Epicrates of Ambracia

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Epicrates of Ambracia(Greek:Επικράτης Αμβρακιώτης), was an Ambraciote who lived in Athens,a comic poet of the Middle Comedy, ac­cording to the testimony of Athenaeus (x. p. 422, f.), confirmed by extant fragments of his plays, in which he ridicules Plato and his disciples, Speusippus and Menedemus, and in which he refers to the courtesan Lais of Corinth, as being now far advanced in years. (Athen. ii. p. 59, d., xiii. p. 570, b.) From these indications Meineke infers that he flourished between the 101st and 108th Olympiads (376—348 BC). Two plays of Epicrates, Emporus (Merchant)and Antilais(Against Lais) are mentioned by Suidas (s. «.), and are quoted by Athenaeus (xiv. p. 655, f., xiii. pp. 570, b., 605, e.), who also quotes his Amazones(x. p. 422, f.) and Dyspratus(Hard to Sell) (vi. p. 262, d.), and in­forms us that in the latter play Epicrates copied some things from the Dyspratus of Antiphanes. Aelian (N.A.xii. 10) quotes the Chorus (Dance) of Epi­crates.

[edit] References

• Athenaeus (ii. p. 59, c.)(xiii. p. 570, b.)(xi. p. 782, f)(xiv. p. 655, f.)
• Julius Pollux (iv. 121)
• Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 414, 415, vol. iii. pp. 365—373
• Fabricius. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp.440, 441.
• Epicrates of Ambracia

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).