Menander's lost comedy Thais with its famous protagonist, the hetaira lover of Ptolemy I Soter and perhaps Alexander himself,Footnote ¹ was plainly well known at Rome, and is alluded to several times in Latin poetry of the Augustan and later periods, as Ariana Traill has shown.Footnote ² My purpose here is to argue that the literary characterisation of Thais in Menander's play underlies certain aspects of Lesbia as presented in the poetry of Catullus; that Catullus' poetry uses the plays of Menander has been demonstrated by Richard Thomas, arguing that Catullus 8 shows clear traces of Demea's monologue in the Samia (325–56).Footnote ³

Of the few preserved fragments of Menander's play,Footnote ⁴ possibly his earliest,Footnote ⁵ the most substantial is a description of the protagonist, very likely from the prologue and possibly the opening lines of the play (PCG 6.2 163):Footnote ⁶

The similarity to the famous lines of dismissal of the puella (presumably Lesbia) at Catullus 11.17–20 is striking:

Two lexical details stand out here, with the same Menandrean line being picked up twice in the same Catullan line: μηδενὸς ἐρῶσαν, προσποιουμένην δ’ ἀεί looks to be echoed in both nullum amans uere, stressing insincerity, and identidem, stressing repetition.

This suggested link between Lesbia and Thais is perhaps supported by further Catullan poems which treat Lesbia as indiscriminately promiscuous. Most direct of these is 58, where Lesbia is imagined as delivering sexual services on the streets of Rome like any common prostitute:

Similar implications are found in poem 37, where it is suggested that Lesbia provides sexual gratification for the low-life habitués of the salax taberna, the ‘filthy tavern’ to which she is presented as retreating after a break with the poet (37.14–16):

Though Thais and the other hetairai of New Comedy are not street prostitutes, there is something of a parallel in the words of Demeas to his hetaera girlfriend Chrysis at Samia 390–9, where in throwing her out of his house for supposed infidelity he suggests that she will end up amongst the cheap prostitutes who are publicly available.Footnote ⁸ Invidious comparisons with prostitutes, whether high-class or low-class, clearly form part of the same discourse in the poems of Catullus.

Other details of the Menandrean passage may also be echoed in further Catullan attacks on Lesbia. The beauty claimed for both women goes without saying and cannot in itself be counted as a significant link, but the combination of beauty and wit celebrated in poem 86.5–6 (Lesbia formosa est, quae cum pulcerrima tota est, | tum omnibus una omnis surripuit Veneres), might pick up the united beauty and persuasiveness of Thais in Menander (ὡραίαν δὲ καὶ πιθανήν). Thais' boldness (θρασεῖαν), if referred to verbal sharpness, could be reflected in poems such as 83, where Catullus interprets Lesbia's verbal attacks on himself in the presence of her uir as signs or love, or 92, where she is presented as always talking disparagingly about him. Her injustice (ἀδικοῦσαν) could be alluded to in the similar moralizing language that Catullus uses of Lesbia in 72.7, referring to her iniuria towards him as her lover, or in 75.1, where he talks of her culpa in the same context.

In sum, the comparison of Catullus' Lesbia to Menander's Thais contributes interestingly to her characterization in poems where the poet is attacking her after an implied break in their relationship. This further link with Menander would add to Catullus' Greek learning, increasingly appreciated by scholars,Footnote ⁹ and would match his evident use of language and situations from Roman New Comedy.Footnote ¹⁰