Philiscus of Corcyra, or Philicus was a distinguished tragic poet, and one of the seven who formed the Tragic Pleiad, was also a priest of Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

, and in that character he was present at the coronation procession of Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Ptolemy II Philadelphus was the king of Ptolemaic Egypt from 283 BCE to 246 BCE. He was the son of the founder of the Ptolemaic kingdom Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice, and was educated by Philitas of Cos...

 in 284 BC

284 BC

Year 284 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Tucca and Denter/Dentatus...

. Pliny states that his portrait was painted in the attitude of meditation by Protogenes

Protogenes

Protogenes was an ancient Greek painter, a contemporary rival of Apelles. As with the other famous ancient Greek painters, none of his work has survived, and it is known only from literary references and descriptions....

, who is known to have been still alive in 304 BC

304 BC

Year 304 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sophus and Severrio...

. It seems, therefore, that the time of Philiscus must be extended to an earlier period than that assigned to him by the 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...

, who merely says that he lived under Ptolemy Philadelphus. He wrote 42 dramas, of which we know nothing, except that the Themistocles, which is enumerated among the plays of Philiscus of Athens the comic poet, ought probably to be ascribed to him : such subjects are known to have been chosen by the tragedians, as in the Marathonians of Lycophron

Lycophron

Lycophron was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem Alexandra is attributed .-Life and miscellaneous works:...

. The choriambic hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

 verse was named after Philiscus, on account of his frequent use of it (Hephaestion (grammarian)

Hephaestion (grammarian)

Hephaestion was a grammarian of Alexandria who flourished in the age of the Antonines. He was the author of a manual of Greek metres, which is most valuable as the only complete treatise on the subject that has been preserved. The concluding chapter discusses the various kinds of poetical...

. p. 53). There is much dispute whether the name should be written, or , but the former appears to be the true form, though he himself, for the sake of metre, used the latter.

Spyridon (Filiskos) Samaras from Corcyra

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

, the composer of the Olympic Hymn was named after Philiscus.