Laudator Temporis Acti

Menander, fragment 697 Kassel and Austin = 376 Körte = 685 Kock (tr. Francis G. Allinson):

The selecting of those like to oneself somehow is most apt to bring unity out of life's blending.

ἡ τῶν ὁμοίων αἵρεσις μάλιστά πως
τὴν τοῦ βίου σύγκρασιν ὁμόνοιαν ποεῖ.

2 ὁμόνοιαν codd.: ὁμονοεῖν Usener

A.W. Gomme and F.H. Sandbach, Menander, A Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973; rpt. 2003), p. 672:

There is no good reason for supposing this fragment to be from Sikyonios. The verses are ascribed by Stobaios to Menander, but not to any play. The scholiast on Plato, Symp. 195 b says that in Sikyonios Menander referred to the proverb ὡϲ αἰεὶ τὸν ὁμοῖον ἄγει θεὸϲ ὡϲ τὸν ὁμοῖον. Nauck, Mélanges Gréco-Romains, vi.114, argued that the scholiast had these verses in mind. C.W. Müller, Rh. Mus. cvii (1964), 285, rightly maintains that this is not the most natural interpretation: 'God brings the like-minded together' and 'Choice of like-minded friends leads to harmony in life' are by no means the same sentiment.

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