A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Σαννυρίων), an Athenian comic poet, belonging to the latter years of the Old Comedy, and the beginning of the Middle.

He was contemporary with Diocles and Philyllius (Suid. s. v. Διοκλῆς). Since he ridiculed the pronunciation of Hegelochus, the actor of the Orestes of Euripides, which was brought out in B. C. 408, he must have been exhibiting comedies soon after that year (Schol. ad Eur. Orest. 279 ; Schol. ad Aristoph. Frogs 305 ; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. s. a. 407, and Preface, p. xxix.). On the other hand, if the comedy entitled Io, which is mentioned in the didascalic monument (Böckh, Corp. Inscr. vol. i. p. 353) be the Io of Sannyrion, his age would be brought down to S. C. 374.

We know nothing of his personal history, except that his excessive leanness was ridiculed by Strattis in his Cinesias and Psychastae (Pollux, 10.189; Ath. xii. p. 551c.; for explanations of the passages, see Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 769, 785); and also by Aristophanes in the Gerytades, where he and Meletus and Cinesias are chosen as ambassadors from the poets to the shades below, because, being shades themselves, they were frequent visitants of that region (ᾁδοφοῖται, Ath. l.c. a; comp. the editions of the Fragments by Bekker, Dindorf, and Bergk apud Meineke). It is a proof of how lightly and good-humouredly such jests were thrown about by the comic poets, that Sannyrion himself ridiculed Meletus on precisely the same ground in his Τέλως, calling him τὸν ὰπὸ Ληναίου νεκρόν (Ath. l c.). He also returned the compliment to Aristophanes, by ridiculing him for spending his life in working for others; referring doubtless to his habit of bringing out his comedies in other persons' names. (Schol. ad Plat. p. 331, ed. Bekker; comp. PHILONIDES.)

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