Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/217

 WHO SUCCEEDED ARISTOPHANES. 199 times the object of his attacks. He was still exhibiting in 324 B.c.i Of the authors of the Xew Comedy it will be sufficient to mention the following : Philippides, the son of Philocles of Athens, is one of the six poets generally selected as specimens of the Xew Comedy^. He flourished about the year 335 B.C., and wrote forty-five Comedies; of the twelve titles preserved, one at least, the Amphiaraus^, seems to belong to the Middle or Old Comedy. The intimacy which existed between him and Lysimachus was of great service to Athens^. As that prince did not assume the title of king till 306 B.C., and as it appears from the words of Plutarch^, that Lysi- machus was king at the time of his acquaintance with Philippides, the poet must have lived after that year ; besides we know that he ridiculed the honours paid by the Athenians to Demetrius, in 301 B.c.^ There is, therefore, every reason to believe the statement of Aulus Gellius, that he lived to a very advanced age', though per- haps the cause assigned for his death, excessive joy on account of an unexpected victory, is, like the similar story respecting Sopho- cles, a mere invention. Philemon was, according to Strabo^, a native of Soli, though Suidas makes him a Syracusan, probably because he resided some time in Sicily. He began to exhibit about the year 330 B.C., and died at the age of ninety-seven, some time in the reign of Antigonus the second^. According to Diodorus^^, he lived ninety-nine years, and •vTote ninety-seven Comedies. Various accounts are given of the manner of his death ^^ Lucian tells us, he died in a paroxysm ^ See the passages in Clinton, F. H. ii. p, i6r. ^ Prol. Aristoph. p. xxx: a^ioo-/b:TaToi. ViX-q/xiov, lUevavdpos, AicpiXos, ^iXLTnrldrjs, Uoaeidiinros, 'AiroXXodojpos. ^ Quoted by Athenjeus, ill. p. 90, ■* Plutarch, Demetr. c. xii. ^ ^io(ppovovfj.evov 8e irore tov Av<Ti/J.dxov irpbs avTov Kal eiwovTos, "'^Q ^iXiTTTidr}, TLVos aoL tQu ifxufu /ieraScD;" "'^tlovov," ifpi), '* cJ jSa(XieO, fxri tQu diropprp-uv." ^ Clinton, F. H, 11. p. 177. '' III. 15 : Philippides comoediarum poeta hand ignobilis, setate jam edita, cum in certamine poetarum praeter spem vicisset, inter illud gaudium repente mortuus est. 8 XIV. p. 671. 9 Clinton, F. H. ii. p. 157. '^^ Eclog. Lib. xxiii. p. 318. ^^ Plutarch, An seni, <L-c. p. 785; Lucian, Macroh. c. XXV. (Vol. vm. p. 123, Lehm.) ; Apuleius, Florid, xvi. Suidas says he was ninety-four when he died, and gi^es nearly the same description of his death as Lucian.