A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Ἐπίχαρμος), the chief comic poet among the Dorians, was born in the island of Cos about the 60th Olympiad (B. C. 540). His father, Elothales, was a physician, of the race of the Asclepiads, and the profession of medicine seems to have been followed for some time by Epicharmus himself, as well as by his brother.

At the age of three months he was carried to Megara, in Sicily; or, according to the account preserved by Suidas, he went thither at a much later period, with Cadmus (B. C. 484). Thence he removed to Syracuse, with the other inhabitants of Megara, when the latter city was destroyed by Gelon (B. C. 484 or 483). Here he spent the remainder of his life, which was prolonged throughout the reign of Hieron, at whose court Epicharmus associated with the other great writers of the time, and among them, with Aeschylus, who seems to have had some influence on his dramatic course. He died at the age of ninety (B. C. 450), or, ac cording to Lucian, ninety-seven (B. C. 443). The city of Syracuse erected a statue to him, the inscription on which is preserved by Diogenes Laertius. (D. L. 8.78; Suid. s.v. Lucian, Macrob. 25; Aelian, Ael. VH 2.34; Plut. Moral. pp. 68, a., 175, c.; Marmor Parium, No. 55.)

In order to understand the relation of Epicharmus to the early comic poetry, it must be remembered that Megara, in Sicily, was a colony from Megara on the Isthmus, the inhabitants of which disputed with the Athenians the invention of comedy, and where, at all events, a kind of comedy was known as early as the beginning of the sixth century B. C. [SUSARION.] This comedy (whether it was lyric or also dramatic, which is a doubtful point) was of course found by Epicharmus existing at the Sicilian Megara; and he, together with Phonnis, gave it a new form, which Aristotle describes by the words τὸ μύθους ποιεῖν (Poet. 6 or 5, ed. Ritter), a phrase which some take to mean comedies with a regular plot; and others, comedies on mythological subjects. The latter seems to be the better interpretation; but either explanation establishes a clear distinction between the comedy of Epicharmus and that of Megara, which seems to have been little more than a sort of low buffoonery.

With respect to the time when Epicharmus began to compose comedies, much confusion has arisen from the statement of Aristotle (or an interpolator), that Epicharmus lived long before Chionides. (Poet. 3; CHIONIDES.) We have, however, the express and concurrent testimonies of the anonymous writer On Comedy (p. xxviii.), that he flourished about the 73rd Olympiad, and of Suidas (s. v.), that he wrote six years before the

Persian war (B. C. 485_4). Thus it appears that, like Cratinus, he was an old man before he began to write comedy; and this agrees well with the fact that his poetry was of a very philosophic character. (Anon. de Com. l.c.) The only one of his plays, the date of which is certainly known, is the Νᾶσοι, B. C. 477. (Schol. Pind. Pyth. 1.98; Clinton, sub ann.) We have also express testimony of the fact that Elothales, the father of Epicharmus, formed an acquaintance with Pythagoras, and that Epicharmus himself was a pupil of that great philosopher. (Diog. Laert. l.c.; Suid. s.v. Plut. Numa, 8.) We may therefore consider the life of Epicharmus as divisible into two parts, namely, his life at Megara up to B. C. 484, during which he was engaged in the study of philosophy, both physical and metaphysical, and the remainder of his life, which he spent at Syracuse, as a comic poet. The question respecting the identity of Epicharmus the comedian and Epicharmus the Pythagorean philosopher, about which some writers, both ancient and modern, have been in doubt, may now be considered as settled in the affirmative. (Menag. ad Laert. l.c.; Perizon. ad Aelian. V. H. 2.34; Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii. Introd. p. xxxvi.)

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