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EPICHARMUS (c. 54o–45o B.C.)

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 681 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EPICHARMUS (c. 54o–45o B.C.) , See also:Greek comic poet, was See also:born in the See also:island of See also:Cos. See also:Early in See also:life he went to See also:Megara in See also:Sicily, and after its destruction by See also:Gelo (484) removed to See also:Syracuse, where he spent the See also:rest of his life at the See also:court of See also:Hiero, and died at the See also:age of ninety or (according to a statement in See also:Lucian, Macrobii, 25) ninety-seven. A brazen statue was set up in his See also:honour by the inhabitants, for which See also:Theocritus composed an inscription (Epigr. 17). Epicharmus was the See also:chief representative of the Sicilian or Dorian See also:comedy. Of his See also:works 35 titles and a few fragments have survived. In the See also:city of tyrants it would have been dangerous to See also:present comedies like those of the Athenian See also:stage, in which attacks were made upon the authorities. Accordingly, the comedies of Epicharmus are of two kinds, neither of them calculated to give offence to the ruler. They are either mythological travesties (resembling the satyric See also:drama of See also:Athens) or See also:character comedies. To the first class belong the See also:Busiris, in which Heracles is represented as a voracious See also:glutton; the See also:Marriage of See also:Hebe, remarkable for a lengthy See also:list of dainties. The second class dealt with different classes of the See also:population (the sailor, the See also:prophet, the boor, the See also:parasite).

Some of the plays seem to have bordered on the See also:

political, as The Plunderings, describing the devastation of Sicily in the See also:time of the poet. A See also:short fragment has been discovered (in the Rainer papyri) from the `OSvvvebs airr6poXos, which told how See also:Odysseus got inside See also:Troy in the disguise of a See also:beggar and obtained valuable See also:information. Another feature of his works was the large number of excellent sentiments expressed in a brief proverbial See also:form; the Pythagoreans claimed him as a member of their school, who had forsaken the study of See also:philosophy for the See also:writing of comedy. See also:Plato (Theaetetus,152 E) puts him at the See also:head of the masters of comedy, coupling his name with See also:Homer and, according to a remark in See also:Diogenes Laertius, Plato was indebted to Epicharmus for much of his philosophy. See also:Ennius called his didactic poem on natural philosophy Epicharmus after the comic poet. The metres employed by Epicharmus were See also:iambic trimeter, and especially See also:trochaic and anapaestic tetrameter. The See also:plot of the plays was See also:simple, the See also:action lively and rapid; hence they were classed among the fabulae motoriae (stirring, bustling), as indicated in the well-known See also:line of See also:Horace (Epistles, ii. 1. 58): " See also:Plautus ad exemplar See also:Siculi properare Epicharmi." Epicharmus is the subject of articles in Suidas and Diogenes Laertius (viii. 3). See A. O.

Lorenz, Leben and Schriften See also:

des Koers E. (with See also:account of the Doric drama and fragments, 1864) ; J. See also:Girard, Etudes sur la poesie grecque (1884) ; Kaibel in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclop6.See also:die, according to whom Epicharmus was a Siceliot; for the See also:papyrus fragment, See also:Blass in Jahrbiicher See also:fur Philologie, cxxxix., 1889.

End of Article: EPICHARMUS (c. 54o–45o B.C.)

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