Wilfred MAJOR Is There a Cook in the House? The Mageiros As a Barometer of Domestic Tension in Menander

The character of the mageiros in fourth century Athenian comedy encompasses two
conflicting purposes.  The cook routinely engages in obnoxious behavior on the comic stage:
abusing his employers, stealing, and spewing excessively detailed accounts of his profession.  In
so far as New Comedy pursues the resolution of a domestic crisis, however, the cook also
embodies a key part of the ritual, usually a wedding feast, which symbolically marks the
restoration of the home. This paper argues that Menander obviates this tension by calibrating the
comic aspects of the cook to the degree of disruption in the oikos where the cook is employed.

Scholars have thoroughly catalogued and surveyed the character of the cook in stage
comedy (H. Dohm Mageiros: Die Rolle des Kochs in der griechisch-römischen Komödie
[Munich 1964], G. Berthaume Les rôles du mágeiros [Leiden 1982], and J.B. Lowe "Cooks in
Plautus," CA 4 [1985] 72-102).  Ruth Scodel ("Tragic Sacrifice and Menandrian Cooking" in her
Theater and Society in the Classical World [Ann Arbor 1993] 161-76) deepens the study of
comic cooks by integrating the authority of the mageiros with the coarser elements of the
stereotype.  "The cook is always an alazon," Scodel writes, "yet within the dramatic tradition, his
task as sacrificer and cook justifies his claims" (173).

The question then becomes how does a comic playwright prevent the traditional authority
from clashing with the buffoonery.  The fragmentary remains of most comic poets do not permit
an answer to this question.  In some cases in Menander, too, scenes with cooks are too
fragmentary (e.g., Epitrepontes fr. 2 and 603ff, Phasma 73-74) or dependent upon lost scenes
(Misoumenos 270ff [=670ff Arnott], Perikeiromene 995) to indicate Menander's treatment.
Other plays, however, do suggest a modus operandi.  As may be expected for a dramatist who
keeps the focus of his plays on the oikos (cf. W. Major "Menander in a Macedonian World,"
GRBS 38 [1997] 41-73), Menander manipulates the harsher components of cooks so that they
correspond to the level of crisis in the household.  A settled household does not suffer at the
hands of a cook but a home in turmoil can expect the worst from a cook.

Aspis demonstrates this second phenomenon.  When Kleostratos is reported dead, his
sister's wedding plans collapse in the face of her uncle's ulterior motives.  Accordingly, the cook
hired for the wedding feast is fired.  The mageiros and his assistant trapezopoios make their
appearance on stage at this critical juncture to vent their frustration, and then depart (216 ff).
The cook in Samia arrives rather than leaves at the time of crisis.  The young man Moschion is
scheduled to marry the girl next door who has already had his baby.  The cook swaggers in to
begin his preparations.  He crosses words with a household slave as a typically arrogant and
annoying cook does, and goes inside.  Immediately afterwards, Moschion's father, Demeas,
begins a rampage, for he mistakenly believes his mistress Chrysis had Moschion's baby.  When
the cook returns to the stage, he watches Demeas throw Chrysis and the baby out of the house.
Menander uses the cook's established character traits to demonstrate the degree of Demeas'
anger.  The cook tries to settle Demeas down but fails, indicating that Demeas seethes with an
anger and outrage beyond that associated with a character who is normally angry and outraged.

Dyskolos shows the contrast in a cook's behavior when employed in a stable household.
The cook Sikon first appears to perform at a sacrifice intended to bring a favorable omen.  In his
first appearance (393ff), it is the slave Getas who displays the irritation we might expect of the
cook.  Sikon's temper flares in his next appearance (487ff), when he confronts the grumpy
Knemon.  Knemon is the true source of the domestic crisis, so Sikon's unpleasant characteristics
rise accordingly.  Sikonís performance at the neighbor's sacrifices goes without incident (555).
When Knemon is reported to have fallen into a well, however, Sikon rejoices bitterly (620ff).
The correlation between Sikon's attitude and the disarray of Knemon's house can enhance
appreciation for the final scene of the play, where Sikon and Getas torture the crippled Knemon
until he consents to attend the wedding festivities.  It may seem odd for Sikon to be involved in
resocializing Knemon, rather than someone integrally involved in one of the households (in
Samia, for instance, Moschion forces the issue with his own father).  But if Sikon operates as a
barometer of domestic tension, then he can serve as a dramatically appropriate agent for
signaling that Knemon still requires reform.
 In the end, then, the cook as alazon can serve paradoxically as a facilitator of domestic
reconciliation.