient degree to justify the atticizing gramamrians in uttering a note of warning. In other words we believe that the attitude of writers like Phrynichus was partisan and extreme.
- ↑ Cf. Plut., Ar. et Menand. Comp. 2, p. 853E προσώποις ἐφαρμόττουσα παντοδαποῖς; Quintil. Inst. Orat. 10.1.69 Menander . . . est omnibus rebus, personis, adfectibus accommodatus; cf. also 71.
