Aristophanes was not the only comic poet who indulged in gibes at the female sex, for the object of comedy was to amuse, and the Athenian audience of men ever found delight in the portrayal of the weaknesses and foibles of the opposite sex. Even his predecessor Susarion, who was the first to compose comedy in verse, and is usually called the inventor of comedy, gave expression to the current abuse: "Hear, O ye people! Susarion says this, the son of Philinus, the Megarian, of Tripodiscus: women are an evil; and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house without evil; for to be married or not to be married is alike bad." It is unfortunate for our purpose that so little survives of the numberless plays of the Middle and New Comedy, especially the latter, for this comedy of manners presented a close and faithful picture of domestic life and would have been an almost inexhaustible mine of information on Attic life in general, full as it was of illustrations of the manners, feelings, prejudices, and ways of thinking of the Ancient Greeks. The fragments preserved to us are sufficient, however, to give us glimpses of the manner in which woman was treated on the stage; and, while there was much harsh criticism, it is gratifying to note that her good qualities were at times recognized. Says the poet Antiphanes: "What! when you court concealment, will you tell The matter to a woman? Just as well Tell all the criers in the public squares I 'Tis hard to say which of them louder blares." "Great Zeus," says another poet, "may I perish, if I ever spoke against woman, the most precious of all acquisitions. For if Medea was an objectionable person, surely Penelope was an excellent creature. Does anyone abuse Clytemnestra? I oppose the admirable Alcestis. But perhaps someone may abuse Phaedra; then I say, by Zeus! what a capital person was.... Oh, dear! the catalogue of good women is already exhausted, while there remains a crowd of bad ones that might be mentioned." "Woman's a necessary and undying evil," says Philemon; and in another fragment: "A good wife's duty 'tis, Nicostratus, Not to command, but to obey her spouse; Most mischievous a wife who rules her husband." Menander, the greatest representative of the New Comedy, has been compared to a mirror, so clear were the images he presented of human life. His epigrammatic sayings are justly famous, and many of them refer to woman. "Manner, not money, makes a woman's charm," says he in one passage; and in another: "When thou fair woman seest, marvel not; Great beauty's oft to countless faults allied." "Where women are, there every ill is found," is still another disparaging sentiment, as is his repetition of the frequent gibe at marriage: "Marriage, if truth be told (of this be sure), An evil is--but one we must endure."