Old Comedy had disappeared with the defeat…

Old Comedy had disappeared with the defeat of Athens at the end of the Peloponessian War, as the new authorities did not permit the pointed satire and licentiousness that formed the genre’s core.

Greek comic dramatist Menander is the leading practitioner of the New Comedy, which has developed in its stead.

In the new form, vivid, realistic characters interact in a complicated but structured plot.

The importance of the chorus, or music in general, diminishes; the phallus disappears from the stage; and sex, Old Comedy’s primary concern, is replaced by money, marriage, and family situations.

Philemon, a popular forty-something comic playwright who has for some years been writing in Athens, had in about 307 become a citizen of the city.

A rival of Menander for popular favor at the annual dramatic festivals, Philomen is sometimes credited with the introduction of New Comedy to the Greek stage.

In any case, Philemon and Menander lead the New Comedy movement, writing skillfully plotted comedies of manners that use stock characters and avoid sensitive subjects.