() of Eretria in Euboea, a tragic poet, was born
B. C. 484, the year in which Aeschylus gained his first victory,
and four years before the birth of Euripides. In B. C. 477, he
contended with Sophocles and Euripides, and though he subsequently brought out many dramas,
according to some as many as thirty or forty, he nevertheless only gained the prize once. The
fragments of Achacus contain much strange mythology, and his expressions were often forced and
obscure. (Athen. 10.451c.) Still in the satyrical drama he must
have possessed considerable merit, for in this department some ancient critics thought him
inferior only to Aeschylus. (D. L. 2.133.) The titles of seven of
his satyrical dramas and of ten of his tragedies are still known. The extant fragments of his
pieces have been collected, and edited by Urlichs, Bonn, 1834. (Suidas, s.
v.) This Achaeus should not be confounded with a later tragic writer of the same name,
who was a native of Syracuse. According to Suidas and Phavorinus he wrote ten, according to
Eudocia fourteen tragedies. (Urlichs, Ibid.)