Epicharmus of Kos - Works

Works

Epicharmus wrote somewhere between thirty-five and fifty-two comedies, though many have been lost or exist only in fragments. Along with his contemporary Phormis, he was alternately praised or denounced for ridiculing the great mythic heroes.

His two most famous works were Agrostinos ("The Country-Dweller," or "Rustic"), which dealt humorously with the agricultural lifestyle, and Hebes Gamos ("The Marriage of Hebe"), in which Hercules was portrayed as a glutton. Additional works include

  • Alkyon
  • Amykos ("Amycus")
  • Harpagai
  • Bakkhai
  • Bousiris ("Busiris")
  • Ga Kai Thalassa ("Earth and Sea")
  • Deukalion ("Deucalion")
  • Dionysoi ("The Dionysuses")
  • Diphilus
  • Elpis ("Hope"), or Ploutos ("Wealth")
  • Heorta kai Nasoi
  • Epinikios
  • Herakleitos ("Heraclitus")
  • Thearoi ("Spectators")
  • Hephaistos, or Komastai ("The Revelers")
  • Kyklops ("The Cyclops")
  • Logos Kai Logeina
  • Megaris ("Woman From Megara")
  • Menes ("Months")
  • Odysseus Automolos ("Odysseus the Deserter")
  • Odysseus Nauagos ("Odysseus Shipwrecked")
  • Orya ("The Sausage")
  • Periallos
  • Persai ("The Persians")
  • Pithon ("The Little Ape" or "Monkey")
  • Seirenes ("Sirens")
  • Skiron
  • Sphinx
  • Triakades
  • Troes ("Trojan Men")
  • Philoktetes ("Philoctetes")
  • Choreuontes ("The Dancers")
  • Chytrai ("The Pots")

According to Diogenes Laërtius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers, III, 9, Plato plagiarized several of Epicharmus's ideas. "e derived great assistance from Epicharmus the Comic poet, for he transcribed a great deal from him, as Alcimus says in the essays dedicated to Amyntas …." Laërtius then lists, in III, 10, the several ways that Plato "employs the words of Epicharmus."

Read more about this topic:  Epicharmus Of Kos

Famous quotes containing the word works:

    “For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast
    crowned him with glory and honor.
    Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;”
    —Bible: Hebrew Psalm VIII (l. VIII, 5–6)

    “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.”
    —Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 107:23-4.

    “Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.”
    —Rebecca West (1892–1983)