Plays by Menander

Here's the full list of Menander's plays as edited/translated by W. G. Arnott in his three-volume Loeb Classical Library edition (1979, 1996, 2000):

Volume I (1979, LCL 132) – 6 plays, titles A–E:

1. Aspis (The Shield)
2. Georgos (The Farmer)
3. Dis Exapaton (Twice a Swindler) – basis of Plautus's Bacchides
4. Dyskolos (The Peevish Fellow) – the only complete play, won first prize in Athens, 317 BC
5. Encheiridion (The Dagger)
6. Epitrepontes (Men at Arbitration)

Volume II (1996, LCL 459) – 10 plays, titles H–P:

7. Heros (The Hero)
8. Theophoroumene (The Girl Possessed)
9. Karchedonios (The Man from Carthage)
10. Kitharistes (The Lyre-Player)
11. Kolax (The Toady)
12. Koneiazomenai (Women Drinking Hemlock)
13. Leukadia (The Woman from Leukas)
14. Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
15. Perikeiromene (The Girl with Her Hair Cut Short)
16. Perinthia (The Girl from Perinthos)

Volume III (2000, LCL 460) – 4 major plays plus fragments:
17. Samia (The Woman from Samos) – nearly complete
18. Sikyonioi (The Sicyonians)
19. Synaristosai (Women Lunching Together) – basis of Plautus's Cistellaria
20. Phasma (The Apparition)

Plus nine Fabulae Incertae (unidentified/uncertain fragments) rounding out Volume III, since much of what survives of Menander's more than 100 plays consists of fragmentary papyri rather than complete texts.

Arnott (1930–2010), Professor of Greek at the University of Leeds, was the acknowledged authority who replaced F. C. Allinson's older 1921 single-volume Loeb — the new edition runs three times its length thanks to papyrus discoveries, mostly from Oxyrhynchus and the Bodmer and Cairo collections.


Brief Summary of Plays by Menander

Menander (c. 342–290 BCE), the master of Athenian New Comedy, wrote over 100 plays, but only one survives nearly complete. The rest come from papyrus finds, mostly 20th-century discoveries.

Dyskolos (The Grouch): the only complete play, found in 1952. A wealthy young man falls for the daughter of Knemon, a misanthropic farmer. Knemon falls into a well, is rescued, and softens enough to allow the marriage.

Dyskolos - Wikipedia Samia (The Woman from Samos): nearly complete. A young man gets his neighbor's daughter pregnant before marriage; the baby is mistakenly taken to be his father's by a mistress, causing a comic misunderstanding and a blow-up before the truth emerges.

Samia (play) - Wikipedia Aspis (The Shield): about 60% survives. A soldier is reported dead in battle, and his greedy uncle tries to claim the heiress sister. A clever slave and a fake "death" scheme foil him, and the soldier returns alive. Aspis (Menander) - Wikipedia

Epitrepontes (The Arbitration): about two-thirds survives. A husband is estranged from his wife because she bore a child before the marriage. A dispute over the baby's abandoned tokens goes to arbitration, revealing that the husband himself is the father.

Epitrepontes - Wikipedia Perikeiromene (The Girl Who Gets Her Hair Cut Short): roughly 70% survives. A jealous soldier cuts off his mistress's hair, and she leaves him. She turns out to be a freeborn woman and the long-lost sister of his neighbor, which resolves the quarrel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perikeiromene

Sikyonioi (The Man from Sikyon): substantial fragments. It involves a kidnapped girl, a recognition plot, and a mercenary soldier, with a famously lively trial-like scene. Sikyonioi - Wikipedia

Misoumenos (The Hated Man): partial. A soldier loves a captive girl who rejects him, and

… life, flatterers, and ghostly apparitions.

Misoumenos - Wikipedia Common themes across his work include mistaken identity, lost-and-found children, romance overcoming social obstacles, and a humane, character-driven wit, which later shaped Roman comedians like Plautus and Terence.

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