The estate, first built in 250 BCE, is referred to as 'The House of Menander' because there is a well-preserved fresco of the ancient Greek Dramatist Menander in a small room in the house. Menander (c. 342/41 – c. 290 BCE) wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. One of the most popular writers of antiquity, his work was lost during the Middle Ages and is known in modernity in highly fragmentary form, much of which was discovered in the 20th century. Only one play, Dyskolos, has survived almost entirely.

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