Epicharmus of Kos
Epicharmus of
Literary evidence
Most of the information about Epicharmus comes from the writings of
The 12th-century philosopher Constantine of Nicaea cites Epicharmus.[7]
Life
All of his biographical information should be treated as suspect. Epicharmus' birthplace is not known, but late and fairly unreliable ancient commentators suggest a number of alternatives. The Suda (E 2766) records that he was either
It is most likely that sometime after 484 BC, he lived in
Diogenes Laërtius records that there was a bronze statue dedicated to him in Syracuse, by the inhabitants, for which Theocritus composed the following inscription:[10]
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) was written in his honour.
The cosmopolitan scientist and traveler Alexander von Humboldt turned Epicharmus into the protagonist of the only literary text he ever published; it appeared 1795 in Friedrich Schiller's journal Horen under the title "Die Lebenskraft oder der Rhodische Genius" [The Vital Force or the Rhodian Genius]. Epicharmos figures here as a natural philosopher and interpreter of art.[11]
Works
Epicharmus wrote between thirty-five and fifty-two comedies, though many have been lost or exist only in fragments. Along with his contemporary Phormis, he was alternately praised and denounced for ridiculing the great mythical heroes. At the time it would have been dangerous to present comedies in Syracuse like those of the Athenian stage, in which attacks were made upon the authorities. Accordingly, the comedies of Epicharmus are calculated not to give offence to the ruler. They are either mythological travesties or character comedies.[12]
His two most famous works were Agrōstīnos ("The Country-Dweller," or "Clodhopper"), which dealt humorously with the rustic lifestyle, and Hebes Gamos ("The Marriage of Hebe"), in which Heracles was portrayed as a glutton. He also depicted Odysseus as an unheroic figure of burlesque by parodying the Homeric image for comic effect in his Odysseùs Autómolos (Ulysses the Deserter).[13] Additional works include
- Alkyon
- Amykos ("Amycus")
- Harpagai
- Bakkhai
- Bousiris ("Busiris")
- Ga Kai Thalassa ("Earth and Sea")
- Deukalion ("Deucalion")
- Dionysoi ("The Dionysuses")
- Diphilus
- Elpis ("Hope"), or Ploutos ("Wealth")
- Heorta kai Nasoi
- Epinikios
- Herakleitos ("Heraclitus")
- Thearoi ("Spectators")
- Hephaistos ("Hephaestus"), or Komastai ("The Revelers")
- Kyklops ("The Cyclops")
- Logos kai Logeina
- Megaris ("Woman From Megara")
- Menes ("Months")
- 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")
- Choreuontes ("The Dancers")
- Chytrai ("The Pots")
Reproducing a mid-4th century BC accusation from
Quotations
- "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!"[15]
- "Don't forget to exercise incredulity; for it is the sinews of the soul."
Notes
- ISBN 0-19-928785-6
- ^ Notably Pickard-Cambridge's Dithyramb, Tragedy, Comedy (1927); Kassel and Austin's Poetae Comici Graeci (2001) and Lucía Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén, Epicarmo de Siracusa: testimonios y fragmentos (1996).
- ^ Plato, Gorgias [505e]: "So that, in Epicharmus's phrase, 'what two men spake erewhile' I may prove I can manage single-handed". [1]
- ^ "Summon the great masters of either kind of poetry- Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer of Tragedy", Theaetetus, by Plato, section §152e. [2] (translation by Benjamin Jowett [3]). There is some variability in translation of the passage. Words like "king", "chief", "leader", "master" are used in the place of "prince" in different translations. The basic Greek word in Plato is "akroi" from "akros" meaning topmost or high up. In this context it means "of a degree highest of its kind" or "consummate" (cf. Liddell & Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon). [4]
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics 5.1449b5
- ^ cf. P. W. Buckham, p. 245
- ^ Merle Eisenberg and David Jenkins, "The Philosophy of Constantine the Philosopher of Nicaea", Byzantinische Zeitschrift 114.1 (2021): 145.
- ^ cf. P.W.Buckham, p.164, "But Epicharmus was a philosopher and a Pythagorean"; and Pickard-Cambridge, p. 232, "Epicharmus was a hearer of Pythagoras".
- ^ Lucian, Macrobii, 25 (cf. [5])
- ^ Theocritus, Epigrams, 17 (cf. [6])
- ^ Andreas Daum: Social Relations, Shared Practices, and Emotions: Alexander von Humboldt’s Excursion into Literary Classicism and the Challenges to Science around 1800. In: Journal of Modern History 91 (2019), pp. 1‒37, see especially pp. 12‒19, 28, 32, 35.
- ^ public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Epicharmus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 680–681. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Martin Revermann, 'Paraepic poetry:point(s) and practices,' in Emmanuela Bakola, Lucia Prauscello, Mario Telò, Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, Cambridge University Press 2013 pp.101-127 esp.pp.107ff.
- Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, iii. 9
- ^ Humanistictexts.org Archived 2008-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
References
- Philip Wentworth Buckham, Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
- P.E. Easterling (Series Editor), ISBN 0-521-21042-9, cf. Chapter 12, p. 367 on Epicharmus and others.
- Rudolf Kassel, C. Austin (Editor) Poetae Comici Graeci: Agathenor-Aristonymus (Poetae Comici Graeci), 1991.
- Lucía Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén, Epicarmo de Siracusa: testimonios y fragmentos, Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones, 1996. (lxiv, 247 pages) ISBN 847468935X
- A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927, (repr. 1962).
- Plato, Theaetetus.
- William Ridgeway, contrib. The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915.
- Xavier Riu, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999. [7]
- Lucia Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén, Epicarmo de Siracusa. Testimonios y Fragmentos. Edición crítica bilingüe.; Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones, 1996. Reviewed by Kathryn Bosher, University of Michigan, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.10.24
- Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870, article on Epicharmus, [8]
- Theocritus, Idylls and Epigrams. (Theocritus translated into English Verse by C.S. Calverley, [9])
External links
- An article on Epicharmus at Theatrehistory.com
- Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 2:8. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew(Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.
- Epicharmus Fragments at demonax.info