Menander - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

Menander Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes

Diopeithes

Diopeithes was an Athenian general, probably father of the poet Menander, who was sent out to the Thracian Chersonese about 343 BC, at the head of a body of Athenian settlers or κληρoυχoι...

is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese

Thracian Chersonese

The Thracian Chersonese was the ancient name of the Gallipoli peninsula, in the part of historic Thrace that is now part of modern Turkey.The peninsula runs in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean Sea, between the Hellespont and the bay of Melas . Near Agora it was protected by a wall...

known from the speech of Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...

De Chersoneso. He presumably derived his taste for comic drama from his uncle Alexis

Alexis

Alexis was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period, born at Thurii in Magna Graeca and taken early to Athens, where he became a citizen, being enrolled in the deme Oion and the tribe Leontides. It is thought he lived to the age of 106 and died on the stage while being crowned...

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Menander was the friend, associate, and perhaps pupil of Theophrastus

Theophrastus

Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...

, and was on intimate terms with the Athenian dictator Demetrius of Phalerum

Demetrius Phalereus

Demetrius of Phalerum was an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, a student of Theophrastus and one of the first Peripatetics...

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