Aspis (Menander)

[1] Set in Athens, the play is a comedy of intrigue that revolves around a greedy old miser, Smikrines, and two decent but impoverished young people, the mercenary soldier Kleostratos and his sister.

Smikrines invokes an Athenian law that obliges the oldest male relative to marry an orphaned heiress (epikleros).

This is devastating news to Chaireas, who is in love with the girl and was supposed to marry her, and his stepfather, Chairestratos, who happens to be Smikrines' younger brother.

Daos stages a false funeral for Chairestratos, claiming that he died of a broken heart and left his daughter heiress of his huge fortune.

[6] In general, Menander's comedy regards mercenary service as "threatening to dissolve identity, as well as the demographic and cultural foundations of the polis.

In Aspis 69-73, for example, Daos falsely interprets the shield that he finds on the battlefield next to an unidentifiably bloated corpse as a sign that its owner, Kleostratos, has died.

Roman, Republican or Early Imperial , Relief of a seated poet (Menander) with masks of New Comedy , 1st century B.C. – early 1st century A.D., Princeton University Art Museum