Listed 100 (total found 2805) sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "GREECE Country EUROPE" .
CHILIOMODI (Village) TENEA
1925
1927
Politician.
VILIA (Small town) ATTIKI
13/4/1926 - 3/9/1983
KORINTHOS (Ancient city) PELOPONNISOS
Adeimantus (Adeimantos). The son of Ocytus, the Corinthian commander in the invasion
of Greece by Xerxes. Before the battle of Artemisium he threatened to sail away,
but was bribed by Themistocles to remain. He opposed Themistocles with great insolence
in the council which the commanders held before the battle of Salamis. According
to the Athenians he took to flight at the very commencement of the battle, but
this was denied by the Corinthians and the other Greeks. (Herod. viii. 5, 56,
61, 94; Plut. Them. 11)
Ariston, son of Pyrrhichus, a Corinthian, one of those apparently who made their way into Syracuse in the second year of the Sicilian expedition, 414 B. C., is named once by Thucydides, in his account of the sea-fight preceding the arrival of the second armament (413 B. C.), and styled the most skilful steersman on the side of the Syracusans. He suggested to them the stratagem of retiring early, giving the men their meal on the shore, and then renewing the combat unexpectedly, which in that battle gave them their first naval victory. (vii. 39; comp. Polyaen. v. 13.) Plutarch (Nicias, 20, 25) and Diodorus (xiii. 10) ascribe to him further the invention or introduction at Syracuse of the important alterations in the build of their galleys' bows, mentioned by Thucydides (vii. 34), and said by him to have been previously used by the Corinthians in the action off Erineus. Plutarch adds, that he fell when the victory was just won, in the last and decisive sea-fight.
But in this nick of time and crisis of their peril Gongylus came to them from Corinth with a single trireme. All flocking to meet him, as was natural, he told them that Gylippus would come speedily, and that other ships of war were sailing to their aid.
Gongylus. A Corinthian captain, who in the eighteenth year of the Peloponnesian war, B. C. 414, took charge of a single ship of reinforcements for Syracuse. He left Leucas after Gylippus, but, sailing direct for Syracuse itself, arrived there first. It was a critical juncture: the besieged were on the point of holding an assembly for discussion of terms of surrender. His arrival, and his news of the approach of Gylippus, put a stop to all thought of this; the Syracusans took heart, and presently moved out to support the advance of their future deliverer. Thucydides seems to regard this as the moment of the turn of the tide. On the safe arrival of Gongylus at that especial crisis depended the issue of the Sicilian expedition, and with it the destiny of Syracuse, Athens, and all Greece. Gongylus fell, says Plutarch, in the first battle on Epipolae, after the arrival of Gylippus. (Thuc. vii. 2; Plut. Nicias, 19.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
RODOS (Ancient city) DODEKANISSOS
Charicleitus (Charikleitos), one of the commanders of the Rhodian fleet, which, in B. C. 190, defeated that of Antiochus the Great under Hannibal and Apollonius, off Side in Pamphylia. (Liv. xxxiv. 23, 24.)
SPARTI (Ancient city) LACONIA
Agesandridas, the son of Agesander (comp. Thuc. i. 139), the commander of the Lacedaemonian fleet sent to protect the revolt of Euboea in B. C. 411, was attacked by the Athenians near Eretria, and obtained a victory over them. (Thuc. viii. 91, 94, 95.)
Hegesandridas or Agesandridas, (Hegesandridas, Xen.; Agesandridas, Thuc.), son of an Hegesander or Agesander, perhaps the same who is mentioned (Thuc. i. 139) as a member of the last Spartan embassy sent to Athens before the Peloponnesian war, was himself, in its twenty-first year, B. C. 411, placed in command of a fleet of two and forty ships destined to further a revolt in Euboea. News of their being seen off Las of Laconia came to Athens at the time when the 400 were building their fort of Eetionia commanding Peiraeeus, and the coincidence was used by Theramenes in evidence of their treasonable intentions. Further intelligence that the same fleet had sailed over from Megara to Salamis coincided again with the riot in Peiraeeus, and was held to be certain proof of the allegation of Theramenes. Thucydides thinks it possible that the movement was really made in concert with the Athenian oligarchs, but far more probable that Hegesandridas was merely prompted by an indefinite hope of profiting by the existing dissensions. His ulterior design was soon seen to be Euboea; the fleet doubled Sunium, and finally came to harbour at Oropus. The greatest alarm was excited; a fleet was hastily manned, which, with the gallies already at the port, amounted to thirty-six. But the new crews had never rowed together ; a stratagem of the Eretrians kept the soldiers at a distance, at the very moment when, in obedience to a signal from the town, the Spartan admiral moved to attack. He obtained an easy victory : the Athenians lost two and twenty ships, and all Euboea, except Oreus, revolted. Extreme consternation seized the city; greater, says the sober historian, than had been caused by the very Sicilian disaster itself. Athens, he adds, had now once again to thank their enemy's tardiness. Had the victors attacked Peiraeeus, either the city would have fallen a victim to its distractions, or by the recal of the fleet from Asia, every thing except Attica been placed in their hands. (Thuc. viii. 91, 94-96.) Hegesandridas was content with his previous success; and had soon to weaken himself to reinforce the Hellespontine fleet under Mindarus, after the defeat of Cynos-sema. Fifty ships (partly Euboean) were despatched, and were, one and all, lost in a storm off Athos. So relates Ephorus in Diodorus (xii. 41). On the news of this disaster, Hegesandridas appears to have sailed with what ships he could gather to the Hellespont. Here, at any rate, we find him at the opening of Xenophon's Hellenics; and here he defeated a small squadron recently come from Athens under Thymochares, his opponent at Eretria. (Xen. Hell. i. 1.1.) He is mentioned once again (lb. i. 3.17) as commander on the Thracian coast, B. C. 408.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Anaxibius (Anaxibios), was the Spartan admiral stationed at Byzantium, to whom the Cyrean Greeks, on their arrival at Trapezus on the Euxine, sent Cheirisophus, one of their generals, at his own proposal, to obtain a sufficient number of ships to transport them to Europe (B. C. 400. Xen. Anab. v. 1.4). When however Cheirisophus met them again at Sinope, he brought back nothing from Anaxibius but civil words and a promise of employment and pay as soon as they came out of the Euxine (Anab. vi. 1.16). On their arrival at Chrysopolis, on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus, Anaxibius, being bribed by Pharnabazus with great promises to withdraw them from his satrapy, again engaged to furnish them with pay, and brought them over to Byzantium. Here he attempted to get rid of them, and to send them forward on their march without fulfilling his agreement. A tumult ensued, in which Anaxibius was compelled to fly for refuge to the Acropolis, and which was quelled only by the remonstrances of Xenophon (Anab. vii. 1.1-32). Soon after this the Greeks left the town under the command of the adventurer Coeratades, and Anaxibius forthwith issued a proclamation, subsequently acted on by Aristarchus the Harmost, that all Cyrean soldiers found in Byzantium should be sold for slaves (Anab. vii. 1.36, 2.6). Being however soon after superseded in the command, and finding himself neglected by Pharnabazus, he attempted to revenge himself by persuading Xenophon to lead the army to invade the country of the satrap; but the enterprise was stopped by the prohibition and threats of Aristarchus (Anab. vii. 2.5-14). In the year 389, Anaxibius was sent out from Sparta to supersede Dercyllidas in the command at Abydus, and to check the rising fortunes of Athens in the Hellespont. Here he met at first with some successes, till at length Iphicrates, who had been sent against him by the Athenians, contrived to intercept him on his return from Antandrus, which had promised to revolt to him, and of which he had gone to take possession. Anaxibius, coming suddenly on the Athenian ambuscade, and foreseeing the certainty of his own defeat, desired his men to save themselves by flight. His own duty, he said, required him to die there; and, with a small body of comrades, he remained on the spot, fighting till he fell, B. C. 388 (Xen. Hell. iv. 8.32-39).
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Antisthenes, a Spartan admiral in the Peloponnesian war, was sent out in B. C.
412, in command of a squadron, to the coast of Asia Minor, and was to have succeeded
Astyochus, in case the Spartan commissioners thought it necessary to deprive that
officer of his command (Thuc. viii. 39). We hear of him again in B. C. 399, when,
with two other commissioners, he was sent out to inspect the state of affairs
in Asia, and announce to Dercvllidas that his command was to be prolonged for
another year (Xen. Hellen. iii. 2.6). There was also an Athenian general of this
name (Mem. iii. 4.1) .
Aracus (Arakos), Ephor, B. C. 409, (Hell. ii. 3.10) was appointed admiral of the Lacedaemonian
fleet in B. C. 405, with Lysander for vice-admiral (epistoleus), who was to have
the real power, but who had not the title of admiral (nauarchos), because the
laws of Sparta did not allow the same person to hold this office twice (Plut.
Lyc. 7; Xen. Hell. ii. 1.7; Diod. xiii. 100; Paus. x. 9.4). In 398 he was sent
into Asia as one of the commissioners to inspect the state of things there, and
to prolong the command of Dercyllidas (iii. 2.6); and in 369 he was one of the
ambassadors sent to Athens (vi. 5.33, where Arakos should be read instead of Aratos).
Astyochus (Astuochos), succeeded Melancridas as Lacedaemonian high admiral, in the summer of 412, B. C., the year after the Syracusan defeat, and arrived with four ships at Chios, late in the summer (Thuc. viii. 20, 23). Lesbos was now the seat of the contest: and his arrival was followed by the recovery to the Athenians of the whole island. Astyochus was eager for a second attempt; but compelled, by the refusal of the Chians and their Spartan captain, Pedaritus, to forego it, he proceeded, with many threats of revenge, to take the general command at Miletus (31-33). Here he renewed the Persian treaty, and remained, notwithstanding the entreaties of Chios, then hard pressed by the Athenians, wholly inactive. He was at last starting to relieve it, when he was called off, about mid-winter, to join a fleet from home, bringing, in consequence of complaints from Pedaritus, commissioners to examine his proceedings. Before this (eti onta tote peri Mileton, cc. 36-42), Astyochus it appears had sold himself to the Persian interest. He had received, perhaps on first coming to Miletus, orders from home to put Alcibiades to death; but finding him in refuge with the satrap Tissaphernes, he not only gave up all thought of the attempt, but on receiving private intelligence of his Athenian negotiations, went up to Magnesia, betrayed Phrynichus his informant to Alcibiades, and there, it would seem, pledged himself to the satrap (cc. 45 and 50). Henceforward, in pursuance of his patron's policy, his efforts were employed in keeping his large forces inactive, and inducing submission to the reduction in their Persian pay. The acquisition of Rhodes, after his junction with the new fleet, he had probably little to do with; while to him, must, no doubt, be ascribed the neglect of the opportunities afforded by the Athenian dissensions, after his return to Miletus (cc. 60 and 63), 411 B. C. The discontent of the troops, especially of the Syracusans, was great, and broke out at last in a riot, where his life was endangered; shortly after which his successor Mindarus arrived, and Astyochus sailed home (cc. 84, 85), after a command of about eight months. Upon his return to Sparta he bore testimony to the truth of the charges which Hermocrates, the Syracusan, brought against Tissaphernes (Xen. Hell. i. 1.31).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Callicratidas, (Kallikratidas) was sent out in B. C. 406 to succeed Lysander as admiral of the Lacedaemonian fleet, and soon found that the jealousy of his predecessor, as well as the strong contrast of their characters, had left for him a harvest of difficulties. Yet he was not unsuccessful in surmounting these, and shewed that plain, straight-forward honesty may sometimes be no bad substitute for the arts of the supple diplomatist. The cabals of Lysander's partizans against him he quelled by asking them, whether he should remain where he was, or sail home to report how matters stood; and even those who looked back with most regret to the winning and agreeable manners of his courtly predecessor, admired his virtue, says Plutarch, even as the beauty of a heroic statue. His great difficulty, however, was the want of funds, and for these he reluctantly went and applied to Cyrus, to whom it is said that Lysander, in order to thwart his successor, had returned the sums he held; but the proud Spartan spirit of Callicratidas could not brook to dance attendance at the prince's doors, and he withdrew from Sardis in disgust, declaring that the Greeks were most wretched in truckling to barbarians for money, and that, if he returned home in safety, he would do his best to reconcile Lacedaemon to Athens. He succeeded, however, in obtaining a supply from the Milesians, and he then commenced against the enemy a series of successful operations. The capture of the fortress of Delphinium in Chios and the plunder of Teos were closely followed by the conquest of Methymna. This last place Conon attempted to save, in spite of his inferiority in numbers, but, arriving too late, anchored for the night at Hekatonnesoi. The next morning he was chased by Callicratidas, who declared that he would put a stop to his adultery with the sea, and was obliged to take refuge in Mytilene, where his opponent blockaded him by sea and land. Conon, however, contrived to send news to the Athenians of the strait in which he was, and a fleet of more than 150 sail was despatched to relieve him. Callicratidas then, leaving Eteonicus with 50 ships to conduct the blockade, proceeded with 120 to meet the enemy. A battle ensued at Arginusae, remarkable for the unprecedented number of vessels engaged, and in this Callicratidas was slain, and the Athenians were victorious. According to Xenophon, his steersman, Hermon. endeavoured to dissuade him from engaging with such superior numbers: as Diodorus and Plutarch tell it, the soothsayer foretold the admiral's death. His answer at any rate, me par hena einai tan Spartan, became famous, but is mentioned with censure by Plutarch and Cicero. On the whole, Callicratidas is a somewhat refreshing specimen of a plain, blunt Spartan of the old school, with all the guilelessness and simple honesty, but (it may be added) not without the bigotry of that character. Witness his answer, when asked what sort of men the Ionians were: "Bad freemen, but excellent slaves " (Xen. Hell. i. 6. 1-33; Diod. xiii. 76-79, 97-99; Plut. Lysand. 5-7, Pelop. 2, Apophthegm. Lacon; Cic. de Off. i. 24, 30). Aelian tells us (V. H. xii. 43), that he rose to the privileges of citizenship from the condition of a slave (mothon).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cratesippidas (Kratesippidas), a Lacedaemonian, was sent out as admiral after the death of Mindarus, B. C. 410, and took the command at Chios of the fleet which had been collected by Pasippidas from the allies. He effected, however, little or nothing during his term of office beyond the seizure of the acropolis at Chios, and the restoration of the Chian exiles, and was succeeded by Lysander. (Xen. Hell. i. 1.32, 5.1 ; Diod. xiii. 65, 70)
Gylippus, (Gulippos), son of Cleandridas, was left, it would seem, when his father
went into exile (B. C. 445) to be brought up at Sparta. In the I8th year of the
Peloponnesian war, when the Lacedaemonian government resolved to follow the advice
of Alcibiades, and send a Spartan commander to Syracuse, Gylippus was selected
for the duty. Manning two Laconian galleys at Asine, and receiving two from Corinth,
under the command of Pythen, he sailed for Leucas. Here a variety of rumours combined
to give assurance that the circumvallation of Syracuse was already complete. With
no hope for their original object, but wishing, at any rate, to save the Italian
allies, he and Pythen resolved, without waiting for the further reinforcements,
to cross at once. They ran over to Tarentum, and presently touched at Thurii,
where Gylippus resumed the citizenship which his father had there acquired in
exile, and used some vain endeavours to obtain assistance. Shortly after the ships
were driven back by a violent gale to Tarentum, and obliged to refit. Nicias meanwhile,
though aware of their appearance on the Italian coast, held it, as had the Thurians,
to be only an insignificant privateering expedition. After their second departure
from Tarentum, they received information at Locri, that the investment was still
incomplete, and now took counsel whether they should sail at once for their object,
or pass the straits and land at Himera. Their wisdom or fortune decided for the
latter; four ships, which Nicias, on hearing of their arrival at Locri, thought
it well to send, and which perhaps would have in the other case intercepted them,
arrived too late to oppose their passage through the straits. The four Peloponnesian
galleys were shortly drawn up on the shore of Himera; the sailors converted into
men-at-arms; the Himeraeans induced to join the enterprise; orders dispatched
to Selinus and Gela to send auxiliaries to a rendezvous; Gongylus, a Corinthian
captain, had already conveyed the good news of their approach to the now-despairing
Syracusans. A small space on the side of Epipolae nearest to the sea still remained
where the Athenian wall of blockade had not vet been carried up; the line was
marked out, and stones were lying along it ready for the builders, and in parts
the wall itself rose, half-completed, above the ground. (Thuc. vi. 93, 104, vii.
1-2.)
Gylippus passed through the island collecting reinforcements on his
way, and giving the Syracusans warning of his approach, was met by their whole
force at the rear of the city, where the broad back of Epipolae slopes upward
from its walls to the point of Labdalum. Mounting this at Euryelus, he came unexpectedly
on the Athenian works with his forces formed in order of battle. The Athenians
were somewhat confounded; but they also drew up for the engagement. Gylippus commenced
his communications with them by sending a herald with an offer to allow them to
leave Sicily as they had come within five days' time, a message which was of course
scornfully dismissed. But in spite of this assumption, probably politic, of a
lofty tone, lie found his Syracusan forces so deficient in discipline, and so
unfit for action, that he moved off into a more open position; and finding himself
unmolested, withdrew altogether, and passed the night in the suburb Temenites.
On the morrow he reappeared in full force before the enemy's works, and under
this feint detached a force, which succeeded in capturing the fort of Labdalum,
and put the whole garrison to the sword. (Thuc. vii. 2, 3.)
For some days thenceforward he occupied his men in raising a cross-wall,
intended to interfere with the line of circumvallation. This the Athenians had
now brought still nearer to completion: a night enterprise, made with a view of
surprising a weak part of it, had been detected and baffled; but Nicias, in despair,
it would seem, of doing any good on the land side, was now employing a great part
of his force in the fortification of Plemyrium, a point which commanded the entrance
of the port. At length Gylippus, conceiving his men to be sufficiently trained,
ventured an attack; but his cavalry, entangled amongst stones and masonry, were
kept out of action; the enemy maintained the superiority of its infantry, and
raised a trophy. Gylippus, however, by openly professing the fault to have been
his own selection of unsuitable ground, inspired them with courage for a fresh
attempt. By a wiser choice, and by posting his horse and his dartmen on the enemy's
flank, he now won the Syracusans their first victory. The counterwork was quickly
completed; the circumvallation effectually destroyed; Epipolae cleared of the
enemy; the city on one side delivered from siege. Gylippus, having achieved so
much, ventured to leave his post, and go about the island in search of auxiliaries.
(Thuc. vii. 4-7.)
His return in the spring of B. C. 413 was followed by a naval engagement,
with the confidence required for which he and Hermocrates combined their efforts
to inspire the people. On the night preceding the day appointed, he himself led
out the whole land force, and with early dawn assaulted and carried successively
the three forts of Plemyrium, most important as the depot of the Athenian stores
and treasure, a success, therefore, more than atoning for the doubtful victory
obtained by the enemy's fleet (Thuc. vii. 22, 23). The second naval fight, and
first naval victory, of the Syracusans, the arrival and defeat on Epipolae of
the second Athenian armament, offer, in our accounts of them, no individual features
for the biography of Gylippus. Nor yet does much appear in his subsequent successful
mission through the island in quest of reinforcements, nor in the first great
naval victory over the new armament,-- a glory scarcely tarnished by the slight
repulse which he in person experienced from the enemy's Tyrsenian auxiliaries
(Thuc. vii. 46, 50, 53). Before the last and decisive sea-fight, Thucydides gives
us an address from his mouth which urges the obvious topics. The command of the
ships was taken by other officers. In the operations succeeding the victory he
doubtless took part. He commanded in the pre-occupation of the Athenian route;
when they in their despair left this their first course, and made a night march
to the south, the clamours of the multitude accused him of a wish to allow their
escape: he joined in the proclamation which called on the islanders serving in
the Athenian host to come over; with him Demosthenes arranged his terms of surrender;
to him Nicias, on hearing of his colleague's capitulation, made overtures for
permission to carry his own division safe to Athens; and to him, on the banks
of the Asinarus, Nicias gave himself up at discretion; to the captive general's
entreaty that, whatever should be his own fate, the present butchery might be
ended, Gylippus acceded by ordering quarter to be given. Against his wishes, the
people, whom he had rescued, put to death the captive generals,--wishes, indeed,
which it is likely were prompted in the main by the desire named by Thucydides,
of the glory of conveying to Sparta such a trophy of his deeds; yet into whose
composition may also have entered some feelings of a generous commiseration for
calamities so wholly unprecedented. (Thuc. vii. 65-69, 70, 74, 79, 81-86.)
Gylippus brought over his troops in the following summer. Sixteen
ships had remained to the end; of these one was lost in an engagement with twentyseven
Athenian galleys, which were lying in wait for them near Leucas; the rest, in
a shattered condition, made their way to Corinth. (Thuc. viii. 13.)
To this, the plain story of the great contemporary historian, inferior
authorities add but little. Timaeus, in Plutarch (Nic. 19), informs us that the
Syracusans made no account of Gylippus ; thinking him, when they had come to know
his character, to be mean and covetous; and at the first deriding him for the
long hair and small upper garment of the Spartan fashion. Yet, says Plutarch,
the same author states elsewhere that so soon as Gylippus was seen, as though
at the sight of an owl, birds enough flocked up for the war. (The sight of an
owl is said to have the effect of drawing birds together, and the fact appears
to have passed into a proverb.) And this, he adds, is the truer account of the
two; the whole achievement is ascribed to Gylippus, not by Thucydides only, but
also by Philistus, a native of Syracuse, and eyewitness of the whole. Plutarch
also speaks of the party at Syracuse, who were inclined to surrender, as especially
offended by his overbearing Spartan ways; and to such a feeling, he says, when
success was secure, the whole people began to give way, openly insulting him when
he made his petition to be allowed to take Nicias and Demosthenes alive to Sparta.
(Nic. 21, 28.) Diodorus (xii. 28), no doubt in perfect independence of all authorities,
puts in his mouth a long strain of rhetoric, urging the people to a vindictive,
unrelenting course, in opposition to that advised by Hermocrates, and a speaker
of the name of Nicolaus. Finally, Polyaenus (i. 42) relates a doubtful tale of
a device by which he persuaded the Syracusans to entrust him with the sole command.
He induced them to adopt the resolution of attacking a particular position, secretly
sent word to the enemy, who, in consequence, strengthened their force there, and
then availed himself of the indignation at the betrayal of their counsels to prevail
upon the people to leave the sole control of them to him.
For all that we know of the rest of the life of Gylippus we are indebted
to Plutarch (Nic. 28 ; Lysand. 16, 17) and Diodorus (xiii. 106). He was commissioned,
it appears, by Lysander, after the capture of Athens, to carry home the treasure.
By opening the seams of the sacks underneath, he abstracted a considerable portion,
30 talents, according to Plutarch's text; according to Diodorus, who makes the
sum total of the talents of silver to be 1500, exclusive of other valuables, as
much as 300. He was detected by the inventories which were contained in each package,
and which he had overlooked. A hint from one of his slaves indicated to the Ephors
the place where the missing treasure lay concealed, the space under the tiling
of the house. Gylippus appears to have at once gone into exile, and to have been
condemned to death in his absence. Athenaeus (vi.) says that he died of starvation,
after being convicted by the Ephors of stealing part of Lysander's treasure; but
whether he means that he so died by the sentence of the Ephors or in exile, does
not appear.
None can deny that Gylippus did the duty assigned to him in the Svracusan
war with skill and energy. The favour of fortune was indeed most remarkably accorded
to him; yet his energy in the early proceedings was of a degree unusual with his
countrymen. His military skill, perhaps, was not much above the average of the
ordinary Spartan officer of the better kind. Of the nobler virtues of his country
we cannot discern much: with its too common vice of cupidity he lamentably sullied
his glory. Aelian (V. H. xii. 42; comp. Athen. vi.) says that he and Lysander,
and Callicratidas, were all of the class called Mothaces, Helots, that is, by
birth, who, in the company of the boys of the family to which they belonged, were
brought up in the Spartan discipline, and afterwards obtained freedom. This can
hardly have been the case with Gylippus himself, as we find his father, Cleandridas,
in an important situation at the side of king Pleistoanax: but the family may
have been derived, at one point or another, from a Mothax. (Comp. Muller, Dor.
iii. 3.5.) The syllable Gul- in the name is probably identical with the Latin
Gilvus.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cnemus (Knemos), the Spartan high admiral (nauarchos) in the second year of the Peloponnesian war, B. C. 430, made a descent upon Zacynthus with 1000 Lacedaemonian hoplites; but, after ravaging the island, was obliged to retire without reducing it to submission. Cnemus was continued in his office of admiral next year, though the regular term, at least a few years subsequently, was only one year. In the second year of his command (B. C. 429), he was sent with 1000 hoplites again to co-operate with the Ambracians, who wished to subdue Acarnania and to revolt from Athens. He put himself at the head of the Ambracians and their barbarian allies, invaded Acarnania, and penetrated to Stratus, the chief town of the country. But here his barbarian allies were defeated by the Ambracians, and he was obliged to abandon the expedition altogether. Meantime the Peloponnesian fleet, which was intended to co-operate with the land forces, had been defeated by Phormio with a far smaller number of ships. Enraged at this disaster, and suspecting the incompetency of the commanders, the Lacedaemonians sent out Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron to assist Cnemus as a council, and with instructions to prepare for fighting a second battle. After refitting their disabled vessels and obtaining reinforcements from their allies, by which their number was increased to seventy-five, while Phormio had only twenty, the Lacedaemonian commanders attacked the Athenians off Naupactus, and though the latter at first lost several ships, and were nearly defeated, they eventually gained the day, and recovered, with one exception, all the ships which had been previously captured by the enemy. After this, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders formed the design of surprising Peiraeeus, and would probably have succeeded in their attempt, only their courage failed them at the time of execution, and they sailed to Salamis instead, thereby giving the Athenians notice of their intention. (Thuc. ii. 66, 80-93; Diod. xii. 47, &c.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
AMVRAKIA (Ancient city) EPIRUS
Of Ambracia; an Athenian writer of the Middle Comedy.
Epicrates, (Epikrates), of Ambracia, was an Athenian comic poet of the middle comedy, according to the testimony of Athenaens (x.), confirmed by extant fragments of his plays, in which he ridicules Plato and his disciples, Spensippus and Menedemus, and in which lie refers to the courtezan Lais, as being now far advanced in years. (Athen. ii., xiii.) From these indications Meineke infers that he flourished between the 101st and 108th Olympiads (B. C. 376-348). Two plays of Epicrates, Emporos and Antilais are mentioned by Suidas (s. v.), and are quoted by Athenaeus (xiv., xiii.), who also quotes his Amazunes (x.) and Duspratos (vi.), and informs us that in the latter play Epicrates copied some things from the Duspratos of Antiphanes. Aelian (N. A. xii. 10) quotes the Choros of Epicrates. We have also one long fragment (Athen. ii.) and two shorter ones (Athen. xi. ; Pollux, iv. 121) from his unknown plays. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i., vol. iii. ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ARKADIA (Ancient area) PELOPONNISOS
Lysippus (Lusippos). An Arcadian, a comic poet of the old Comedy. His date is fixed by
the marble Didascalia, edited by Odericus, at 01. lxxxvi. 2, B. C. 434, when he
gained the first prize with his Katachienai; and this agrees with Athenaeus, who
mentions him in conjunction with Callias (viii.). Besides the katachenai, we have
the titles of his Bakchai (Suid., Eudoc.), which is often quoted, and his Thursokomos
(Suid.). Vossius de Poet. Graec. p. 227) has followed the error of Eudocia, in
making Lysippus a tragic poet. Besides his comedies he wrote some beautiful verses
in praise of the Athenians, which are quoted by Dicaearchus.
ATHENS (Ancient city) GREECE
Alcimenes Alkmenes), an Athenian comic poet, apparently a contemporary of Aeschylus. One of his pieces is supposed to have been the Kolumbosai (the Female Swimmers). His works were greatly admired by Tynnichus, a younger contemporary of Aeschylus.
There was a tragic writer of the same name, a native of Megara, mentioned by Suidas. (Suid. s. v. Alkimenes and Alkman.)
Alexander of Athens, a comic poet, the son of Aristion, whose name occurs in an
inscription given in Bockh, who refers it to the 145th Olympiad (B. C. 200). There
seems also to have been a poet of the same name who was a writer of the middle
comedy, quoted by the Schol. on Homer (Il. ix. 216), and Aristoph. (Ran. 864),
and Athen. (iv.).
Ameipsias, a comic poet of Athens, contemporary with Aristophanes, whom he twice conquered in the dramatic contests, gaining the second prize with his Konnos when Aristophanes was third with the " Clouds" (423 B. C.), and the first with his Komastai, when Aristophanes gained the second with the " Birds." (414 B. C.; Arrgum. in Aristoph. Nub. et. Av.) The [p. 142] Konnos appears to have had the same subject and aim as the " Clouds." It is at least certain that Socrates appeared in the play, and that the Chorus consisted of Phrontistai. (Diog. Laert. ii. 28 ; Athen. v. p. 218.) Aristophanes alludes to Ameipsias in the " Frogs" (v. 12--14), and we are told in the anonymous life of Aristophanes, that when Aristophanes first exhibited his plays, in the names of other poets, Ameipsias applied to him the proverb tetradi gegonos, which means " a person who labours for others," in allusion to Heracles, who was born on the fourth of the month.
Ameipsias wrote many comedies, out of which there remain only a few fragments of the following : --Apokottabizontes, Katesthion (doubtful), Konnos, Moichoi, Sappho, Sphendone, and of some the names of which are unknown. Most of his plays were of the old comedy, but some, in all probability, were of the middle. (Meineke, Frag. Com. i. p. 199, ii. p. 701.)
Amphis, an Athenian comic poet, of the middle comedy, contemporary with the philosopher Plato. A reference to Phryne, the Thespian, in one of his plays (Athen. xiii.), proves that he was alive in B. C. 332. We have the titles of twenty-six of his plays, and a few fragments of them. (Suidas, s. v.; Pollux, i. 233; Diog. Laert. iii. 27)
Anaxilas or Anaxilaus (Anaxilas, Anaxilaos), an Athenian comic poet of the middle
comedy, contemporary with Plato and Demosthenes, the former of whom he attacked
in one of his plays (Diog. Laert. iii. 28). We have a few fragments and the titles
of nineteen of his comedies, eight of which are on mythological subjects (Pollux,
ii. 29, 34; x. 190; Athen.)
Anaxippus (Anaxippos), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, was contemporary with Antigonus and Demetrius Poliorcetes, and flourished about B. C. 303. (Suidas, s. v.) We have the titles of four of his plays, and perhaps of one more.
Antidotus (Antidotos), an Athenian comic poet, of whom we know nothing, except that he was of the middle comedy, which is evident from the fact that a certain play, the Homoia, is ascribed both to him and to Alexis. (Athen. xiv.) We have the titles of two other plays of his, and it is thought that his name ought to be restored in Athenaeus (i.) and Pollux (vi. 99).
Native of Cios (see CIOS)
Apollophanes of Athens, a poet of the old Attic comedy (Suid.), appears to have been a contemporary of Strattis, and to have consequently lived about Ol. 95 (Harpocrat. s. v. aselphirein). Suidas ascribes to him five comedies, viz. Dalis, Iphigeron, Kretes, Danae and Kentauroi. Of the former three we still possess a few fragments, but the last two are completely lost (Athen. iii., xi; Phot. Lex. s. v. mnsikarphes; Aelian, Hist. Ann. vi. 51; Phot).
Archedicus (Archedikos), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, who wrote, at the instigation
of Timaeus, against Demochares, the nephew of Demosthenes, and supported Antipater
and the Macedonian party. The titles of two of his plays are preserved, Diamartanon
and Thesauros. He flourished about 302 B. C. (Suidas, s. v.; Athen. vi., vii.,
x., xiii,; Polyb. xii. 13).
Archippus (Archippos), an Athenian comic poet of the old comedy. gained a single prize B. C. 415. (Suidas, s. v.) His chief play was Ichthus, " the Fishes," in which, as far as can be gathered from the fragments, the fish made war upon the Athenians, as excessive eaters of fish, and at length a treaty was concluded, by which Melanthius, the tragic poet, and other voracious fish-eaters, were given up to be devoured by the fishes. The wit of the piece appears to have consisted chiefly in playing upon words, which Archippus was noted for carrying to great excess. The other plays of Archippus, mentioned by the grammarians, are Amphitruon, Herakles gamon, Onou skia, Ploutos, and Hpinon. Four of the lost plays which are assigned to Aristophanes, were by some ascribed to Archippus, namely, Poiesis, Nauagos, Nesoi, Niobis or Niobos.Two Pythagorean philosophers of this name are mentioned in the list of Fabricius.
Aristomenes. A comic poet of Athens. He belonged to the ancient Attic comedy, or more correctly to the second class of the poets constituting the old Attic comedy. For the ancients seem to distinguish the comic poets who flourished before the Peloponnesian war from those who lived during that war, and Aristomenes belonged to the latter. (Suidas, s. v. Aristomenes ; Eudocia, p. 65; Argum. ad Aristoph. Equit.) He was sometimes ridiculed by the surname ho Duropoios,which mayhave been derived from the circumstance that either he himself or his father, at one time, was an artizan, perhaps a carpenter. As early as the year B. C. 425, he brought out a piece called hulophoroi, on the same occasion that the Equites of Aristophanes and the Satyri of Cratinus were performed; and if it is true that another piece entitled Admetus was performed at the same time with the Plutus of Aristophanes, in B. C. 389, the dramatic career of Aristomenes was very long. (Argum. ad Aristoph. Plut.) But we know of only a few comedies of Aristomenes ; Meineke conjectures that the Admetus was brough out together with the first edition of Aristophanes' Plutus, an hypothesis based upon very weak grounds. Of the two plays mentioned no fragments are extant; besides these we know the titles and possess a few fragments of three others, viz. 1. Boethoi, which is sometimes attributed to Aristophanes, the names of Aristomenes and Aristophanes being often confounded in the MSS. 2. Goetes, and 3. Dionusos asketes. There are also three fragments of which it is uncertain whether they belong to any of the plays here mentioned, or to others, the titles of which are unknown.
Augeas (or Augias), an Athenian poet of the middle comedy. Suidas (s. v.) and
Eudocia (p. 69) mention the following plays of his: Agroikos, Dis, Kateroumenos,
and Porphura. He appears likewise to have written epic poems, and to have borrowed
from Antimachus of Teos.
Autocrates (Autokrates), an Athenian, a poet of the old comedy. One of his plays,
the Tumpanistai, is mentioned by Suidas and Aelian (V. H. xii. 9). He also wrote
several tragedies (Suidas, s. v. Autokrates). The Autocrates whose Achaika is
quoted by Athenaeus (ix.) seems to have been a different person.
Axionicus (Axionikos), an Athenian poet of the middle comedy. Some unimportant fragments of the following plays have been preserved by Athenaeus (vi.,x.): the Turrhenos or Turrhenikos, Phileuripides, Philinna, Chalkidikos.
Baton, an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, flourished about 280 B. C. We
have fragments of the following comedies by him: Aitolos or Aitoloi, Euergetai,
Audrophonos, Sunexapaton. His plays appear to have been chiefly designed to ridicule
the philosophers of the day. His name is incorrectly written in some passages
of the ancient authors, Battos, Batton, Bathon. (Plut. de Am. et Adul. ; Suidas,
s. v.; Eudoc.; Phot. Cod. 167; Stobaeus, Florileg. xcviii. 18; Athen. xiv., iv.,
vii., xv.)
Calliades (Kalliades), a comic poet, who is mentioned by Athenaeus (xiii.), but about whom nothing further is known, than that a comedy entitled Agnoia was ascribed by some to Diphilus and by others to Calliades (Athen. ix.). From the former passage of Athenaeus it must be inferred, that Calliades was a contemporary of the archon Eucleides, B. C. 403, and that accordingly he belonged to the old Attic comedy, whereas the fact of the Agnoea being disputed between him and Diphilus shews that he was a contemporary of the latter, and accordingly was a poet of the new Attic comedy. For this reason Meineke (Hist. Crit. Com. Gr.) is inclined to believe that the name Calliades in Athenaeus is a mistake for Callias.
Callias, (Kallias), a comic poet, was according to Suidas (s. v.) a son of Lysimachus, and bore the name of Schoenion because his father was a rope or basket maker (schoinoplokos). He belonged to the old Attic comedy, for Athenaeus (x.) states, that he lived shortly before Strattis, who appears to have commenced his career as a comic poet about B. C. 412. From the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Equit. 526) we further learn, that Callias was an emulator of Cratinus. It is, therefore, probable that he began to come before the public prior to B. C. 424; and if it could be proved that he was the same person as Calliades, he would have lived at least till B. C. 402. We still possess a few fragments of his comedies, and the names of six are preserved in Suidas, viz. Aiguptios, Atalante (Zenob. iv. 7), Kuklopes (perhaps alluded to by Athen. ii., and Clem. Alex. Strom vi.), Pedetai (Athen. viii.; Schol. ad Aristoph. Av. 31, 151; Diog. Laert. ii. 18), Batrachoi, and Scholaxontes. Whether he is the same as the Callias whom Athenaeus (vii, x.) calls the author of a grammatike tragoedia, is uncertain. (Comp. Athen. iv., vii., xii.; Pollux, vii. 113)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Callicrates (Kallikrates), is mentioned only once by Athenaeus (xiii.) as the author of a comedy called Moschion, and from the connexion in which his name appears there with those of Antiphanes and Alexis, it may be inferred that he was a poet of the middle Attic comedy.
Cantharus (Kantharos), a comic poet of Athens. (Suid. s. v.; Eudoc.) The only thing we have to guide us in determining his age is, that the cornedy entitled Symmachia, which commonly went by the name of Plato, was ascribed by some to Cantharus, whence we may infer, that he was a contemporary of Plato, the comic poet. Besides some fragments of the Symmachia, we possess a few of two other comedies, viz. the Medeia (Suid. and Mich. Apostol. s. v. Arabios auletes; Pollux, iv. 61), and Tereus. (Athen. iii.; Mich. Apostol. s. v. Athenaia.) Of two other comedies mentioned by Suidas, the Murmekes and the Aedones, no fragments are extant.
Cephisororus (Kephisodoros). An Athenian comic poet of the old comedy, gained
a prize B. C. 402 (Lysias, Drod.; Suidas, s. v.). This date is confirmed by the
title of one of his comedies, Antilais, which evidently refers to the celebrated
courtezan Lais; and also by his being mentioned in connexion with Cratinus, Aristophanes,
Callias, Diodes, Eupolis, and Hermippus. The following are the known titles of
his plays: Antilais, Amazones, Trophonios,Hus. A few fragments of them are preserved
by Photius and Suidas (s. v. Onos huetai, by Pollux. vi. 173, vii. 40, 87), and
by Athenaeus. (iii., viii., xi., xii., xiv., xv. ).
Clearchus (Klearchos), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, whose time is
unknown. Fragments are preserved from his Kitharoidos (Athen. x., xiv.), Korinthioi
(xiv.), Pandrosos (xiv.), and from a play, the title of which is unknown.
Cratinus, son of Callimedes, was the eldest of that brilliant triad
of the Old Comedy, Eupolis atque Cratinus Aristophanesque poetae,
but of the details of his life little is known with certainty, except that he
lived to be ninety-seven, that he died after he produced in 423 B.C. his Pytine,
'Flagon', a reply to the gibes of Aristophanes in his Knights exhibited in the
previous year (424 B.C.), that he gained the first prize, Ameipsias being second
with his Connus and Aristophanes third with the Clouds. We are further told by
Lucian that he did not long survive his final triumph, whilst we learn from the
Peace of Aristophanes, acted in 419 B.C., that Cratinus had died of grief at the
breaking of a jar of wine by the Lacedaemonians in some incursion which must have
been prior to the Peace of Nicias in 421 B.C. As his death falls probably in 422
B.C. and his age was then ninety-seven, his birth may be placed about 520-519
B.C., or some five years later than that of Aeschylus, who stands to Tragedy much
as Cratinus does to the Old Comedy. He wrote thirty-one plays and gained nine
victories. Eusebius states that he began to exhibit in Olympiad 81, 454-453 B.C.,
whilst the anonymous writer on Comedy states that he gained his first victory
in Olympiad 85, i.e. after 437 B.C., when he was more than eighty. The critics
have treated this last statement with incredulity because in one of his fragments
he attacks Pericles for his delay in completing the Long Walls, which were finished
about 451 B.C., and because there are some other fragments apparently belonging
to an earlier period than 437 B.C. It is further alleged that the plays of Cratinus
were acted by Crates before the latter began to exhibit for himself, which he
did in 449-448 B.C. But the critics, as usual, have overleaped themselves, for
there is no discrepancy between the statement of the anonymous writer and the
other evidence, since he does not say that Cratinus did not exhibit before 437
B.C., but that he did not gain a victory until after that date, whilst Eusebius
does not state that he won in 454-453 B.C., but that he began to exhibit in that
year. The critics have thus assumed that to exhibit is to win. But we shall find
that there are good grounds for believing that both Eusebius and the anonymous
writer are right. Aristotle, though he knew well about Cratinus and his victory
with the Flagon, makes no mention of him in his brief statement of the real rise
of Attic Comedy, but gives the place of honour to Crates, who had acted for Cratinus
before exhibiting his own plays. Why is this? He names Crates because he was 'the
first of the Athenians who dropped the invective style and framed dialogues and
plots of a general (i.e. non-personal) character'. Cratinus therefore fails to
make this great step in which he was anticipated by his own actor, and adhered
to and even aggravated the old style of violent personal invective. Moreover,
he was an ardent member of the Conservative party, a warm panegyrist of Cimon,
and a merciless detractor of Pericles, who, after the murder of Ephialtes in 462
B.C., had become the chief leader of the Demos. It would have indeed been strange
had the verdict of a theatre packed with democrats assigned the first prize to
such attacks on their idol as those in which Cratinus lashed Pericles for his
tardiness in completing the Long Walls, but to this point we shall revert.
As regards his personal character, there is no doubt that he was much
addicted to the wine-cup, as he himself admitted in his famous rejoinder to Aristophanes,
in which he represented himself as having fallen completely under the influence
of his mistress Pytine, i.e. wine-cup, who was personified on the stage as an
attractive courtesan. But it may be questioned whether the charge of being 'a
greater coward than Epeius' (the maker of the Wooden Horse), cited by Suidas,
made against him by Taxiarch of the tribe Oeneis, was equally well founded, for
he mus have had amongst his victims many ready to retaliate with any convenient
calumny.
His chief contribution to the Old Comedy, in the words of an anonymous
writer, was that 'he added the useful to the pleasing in Comedy by accusing evil-doers
and punishing them with Comedy as with a public scourge'; and as was said by another
ancient, 'he hurled his reproaches in the most direct and plainest of terms at
the bare heads of the offenders.'
Alfred Bates,, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the TheatreHistory URL below.
Cratinus (Kratinos). One of the most celebrated Athenian comic poets of the old
comedy, the rise and complete perfection of which he witnessed during a life of
97 years. The dates of his birth and death can be ascertained with tolerable certainty
from the following circumstances :--In the year 424 B. C., Aristophanes exhibited
his Knights, in which he described Cratinus as a drivelling old man, wandering
about with his crown withered, and so utterly neglected by his former admirers
that he could not even procure wherewithal to quench the thirst of which he was
perishing (Equit. 531--534). This attack roused Cratinus to put forth all his
remaining strength in the play entitled Putine (the Flagon), which was exhibited
the next year, and with which he carried away the first prize above the Connus
of Ameipsias and the Clouds of Aristophanes (Arg. Nub). Now Lucian says that the
Putine was the last play of Cratinus, and that he did not long survive his victory
(Macrob. 25). Aristophanes also, in the Peace, which was acted in 419 B. C., says
that Cratinus died hoth hoi Lakones enebalon (Pax, 700, 701.) A doubt has been
raised as to what invasion Aristophanes meant. He cannot refer to any of the great
invasions mentioned by Thucydides, and we are therefore compelled to suppose some
irruption of a part of the Lacedaemonian army into Attica at the time when the
armistice, which was made shortly before the negotiations for the fifty years'
truce, was broken (B. C. 422). Now Lucian says (l. c.) that Cratinus lived 97
years. Thus his birth would fall in B. C. 519.
If we may trust the grammarians and chronographers, Cratinus did not
begin his dramatic career till he was far advanced in life. According to an Anonymous
writer on Comedy (p. xxix), he gained his first victory after the 85th Olympiad,
that is, later than B. C. 437, and when he was more than 80 years old. This date
is suspicious in itself, and is falsified by circumstantial evidence. For example,
in one fragment he blames the tardiness of Pericles in completing the long walls
which we know to have been finished in B. C. 451, and there are a few other fragments
which evidently belong to an earlier period than the 85th Olympiad. Again, Crates
the comic poet acted the plays of Cratinus before he began to write himself; but
Crates began to write in B. C. 449--448. We can therefore have no hesitation in
preferring the date of Eusebius (Chron. s. a. Ol. 81. 3), although he is manifestly
wrong in joining the name of Plato with that of Cratinus. According to this testimony,
Cratinus began to exhibit in B. C. 454--453, in about the 66th year of his age.
Of his personal history very little is known. His father's name was
Callimedes, and he himself was taxiarch of the Phule Oineis (Suid. s. vv. Kratinos,
Ereiou deiloteros). In the latter passage he is charged with excessive cowardice.
Of the charges which Suidas brings against the moral character of Cratinus, one
is unsupported by any other testimony, though, if it had been true, it is not
likely that Aristophanes would have been silent upon it. Probably Suidas was misled
by a passage of Aristophanes (Acharn. 849, 850) which refers to another Cratinus,
a lyric poet (Schol. l. c.). The other charge which Suidas brings against Cratinus,
that of habitual intemperance, is sustained by many passages of Aristophanes and
other writers, as well as by the confession of Cratinus himself, who appears to
have treated the subject in a very amusing way, especially in his Putine.
Cratinus exhibited twenty-one plays and gained nine victories (Suid.
s. v.; Eudoc.; Anon. de Com.), and that pampsephei, according to the Scholiast
on Aristophanes (Equit. 528).
Cratinus was undoubtedly the poet of the old comedy. He gave it its
peculiar character, and he did not, like Aristophanes, live to see its decline.
Before his time the comic poets had aimed at little beyond exciting the laughter
of their audience: it was Cratinus who first made comedy a terrible weapon
of personal attack, and the comic poet a severe censor of public and private vice.
An anonymous ancient writer says, that to the pleasing in comedy Cratinus added
the useful, by accusing evil-doers and punishing them with comedy as with a public
scourge (Anon. de Com.). He did not even, like Aristophanes, in such attacks unite
mirth with satire, but, as an ancient writer says, he hurled his reproaches in
the plainest form at the bare heads of the offenders (Platonius, de Com.; Christodor.
Ecphrasis, v. 357; Persius, Sat. i. 123). Still, like Aristophanes with respect
to Sophocles, he sometimes bestowed the highest praise, as upon Cimon (Plut. Cim.
10). Pericles, on the other hand, was the object of his most persevering and vehement
abuse.
It is proper here to state what is known of the circumstances under
which Cratinus and his followers were permitted to assume this license of attacking
institutions and individuals openly and by name. It evidently arose out of the
close connexion which exists in nature between mirth and satire. While looking
for subjects which could be put in a ridiculous point of view, the poet naturally
fell upon the follies and vices of his countrymen. The free constitution of Athens
inspired him with courage to attack the offenders, and secured for him protection
from their resentment. And accordingly we find, that the political freedom of
Athens and this license of her comic poets rose and fell together. Nay, if we
are to believe Cicero, the law itself granted them impunity (De Repub. iv. 10:
"apud quos [Graecos] fuit etiam lege concessum, ut quod vellet comoedia de quo
vellet nominatim diceret"). The same thing is stated, though not so distinctly,
by Themistius (Orat. viii.). This flourishing period lasted from the establishment
of the Athenian power after the Persian war down to the end of the Peloponnesian
war, or perhaps a few years later (about B. C. 460--393). The exercise of this
license, however, was not altogether unopposed. In addition to what could be done
personally by such men as Cleon and Alcibiades, the law itself interfered on more
than one occasion. In the archonship of Morychides (B. C. 440-439), a law was
made prohibiting the comic poets from holding a living person up to ridicule by
bringing him on the stage by name (psephisma tou me komphdein onomasti, Schol.
Arist. Acharn. 67). This law remained in force for the two following years, and
was annulled in the archonship of Euthymenes (B. C. 437-- 36). Another restriction,
which probably belongs to about the same time, was the law that no Areopagite
should write comedies (Plut. Bell. an Pac. praest. Ath.).
From B. C. 436 the old comedy flourished in its highest vigour, till
a series of attacks was made upon it by a certain Syracosius, who is suspected,
with great probability, of having been suborned by Alcibiades. This Syracosius
carried a law, me komoideisthai onomasti tina, probably about B. C. 416--415,
which did not, however, remain in force long (Schol. Arist. Av. 1297). A similar
law is said to have been carried by Antimachus, but this is perhaps a mistake
(Schol. Arist. Acharn. 1149). That the brief aristocratical revolution of 411
B. C. affected the liberty of comedy can hardly be doubted, though we have no
express testimony. If it declined then, we have clear evidence of its revival
with the restoration of democracy in the Frogs of Aristophanes and the Cleophon
of Plato (B. C. 405). It cannot be doubted that, during the rule of the thirty
tyrants, the liberty of comedy was restrained, not only by the loss of political
liberty, but by the exhaustion resulting from the war, in consequence of which
the choruses could not be maintained with their ancient splendour. We even find
a play of Cratinus without Chorus or Parabasis, namely, the Odusseis, but this
was during the 85th Olympiad, when the above-mentioned law was in force. The old
comedy, having thus declined, was at length brought to an end by the attacks of
the dithyrambic poet Cinesias, and of Agyrrhius, and was succeeded by the Middle
Comedy (about B. C. 393--392).
Besides what Cratinus did to give a new character and power to comedy,
he is said to have made changes in its outward form, so as to bring it into better
order, especially by fixing the number of actors, which had before been indefinite,
at three (Anon. de Com.). On the other hand, however, Aristotle says, that no
one knew who made this and other such changes (Poet. v. 4).
The character of Cratinus as a poet rests upon the testimonies of
the ancient writers, as we have no complete play of his extant. These testimonies
are most decided in placing him in the very first rank of comic poets. By one
writer he is compared to Aeschylus (Anon. de Com.). There is a fragment of his
own, which evidently is no vain boast, but expresses the estimation in which he
was held by his contemporaries (Schol. Arist. Equit. 526). Amongst several allusions
to him in Aristophanes, the most remarkable is the passage in the Knights referred
to above, where he likens Cratinus to a rapid torrent, carrying everything before
it, and says that for his many victories he deserved to drink in the Prytaneium,
and to sit anointed as a spectator of the Dionysia. But, after all, his highest
praise is in the fact, that he appeared at the Dionysia of the following year,
not as a spectator, but as a competitor, and carried off the prize above Aristophanes
himself. His style seems to have been somewhat grandiloquent, and full of tropes,
and altogether of a lyric cast. He was very bold in inventing new words, and in
changing the meaning of old ones. His choruses especially were greatly admired,
and were for a time the favourite songs at banquets (Aristophanes, l. c.). It
was perhaps on account of the dithyrambic character of his poetry that he was
likened to Aeschylus, and it was no doubt for the same reason that Aristophanes
called him taurophagon (Ran. 357; Apollon. Lex. Hom.). His metres seem to have
partaken of the same lofty character. He sometimes used the epic verse. The "Cratinean
metre" of the grammarians, however, was in use before his time. In the invention
of his plots he was most ingenious and felicitous, but his impetuous and exuberant
fancy was apt to derange them in the progress of the play (Platonius, p. xxvii).
Among the poets who imitated him more or less the ancient writers
enumerate Eupolis, Aristophanes, Crates, Telecleides, Strattis, and others. The
only poets whom he himself is known to have imitated are Homer and Archilochus
(Platonius, l. c.;). His most formidable rival was Aristophanes (See, besides
numerous passages of Aristophanes and the Scholia on him, Schol. Plat.). Among
his enemies Aristophanes mentions hoi peri Kallian (l.c.). What Callias he means
is doubtful, but it is most natural to suppose that it is Callias the son of Hipponicus.
There is much confusion among the ancient writers in quoting from
his dramas. Meineke has shewn that the following plays are wrongly attributed
to him :--Glaukos, Thrason, Heroes, Iiades, Kressai, Psephismata, Allotriognomones.
These being deducted, there still remain thirty titles, some of which, however,
certainly belong to the younger Cratinus. After all deductions, there remain twenty-four
titles, namely, Archilochoi, Boukoloi, Deliades, Didaskaliai, Drapetides, Empipramenoi
or Idaioi, Euneidai, Thraittai, Kleoboulinai, Dakones, Malthakoi, Nemesis, Nomoi,
Odusseis, Panoptai, Pulaia, Ploutoi, Putine, Saturoi, Seriphioi, Trophonios, Cheimazomenoi,
Cheirones, Horai. The difference between this list and the statement of the grammarians,
who give to Cratinus only twenty-one plays, may be reconciled on the supposition
that some of these plays had been lost when the grammarians wrote, as, for example,
the Saturoi and Cheimazomenoi, which are mentioned only in the Didascalia of the
Knights and Acharnians.
The following are the plays of Cratinus, the date of which is known
with certainty:-
About 448. Archilochoi.
In 425. Cheimazomenoi, 2nd prize. Aristophanes was first, with the Acharnians.
424. Saturoi, 2nd prize. Aristophanes was first, with the Knights
423. Putine, 1st prize. 2nd. Ameipsias, Konnos. 3rd. Aristoph. Nephelai.
The chief ancient commentators on Cratinus were Asclepiades, Didymus,
Callistratus, Euphronius, Symmachus, Aristarchus, and the Scholiasts.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cratinus the younger, an Athenian comic poet of the middle comedy, was a contemporary of Plato the philosopher (Diog. Laert. iii. 28) and of Corydus (Athen. vi. p. 241, c.), and therefore flourished during the middle of the 4th century B. C., and as late as 324 B. C. (Clinton, Fast. Hell. ii. p. xliii.) Perhaps he even lived down to the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Athen. xi. p. 469, c., compared with vi. p. 242, a.), but this is improbable. The following plays are ascribed to him :-- Gigantes, Theramenes, Omphale (doubtful), Ypobo-- limaios, Cheiron ; in addition to which, it is probable that some of the plays which are ascribed to the elder Cratinus, belong to the younger.
Crates (Krates), of Athens, a comic poet, of the old comedy, was a younger contemporary
of Cratinus, in whose plays he was the principal actor before he betook himself
to writing comedies (Diog. Laert. iv. 23; Aristoph. Equit. 536-540, and Schol.;
Anon. de Com. p. xxix.). He began to flourish in B. C. 449, 448 (Euseb. Chron),
and is spoken of by Aristophanes in such a way as to imply that he was dead before
the Knights was acted B. C. 424. With respect to the character of his dramas,
there is a passage in Aristotle (Poet. 5) which has been misunderstood, but which
seems simply to mean, that, instead of making his comedies vehicles of personal
abuse, he chose such subjects as admitted of a more general mode of depicting
character. This is confirmed by the titles and fragments of his plays and by the
testimony of the Anonymous writer on Comedy respecting his imitator, Pherecrates
(p. xxix). His great excellence is attested by Aristophanes, though in a somewhat
ironical tone (l. c.; comp. Ath. iii. p. 117, c.), and by the fragments of his
plays. He excelled chiefly in mirth and fun (Aristoph. l. c.; Anon. de Com. l.c.),
which he carried so far as to bring drunken persons on the stage, a thing which
Epicharmus had done, but which no Attic comedian had ventured on before (Ath.
x.). His example was followed by Aristophanes and by later comedians; and with
the poets of the new comedy it became a very common practice (Dion Chrysost. Orat.
32).
Like the other great comic poets, he was made to feel strongly both
the favour and the inconstancy of the people (Aristoph. l. c.). The Scholiast
on this passage says, that Crates used to bribe the spectators,--a charge which
Meineke thinks may have been taken from some comic poet who was an enemy to Crates.
There is much confusion among the ancient writers about the number and titles
of his plays. Suidas has made two comic poets of the name, but there can be little
doubt that he is wrong. Other grammarians assign to him seven and eight comedies
respectively (Anon. de Com). The result of Meineke's analysis of the statements
of the ancient writers is, that fourteen plays are ascribed to Crates, namely,
Geitones, Dionusos, Heroes, Theria, Thesauros, Lamia, Metoikoi, Ornithes, Paidiai,
Pedetai, Hpetores, Samioi, Tolmai , Philarguros, of which the following are suspicious,
Dionusos, Thesauros, Metoikoi, Ornithes, Pedetai, Philarguros, thus leaving eight,
the number mentioned by the Anonymous writer on Comedy, namely, Geitones, Eroes,
Theria, Lamia, Paidiai, Hpetores, Samioi, Tolmai. Of these eight plays fragments
are still extant. There are also seventeen fragments, which cannot be assigned
to their proper plays. The language of Crates is pure, elegant, and simple, with
very few peculiar words and constructions. He uses a very rare metrical peculiarity,
namely, a spondaic ending to the anapaestic tetrameter (Poll. vi. 53; Athen. iii.) Crates, Athenian actor and author of comedies, flourished about 470
B.C. He was regarded as the founder of Greek comedy proper, since he abandoned
political lampoons on individuals, and introduced more general subjects and a
well-developed plot (Aristotle, Poetica, 5). He is stated to have been the first
to represent the drunkard on the stage. (Aristophanes, Knights, 37 ff.).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Criton of Athens, a comic poet of the new comedy, of very little note. Of his comedies there only remain a few lines and three titles, Aitoloi, Philopragmon, and Messenia. (Pollux. ix. 4. 15, x. 7. 35; Ath. iv.; Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec.)
Crobylus (Krobulos), an Athenian comic poet, who is reckoned among the poets of
the new comedy, but it is uncertain whether he really belonged to the middle or
the new. About his age we only know for certain, that he lived about or after
B. C. 324, but not how long after. Some writers have confounded him with Hegesippus.
The following titles of his plays, and a few lines, are extant: Apanchomenos,
Apolipousa, Pseudupobolimaios (Athen.).
Demetrius (Demetrios), an Athenian comic poet of the old comedy (Diog. Laert. v. 85). The fragments which are ascribed to him contain allusions to events which took place about the 92nd and 94th Olympiads (B. C. 412, 404); but there is another in which mention is made of Seleucus and Agathocles. This would bring the life of the author below the 118th Olympiad, that is, upwards of 100 years later than the periods suggested by the other fragments. The only explanation is that of Clinton and Meineke, who suppose two Demetrii, the one a poet of the old comedy, the other of the new. That the later fragment belongs to the new comedy is evident from its subject as well as from its date. To the elder Demetrius must be assigned the Sikelia or Sikeloi, which is quoted by Athenaeus (iii.), Aelian (N. A. xii. 10), Hesychius (s. v. Emperons), and the Etymologicon Magnum (s. v. Emmeroi). Other quotations, without the mention of the play from which they are taken, are made by Athenaeus (ii.) and Stobaeus (Florileg. ii. 1). The only fragment of the younger Demetrius is that mentioned above, from the Areopagites) (Ath. ix.), which fixes his date, in Clinton's opinion, after 299 B. C.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Demonicus (Demonikos), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, of whom one fragment is preserved by Athenaeus (ix.), who gives Achelonios as the title of the play; but perhaps it should rather be Acheloios..
Demophilus. An Athenian comic poet of the new comedy. The only mention of him is in the Prologue to the Asinaria of Plautus, who says, that his play is taken from the Onagos of Demophilus, vv. 10-13,
"Huic nomen Graece est Onagos Fabulae.
Demophilus scripsit, Marcus vortit barbare.
Asinariam volt esse, si per vos licet.
Inest lepos ludusque in hac Comoedia."
Meineke observes that, judging from the "lepos ludusque" of the Asinaria, we have no need to regret the loss of the Onagos.
Demostratus, a person in whose name Eupolis exhibited his comedy Autolukos (Ath. v.). He is ranked among the poets of the new comedy on the authority of Suidas (s. v. charax, Demostratos Demopoietoi) : but here we ought probably to read Timostratos, who is known as a poet of the new comedy.
Timostratus (Timostratos), a comic poet, of unknown time, the author of four dramas, Asotos, Pan, Parakatatheke, and Philodespotes, of which we have scarcely any remnants, beyond the titles. (Antiatt.; Phot Lex. s. v. chagra.) He is mentioned by Photius among the poets quoted by Stobaeus (Bibl. Cod. 167); but no references to him are found in our present copies of Stobaeus. It is probable also that the name of a poet Demostratos, whose Demopoietos is quoted by Suidas (s. c. charax) is an error for Timostratos.
Demoxenus. (Damoxenos) was an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, and perhaps partly of
the middle. Two of his plays, entitled Euntrophoi and Heauton penthon, are mentioned
by Athenaeus, who quotes a long passage from the former, and a few lines from
the latter. Elsewhere he calls him, less correctly, Demoxenus. The longer fragment
was first published, with a Latin version, by Hugo Grotius, in his Excerpta ex
Tragoedus et Comoedus Graecis, Par. 1626 (Ath.; Suid.; Eudoc.).
Dexicrates (Dexikrates), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, whose drama entitled (Huph heauton planomenoi is quoted by Athenaeus (iii.). Suidas also refers to the passage in Athenaeus.
Dexippus (Dexippos), a comic poet of Athens, respecting whom no particulars are
known. Suidas (s. v. Korukaios) mentions one of his plays entitled Thesuros, and
Eudocia has preserved the titles of four others, viz. Antipornoboskos, Philarguros,
Historiographos, and DiadikaZomenoi.
Dioxippus (Dioxippos), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy (Suid.), wrongly
called Dexippus in another passage of Suidas, (s. v. Korukaios) and by Eudocia
(p. 132). Suidas and Eudocia mention his Antipornoboskos, of which a line and
a half are preserved by Athenaeus, Historiographos (Ath.), which Vossius conjectures
was intended to ridicule the fabulous Greek historians, Diadikazomenoi, of which
nothing remains, and Philarguros. (Ath.). To these must be added, from Suidas
and Photius (s. v. Korukaios), the Thesauros.
He is recorded as Athenian comic poet, however they was native of Sinope, where all articles & information are recorded.
Dromon. An Athenian comic poet of the middle comedy, from whose Psaltria two fragments are quoted by Athenaeus (vi., ix.). In the former of these fragments mention is made of the parasite Tithymallus, who is also mentioned by Alexis, Timocles, and Antiphanes, who are all poets of the middle comedy, to which therefore it is inferred that Dromon also belonged. A play of the same title is ascribed to Eubulus.
Ecphantides (Ekphantides), an Athenian comic poet of the old comedy, flourished
after Magnes, and a little before Cratinus and Telecleides (Nake, Choerilus).
He is called by Aspasius (ad Aristot. Eth. Nicom. iv. 2) ton archaion palaiotaton
poieten, which words some writers understand as implying that he was older than
Chionides and Magnes. But we have the clear testimony of Aristotle (Poct. v. 3),
that all the poets before Magnes furnished their choruses at their own expense,
whereas the name of a person who was choragus for Ecphantides is mentioned also
by Aristotle (Polit. viii. 6). Again, a certain Androcles, to whom Cratinus and
Telecleides often refer, was also attacked by Ecphantides, who could not, therefore,
have flourished long before those poets (Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1182). The date
of Ecphantides may be placed about Ol. 80 (B. C. 460), and onwards. The meaning
of the surname of Kapnias, which was given to Ecphantides by his rivals, has been
much disputed, but it seems to imply a mixture of subtlety and obscurity. He ridiculed
the rudeness of the old Megaric comedy, and was himself ridiculed on the same
ground by Cratinus, Aristophanes, and others (Hesych. s. v. Kapnias; Schol. Aristoph.
Vesp. 151; Nake, Choeril.).
There is only one certain title of a play by Ecphantides extant, namely,
the Saturoi, a line of which is preserved by Athenaeus (iii.). Another play, Puraunos
is ascribed to him by Nake on conjectural grounds; but Meineke ascribes it to
Autiphanes. Another title, Donusos, is obtained by Nake from a comparison of Suidas
(s. v. Euie) with Hephaestion (xv. 13). Ecphantides was said to have been assisted
in composing his plays by his slave Choelilus.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Choerilus, a slave of the comic poet Ecphantides, whom he was said to assist in the composition of his plays (Hesych. s.v. Ekkechoirilomene and Choirilon Ekphantidos). This explains the error of Eudocia, that the epic poet Choerilus wrote tragedies.
Ephippus (Ephippos), of Athens, was a comic poet of the middle comedy, as we learn from the testimonies of Suidas (s. v.), and Antiochus of Alexandria (Athen. xi.),and from the allusions in his fragments to Plato, and the Academic philosophers (Athen. xi. p. 509, c. d.), and to Alexander of Pherae and his contemporaries, Dionysius the Elder, Cotys, Theodorus, and others (Athen. iii. xi.). The following are the known titles of his plays: Artemis, Bousiris, Geruones, Empole Epheboi, Kirke, Kudon, Nauagos, Obeliaphoroi, Homoioi, Peltastes, Sappho, Philura. An epigram which Eustathius ascribes to Ephippus (ad Ilad. xi. 697) is not his, but the production of soine unknown author (Comp. Athen. x.). There are some fragments also extant from the unknown plays of Ephippus.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Epigenes. An Athenian poet of the middle comedy. Pollux indeed (vii. 29) speaks
of him as neon tis komikon, but the terms "middle" and "new," as Clinton remarks,
are not always very carefully applied (See Arist. Eth. Nic. iv. 8. 6). Epigenes
himself, in a fragment of his play called Mnemation ( Ath. xi.) speaks of Pixodarus,
prince of Caria, as "the king's son"; and from this Meineke argues, that the comedy
in question musth ave been written while Hecatomnus, the father of Pixodarus,
was yet alive, and perhaps about B. C. 380. We find besides in Athenaeus (ix),
that there was a doubt among the ancients whether the play called Argurion aphanismos
should be assigned to Epigenes or Antiphanes. These poets therefore must have
been contemporaries.
Epilycus (Epilukos), an Athenian comic poet of the old comedy, who is mentioned
by an ancient grammarian in connexion with Aristophanes and Philyllius, and of
whose play Koraliskos a few fragments are preserved. (Suid.; Athen.; Phot. Lex.
s. V. tettigonion) An epic poet of the same name, a brother of the comic poet
Crates, is mentioned by Suidas (s. v. Krates).
Epinicus (Epinikos), an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, two of whose plays
are mentioned, Hupoballomenai and Mnesiptolemos. The latter title determines his
date to the time of Antiochus the Great, about B. C. 217, for Mnesiptolemus was
an historian in great favour with that king. (Suid.; Eudoc.; Athen.)
Eriphus (Eriphos), an Athenian comic poet of the middle comedy. According to Athenaeus,
he lived at the same time as Antiphanes, or onl va little later, and he copied
whole verses from Antiphanes. That he belonged to the middle comedy, is sufficiently
shewn by the extant titles of his plays, namely, Aiolos, Meliboia, Peltastes.
Eustathius (ad Hom) calls him logios aner. (Athen.; Antiatt.; Suidas; Eudoc.)
Eudoxus (Eudoxos). An Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, was by birth a Sicilian
and the son of Agathoeles. He gained eight victories, three at the city Dionysia,
and five at the Lenaea. His Naukleros and Hgpobolimaios are quoted. (Apollod.
ap. Diog. Laert. viii. 90; Poll. vii. 201; Zenob. Adag.i. 1)
Eunicus (Eunikos), an Athenian comic of the old comedy, contemporary with Aristophanes
and Philyllius. Only one line of his is preserved, from his play Anteia, which
was also attributed to Philyllius. The title is taken from the courtezan, Anteia,
who is mentioned by Demosthenes (c. Neuer.) and Ananandrides (ap. Athen.) and
who was also made the subject of comedies by Alexis and Antiphanes. There was
also a comeedy, entitled Poleis, which was variously ascribed to Aristophanes,
Philyllius, and Eunicus. The name of this poet is sometimes given incorrectly
Ainikos. (Suid. s. v. Ainikos; Eudoc.; Theognostus; Athen.)
Eupolis, son of Sosipolis, an Athenian comic poet of the old comedy, and one of
the three who are distinguished by Horace, in his well-known line,
" Eupolis, atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetae,"
above all the
... " alii quorum prisca comoedia virorum est,"
a judgment which is confirmed by all we know of the works of the Attic comoedians.
Eupolis is said to have exhibited his first drama in the fourth year
of the 87th Olympiad, B. C. 429/8, two years before Aristophanes, who was nearly
of the same age as Eupolis. According to Suidas (s. v.), Eupolis was then only
in the seventeenth year of his age; he was therefore born in B. C. 446/5.The date
of his death cannot be so easily fixed. The common story was, that Alcibiades,
when sailing to Sicily, threw Eupolis into the sea, in revenge for an attack which
he had made upon him in his Baptai. But, to say nothing of the improbability of
even Alcibiades venturing on such an outrage, or the still stranger fact of its
not being alluded to by Thucydides or any other trustworthy historian, the answer
of Cicero is conclusive, that Eratosthenes mentioned plays produced by Eupolis
after the Sicilian expedition (Ad Att. vi. 1). There is still a fragment extant,
in which the poet applies the title strategon to Aristarchus, whom we know to
have been strategos in the year B. C. 412/1, that is, four years later than the
date at which the common story fixed the death of Eupolis. The only discoverable
foundation for this story, and probably the true account of the poet's death,
is the statement of Suidas, that he perished at the Hellespont in the war against
the Lacedaemonnians, which, as Meineke observes, must refer either to the battle
of Cynossema (B. C. 411), or to that of Aegospotami (B. C. 405). That he died
in the former battle is not improbable, since we never hear of his exhibiting
after B. C. 412; and if so, it is very likely that the enemies of Alcibiades might
charge him with taking advantage of the confusion of the battle to gratify his
revenge. Meineke throws out a conjecture that the story may have arisen from a
misunderstanding of what Lysias says about the young Alcibiades. There are, however,
other accounts of the poet's death, which are altogether different. Aelian (N.
A. x. 41) and Tzetzes (Chil. iv. 245) relate, that he died and was buried in Aegina,
and Pausanias (ii. 7.4) says, that he saw his tomb in the territory of Sicyon.
Of the personal history of Eupolis nothing more is known. Aelian tells a pleasant
tale of his faithful dog, Augeas, and his slave Ephialtes.
The chief characteristic of the poetry of Eupolis seems to have been
the liveliness of his fancy, and the power which he possessed of imparting its
images to the audience. This characteristic of his genius influenced his choice
of subjects, as well as his mode of treating them, so that he not only appears
to have chosen subjects which other poets might have despaired of dramatizing,
but we are expressly told that he wrought into the body of his plays those serious
political views which other poets expounded in their parabases, as in the Demoi,
in which he represented the legislators of other times conferring on the administration
of the state. To do this in a genuine Attic old comedy, without converting the
comedy into a serious philosophic dialogue, must have been a great triumph of
dramatic art (Platon. de Div. Char.). This introduction of deceased persons on
the stage appears to have given to the plays of Eupolis a certain dignity, which
would have been inconsistent with the comic spirit had it not been relieved by
the most graceful and clever merriment (Platon. l. c.). In elegance he is said
to have even surpassed Aristophanes (Ibid. Macrob. Sat. vii. 5), while in bitter
jesting and personal abuse he emulated Cratinus (Anon. de Com.; Pers. Sat. i.
124). Among the objects of his satire was Socrates, on whom he made a bitter,
though less elaborate attack than that in the Clouds of Aristophanes (Schol. ad
Aristoph. Nub. 97, 180; Etym. Mag.; Lucian. Pisc.). Innocence seems to have afforded
no shelter, for he attacked Autolycus, who is said to have been guilty of no crime,
and is only known as having been distinguished for his beauty, and as a victor
in the pancratium, as vehemently as Callias, Alcibiades, Melanthius, and others.
Nor were the dead exempt from his abuse, for there are still extant some lines
of his, in which Cimon is most unmercifully treated (Plut. Cim. 15; Schol. ad
Aristeid.). It is hardly necessary to observe that these attacks were mingled
with much obscenity (Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 741, 1142, Nub. 296, 541).
A close relation subsisted between Eupolis and Aristophanes, not only as rivals,
but as imitators of each other Cratinus attacked Aristophanes for borrowing from
Eupolis, and Eupolis in his Baptai made the same charge, especially with reference
to the Knights, of which he says:
kakeinous tous Hippeas xunepoiesa toi phalakroi
toutoi kadoresamen.
The Scholiasts specify the last Parabasis of the Knights as borrowed from Eupolis.
On the other hand, Aristophanes, in the second (or third) edition of the Clouds,
retorts upon Eupolis the charge of imitating the Knights in his Maricas, and taunts
him with the further indignity of jesting on his rival's baldness. There are other
examples of the attacks of the two poets upon one another.
The number of the plays of Eupolis is stated by Suidas at seventeen,
and by the anonymous writer at fourteen. The extant titles exceed the greater
of these numbers, but some of them are very doubtful. The following fifteen are
considered by Meineke to be genuine: Aiges, Astrateutoi e Androgunai, Autolukos,
Baptai, Demoi, Diaiton, Heilotes, Kolakes, Marikas, Noumeniai, Poleis, Prostaltioi,
Taxiarchoi, Hubriostodikai, Chrusoun Prospaltioi, Ubristodikai, Chrusoun genos.
An analysis of these plays, so far as their subjects can be ascertained, will
be found in the works quoted below, and especially in that of Meineke. The following
are the plays of Eupolis, the dates of which are known :
B. C. 425. At the Lenaea. Noumeniai.Third Prize. 1st. Aristophanes, A.charneis.
2nd. Cratinus, Cheimaxomenoi.
" 423 or 422. Astrateutoi.
" 421. Marikas. Probably at the Lenaea.
" " Kolakes. At the great Dionysia. First Prize. 2nd. Aristoph. Eirene.
" 420. Autolukos.
Eupolis, like Aristophanes and other comic poets, brought some of his plays on
the stage in the name of another person, Apollodorus (Athen. v.).
Hephaestion mentions a peculiar choriambic metre, which was called Eupolidean,
and which was also used by the poets of the middle and of the new comedy.
The names of Eupolis and Eubulus are often confounded.
(Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 445--448 Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i.
pp. 104--146, vol. ii. pp. 426-579; Bergk, Commment. de Reliq. Com. Att. Ant.
pp. 332--366; Clinton, Fast. Hellen. vol. ii. sub annis.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Euphron, an Athenian comic poet of the new comedy, whose plays, however, seem
to have partaken largely of the character of the middle comedy. We have the titles
and some considerable fragments of the following plays: Adelphoi Aischra, Apodidousa
(according to the excellent emendation of Meineke, Euphron for Euphorion Athen.
xi.), Didumoi, Theon *agora, Theoroi, Mousai, Parekdidomene (or, as Meineke thinks
it should perhaps be, Parekdidomene, which is the title of a play of Antiphanes),
Sunepheboi. (Suid. s. v. ; Athen. passim: Stobaeus, Flor. xv. 2, xxviii. 11, xcviii.
12)
Euthycles (Euthukles). An Athenian contic poet of the old comedy, whose plays
asotoi e Epiostle and Atalante are mentioned by Suidas (s. v. Euthukles and Bous
exdomos), and the former is quoted by Athcnaeus (iii.). Nothing more is known of him.
Evetes (Euetes) and Euxenides, were Athenian comic poets, contemporary with Epicharmus,
about B. C. 485. Nothing is heard of comic poetry during an interval of eighty
years from the time of Susarion, till it was revived by Epicharmus in Sicily,
and by Evetes, Euxenides, and Myllus at Athens. The only writer who mentions these
two poets is Suidas (s. v. Epichapeos). Myllus is not unfrequently mentioned.
There is also a Pythagorean philosopher, Evetes, of whom nothing is
known but his name. (Iamblich. Vit. Pyth. 36)
Heniochus (Heniochos), an Athenian comic poet of the middle comedy, whose plays,
as mentioned by Suidas, were: Trochilos, Epikleros, Gorgones, Polupragmon, Thorukion,
Polueuktos, Philetairos, Dis exapatomenos, a few fragments of which are preserved
by Atheneus and Stobaeus (Serm. xliii. 27). Suidas (s. v. polueuktos) has made
a curious blunder, calling Heniochus a play by the comic poet Polyeuctus The Polyeuctus,
who gave the title to the play of Heniochus, was an orator in the time of Demosthenes.
Hermippus (Hermippos). An Athenian comic poet of the old comedy, was the son of
Lysis and the brother of the comic poet Myrtilus. He was a little younger than
Telecleides, but older than Eupolis and Aristophanes (Suid. s. v.). He vehemently
attacked Pericles, especially on the occasion of Aspasia's acquittal on the charge
of asebeia, and in connection with the beginning of the Peloponnesian war (Plut.
Peric. 32, 33). He also attacked Hyperbolus (Aristoph. Nub. v. 553). According
to Suidas, he wrote forty plays, and his chief actor was Simermon. There are extant
of his plays several fragments and nine titles; viz. Athenas gonai, Artopolides,
Demotai, Europe, Theoi, Kerkopes, Moirai, Stratiotai, Phormophoroi. The statement
of Athenaeus that Hermippus also wrote parodies, seems to refer not to any separate
works of his, but to parodies contained in his plays, of which there are examples
in the extant fragments, as well as in the plays of other comic poets.
Besides the comedies of Hermippus, several of the ancient writers
quote his Iambics, Trimeters, and Tetrameters. Meineke's analysis of these quotations
leaves little room to doubt that Hermippus published scurrilous poems, like those
of the old iambic poets, partly in Iambic trimeters, and partly in trochaic tetrameters.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hipparchus (Hipparchos), literary. 1. An Athenian comic poet. Suidas (s. v.) assigns him to the old comedy; but from what he adds, that "his dramas were about marriages," and from the extant titles of his plays, namely, Anasozomenoi, Pannuchis, Thais, and Zographos, it is evident that Hipparchus belonged to the new comedy. He was probably contemporary with Diphilus and Menander.
Laon, an Athenian comic poet, who is mentioned by Stobaeus (Flor. cxxiii. 5),
and of whose works a single line is preserved by Dicaearchus. It is doubtful whether
he belongs to the old or to the middle comedy.
Leucon (Leukon), the son of Hagnon, according to Toup's emendation of Suidas (s.
v.), an Athenian comic poet, of the old comedy, was a contemporary and rival of
Aristophanes. In B. C. 422 he contended, with his Presbeis, against the Wasps
of Aristophanes, and in the following year, with his Phrateres, against the Peace
of Aristophanes, and the kolakes of Eupolis; on both occasions he obtained the
third place (Didasc. ad Vesp. et Pac.) Suidas also mentions his Onos askophoros.
The story on which this play was founded is explained by Bockh (Publ. Oecon. of
Ath).
No fragments of his plays survive. The title Phrateres is usually
corrupted into Phratores. (Athen. viii.; Suid. s. v. Leukon; Hesych. s. v. Paapis;
Phot. s. v. Tibioi)
Lexiphanes, an Athenian comic poet, quoted by Alciphron (Epist. iii. 71). It is uncertain whether he belonged to the middle or to the new comedy.
Lycis (Lukis), an Athenian comic poet, who is only known by the reference to him in the Frogs of Aristophanes (14; comp. Schol. and Suid. s. v.). He is also called Lycus. In fact Lycis, Lycius, and Lycus, are only different forms of the same name.
Metagenes, an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy, contemporary with Aristophanes, Phrynichus, and Plato. (Schol. in Aristoph. Av. 1297.) Suidas gives the following titles of his plays : Aurai, Mammakuthos, Thouriopersai, Philothutes, Homeros e Asketai, some of which appear to be corrupt.
Myllus (Mullos), a comic poet, a contemporary of Epicharmus, who with Euetes and Euxenides revived comedy in Athens at the same time that Epicharmus was labouring in the same direction in Sicily. He appears to have been especially successful in the representation of a deaf man, who, nevertheless, hears every thing; whence arose a proverb, mullos pant akouei. According to Eustathius he was an actor as well as a dramatist, and still adhered to the old practice of having the faces of his actors besmeared with red-ochre. (Suidas, s. v. Epicharmos; Hesychius, vol. ii.; Eustathius, ad Il. 53, ad Od., 21)
Nicophon and Nicophron (Nikophon, Nikophron). The former is undoubtedly the correct
orthography; Suidas is the only authority for the latter. He mentions tile name
four times (s. vv. Nikophron, arachne, serphoz, koimisai.), in the two first of
which he calls him Nikophron, but every where else, both by him and others, Nikophon
is the name given. He was the son of Theron, an Athenian, and a contemporary of
Aristophanes at the close of his career. Athenaeus (iii. 126, e.) states that
he belonged to the old, but he seems rather to have belonged to the middle comedy.
1. We learn from the argument to the Plutus III. of Aristophanes that he competed
for the prize with four others, B. C. 388, Aristophanes exhibiting the second
edition of his Plutus, and Nicophon a play called Adonis, of which no fragments
remain, and which is nowhere else mentioned.
2. Suidas (s. v. Nikophron) and Eudocia alone mention another play of his, Ex
hadou anion. Besides these, he wrote other four plays, which are more frequently
mentioned.
3. Aphro detez gonai (Suid. s. vv. Nikophron, arachne, serphoz ; Pollux, x. 156;
Schol. ad Aristoph. Aves, 82, 1283).
4. Pandora (Suid. s. vv. Nik., koimisai; Athen. vii. b.; Pollux, vii. 33).
5. Cheirogastores (Athen. iii.e. ix. a. ; Schol. ad Aristoph. Aves, 1550). Suidas
calls this play Encheirogastores. Meineke gives to Nicophon three lines quoted
by Athenaeus from a play bearing the name of Cheirogas-tores, which had before
been given to Nicochares, and in this he is followed by Dindorf.
6. Seirenes (Suid.; Athen. iii. b. vi. e. ix. b.). Besides these references there
are others of less importance, collected by Meineke. No more than about twenty-seven
lines of his writings remain; and from these, we can only say, as to his merits
as a comic writer, that he seems to have possessed no small fund of humour.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ophelion. An Athenian comic poet, probably of the Middle Comedy, of whom Suidas says that Athenaeus, in his second book, mentions the following as being his plays: Deukalion, Kallaischros, Kentauros, Saturoi, Mousai, Monotrupoi, or rather, according to the emendation of Toup, Monotropoi, The last three of these titles are elsewhere assigned by Suidas to Phrynichus. In the second book of Athenaeus, which Suidas quotes, none of the titles are mentioned, but Ophelion is thrice quoted, without the name of the play referred to (Athen. ii.); and, in the third book, Athenaeus quotes the Callaeschrus, and also another play, which Suidas does not mention (iii. p. 106, a.). The reasons for assigning him to the Middle Comedy are, the reference to Plato in Athen. ii. p. 66, d., and the statement that he used some verses which were also found in Eubulus (Athen. ii., where the name of Ophelion is rightly substituted by Porson for that of Philetas). Who may have been the Callaeschrus, whose name formed the title of one of his plays, we cannot tell; but if he was the same as the Callaeschrus, who formed the subject of one of the plays of Theopompus, the date of Ophelion would be fixed before the 100th Olympiad, B. C. 380. There is, perhaps, one more reference to Ophelion, again corrupted into Philetas, in Hesychius, s. u. Isis.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Sosipater (Sosipagros). An Athenian comic poet, of the New, and perhaps also of the Middle Comedy. He is only mentioned by Athenaeus (ix.), who quotes a very long passage from his Kagapseudomenos, in which mention is made of the cook Chariades, to whom the comic poet Euphron refers as being dead. (Ath. ix.) Hence it is inferred that Sosipater flourished shortly before Euphron.
Philippides, of Athens, the son of Pliilocles, is mentioned as one of the six
principal comic poets of the New Comedy by the grammarians (Proleg. ad Aristoph.;
Tzetz. Prole. ad Lycohr., with the emendation of Philippides for Philistion).
According to Suidas, he flourished in the 111th Olympiad, or B. C. 335, a date
which would throw him back rather into the period of the Middle Comedy. There
are, however, several indications in the fragments of his plays that he flourished
under the successors of Alexander; such as, first, his attacks on Stratocles,
the flatterer of Demetrius and Antigonus, (Plut. Demrtr. 12, 26, Amator..), and
more particularly his ridicule of the honours which were paid to Demetrius through
the influence of Stratocles, in B. C. 301; again, his friendship with king Lysimachus,
who was induced by him to confer various favours on the Athenians, and who assumed
the royal title in B. C. 306 (Plut. Demetr. 12); and the statements of Plutarch
(l. c.) and Diodorus (xx. 110), that he ridiculed the Eleusinian mysteries, into
which he had been initiated in the archonship of Nicocles, B. C. 302. It is true,
as Clinton remarks that these indications may be reconciled with the possibility
of his having flourished at the date given by Suidas; but a sounder criticism
requires us to alter that date to suit these indications, which may easily be
done, as Meineke proposes... the latter Olympiad corresponding to B. C. 323. It
is a confirmation of this date, that in the list above referred to of the six
chief poets of the New Comedy, Philippides comes, not first, but after Philemon,
Menander, and Diphilus: for if the list had been in order of merit, and not of
time, Menander would have stood first. The mistake of Suidas may be explained
by his confounding Philippides, the comic poet, with the demagogue Philippides,
against whom Hyperides composed an oration, and who is ridiculed for his leanness
by Alexis, Aristophon, and other poets of the Middle Comedy; an error into which
other writers also have fallen, and which Clinton (l. c.) has satisfactorily refuted.
Philippides seems to have deserved the rank assigned to him, as one
of the best poets of the New Comedy. He attacked the luxury and corruptions of
his age, defended the privileges of his art, and made use of personal satire with
a spirit approaching to that of the Old Comedy. Plutarch eulogizes him highly
(Demetr. l. c.). His death is said to have been caused by excessive joy at an
unexpected victory (Gell. iii. 15): similar tales are told of the deaths of other
poets, as for example, Sophocles, Alexis, and Philemon. It appears, from the passage
of Gellius just quoted, that Philippides lived to an advanced age.
The number of his dramas is stated by Suidas at forty-five. There
are fifteen titles extant, namely: Adoniazousai, Amphioraos, Ananeosis, Arguriou
aphanismos, Auloi, Basanizomene, Lakiadai, Mastropos, Olunthia, Sumpleousai, or
perhaps Sunekpleousai, Philadelphoi, Philathenaios, Philarguros Philarchos, Phileuripides.
In the Amphiaraos we have one of those titles which show that the poets of the
New Comedy did not abstain from mythological subjects. To the above list should
perhaps be added the Triodoi e Rhopopoles. The Kothornoi of Philonides, and the
Nannion of Eubulus or Philippus, are erroneously ascribed to Philippides. The
latter is only one of several instances in which the names of Philippides and
Philippus are confounded. Some of the ancient critics charge Philippides with
infringing upon the purity of the Attic dialect (Phryn. Ecl.; Pollux, ix. 30),
and Meineke produces several words from his fragments as examples.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
They are recorded as Athenians comic poets, coming early in Athens and receiving citizenship. However they are natives of Soli in Cilicia, where all articles & information are recorded.
Pherecrates (Pherekrates) of Athens, was one of the best poets of the Old Comedy
(Anon. de Corn.). He was contemporary with the comic poets Cratinus, Crates, Eupolis,
Plato, and Aristophanes (Suid. s. v. Platon), being somewhat younger than the
first two, and somewhat older than the others. One of the most important testimonies
respecting him is evidently corrupted, but can be amended very well; it is as
follows (Anon. de Com.): Pherekrates Athenaios wikai epi theatrou ginomenos, ho
de hupokrites exeloke Krateta. Kai au tou men loidorein apeste, pragmata de eisegoumenos
kaina eudokimei genomenos heuretikos muthon. Dobree corrects the passage thus:
Ph.A. nikai epi Theodorou, genomenos de hupokrites ezeloke Krateta, k.t.l. ; and
his emendation is approved by Meineke and others of our best critical scholars.
From the passage, thus read, we learn that Pherecrates gained his first victory
in the archonship of Theodorus, B. C. 438; and that he imitated the style of Crates,
whose actor he had been. From the latter part of the quotation, and from an important
passage in Aristotle (Poet. 5) we see what was the character of the alteration
in comedy, commenced by Crates, and carried on by Pherecrates; namely, that they
very much modified the coarse satire and vituperation of which this sort of poetry
had previously been the vehicle (whatt Aristotle calls he iambike idea), and constructed
their comedies on the basis of a regular plot, and with more dramatic action.
Pherecrates did not, however, abstain altogether from personal satire, for we
see by the fragments of his plays that he attacked Alcibiades, the tragic poet
Melanthius, and others (Ath. viii., xii.; Phot. Lex.). But still, as the fragments
also show, his chief characteristics were, ingenuity in his plots and elegance
in diction: hence he is called Attikotatos (Ath. vi.; Steph. Byz.; Suid. s.v.
Athenaia). His language is not, however, so severely pure as that of Aristophanes
and other comic poets of the age, as Meineke shows by several examples.
Of the invention of the new metre, which was named, after him, the Pherecratean,
he himself boasts in the following lines (ap. Hephaest. x. 5, xv. 15, Schol in
Ar. Naub. 563):
andres, proschete ton noun
exeuremati kainoi
sumptuktois anapaistois.
The system of the verse, as shown in the above example, is which may be best explained
as a choriambus, with a spondee for its base, and a long syllable for its termination.
Pherecrates himself seems to call it an anapaestic metre; and it might be scanned
as such: but he probably only means that he used it in the parabases, which were
often called anapaests, because they were originally in the anapaestic metre (in
fact we hold the anapaestic verse to be, in its origin, choriambic). Hephaestion
explains the metre as an hephthemimeral antispastic, or, in other words, an antispastic
dimeter catalectio (Hephaest. ll.). The metre is very frequent in the choruses
of the Greek tragedians, and in Horace, as, for example,
Grato Pyrrha sub antro.
There is a slight difference in the statements respecting the number of his plays.
The Anonymous writer on comedy says eighteen, Suidas and Eudocia sixteen. The
extant titles, when properly sifted, are reduced to eighteen, of which some are
doubtful. The number to which Meineke reduces them is fifteen, namely, Agrioi,
Automoloi, Graes, Doulodidaskalos, Epilesmon e Thalatta, Ipnos e Pannuchis, Korianno,
Krapataloi, Leroi, Murmekanthropoi, Petale, Turannis, Pseuderakles.. Of these
the most interesting is the Agrioi, on account of the reference to it in Plato's
Protagoras, which has given rise to much discussion. Heinrichs has endeavoured
to show that the subject of the play related to those corruptions of the art of
music of which the comic poets so frequently complain, and that one of the principal
performers was the Centaur Cheiron, who expounded the laws of the ancient music
to a chorus of wild men (agrioi), that is, either Centaurs or Satyrs; and he meets
the obvious objection, that the term misanthoopoi, which Plato applies to the
Chorus, is not suitable to describe Satyrs or Centaurs, by changing it into hemianthropoi.
The same view is adopted by Ast and Jacobs, but with a less violent change in
Plato's text, namely, mixanthropoi. The common reading is, however, successfully
defended by Meineke, who shows that there is no sufficient reason for supposing
that Cheiron appeared in the Agrioi at all, or that the Chorus were not really
what the title and the allusion in Plato would naturally lead us to suppose, namely,
wild men. The play seems to have been a satire on the social corruptions of Athens,
through the medium of the feelings excited at the view of them in men who are
uncivilized themselves and enemies to the civilized part of mankind. The play
was acted at the Lenaea, in the month of February, B. C. 420 (Plat. l. c. ; Ath.
v.). The subjects of the remaining plays are fully discussed by Meineke. The name
of Pherecrates is sometimes confounded with Crates and with Pherecydes.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Plato (Platon), one of the chief Athenian comic poets of the Old Comedy, was contemporary
with Aristophanes, Phrynichus, Eupolis, and Pherecrates (Suid. s. v.). He is erroneously
placed by Eusebius (Chron.) and Syncellus as contemporary with Cratinus, at Ol.
81.3, B. C. 454; whereas, his first exhibition was in Ol. 88, B. C. 427, as we
learn from Cyril (adv. Julian. i.), whose testimony is confirmed by the above
statement of Suidas, and by the fact that the comedies of Plato evidently partook
somewhat of the character of the Middle Comedy, to which, in fact, some of the
grammarians assign him. He is mentioned by Marcellinus (Vit. Thuc.) as contemporary
with Thucydides, who died in Ol. 97. 2, B. C. 391; but Plato must have lived a
few years longer, as Plutarch quotes from him a passage which evidently refers
to the appointment of the demagogue Agyrrhius as general of the army of Lesbos
in Ol. 97. 3 (Plut. de Repub. gerend.), The period, therefore, during which Plato
flourished was from B. C. 428 to at least B. C. 389.
Of the personal history of Plato nothing more is known, except that
Suidas tells a story of his being so poor that he was obliged to write comedies
for other persons (s. v. Arkadas mimoumenoi). Suidas founds this statement on
a passage of the Peiscnder of Plato, in which the poet alludes to his labouring
for others: but the story of his poverty is plainly nothing more than an arbitrary
conjecture, made to explain the passage, the true meaning of which, no doubt,
is that Plato, like Aristophanes, exhibited some of his plays in the names of
other persons, but was naturally anxious to claim the merit of them for himself
when they had succeeded, and that he did so in the Parabasis of the Peisander,
as Aristophanes does in the Parabasis of the Clouds (See the full discussion of
this subject under Philonides).
The form in which the article Arkadas mimoumenos is given by Arsenius (Violet.),
completely confirms this interpretation.
Plato ranked among the very best poets of the Old Comedy. From the
expressions of the grammarians, and from the large number of fragments which are
preserved, it is evident that his plays were only second in popularity to those
of Aristophanes. Suidas and other grammarians speak of him as lampros ton charaktera.
Purity of language, refined sharpness of wit, and a combination of the vigour
of the Old Comedy with the greater elegance of the Middle and the New, were his
chief characteristics. Though many of his plays had no political reference at
all, yet it is evident that he kept up to the spirit of the Old Comedy in his
attacks on the corruptions and corrupt persons of his age; for he is charged by
Dio Chrysostom with vituperation (Orat. xxxiii.), a curious charge truly to bring
against a professed satirist ! Among the chief objects of his attacks were the
demagogues Cleon, Hyperbolus, Cleophon, and Agyrrhius, the dithyrambic poet Cinesias,
the general Leagrus, and the orators Cephalus and Archinus; for, like Aristophanes,
he esteemed the art of rhetoric one of the worst sources of mischief to the commonwealth.
The mutual attacks of Plato and Aristophanes must be taken as a proof
of the real respect which they felt for each other's talents. As an example of
one of these attacks, Plato, like Eupolis, east great ridicule upon Aristophanel's
colossal image of Peace (Schol. Plat.).
Plato seems to have been one of the most diligent of the old comic
poets. The number of his dramas is stated at 28 by the anonymous writer on Comedy,
and by Suidas, who, however, proceeds to enumerate 30 titles. Of these, the Lakones
and Mammaknthss were only editions of the same play, which reduces the number
to 29. There is, however, one to be added, which is not mentioned by Suidas, the
Amphiareos. The following is the list of Suidas, as corrected by Meineke: Adonis,
Hai aph' hieron, Amphiareos, Grupes, Daidalos, Ellas e Nesoi, Heortai, Europe,
Zeus kakoumenos, Io, Kleophon, Laios, Lakones e Poietai (second edition, Mammakuthos),
Meneleos, Metoikoi, Murmekes (of this there are no fragments). Nikai, Nux makra,
Xantriai e Kerkopes, Paidarion, Peisandros, Perialges, Poietes, Presbeis, Skeuai,
Sophistai, Summachia, Surphax, Huperbolos, Phaon.
The followingl dates of his plays are known: the Cleophon gained the
third prize in Ol. 93. 4, B. C. 405, when Aristophanes was first with the Frogs,
and Phrynichus second with the Muses; the Phaon was exhibited in Ol. 97. 2, B.
C. 391 (Schol. in Arlistoph. Plut. 179); the Peisauder about Ol. 89, B. C. 423;
the Perialges a little later; the Hyperbolus about Ol. 91, B. C. 415; the Presbeis
about Ol. 97, B. C. 392. The Lains seems to have been one of the latest of his
plays.
It has been already stated that some grammarians assign Plato to the
Middle Comedy; and it is evident that several of the above titles belong to that
species. Some even mention Plato as a poet of the New Comedy (Atlen. iii., vii.).
Hence a few modern scholars have supposed a second Plato, a poet of the New Comedy,
who lived after Epicuruis. But Diogenes Laertius only mentions one comic poet
of the name, and there is no good evidence that there was any other. The ancient
grammarians also frequently make a confusion, in their references, between Plato,
the comlic poet, and Plato the philosopher.
(Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 160--196, vol. ii. pp 615--697; Editio
Minor, 1847, 1 vol. in 2 pts. 8vo., pp. 357--401 ; Bergk, Comment. de Reliq. Com.
Alt. Ant. lib. ii. c. 6, pp. 381, &c.; C. G. Cobet, Observations Crilicae in Platonis
Comici Reliquias, Amst. 1840, 8vo.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Philetaerus (Philetairos), an Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, is said by Athenaeus to have been contemporary with Hyperides and Diopeithes, the latter perhaps the same person as the father of the poet Menander (Ath. vii., xiii.). According to Dicaearchus Philetaerus was the third son of Aristophanes, but others maintained that it was Nicostratus (see the Greek lives of Aristophanes, and Suid. s. vv. Aristophanes, Philetairos). He wrote twenty-one plays, according to Suidas, from whom and from Athenaeus the following titles are obtained : Asklepios, Atalante, Achilleus, Kephalos, Korinthiastes, Kunegis, Lampadephos, Tereus, Philaulos; to which must be added the menes, quoted in a MS. grammatical work. There are also a few doubtful titles, namely: Adoniazousai, which is the title of a play by Philippides; Antullos and onopion, which are also ascribed to Nicostratus; and Meleagros, which is perhaps the same as the Atalante. The fragments of Philetaerus show that many of his plays referred to courtezans.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Philiscus (Philiskos). An Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, of whom little
is known. Suidas simply mentions him as a comic poet, and gives the following
titles of his plays: Adonis, Dios gonai, Themistokles, Olumpos, Panos gonai, Hermou
kai Aphrodites gonai, Artemidos kai Apollonos. These mythological titles sufficiently
prove that Philiscus belonged to the Middle Comedy. The nativities of the gods,
to which most of them relate, formed a very favourite class of subjects with the
poets of the Middle Comedy. Eudocia omits the title Hermou kai Aphrodites gonai,
and Lobeck has pointed out the difficulty of seeing how the nativities of Hermes
and Aphrodite could be connected in one drama (Aglaoph.); a difficulty which Meineke
meets by supposing that we ought to read Hermou gonai, Aphrodites gonai, as two
distinct titles (Hist. Crit. pp. 281, 282). The Themistocles is, almost without
doubt, wrongly ascribed by Suidas to the comie poet Philiscus, instead of the
tragic poet of the same name. Another play is cited by Stobaeus (Serm. lxxiii.
53), namely the Philarguroi, or, as Meineke thinks it ought to be, Philarguros.
Philiscus must have flourished about B. C. 400, or a little later,
as his portrait was painted by Parrhasius, in a picture which Pliny thus describes
(H. N. xxxv. 10. s. 36.5): "et Philiscum, et Liberum patrem adstante Virtute,"
from which it seems that the picture was a group, representing the poet supported
by the patron deity of his art, and by a personified representation of Arete,
to intimate tile excellence he had attained in it. Naeke has clearly shown that
this statement can only refer to Philiscus the comic poet, and not to any other
of the known persons of the same name (Sched. Crit. p. 26; Opusc. vol. i. p. 42).
There are very few fragments of Philiscus preserved. Stobaeus quotes
two verses from the Philarguroi, and elsewhere (xxix. 40), two from an unknown
play. Another verse from an unknown play is quoted by Dicaearchus; and another
is preserved in the Palatine Anthology (xi. 441).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Philyllius (Philullios), an Athenian comic poet, contemporary with Diocles and Sannyrio (Suid. s. v. Diokles). He belongs to the latter part of the Old Comedy, and the beginning of the Middle; for, on the one hand, he seems to have attained to some distinction before the time when the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes was acted, B. C. 392 (Schol. ad Aristoph. Plut. 1195), and, on the other, nearly all the titles of his plays belong evidently to the Middle Comedy. He is said to have introduced some scenic innovations, such as bringing lighted torches on the stage (Schol. Plut. l. c. Ath. xv. 700, e.). With regard to his language, Meineke mentions a few words and phrases, which are not pure Attic. His name is corrupted by the Greek lexicographers and others into Phillulios, Philaios, Philolaos, Philludeos. and other forms. The following titles of his plays are given by Suidas and Eudocia, and in the following order: Aigeus, Auge, Anteia (hetairas onoma), Dodekate, Herakles, Pluntria e Nausikaa, Polis (better Poleis. Phreoruchus, Atalante, Helene, where the last two titles look suspicious, as being out of the alphabetical order.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
