1. An Athenian comic poet, probably of the Middle Comedy, of whom Suidas says that
Athenaeus, in his second book, mentions the following as being his plays : -- Δευκαλίων, Κάλλαισχρος, Κενταυρος, Σάτυροι, Μοῦσαι,
Μονότρυποι, or rather, according to the emendation of Toup, Μονότροποι, The last three of these titles are elsewhere
assigned by Suidas to Phrynichus. In the second book of Athenaeus, which Suidas quotes, none
of the titles are mentioned, but Ophelion is thrice quoted, without the name of the play
referred to (Athen. ii. pp. 43, f. 66, d. 67, a.); and, in the third book, Athenaeus quotes
the
Callaeschrus, and also another play, which Suidas does not mention (iii. p.
106a.). The reasons for assigning him to the Middle Comedy are, the reference to Plato in
Athen. 2.66d., and the statement that he used some verses which
were also found in Eubulus (Athen. 2.43f., where the name of
Ophelion is rightly substituted by Porson for that of Philetas). Who may have been the
Callaeschrus, whose name formed the title of one of his plays, we cannot tell; but if he was
the same as the Callaeschrus, who formed the subject of one of the plays of Theopompus, the
date of Ophelion would be fixed before the 100th Olympiad, B. C.
380. There is, perhaps, one more reference to Ophelion, again corrupted into Philetas,
in Hesychius, s. v.Ἶσις. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec.
vol. i. p. 415, vol. iii. p. 380; Praef ad Menand. pp. x. xi.)