(), the celebrated Alexandrian grammarian and
poet, was a native of Chalcis in Euboea, the son of Socles, and the adopted son of the
historian Lycus of Rhegium (Suid. s. v.). Other accounts made him the son
of Lycus (Tzetz., Chil. 8.481).
Works
Work on the Comic Poets
Lycophron lived at Alexandria, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, who entrusted to him the
arrangement of the works of the comic poets contained in the Alexandrian library. In the
execution of this commission Lycophron drew up a very extensive work on comedy (περὶ κωμῳδίας), which appears to have embraced the whole
subject of the history and nature of the Greek comedy, together with accounts of the comic
poets, and, besides this, many matters bearing indirectly on the interpretation of the
comedians (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 9-11). Nothing more is
known of his life. Ovid (Ibis, 533) states that he was killed by an
arrow.
Tragedies and Satyric Drama
As a poet, Lycophron obtained a place in the Tragic Pleiad; but there is scarcely a
fragment of his tragedies extant. Suidas gives the titles of twenty of Lycophron's
tragedies; while Tzetzes (Schol. in Lyc. 262, 270) makes their number
forty-six or sixty-four. Four lines of his
Πελοπίδαι are
quoted by Stobaeus (119.13.) He also wrote a satyric drama, entitled Μενέδημος, in which he ridiculed his fellow-countryman, the philosopher
Menedemus of Eretria (Ath. x. p. 420b.; D. L. 2.140; comp.
Menag. ad loc.), who, nevertheless. highly prized the tragedies of
Lycophron (Diog. ii 133).
Anagrams
He is said to have been a very skilful commposer of anagrams, of which he wrote several in
honour of Ptolemy and Arsinoe.
Cassandra
The only one of his poems which has come down to us is the
Cassandra or
Alexandra. This is neither a tragedy nor an epic poem, but a long iambic
monologue of 1474 verses, in which Cassandra is made to prophesy the fall of Troy, the
adventures of the Grecian and Trojan heroes, with numerous other mythological and historical
events, going back as early as the Argonauts, the Amazons, and the fables of Io and Europa,
and ending with Alexander the Great.
Assessment
The work has no pretensions to poetical merit. It is simply a cumbrous store of
traditional learning. Its obscurity is proverbial. Suidas calls it σκοτεινὸν ποίημα, and its author himself obtained the epithet
σκοτεινός. Its stores of learning and its obscurity
alike excited the efforts of the ancient grammarians, several of whom wrote commentaries on
the poem: among them were Theon, Dection, and Orus. The only one of these works which
survives, is the
Scholia of Isaac and John Tzetzes, which are far more
valuable than the poem itself.
Lycophron the Tragedian vs. Lycophron the author of the Cassandra
A question has been raised respecting the identity of Lycophron the tragedian and Lycophron
the author of the Cassandra. From some lines of the poem (1226, &c., 1446, &c.) which
refer to Roman history, Niebuhr was led to suppose that the author could not have lived
before the time of Flamininus (about B. C. 190); but Welcker, in an
elaborate discussion of. the question, regards the lines as interpolated.
Editions
The first printed edition of Lycophron was the Aldine, with Pindar and Callimachus,
Venet. 1513, 8vo.; the next was that of Lacisius, with the Scholia, Basil.
1546, fol..
Of the later editions the most important are those of Potter, Oxon. 1697, fol.,
reprinted 1702; Reichard, Lips. 1788, 2 vols. 8vo.; and Bachmann,
Lips. 1828, 2 vols. 8vo.; to which must be added the admirable edition of the
Scholia by C. G. Miller, Lips. 1811, 3 vols. 8vo.
Further Information
Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 750; Welcker, die
Griech. Tragd. pp. 1256-1263; Bernhardy, Grundriss d. Griech.
Lift. vol. ii. pp. 613, 1026-1029.