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

(Στράττις or Στράτις, but the former is the more correct orthography), an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy, flourished, according to Suidas, a little later than Callias. He must therefore have begun to exhibit about Ol. 92, B. C. 412. He was in part contemporary with Sannyrion and Philyllius, both of whom are attacked in extant quotations from his works (Schol. Aristoph. Pl. 1195 ; Ath. xii. p. 551c.; Poll. 10.189.) The drama of Strattis in which Philyllius was attacked was the Ποτάμιοι, which, the Scholiast says, was brought out before the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes, and therefore not later than B. C. 394 or 393 (see Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. s. a. 394). Again, in his Ἀνθρωπορραίστης he attacked Hegelochus, the actor of the Orestes of Euripides; so that this play must have been brought out later than B. C. 408. the year in which the Orestes was exhibited (Schol. Eur. Orest. 278 ; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. s. a. 407). Strattis was still exhibiting at the end of the 99th Olympiad, B. C. 380, for we cannot well refer to an earlier period his attack on Isocrates on account of his fondness for Lagisca when he was far advanced in years (Ath. xiii. p. 592d.; Harpocr. s. v. Λαγίσκα). We have little opportunity of forming a judgment on the poetical character of Strattis. His intense admiration of the Orestes of Euripides does not say much for his taste (Schol. Eur. Orest. 278). From the epithet φορτικόν, applied to one of his plays, it may be inferred that he indulged in that low and insipid buffoonery, with which Aristophanes frequently charges his rivals (Hesych. s. v. κολεκάνοι; comp. Aristoph. Cl. 524, Vesp. 66 ; Aristot. EN 4.8; Plut. Op. Mor. p. 348c.)

According to an anonymous writer on Comedy (p. xxxiv.) Strattis composed sixteen dramas. Suidas mentions the following titles of his plays : Ἀνθρωπορέστης, or, as it should be, Ἀνθρωπορραίστης, Ἀταλάντη, Ἀγαθοί ἤτοι Ἀργυρίου ἀφανισμόρ, Ἰφιγέρων, Καλλιπίδης, Κινησίας, Λιμνομέδων, Μακεδόνες, Μήδεια, Τρωϊͅλορ, Φοἰνισσαι, Φιλοκτήτης, Χρύσιππος, παυσανίας, ψυχασταί, in addition to which, four titles are mentioned by other writers, namely, Ζώπυρος περικαιόμενος, Μυρμιδόνερ, ποτάμιοι, πύτισος. His name sometimes appears in the corrupted form Στράτων, and some scholars have supposed the comic poets Strattis and Straton to be one and the same person; but this opinion is undoubtedly erroneous. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 221-236, 427, vol. ii. pp. 763, foil., Editio Minor, pp. 428, foil.; Bergk, Reliq. Com. Att. Ant. pp. 284, 285; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. Introd. p. xliv. note r.)

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