Greek Theatre and the Legitimation of Slavery

As a teacher of drama, my interest lies in the ideological aspect of slavery: how drama works to legitimise (or undermine) a slave system. I shall be discussing mainly Menander, an Athenian comic dramatist who flourished around 300 BC, though I shall say a few words at the end about Plautus, the Roman actor-dramatist who wrote pastiches of Greek comedy about a century later. ¹