Relief: Scene from a Comedy

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This relief reveals a humorous scene as evident from the masks worn by the figures. They are typical theatre terracotta masks, with very hyper-realistic expressions. Ancient Greek comedy was one of the three main forms in classical Greek theatre, along with tragedy and satyr play. Athenian comedy is typically divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy has survived mainly through the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost, preserved only in short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis. New Comedy is primarily known from substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Poetics (c. 335 BC) that comedy is a representation of laughable people and involves some kind of blunder or ugliness which does not cause pain or disaster. C.A. Trypanis stated that comedy was the last great species of poetry Greece gave to the world.