Anaxilas in fragments 25 and 30 K.-A. deliberately alluded to Pindar’s fragment 137 S.-M. and the mystery references it contains, but at the same time completely redesigned the sense of the Pindaric phrase for a strong comic effect.
The purpose of this paper is to show how Middle Comedy authors re-work mythical motifs and characters borrowed from Homer’s epic poetry, inserting them into the various contexts of everyday life and imbuing them with new meaning. The analysis focuses on the fragments of plays by Anaxilas and Ephippus, which draw on the motif of animal transformation and of Odysseus’ encounter with Circe and mythical monsters.
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