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In addition to the seven Tragedians, of whom we have attempted to give some account, a list of 34 names of tragic poets, so called, has been drawn up'. Of these, very few are worthy of even the slightest mention, and we have but scanty information respecting those few, of whom we might have wished to know more.

IoN, the son of Orthomenes of Chios, was, according to Suidas, not only a Tragedian, but a lyric poet and philosopher also. He began to exhibit in B. c. 451, and wrote twelve, thirty, or forty dramas. The names of eleven have been collected. He gained the third prize when Euripides was first with the Hippolytus in B. c. 4283. He wrote, besides Tragedies, elegies, dithyrambs", and an account of the visits paid by eminent men to his native island. Though he did not exhibit till after Euripides had commenced his dramatic career, and though he was, like that poet, a friend of Socrates, we should be inclined to infer from his having written dithyrambs, that be belonged to an earlier age of the dramatic art,

1. By Clinton, F. H. II. p. xxxii-xxxv.

2. By Bentley, (Epistola ad Millium.)

4.

Athenæus, x. p. 436.

6. Athenæus, iii. p. 93.

3. Argum. Hippolyti.
5. Aristoph. Pax, 798.
7. Diogenes Lært. ii. p. 23.

and that his plays were free from the corruptions which Euripides had introduced into Greek Tragedy: it is, indeed, likely that a foreigner would copy rather from the old models, than from modern innovations. He died before Euripides; for he was dead when Aristophanes brought out the "Peace" (B.c. 419). From an anecdote mentioned by Athenæus that he presented each Athenian citizen with a Chian vase, on one occasion, when he gained the tragic prize, we may infer that he was a man of fortune.

ACHEUS of Eretria, must also be considered as belonging to an earlier age of the tragic art than Euripides, whose senior he was by four years. He wrote forty-four, thirty, or twenty-four dramas, but only gained one tragic victory3. His countryman Menedemus, considered him the best writer of satyrical dramas after Eschylus*.

AGATHON was, like his friend Euripides, a dramatic sophist. He is best known to us from his appearance in the Banquet of Plato, which is supposed to have taken place at his house on the day after the celebration of his tragic victory. This appears to have taken place at the Lenæa in the archonship of Euphemus, B. c. 4165. He is introduced to us by Plato as a well-dressed, handsome young man, courted by the wealth and wisdom of Athens, and exercising the duties of hospitality with all the ease and refinement of modern politeness. In the Epideiris in praise of love, which he is there made to pronounce, we are presented with the artificial and rhetorical expressions which his friend Aristophanes attributes to his style, and which we might have expected

1. Schol. Pac. 837. ὅτι ὁ μὲν Ιων ἤδη τέθνηκε, δῆλον.

2. Athenæus, i. p. 4.

3. Suidas.

4. Diog. Laert. ii. 133.

5. Athenæus, v. p. 217. Α. ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Ευφήμου στεφανοῦται Ληναίοις.

6. It will be recollected, that Aristophanes is introduced at Plato's Banquet among the other intimates of Agathon.

7.

μέλλει γὰρ ὁ καλλιεπής ̓Αγαθών
ὀρυόχους τιθέναι, δράματος αρχάς
κάμπτει δὲ νέας αψίδας ἐπῶν·

τὰ δὲ τορνεύει, τὰ δὲ κολλομελεῖ,
καὶ γνωμοτυπεῖ, καντονομάζει,
καὶ κηροχυτεῖ καὶ γογγύλλει,

καὶ χοανεύει.Thesmoph. 49.

from a pupil of Gorgias'. Aristotle tells us that he was the first to introduce into his dramas arbitrary choral songs, which had nothing to do with the subject, and it appears from the same author, that he sometimes wrote pieces with fictitious names, which Schlegel justly concludes were something between the idyll, and the newest form of comedy3. He was residing at the court of Archelaus when Euripides died*: the cause of his departure from Athens is not known. He is represented as a little effeminate person in Aristophanes' play, called the Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι; and it is perhaps only the intimacy subsisting between Aristophanes and him, which has gained for him the affectionate tribute of esteem which the comedian puts into the mouth of Bacchus, and has saved him from the many strictures which he deserved, both as a poet and as a man. The time of his death is not known.

XENOCLES, though he is called an execrable poet', gained a tragic prize with a trilogy, over the head of Euripides, in B. C. 4158. He was the son of CARCINUS, a tragedian of whom nothing is known, and is continually ridiculed by Aristophanes. His brothers, Xenotimus and Demotimus or Xenoclitus, were choral dancers.

IOPHON, the son of Sophocles, is described by Aristophanes9 as a man whose powers were, at the time of his father's death, not yet sufficiently proved, to enable a critic to determine his literary rank. He appears, however, to have

1. It appears from the Banquet that he was Gorgias's pupil: his imitation of Gorgias is mentioned by Philostratus De Soph. Ι. ̓Αγαθὼν ὁ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποιητής ὃν ἡ κωμῳδία σοφόν τε καὶ καλλιεπῆ οἶδε (in allusion to the last quotation,) πολλαχοῦ τῶν ἰαμβείων γοργιάζει. and by the Clarkian Scholiast on Plato, (Gaisford, p. 173.) ἐμιμεῖτο δὲ τὴν κομψότητα τῆς λέξεως Γοργίου τοῦ ῥήτορος.

2. Τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ἀδόμενα οὐ μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου, ἤ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστι· δι' ὅ ἐμβόλιμα ᾅδουσι, πρώτου ἄρξαντος ̓Αγάθωνος τοιούτου. Aristot. Poet. xviii. 22. 3. One of these was called the Flower. Aristot. Poet. ix. 7.

4.

Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 85. Ælian. V. H. II. 21, xiii. 4. Clark. Schol. Plato. p. 173.

5. Thesmoph. 29. 'Ayálwv ó kλewós. 191.

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been a creditable dramatist, and gained the second prize in 428 B.C. when Euripides was first and Ion third'.

EUPHORION, the son of Eschylus, deserves to be mentioned as having gained the first prize, when Sophocles gained the second, and Euripides the third. He probably produced on this occasion one of his father's posthumous Tragedies, with which he is said to have conquered four times. He did, however, occasionally bring out Tragedies of his own composing2.

EURIPIDES and SOPHOCLES, the nephew and grandson respectively of their namesakes, are said to have produced, either for the first or for the second time, some of the dramas of their relatives. The younger Sophocles reproduced the Edipus at Colonus, in 401 B. C.; and first contended in his own name 396 B. C. Euripides the younger is said

to have published an edition of Homer3.

MELETUS, the accuser of Socrates, is stated to have been a Tragedian, and a writer of drinking songs. Edipus was the subject of one of his plays.

SOSICLES of Syracuse, gained seven victories and wrote seventy-three Tragedies. He flourished in the reigns of Philip and Alexander of Macedon9.

In the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, seven Tragic poets flourished at Alexandria, who were called the Pleiades; their names were, HOMER, SOSITHEUS, LYCOPHRON, ALEXANDER, AEANTIDES, SOSIPHANES, and PHILISCUS1. It is quite uncertain, however, how far their works were dramatical; probably they were mere centos, like the Christus Patiens of Gregorius Nazranzenus.

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6. Schol. Ran. 1337. τραγικός ποιητὴς ὁ Μέλητος· οὗτος δέ ἐστιν ὁ Σωκράτη γραψάμενος κωμῳδεῖται δὲ ὡς ψυχρὸς ἐν τῇ ποιήσει καὶ ὡς πονηρὸς τὸν τρόπον. 7. Ran. 1297.

9. Suidas. He is not in Clinton's list.

10. Schol. Hephæst. p. 32.

8. Gaisford, Lect. Platon. p. 170.

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE GREEK COMEDIANS.

SECTION I.

THE COMEDIANS WHO PRECEDED ARISTOPHANES.

Quorum Comœdia prisca virorum est.
HORATIUS.

IT has been already remarked that though Greek Comedy underwent three successive variations in form, we cannot arrange the Comedians according to this classification; we shall be content, therefore, with stating, as far as our authorities permit, the general character of the Dramas of those poets whom we may deem it necessary to mention.

From the first exhibition of Epicharmus to the last of Posidippus, the first and last of the Greek Comedians, is a period of about 250 years; and between these two poets, one hundred and four authors are enumerated', who are all said to have written comedy. The claims of some of these, however, to the rank of Comedians are very doubtful, and two who are contained in the list, Sophron and his son Xenarchus, were mimographers, and as such, were not only not Comedians, but hardly Dramatists at all, in the Greek sense of the word.

1. By Clinton, F. H. II. p. xxxvi-xlvii.

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