This
depiction of a comic performance dates from 400 BC and shows actors wearing
costumes and masks characteristic of Old Comedy. An old man wearing
a costume with a protruding stomach and posterior and with an attached
phallus is standing in the orchestra on tiptoe almost in the manner of
a ballerina. A younger man also wearing a padded costume with a phallus
stands behind him carrying a stick. Both the older and younger man,
like the previous depiction of Perseus, give the appearance of being naked.
The letters parallel to his mouth indicating his utterance are nonsense,
at least from the point of view of the Greek audience: notaretteblo.
This nonsense may indicate that the younger man is supposed to be a foreigner,
and because he is carrying a stick, may reveal him as one of the Sycthians
who served as policemen in Athens. On the right, an old woman stands
on the stage and says parexo, a Greek word which seems to mean here:
“I will hand [him] over”, i.e., “I will hand over my slave to be punished
or to be tortured before giving evidence in court.” This would also
explain the peculiar posture of the slave, who is presented as being suspended
by a rope in the air for the purpose of a caning with a stick. Since
there was no structure in the orchestra from which a rope could be hung,
the actor portraying the slave just mimed being suspended by a rope.
Above and to the left of the slave is a comic mask of a slave and oddly, the figure above and to the left of the ‘policeman’ is labeled as a ‘tragedian’. Why a tragedian was thought by the artist to be appropriate to this scene is unknown to us, but was probably clear to the audience for whom this painting was intended.