Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Biographies for destination: "THOURII Ancient city PUGLIA".
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Alexis. One of the most prolific and important writers of
the Middle Attic Comedy, and uncle to Menander. He was born at Thurii, B.C. 392,
and is said to have lived to the age of one hundred and six years, and to have
died on the stage with the crown of victory on his head. Some two hundred and
forty-five plays are attributed to him, of which numerous extracts are still extant
and display both wit and elegance.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Alexis. A comic poet, born at Thurii, in Magna Graecia (Suidas s. v. Al.), but
admitted subsequently to the privileges of an Athenian citizen, and enrolled in
the deme Oion, belonging to the tribe Leontis (Steph. Byz.). He was the uncle
and instructor of Menander (Suidas s. v. Alexis; Proleg. Aristoph.). When he was
born we are not expressly told, but he lived to the age of 106 (Plut. Defect.
Orac.), and was living at least as late as B. C. 288. Now the town of Thurii was
destroyed by the Lucanians about B. C. 390. It is therefore not at all unlikely
that the parents of Alexis, in order to escape from the threatened destruction
of their city, removed shortly before with their little son to Athens. Perhaps
therefore we may assign about B. C. 394 as the date of the birth of Alexis. He
had a son Stephanus, who also wrote comedies (Suidas l. c). He appears to have
been rather addicted to the pleasures of the table (Athen. viii.). According to
Plutarch (De Senis Administ. Reipubl.), he expired upon the stage while being
crowned as victor. By the old grammarians he is commonly called a writer of the
middle comedy, and fragments and the titles of many of his plays confirm this
statement. Still, for more than 30 years he was contemporary with Philippides,
Philemon, Menander, and Diphilus, and several fragments shew that he also wrote
pieces which would be classed with those of the new comedy.
He was a remarkably prolific writer. Suidas says he wrote 245 plays,
and the titles of 113 have come down to us. The Meropis, Ankulion, Olumpidoros,
and Paraditos, in which he ridiculed Plato, were probably exhibited as early as
the 104th Olympiad. The Agonis, in which he ridiculed Misgolas, was no doubt written
while he was alive, and Aeschines (c. Timarch.) in B. C. 345, speaks of him as
then living. The Adelphoi and Stoatiotes, in which he satirized Demosthenes, were
acted shortly after B. C. 343. The Hippos, in which he alluded to the decree of
Sophocles against the philosophers, in B. C. 316. The Puraunos in B. C. 312. The
Pharmakopole and Hupobolimaios in B. C. 306. As might have been expected in a
person who wrote so much, the same passage frequently occurred in several plays;
nor did he scruple sometimes to borrow from other poets, as, for example, from
Eubulus (Athen. i.). Carystius of Pergamus (ap. Athen. vi.) says he was the first
who invented the part of the parasite. This is not quite correct, as it had been
introduced before him by Epicharmus; but he appears to have been the first who
gave it the form in which it afterwards appeared upon the stage, and to have been
very happy in his exhibition of it. His wit and elegance are praised by Athenaeus
(ii.), whose testimony is confirmed by the extant fragments. A considerable list
of peculiar words and forms used by him is given by Meineke. His plays were frequently
translated by the Roman comic writers (Gell. ii. 23). The fragments we possess
of his plays have been preserved chiefly by Athenaeus and Stobaeus.
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
Cleinomachus (Kleinomachos), a Megaric philosopher of Thurium, is said by Diogenes Laertius (ii. 112) to have been the first who composed treatises on the fundamental principles of dialectics (peri axiomaton kai kategorematon). We learn from Suidas (s. v. Purron), that Pyrrhon, who flourished about 330 B. C., attended the instructions of Bryso, and that the latter was a disciple of Cleinomachus. We may therefore set the date of Cleinomachus towards the commencement of the same century.
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