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Alexis was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period. He was born at Thurii in Magna Graecia and taken early to Athens, where he became a citizen, being enrolled in the deme Oion (Οἶον) and the tribe Leontides. It is thought he lived to the age of 106 and died on the stage while being crowned. According to the Suda, a 10th-century encyclopedia, Alexis was the paternal uncle of the dramatist Menander and wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments now survive, including some 130 preserved titles.
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete. There are many fragments of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
In Greek mythology, a satyr, also known as a silenus or silenos, is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and are always shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbating or engaging in bestiality.
In Greek mythology, Silenus was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue (thiasos), and sometimes considerably older, in which case he may be referred to as a Papposilenus. The plural sileni refers to the mythological figure as a type that is sometimes thought to be differentiated from a satyr by having the attributes of a horse rather than a goat, though usage of the two words is not consistent enough to permit a sharp distinction. Silenus presides over other daemones and is related to musical creativity, prophetic ecstasy, drunken joy, drunken dances and gestures.
Epicharmus of Kos or Epicharmus Comicus or Epicharmus Comicus Syracusanus, thought to have lived between c. 550 and c. 460 BC, was a Greek dramatist and philosopher who is often credited with being one of the first comic writers, having originated the Doric or Sicilian comedic form.
Cratinus was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy.
Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes; Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis; and New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander.
Ion of Chios was a Greek writer, dramatist, lyric poet and philosopher. He was a contemporary of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. Of his many plays and poems only a few titles and fragments have survived. He also wrote some prose works, including a Pythagorean text, the Triagmos, of which a few fragments survive.
Chaeremon was an Athenian dramatist of the first half of the fourth century BCE. He was generally considered a tragic poet like Choerilus. Aristotle said his works were intended for reading, not for representation. According to the Suda, Chaeremon was also a comic poet, and the title of at least one of his plays seems to indicate that it was a satyric drama. His Centaurus is described by Aristotle as a rhapsody in all kinds of metres. His other known plays are Alphesiboea, Dionysus, Io, Minyae, Odysseus, Oeneus, and Thyestes.
Strattis was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy. According to the Suda, he flourished later than Callias Schoenion. Therefore, it is likely that his poetry was performed at the 92nd Olympiad, that is, 412 BC.
Choerilus was an Athenian tragic poet, who exhibited plays as early as 524 BC.
Amphis was an Athenian comic poet of uncertain origin from approximately the 4th century BC.
Nicophon, the son of a certain Theron, was an Athenian comic poet, a contemporary of Aristophanes in his later years. Athenaeus states that he belonged to Old Comedy, but it is more likely that he belonged to Middle Comedy. We learn from the argument of the Plutus of Aristophanes that he exhibited one of his plays, called Ἄδωνις Adonis, in 388 BC, the date Aristophanes exhibited his Plutus.
Sannyrion was an Athenian comic poet of the late 5th century BC, and a contemporary of Diocles and Philyllius, according to the Suda. He belonged to the later years of Old Comedy and the start of Middle Comedy.
Epigenes of Athens was an Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy.
The hyporchema was a lively kind of mimic dance which accompanied the songs used in the worship of Apollo, especially among the Dorians. It was performed by men and women. It is comparable to the geranos (γερανός), the ritual "crane dance" associated with Theseus.
Philyllius, also called Phillylius, Phlaeus, Philolaus, or Phillydeus, was an ancient Athenian comic poet. He was contemporary with Diocles and Sannyrion. He belonged to the latter part of the Old Comedy tradition and the beginning of the Middle Comedy tradition. He seems to have attained to some distinction before 392 BC, when the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes was acted.
Apollodorus of Gela in Sicily was a New Comedy playwright. According to Eudokia Makrembolitissa and the Suda, he was a contemporary of Menander, and accordingly lived between the years 340 and 290 BC.
The following people were all minor authors of Greek Middle Comedy. None of their works have survived intact, but later writers of Late Antiquity provide the titles of some of their plays as well as brief quotations.
References
- 1 2 Constantinides 1969, p. 49.
- ↑ Pollux 10.154
- ↑ OCD.
- ↑ Suda τ 623, 624
- ↑ Constantinides 1969, p. 50.
