to an earlier age of the dramatic art, 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. ARISTARCHUS, of Tegea, who first exhibited in B.C. 454, deserves to be mentioned as having furnished models for the imitations of Ennius. 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 victory'. His countryman Menedemus considered him the best writer of satyrical dramas after Eschylus 2. 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 Euphemius, B.C. 416'. He is introduced to us by Plato as a welldressed, 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 Epideixis, 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 * Schol. Pac. 837, ὅτι ὁ μὲν Ἴων ἤδη τέθνηκε, δῆλον. 9 Athenæus, i. p. 4. 1 Suidas. 2 Diog. Laert. ii. p. 133. 3 Athenaeus, v. p. 217. Α. ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Εὐφήμου στεφανοῦται Ληναίοις. It will be recollected, that Aristophanes is introduced at Plato's Banquet among the other intimates of Agathon. style, and which we might have expected 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 idyl and the newest form of comedy. 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 Otopopopiášovσai"; 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. 41513. 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. 5 Μέλλει γὰρ ὁ καλλιεπής ̓Αγάθων It appears from the Banquet that he was Gorgias' pupil: his imitation of Gorgias is mentioned by Philostratus, De Soph. i. ̓Αγάθων ὁ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποιητὴς 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. * Τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ἀδόμενα οὐ μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου, ἢ ἄλλης τραγωδίας ἐστί· δι ̓ ὃ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδουσι, πρώτου ἄρξαντος ̓Αγάθωνος τοιούτου. Aristot. Poet. xviii. 22. 8 Below, Part III. p. 253. One of these was called the Flower. Aristot. Poet. ix. 7. Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 85. Ælian, V. H. II. 21, xiii. 4. Clark. Schol. Plato, p. 173. 10 Thesmoph. 29. ̓Αγάθων ὁ κλεινός. 191. 1 Ran. 84. Ηρ. ̓Αγάθων δὲ ποὖστιν; Δι. ἀπολιπών μ' ἀποίχεται, 12 Aristoph. Ran. 86. Thesm. 169. 13 Elian, V. H. ii. 8. 5 IOPHON, the son of Sophocles, is described by Aristophanes ' 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 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 composing'. EURIPIDES and SOPHOCLES, the nephew and grandson respectively of their namesakes, are said to have exhibited, 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 Homer 1o. 10 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 13. 13 CHÆREMON, who flourished about B. c. 380, was celebrated for his Centaur, in which he mixed up the drama, with the styles of epic and lyric poetry then fashionable". He had a great talent for description, but his works were better suited for the closet than for the stage 1. 15 5 Ran. 73, seqq. 7 Suidas, v. Eupopiwv. Argument. Medeæ. 8 Elms. ad Bacch. p. 14, and Suidas. 9 Diodor. Sic. xiv. 53. • Arg. Hippolyti. 10 Suidas. Η 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. 12 Ran. 1297. 13 Gaisford, Lect. Platon. p. 170. 14 Aristot. Poet. I. Athenæus, xiii. p. 608. 15 Aristot. Rhet. iii. 12. SOSICLES, of Syracuse, gained seven victories, and wrote seventy-three Tragedies. He flourished in the reigns of Philip and Alexander of Macedon1. The tyrants CRITIAS and DIONYSIUS the elder, and the rhetorician THEODECTES obtained some eminence as Tragedians. 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 PHILISCUS'. It is quite uncertain, however, how far their works were dramatical; probably they were mere centos, like the Christus Patiens of Gregorius Nazianzenus. 1 Suidas. He is not in Clinton's list. 2 Schol. Hephæst. p. 32. CHAPTER VI. ON THE GREEK COMEDIANS. SECTION I. THE COMEDIANS WHO PRECEDED ARISTOPHANES. Quorum Comoedia 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. It has been already mentioned that the first beginnings of a more artificial Comedy must be attributed to the Dorians of Megara and to their Sicilian colonists. Before therefore we speak of the Attic Comedians, we must give some account of Epicharmus and his school. 1 By Clinton, F. H. ii. p. xxxvi-xlvii. 2 Above, p. 57. |