Douglas DOMINGO-FORASTÉ Oligarchy and the Law in Menander

In Knemon’s short apologia pro vita sua he claims that if everyone lived as he
did, there would be no law courts, people would not drag each other off to jail and there
would be no wars (Dysk. 741-745). As Knemon rightly asserts, litigiousness is brought
about by the interconnections in human society. Invariably in that interaction disputes
arise and the ancient Athenian mechanism for settling such disputes was a legal system
Athenians viewed as promoting justice and fairness. In fact, however, Athenian law was
much more. It was the mechanism for participating in and bolstering democracy against
wealthy oligarchic attempts at domination and a vehicle for the redistribution of wealth.
Contra Wiles [G&R 31 (1984):170-180] Menander’s attitude toward the law reflects a
deeply held oligarchic view on the corrupt nature of the democratic legal system.
Until very recently it has been a truism that Menander’s comedies are wholly
apolitical; in fact, Menander consistently attacks law, an institution associated with the
democratic faction, by a sympathetic portrayal of the injuries inflicted by its abuse.
Though in the Sikyonios this point is explicitly made, often it is presented with studied
and sophisticated ambivalence. So, while Knemon is generally unsympathetic, his views
on the law function as a New Comedy parabasis. The Epitrepontes’ Smikrines, a
generally disagreeable character, in the arbitration achieves justice and advances the
plot by opposing the social leveling inherent in adherence to codified law. The Aspis is
less ambiguous since it is the categorically evil, but relatively impecunious Smikrines
who uses the technicalities of the law to his advantage. Contra MacDowell [G&R 29
(1982):42-52] it is not the institution of the epikleros that Menander attacks in this play,
but the use of the law to effect the redistribution of wealth. In the Sikyonios, Blepes and
the Eleusinian ˆxlow are all too willing to meddle in other people’s affairs, despite their
ignorance, and are susceptible to deceptive demagoguery because of it. Much of this
tack could be viewed, of course, as a standard assault on established institutions and a
method of comic inversion. But Menander’s identification with the reigning
Macedonian junta and his close associations with the pro-Macedonian Lyceum and
Demetrios of Phaleron cannot be ignored as a motive for his ridicule for Athens’ most
democratic institution, the legal system. No interpretation of Menander’s frequent use of
legal motifs that ignores the intentional anti-democratic bias inherent in his comedy is
adequate.