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

(Τόλυνος), of Megara, is supposed to have been a comic poet of the Old Comedy, before Cratinus, and about contemporary with Ecphantides, on the authority of a passage in the Etymologicum Magnum, which seems to ascribe to him the invention of the metre afterwards called the Cratinean. (Etym. Mag. p. 761. 47, Τολύνειον τὸ καλούμενον Κρατίνειον μέτρον, κ. τ. λ.) It appears, however, very probable that Τολύνειον, in this passage, is only a false reading for Τελλήνειον, and that the reference is to the lyric poet and musician Tellen. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 38, 39.)

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