Antiphanes is regarded as the most important writer of the Middle Attic comedy with the exception of Alexis

Alexis

Alexis was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period, born at Thurii in Magna Graeca and taken early to Athens, where he became a citizen, being enrolled in the deme Oion and the tribe Leontides. It is thought he lived to the age of 106 and died on the stage while being crowned...

.

He was apparently a foreigner (perhaps from Cius

Cius

Cius or Kios , later renamed Prusias ad Mare after king Prusias I of Bithynia, was an ancient Greek city bordering the Propontis , in Bithynia , and had a long history, being mentioned by Aristotle, and Strabo. It was colonized by the Milesians and became a place of much commercial importance...

, on the Propontis, Smyrna

Smyrna

Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 or Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

) who settled in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 , where he began to write about 387. He was extremely prolific: more than 200 of the 365 (or 260) comedies attributed to him are known to us from the titles and considerable fragments preserved in Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

. They chiefly deal with matters connected with the table, but contain many striking sentiments. About 130 titles of his plays are known.

Stephanus, Athenian comic poet of the New Comedy

Ancient Greek comedy

Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece . Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy...

, is said to have exhibited some of the plays of Antiphanes and was probably his son. One quotation by Athenaeus is the only surviving fragment of the works of Stephanus.

Surviving Titles and Fragments

Adelphai ("Sisters") Adonis Agroikos ("The Country-Dweller") Akestria Akontizomene ("Woman Shot With an Arrow") Aleiptria ("The Masseuse") Alkestis ("Alcestis Alcestis Alcestis is a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her story was popularised in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis. She was the daughter of Pelias, king of Iolcus, and either Anaxibia or Phylomache.... ") Antaios ("Antaeus Antaeus Antaeus in Greek and Berber mythology was a half-giant, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, whose wife was Tinjis. Antaeus had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.-Mythology:... ") Anteia Anasozomenoi ("The Rescued Men") Aphrodites Gonai ("Aphrodite's Birth" ) Archestrate Archon Argyriou Aphanismos ("Disappearance of Money") Arkas ("Man from Arcadia") Arpazomene ("The Seized, or Captured, Woman") Asklepios ("Asclepius Asclepius Asclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea... ") Asotoi ("Debauched Men") Auletes ("Male Flute-Player") Auletris ("Female Flute-Player"), or Didymai ("Twin Sisters") Autou Eron Bakchai ("Bacchae") Batalos Boiotis Bombylios Bousiris ("Busiris Busiris (Greek mythology) Busiris is the Greek name of a place in Egypt, which in Egyptian, was named djed . The location was a centre for the cult of Osiris, thus the reason for the Greeks choosing the name... ") Boutalion Byzantios ("Man From Byzantium Byzantium Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion... ") Cyclops Chrysis Gamos ("Marriage") Ganymedes Glaukos Gorgythos Diplasia ("Female Double") Dodonis ("Woman From Dodona Dodona Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was an oracle devoted to a Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but here called Dione, who was joined and partly supplanted in historical times by the Greek god Zeus.The shrine of Dodona was regarded as the oldest Hellenic oracle,... ") Drapetagogos ("Catcher of Runaway Slaves") Dyserotes ("People With Disastrous Love-Lives") Dyspratos ("The Hard-To-Sell Slave") Ephesia ("Woman From Ephesus Ephesus Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era... ") Epidaurios

Epikleros ("The Heiress") Euploia ("A Pleasant Voyage") Euthydikos Halieuomene ("Woman Caught Like A Fish") Heniochos ("The Charioteer") Hippeis ("Knights") Homoioi ("People Who Resemble Each Other") Homonymoi ("People With The Same Name") Homopatrioi ("People With The Same Father") Hydria ("The Water-Pitcher") Hypnos ("Sleep") Iatros ("The Physician") Kaineus ("Caeneus Caeneus In Greek mythology, Caeneus was a Lapith hero of Thessaly and, in Ovid's Metamorphoses— where the classical model of a hero is deconstructed and transformed— originally a woman, Caenis, daughter of Atrax... ") Kares ("Men From Caria Caria Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there... ") Karine ("The Woman From Caria Caria Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there... ") Kepouros ("The Gardener") Kitharistes ("The Harpist") Kitharodos Kleophanes Knapheus ("The Fuller") Knoithideus, or Gastron ("Glutton") Korinthia ("Woman From Corinth Corinth Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit... ") Koroplathos ("Modeller of Clay Figures") Korykos Kouris ("The Female Hair-Dresser") Kybeutai ("Dice-Players") Lampas ("The Torch") Lampon Lemniai ("Women From Lemnos Lemnos Lemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina... ") Leonides Leptiniskos Leukadios Lydos ("The Man From Lydia") Medeia Melanion Meleagros Melitta ("The Bee") Metoikos ("Resident Alien") Metragyrtes ("Beggar-Priest of Cybele Cybele Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth... ") Metrophon

Midon Minos ("Minos Minos In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every year he made King Aegeus pick seven men and seven women to go to Daedalus' creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by The Minotaur. After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades. The Minoan civilization of Crete... ") Misoponeros ("Hater of Wickedness") Mnemata ("The Tombs") Moichoi ("Adulterers") Mylon ("The Mill") Mystis ("Woman Initiated Into the Mysteries") Obrimos Oinomaos, or Pelops Oionistes ("Omen-Reader") Omphale Orpheus ("Orpheus Orpheus Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who... ") Paiderastes ("The Pederast") Parasitos ("The Parasite") Paroimiai ("Proverbs") Phaon ("Phaon Phaon Phaon in Greek mythology was a boatman of Mitylene in Lesbos. He was old and ugly when Aphrodite came to his boat. She put on the guise of a crone. Phaon ferried her over to Asia Minor and accepted no payment for doing so. In return, she gave him a box of ointment. When he rubbed it on himself, he... ") Philetairos ("Philetaerus Philetaerus Philetaerus was the founder of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon in Anatolia.- Early life and career under Lysimachus :... ") Philoktetes ("Philoctetes Philoctetes Philoctetes or Philocthetes according to Greek mythology, the son of King Poeas of Meliboea in Thessaly. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer, and was a participant in the Trojan War. He was the subject of at least two plays by Sophocles, one of which is named after him, and one each by both... ") Philometor ("Mother-Lover") Philopator ("Father-Lover") Philotis Phrearrhios Plousioi ("Rich Men") Poiesis ("Poetry") Pontikos ("Man From Pontus") Probateus ("The Sheep-Rancher") Problema ("Problem," or "Riddle") Progonoi ("Ancestors") Pyraunos Sappho Skleriai ("Difficulties," or "Hardships") Skythai ("Scythians"), or Tauroi ("Bulls") Stratiotes ("The Soldier"), or Tychon Thamyras Timon Traumatias ("The Wounded Man") Tritagonistes Tyrrhenus Zakynthios ("Man From Zakynthos Zakynthos Zakynthos , also Zante, the other form often used in English and in Italian , is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It covers an area of ... ") Zographos ("The Painter")