ABSTRACT
At the very end of Plato’s Symposium our narrator awakes to find Socrates still hard at it, and making Agathon and Aristophanes agree that the composition of tragedy and comedy is really one and the same thing: … προcαναγκάειν τòν Σωκράτη όμολογετν άντoνc τou σùτοu άνδρòc ετνσι κωμωιδίαν και τραγωιδίαν έττίσταèθαι ποιεTν, και τòν τέχνηι τραγωιδοποιòν δντα και κωμωιδοποιòν ετναι. ταύτα δή άναγκαομένουè auτouc … the two playwrights succumb to sleep, leaving Socrates triumphant. Socrates had to ‘force’ his case; and it is a fact that, though we know of well over 100 fifth-century playwrights, we do not know of a single one who produced both tragedy and comedy. 1 In a famous fragment the comedian Antiphanes (fr. 191K) complains that the tragedians have an easy time—familiar stories, the deus ex machina etc.—ήμτν δέ ταuτ’ οùκ έcτiυ … It is a matter of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Furthermore, there was an entire separate genre besides tragedy and comedy. As Demetrius put it (de eloc. 169), τραγωιδία χάριταο μεν παραλαμβάνει εν πολλοτè, ò δέ γέλωο έχθρèc τραγωιδίασ ουδέ γαρ έτπνοήοειεν αν τic τραγωιδίαν παίουèαν, έττει cάτυρον γράψει άντι τραγωιδίαο. 2
