Philyllius was an ancient Athenian

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...

 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...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. He was comtempoary with Diocles

Diocles

Diocles may refer to:*Diocles, a person in Greek mythology*Roman emperor Diocletian, formerly named Diocles*Diocles of Carystus, Greek physician who lived 4th century BC*Diocles , 2nd century BC and the beginning of the 1st century BC...

 and Sannyrion

Sannyrion

Sannyrion was an Athenian comic poet of the late 5th century BC, and a contemporary of Diocles and Philyllius, according to the Suda. He belonged to the later years of Old Comedy and the start of the Middle Comedy. He ridiculed the pronunciation of Hegelochus, the actor in Euripides' Orestes,...

. He belonged to the latter part of the Old Comedy

Old Comedy

Old Comedy is the first period of the ancient Greek comedy, according to the canonical division by the Alexandrian grammarians. The most important Old Comic playwright is Aristophanes, whose works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively...

 tradition and the beginning of the Middle Comedy tradition. He seems to have attained to some distinction before 392 BC, when the Ecclesiazusae

Assemblywomen

Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae is a play dating from 391 BCE which is similar in theme to Lysistrata in that a large portion of the comedy comes from women involving themselves in politics...

 of Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

 was acted.

All titles of his plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 evidently belong to Middle Comedy. He is said to have introduced some scenic innovations, such as bring­ing lighted torches on the stage. With regard to his language, Augustus Meineke

Augustus Meineke

Johann Albrecht Friedrich August Meineke , German classical scholar, was born at Soest in Westphalia.After holding educational posts at Jenkau and Danzig , he was director of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin from 1826 to 1856. He died at Berlin on 12 December 1870...

 mentions a few words and phrases in his plays, which are not pure Attic.

List of plays

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...

and Eudocia gave titles of his plays:

• Aigeus
• Auge
• Anteia
• Dodekate ("The Twelfth Woman")
• Herakles
• Pluntria, or Nausikaa
• Polis ("The City")
• Phreorykhos
• Atalante
• Elene