Epicharmus of Kos

Epicharmus of Kos or Epicharmus Comicus or Epicharmus Comicus Syracusanus (Greek: Ἐπίχαρμος ὁ Κῷος), thought to have lived between c. 540 and c. 450 BC, was a Greek dramatist and philosopher often credited with being one of the first comic writers, having originated the Doric or Sicilian comedic form. Aristotle (Poetics 5.1449b5) writes that he and Phormis invented comic plots (μῦθοι, muthoi). Most of the information we have about Epicharmus comes from the writings of Athenaeus, Suda and Diogenes Laertius, but fragments and comments come up in a host of other ancient authors as well. There have also been some papyrus finds of longer sections of text, but these are often so full of holes that it is difficult to make sense of them. Plato mentions Epicharmus in his dialogue Gorgias and in Theaetetus. In the latter, Socrates refers to Epicharmus as "the prince of Comedy", Homer as "the prince of Tragedy", and both as "great masters of either kind of poetry". More references by ancient authors can be found discussed in Pickard-Cambridge's Dithyramb, Tragedy, Comedy and they are collected in Greek in Kassel and Austin's new edition of the fragments in Poetae Comici Graeci (2001).

Epicharmus' birthplace is not known, but late and fairly unreliable ancient commentators suggest a number of alternatives. The Suda (E 2766) records that he was either Syracusan by birth or from the Sikanian city of Krastos. Diogenes Laertius (VIII 78) records that Epicharmus was born in Astypalea, the ancient capital of Kos on the Bay of Kamari, near modern-day Kefalos. Diogenes Laertius also records that Epicharmus' father was the prominent physician Helothales, who moved the family to Megara in Sicily, when Epicharmus was just a few months old. Although raised according to the Asclepiad tradition of his father, as an adult Epicharmus became a follower of Pythagoras.

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