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Love Versus the Law: an Essay on Menande's ASPIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Douglas M. Macdowell
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Extract

Thus Khaireas, on being deprived of the girl he loves by a legal obstacle. Menander is renowned as an author, perhaps even the inventor, of romantic comedy; and love triumphing over obstacles is a common feature of his plays. Usually the obstacle is a personal one, such as a father who refuses to permit a marriage (as in Dyskolos), and in Aspis too the difficulties are made by an unpleasant old man, Smikrines. But he has the law on his side, as Khaireas says. This speech, and the play as a whole, presents a sharper conflict between love and the law than we find elsewhere, and I believe that Menander's purpose here is a more serious one than has generally been realized.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 1982 , pp. 42 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

Notes

1. Karabelias, E., ‘Une nouvelle source pour l'étude du droit attique: le Bouclier de Ménandre’, Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger 48 (1970), 357–89Google Scholar. There is also an article by Karnezis, J. E., ‘Misrepresentation of Attic law in Menander's Aspis’, Platon 29 (1977), 152–5Google Scholar, but his approach seems to me wrong: when we find in Menander a legal feature not mentioned elsewhere, we should use that as new evidence, not pillory it as an error or distortion by Menander. The present article shows how I believe everything in Aspiscan be interpreted in accordance with Athenian law.

2. Some of these points were presented at the Glasgow-Edinburgh seminar on ancient drama in March 1977, and briefly in my book The Law in Classical Athens (London, 1978), pp. 97–8Google Scholar. The translations here are my own, but to anyone wishing to read the play in English I commend W. G. Arnott's version in the Loeb series (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1979).

3. Khairestratos had his daughter by his present wife, not by a previous wife, for it seems that she is a half-sister of Khaireas, as argued later in this article; cf. note 11.

4. Cf. Karabelias, 366–8. But it remains obscure how this is to be reconciled with the text of the law about ⋯ууύη, which is preserved in Dem. 46.18. Possibly it is covered by the last clause of the law: ὅτῳ ἂν ⋯πιτρέΨῃ το⋯τον κύριον εἶναι. However, that clause appears to be subject to the condition ⋯⋯ν μηδε⋯ς ᾖ τούτων, so that it refers only to a woman who has no father or brother (by the same father) or paternal grandfather alive. So it seems more likely that temporary transfer of the power of a κύριος was authorized by another law which has not been preserved.

5. There is a less clear instance in Plaut, . Trin. 1156Google Scholar. Charmides has been away on a journey to Asia, and during his absence his son Lesbonicus has betrothed his sister, Charmides's daughter, to Lysiteles. This may well have been taken over without alteration by Plautus from the Athenian play on which Trinummus is based (Philemon's Thesauros).

6. Philokleon's boast that he ignores the rules (Wasps 583–6) is Aristophanes's joke, perhaps based on some recent notorious misjudgement, but not on normal practice.

7. Karabelias, 369–70; cf. Gomme, and Sandbach, , Menander, a commentary (Oxford, 1973), pp. 76–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. The lines are defective in the manuscript, but the general sense is certain. I have translated the supplements adopted by Arnott in the Loeb edition.

9. Harrison, A. R. W., The Law of Athens i. (Oxford, 1968), 85Google Scholar.

10. The word παρεууυ⋯ is worth noting. It may well be the formal term used by the kyrios of a woman to transfer her to another kyrios, other than a husband (just as ⋯ууυ⋯ is used to transfer her to a husband); we may imagine Kleostratos using it when he entrusted his sister to Khairestratos. Cf.Paoli, U. E., Altri studi di diritto greco e romano (Milan, 1976), p. 568Google Scholar.

11. This appears to be the only possible explanation of the plural ὑμ⋯ς in line 281. It is the reason for believing that Khairestratos's daughter and Khaireas had the same mother; otherwise Khaireas, as Khairestratos' adopted son, would have had to marry his daughter.

12. κληρονόμος is derived from κληρονόμος, which means ‘occupy’ or ‘manage’ rather than ‘own’.

13. Arnott's translation, generally very accurate, seems to be incorrect in 142–3. τῷ χρόνῳ προὕχων means not ‘despite his age’ but ‘being ahead <of his brother’.

14. It is not correct to say that the law gave the option of claiming an epikleros ‘to her male relatives in order of their seniority’ (Arnott's note on line 187). An older second cousin would not have priority over a younger first cousin, for example.

15. Karabelias, 372–5, discusses the puzzle, but overlooks the usefulness of lines 269–73 for solving it.

16. An alternative hypothesis might run as follows. Kleostratos's sister does own the property herself, but the law forbids a woman to dispose of property worth more than one medimnos of barley (Isaios 10.10); so, when she dies, her son will claim that she cannot have given it away and that he now inherits it. I reject this hypothesis, because Smikrines in lines 269–73 is clearly not looking ahead to the time of the woman's death (which would probably be long after his own), but envisages that a claim may be made by (or on behalf of) the son at any time after his birth.

17. Dem. 41.4, Men, . Epitrepontes 657–8Google Scholar, Didot Papyrus 1 (Menander, ed. , Sandbach, pp. 328–30)Google Scholar; cf. Paoli, , op. cit., pp. 385–91Google Scholar.

18. Sheridan, The Critic, act 2 scene 1.

19. Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, act 2.