Menander was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of DemosthenesDe Chersoneso. He

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Most of Menander's work did not survive the Middle Ages, except as short fragments. Federico da Montefeltro's library at Urbino reputedly

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This situation changed abruptly in 1907, with the discovery of the Cairo Codex, which contained large parts of the Samia; the Perikeiromene; the Epitrepontes; a section of the Heros; and another fragment from an unidentified play. A fragment of 115 lines of

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In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul the Apostle quotes Menander in the text "Bad company corrupts good character", which probably comes from his play Thais; according to 5th century Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus, Menander derived this from

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The standard edition of the least-well-preserved plays of Menander is Kassel-Austin, Poetarum Comicorum Graecorum vol. VI.2. For the better-preserved plays, the standard edition is now Arnott's 3-volume Loeb. A complete text of these plays for the

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• Poseidippus of Cassandreia
• Apollodorus of Carystus
• Diphilus of Sinope

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More complete plays
• Aspis ("The Shield"; about half)
• Dyskolos ("The Grouch" or "Old Cantankerous"; best preserved play)

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