I. NEW LITERARY TEXTS

3431. ANON., NEW COMEDY

These fragments, written by the same hand, form parts of two columns from a dialogue of New Comedy. Fragment 1, which retains upper and left margins of about 2.0 cm, consists of the beginnings only of 20 lines of dialogue in an iambic meter. Fragment 2 has upper and lower margins of about 2.5 cm and is joined at the upper right corner by fragment 3, which retains only its upper margin; fragments 2+3 preserve 26 lines of iambic trimeter. Fragment 1 does not join fragments 2+3, but may well come from an immediately preceding or following column. All the pieces are badly warped, and fragments 2+3 are stained and brittle, especially at the upper right. The text is written with the fibers; the backs of all pieces are blank.

The hand is practiced, rounded and upright, but uneven. The scribe used a blunt pen and tended to ligature his letters, which are medium to large in size. The letter shapes, varied in size and irregular in formation (a sometimes has the form A), are likely to belong to the end of the second century (cf. Roberts, GLH pls. 13b and 20). Lectional signs include paragraphi horizontal strokes marking a change of speaker on fragment 1, a dicolon punctuation mark of two dots at fragment 2, line 1, high stops at fragment 2, lines 1, 5, 18, 19, and a grave accent at fragment 2, line 16. There is an elision marked at fragment 2, line 16, but scriptio plena full writing (no elision) at line 19. The iota adscript iota written next to a long vowel is written at fragment 2, line 15, but neglected at line 18. The text is corrected twice by the original scribe (fragment 1. 5, fragment 2. 1) and there are no other uncorrected errors. At the foot of fragments 2+3, what appears to be a second hand has written 26, the number of lines in the column (see Turner, GMAW introd. 19).

The meter of fragments 2+3 is consistent with iambic trimeter throughout, with at most 1–2 syllables lacking from the beginnings of lines 1–6. A trochaic scheme would produce two anomalous lines, 3 (no median dieresis break between words) and 6 (divided resolution), while lines 10 and 19, which would have no median diereses, discourage belief in iambic tetrameter. For metrical reasons alone, fragment 1 cannot be made to join fragments 2+3.

The context of fragment 1 is lost. The conversation at the top of fragments 2+3 seems to be about the property of one of the speakers which his (?) sister (line 3) has taken or received. There is talk of a cloak and possibly dinner (line 5) which may be obtained from the sister. It is likely that πρὸς ταύτην to her, [π]αρὰ ταύτης from her, and χρησίμη useful all refer to the sister. The situation would seem to require:
(1) speaker A, who has a sister (line 3),
(2) a son and daughter (line 18),
(3) Moschion (line 22), who is no doubt one of the speakers,
(4) speaker B, who is a parent, friend, or slave of A.