Carla Castelli

A unique lexical recall, placed in an unusual scenario, makes it likely that Dionysius of Halicarnassus, comparing the Asian oratory to a prostitute trying to expel the legitimate wife living in her same house, has in mind Smikrines’ speech to his daughter in the Epitrepontes, in which the same situation is prefigured: it is the first documented reference to a comedy of Menander in Dionysius’ rhetorical work...