(), literary.
1. The first in order of time, and the second in celebrity, of the Athenian comic poets of
the New Comedy, was the son of Damon, and a native of Soli in Cilicia, according to Strabo
(de Com. p. xxx.). Meineke suggested that he came to
be considered as a native of Soli because he went there on the occasion of his banishment, of
which we shall have to speak presently; but it is a mere conjecture that he went to Soli at
all upon that occasion; and Meineke himself withdraws the suggestion in his more recent work
(Frag. Com. Graec. vol. ii. p. 52).
There can be no doubt that Philemon is rightly assigned to the New Comedy, although one
authority makes him belong to the Middle (Apul. Flor. § 16), which.
if not a mere error, may be explained by the well-known fact, that the beginning of the New
Comedy was contemporary with the closing period of the Middle. There is, however, nothing in
the titles or fragments of Philemon which can be at all referred to the Middle Comedy. He was
placed by the Alexandrian grammarians among the six poets who formed their canon of the New
Comedy, and who were as follows :--Philemon, Menander, Diphilus, Philippides, Poseidippus,
Apollodorus. (Anon. de Com. p. xxx. Hist. Crit. Orat. Graec>. p. xcv.) He flourished in the reign of Alexander, a little earlier than Menander (Suid.),
whom, however, he long survived. He began to exhibit before the 113th Olympiad (Anon. l.c.), that is, about PHILIPPIDES.
Philemon lived to a very great age, and died, according to Aelian. during the war between
Athens and Antigonus (ap. Suid. s. v.), or, according to the more exact
date of Diodorus (ad loc.), so that he may have exhibited
comedy nearly 70 years. The statements respecting the age at which he died vary between 96,
97, 99, and 101 years (Lucian, Maicrob. 25; Diod. l.c.
; Suid. s. v.). He must, therefore, have been born about l.c. ;
An Seni sit Respubl. gerend. p.
785b.); while another story represents him as quietly called away by the goddesses whom he
served, in the midst of the composition or representation of his last and best work (Aelian,
apud Suid. s. v. ; Apuleius, Flor. 16). There are
portraits of him extant in a marble statue at Rome, formerly in the possession of Raffaelle,
and on a gem : the latter is engraved in Gronovius's Thesaurus, vol. ii.
pl. 99. (See Meineke, Men. et Phil. Reliq. p. 47.)
Although there can be no doubt that Philemon was inferior to Menander as a poet, yet he was
a greater favourite with the Athenians, and often conquered his rival in the dramatic
contests. Gellius (ambntiu gratiaque et facticonibus), and tells us that
Menander used to ask Philemon himself, whether he did not blush when he conquered him. We have
other proofs of the rivalry between Menander and Philemon in the identity of some of their
titles, and in an anecdote told by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 594d.). Philemon was, however,
sometimes defeated; and it would seem that on one such occasion he went into exile for a time
(Stob. Serm. xxxviii. p. 232). At all events he undertook a journey to
the East, whether from this cause or by the desire of king Ptolemy, who appears to have
invited him to Alexandria (Alciphr. Epist. 2.3); and to this journey
ought no doubt to be referred his adventure with Magas, tyrant of Cyrene, the brother of
Ptolemy Philadelphus. Philemon had ridiculed Magas for his want of learning, in acomedy,
copies of which he took pains to circulate; and the arrival of the poet at Cyrene, whither he
was driven by a storm, furnished the king with an opportunity of taking a contemptuous
revenge, by ordering a soldier to touch the poet's throat with a naked sword, and then to
retire politely without hurting him; after which he made him a present of a set of child's
playthings, and then dismissed him. (Plut. de Cohib. Ira, p. 458a., de Virt. Mor. p. 449e.)
Philemon seems to have been inferior to Menander in the liveliness of his dialogue, for his
plays were considered, on account of their more connected arguments and longer periods,
better fitted for reading than for acting (Demetr. Phal. de Eloc. §
193). Apuleius (l.c.) gives an elaborate description of his
characteristics :--Reperias tamen apud ipsum multos sales, argument
lepide inflexa, agnatos lucidle explicatos, personas rebus competentes, sententias vitae
congruentes; joca non infra soccum, seria non usque ad cothurnum. Rarae apud illum
corruptelae : et, uti errors, concessi amores. Nec eo minus et leno perjurus, et amrator
fervius, et servulus callidus, et amica illudens, et uxor inhibens, et mater indulgens, et
patruus objurator, et odalis opitulator, et miles proeliator (gloriator ?) : sed et parasiti
edaces, et parentes tenaces, et meretrices procaces.
The extant fragments of Philemon display much liveliness, wit, elegance, and practical
knowledge of life. His favourite subjects seem to have been love intrigues, and his
characters, as we see from the above extract, were the standing ones of the New Comedy, with
which Plautus and Terence have made us familiar. The jest upon Magas, already mentioned, is a
proof that the personal satire, which formed the chief characteristic of the Old Comedy, was
not entirely relinquished in the New; and it also shows the eagerness with which the
Athenians, in their pride of intellectual superiority, displayed their contempt for the
semi-barbarian magnificence of the Greek kings of the East; another example is shown by the
wit in which Philemon indulged upon the tigress which Seleucus sent to Athens. (Ath. xiii. p.
590a.; Meineke, Men. et Phil. Reliq. p. 372, Frag. Com.
Graec. vol. iv. p. 15.)
The number of Philenon's plays was 97 (de Com. p. 30; Suid. s. v. as amended by Meineke, p.
46). The number of extant titles, after the doubtful and spurious ones are rejected, amounts
to about 53; but it is very probable that some of these should be assigned to the younger
Philemon. The following is a list of the titles of those plays which are quoted by the
ancient writers, but a few of which are still considered doubtful by Meineke :--Mercator and Trinummus
of Plautus. The Encyklopädie.
MENANDER.
For notices of the works upon Philemon, as well as Menander, see the prefisce to Meineke's
Menandri et Philemonis Reliquaiae, and the articles in Hoffmann's Lexicon Bibliographicum.
Many of the testimonres respecting Philemon are rendered uncertain by the frequently
occurring confusion between the names Philemon, Philetaerus, Philetas,
Philippides, Philipus, Philiscus, Philistion, Philon, Philoxenus. and others with the
same commencement, that is, with the initial syllable Phil. which is
often used in MSS. as an abbreviation of these names. Even the name of Diphilus is sometimes confounded with Philemon, as well as with
Philon (see Meineke, Men. et Phil. Reliq. pp.
7-11). One of the most important instances in which this confusion has been made is in the
title of a collection of fragments, arranged in the way of comparison with one another, under
the title