Epicharmus of Kos
Encyclopedia
Epicharmus is thought to have lived within the hundred year period between c. 540 and c. 450 BC. He was a Greek dramatist and philosopher often credited with being one of the first comic
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 writers, having originated the Doric
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...

 or Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 comedic form. Aristotle (Poetics 5.1449b5) writes that he and Phormis invented comic plots (muthos). Most of the information we have about Epicharmus comes from the writings of 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...

, Suda
Suda
The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often...

and Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...

, 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
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 mentions Epicharmus in his dialogue Gorgias
Gorgias
Gorgias ,Greek sophist, pre-socratic philosopher and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophists. Several doxographers report that he was a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger...

and in Theaetetus
Theaetetus (dialogue)
The Theaetetus is one of Plato's dialogues concerning the nature of knowledge. The framing of the dialogue begins when Euclides tells his friend Terpsion that he had written a book many years ago based on what Socrates had told him of a conversation he'd had with Theaetetus when Theaetetus was...

. 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
Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge
Sir Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge was a British classicist and one of the greatest authorities on the theatre of ancient Greece in the first half of the 20th century....

'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).

Life and work

Epicharmus' birth place 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
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...

 (VIII 78) records that Epicharmus was born in Astypalea, the ancient capital of Kos
Kos
Kos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Kos peripheral unit, which is...

 on the Bay of Kamari
Bay of Kamari
The Bay of Kamari or Kamari Bay is the beach-front resort annex of the village Kefalos, on the Greek island of Kos. Travel brochures often refer to the area as Kefalos. It has a number of bars and a dozen or so Tavernas or restaurants. It follows the curve of the bay and stretches for...

, near modern-day Kefalos
Kefalos
Kefalos, a Greek town, is situated at the southwest side of the island of Kos, in the municipality of Irakleides, 43 km from Kos Town.It is built on a stone height, dominated by the imposing windmill of Papavasilis and is home to 2,458 inhabitants .-Resort:The resort of Kefalos is purpose-built,...

. Diogenes Laertius also records that Epicharmus' father was the prominent physician Helothales, who moved the family to Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...

, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 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
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...

.

All of this biographical information could be treated as suspect. More references to alternative origins and discussion of their likelihood can be found in Pickard-Cambridge's Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyramb, and more recently in Rodriguez Noriega Guillen's Epicarmo di Siracusa: Testimonios y Fragmentos. The standard edition of his fragments by Kaibel
Georg Kaibel
Georg Kaibel was a German classical philologist born in Lübeck.He studied classical philology at the Universities of Göttingen and Bonn. At Bonn he was a pupil of Hermann Usener and Franz Bücheler...

 has now been updated with the publication of Kassel and Austin's Poetae Comici Graeci. It is most likely that sometime after 484 BC, he lived in Syracuse
Syracuse, Italy
Syracuse is a historic city in Sicily, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is notable for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of the preeminent mathematician and engineer Archimedes. This 2,700-year-old city played a key role in...

, and worked as a poet for the tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...

s Gelo
Gelo
Gelo , son of Deinomenes, was a 5th century BC ruler of Gela and Syracuse and first of the Deinomenid rulers.- Early life :...

 and Hiero I. The subject matter of his poetry covered a broad range, from exhortations against intoxication and laziness to such unorthodox topics as mythological burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

, but he also wrote on philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, natural science
Natural science
The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

, linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

. Among many other philosophical and moral lessons, Epicharmus taught that the continuous exercise of virtue could overcome heredity, so that anyone had the potential to be a good person regardless of birth. He died in his 90s (according to a statement in Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

, he died at ninety-seven).

Diogenes Laertius records that there was a bronze statue dedicated to him in Syracuse, by the inhabitants, for which Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...

 composed the following inscription:

"As the bright sun excels the other stars,
As the sea far exceeds the river streams:
So does sage Epicharmus men surpass,
Whom hospitable Syracuse has crowned."

Theocritus Epigram 18 (AP IX 60; Kassel and Austin Test. 18) is also written in his honor.

Works

Epicharmus wrote somewhere between thirty-five and fifty-two comedies, though many have been lost or exist only in fragments. Along with his contemporary Phormis
Phormis
Phormis is one of the originators of Greek comedy, or of a parti­cular form of it. Aristotle identified him as one of the originators of comedy, along with Epicharmus of Kos...

, he was alternately praised or denounced for ridiculing the great mythic hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

es.

His two most famous works were Agrostinos ("The Country-Dweller," or "Rustic"), which dealt humorously with the agricultural lifestyle, and Hebes Gamos ("The Marriage of Hebe"), in which Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

 was portrayed as a glutton. Additional works include
  • Alkyon
  • Amykos ("Amycus")
  • Harpagai
  • Bakkhai
  • Bousiris
  • Ga Kai Thalassa ("Earth and Sea")
  • Deukalion ("Deucalion
    Deucalion
    In Greek mythology Deucalion was a son of Prometheus and Pronoia. The anger of Zeus was ignited by the hubris of the Pelasgians, and he decided to put an end to the Bronze Age. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who was appalled by this savage offering...

    ")
  • Dionysoi ("The Dionysuses")
  • Diphilus
  • Elpis ("Hope"), or Ploutos ("Wealth")
  • Heorta kai Nasoi
  • Epinikios
  • Herakleitos ("Heraclitus
    Heraclitus
    Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...

    ")
  • Thearoi ("Spectators")
  • Hephaistos, or Komastai ("The Revelers")
  • Kyklops ("The Cyclops")
  • Logos Kai Logeina
  • Megaris ("Woman From Megara
    Megara
    Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...

    ")
  • Menes ("Months")
  • Odysseus Automolos ("Odysseus the Deserter")
  • Odysseus Nauagos ("Odysseus Shipwrecked")
  • Orya ("The Sausage")
  • Periallos
  • Persai ("The Persians")
  • Pithon ("The Little Ape" or "Monkey")
  • Seirenes ("Sirens")
  • Skiron
  • Sphinx
  • Triakades
  • Troes ("Trojan Men")
  • 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...

    ")
  • Choreuontes
  • Chytrai


  • According to Diogenes Laërtius
    Diogenes Laertius
    Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...

    's Lives of Eminent Philosophers, III, 9, Plato
    Plato
    Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

     plagiarized several of Epicharmus's ideas. "[H]e [Plato] derived great assistance from Epicharmus the Comic poet, for he transcribed a great deal from him, as Alcimus
    Alcimus (rhetorician)
    Alcimus was a Greek rhetorician who flourished around 300 BC. He was called by Diogenes Laërtius the most distinguished of all Greek rhetoricians. It is not certain whether he is the same as the Alcimus to whom Diogenes in another passage ascribes a work called Pros Amuntan...

     says in the essays dedicated to Amyntas [of Heraclea]…." Laërtius then lists, in III, 10, the several ways that Plato "employs the words of Epicharmus."

    Quotations

    "Judgement, not passion, should prevail."

    "The mind sees and the mind hears. The rest is blind and deaf."

    "A mortal should think mortal thoughts, not immortal thoughts."

    "The best thing a man can have, in my view, is health."

    "The hand washes the hand: give something and you may get something."

    "Then what is the nature of men? Blown-up bladders!"

    External links

    The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
     
    x
    OK