Eunicus
Encyclopedia
Eunicus is the name of two different people in Classical history:
- Eunicus, an AthenianAthensAthens , 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...
comic poet of the Old ComedyAncient Greek comedyAncient 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...
, contemporary with AristophanesAristophanesAristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
and PhilylliusPhilylliusPhilyllius was an ancient Athenian comic poet. He was comtempoary with Diocles and Sannyrion. He belonged to the latter part of the Old Comedy tradition and the beginning of the Middle Comedy tradition...
. Only one line of his is preserved, from his play Anteia , which was also attributed to Philyllius. The title is taken from the courtesan, Anteia, who is mentioned by DemosthenesDemosthenesDemosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...
and Ananandrides and who was also made the subject of comedies by AlexisAlexisAlexis 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...
and AntiphanesAntiphanesAntiphanes is regarded as the most important writer of the Middle Attic comedy with the exception of Alexis.He was apparently a foreigner who settled in Athens , where he began to write about 387...
. There was also a comedy, entitled Poleis which was variously ascribed to Aristophanes, Philyllius, and Eunicus. The SudaSudaThe 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...
mentions an "Aenicus" as the author of a play called Anteia, although this is probably the same person.
- Eunicus was a distinguished statuary and silversmithSilversmithA silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
of MytileneMytileneMytilene is a town and a former municipality on the island of Lesbos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Lesbos, of which it is a municipal unit. It is the capital of the island of Lesbos. Mytilene, whose name is pre-Greek, is built on the...
. He seems, from the order in which he is mentioned by Pliny the ElderPliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, to have lived not long before the time of Pompey the GreatPompeyGnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
.