What Happened to Deus ex Machina after Euripides?

Coda

At the end of the fifth century B.C. an idea that tragedy was approaching comedy was probably in the air, at least among those particularly interested in dramatic art. Plato in his Symposium written probably in the 380s but set in 416B.C. made Socrates assert that a competent tragedian could write a comedy and a comic poet could write a tragedy (223d1). In the following centuries Euripides' influence on Attic New Comedy was a recognized matter. His third century B.C. biographer Satyrus and others attest to it.(38) If Euripides' Deus ex Machina in the plays here discussed as showing a transition from tragedy to comedy was well received, how could it have been neglected by New Comedy writers and its successors? That Deus ex Machina has much congenial to comedy and is therefore particularly suited to end a comedy is strongly supported by the fact that its descendants, if we take the word in its narrowest sense, appear in comedy, though "few and far between,"(39) and not in tragedy. In Plautus' Amphitryo, Jupiter appears at the end and in Moliere's Tartuffe the King settles everything in the last scene. I have deliberately left out these comedies from my list below, because these characters are too-obvious-offsprings of Deus ex Machina. What I have attempted to suggest in this paper was that Deus ex Machina, when he or she became no longer able to appear qua god or goddess, could have been transformed into a final twist of the plot in what came to be called Western classical comedy.(40)