Poseidippus of Cassandreia

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For the epigrammatic poet, see Posidipus of Pella

Poseidippus of Cassandreia or Posidippus (Greek: Ποσείδιππος ὁ Κασσανδρεύς) (316 BC – ca. 250 BC) son of Cyniscus, a Macedonian who lived in Athens, was a celebrated comic poet of the New Comedy. He produced his first play in the third year after Menander had died, (289 BC). Cooks held an important position in his list of characters. According to Aulus Gellius, Latin comic poets had imitated Poseidippus. His success is shown in a beautiful portrait and sitting statue in the Vatican, which is considered a masterpiece of Classical Art.

In studying Poseidippus' language, Augustus Meineke has detected some new words and old words used in a new sense, completely unknown to the best Attic writers. According to Suidas he wrote 40 plays of which the following titles and fragments are preserved.

[edit] Works

  • Αναβλέπων Anablepon - The one who sees again
  • Αποκλειομένη Apokleiomene - The barred woman
  • Γαλάτης Galates - The Gaul
  • Δήμοται Demotae - Citizens
  • Ἑρμαφρόδιτος Hermaphroditus
  • Επίσταθμος Epistathmus -Harmost or Symposiarch
  • Εφεσία Ephesia -The Ephesian Girl
  • Κώδων Codon -The Bell
  • Λοκρίδες Locrides -The Locrian women
  • Μεταφερόμενοι Metapheromenoi -The transported ones
  • Μύρμηξ Myrmex -Ant
  • Ομοιοι Homoeoi -The Twins
  • Παιδίον Paedion -The Child
  • Πορνοβοσκός Pornoboscus -The Pimp
  • Σύντροφοι Syntrophoi -Comrades
  • Φιλόσοφοι Philosophoi -Philosophers
  • Φιλοπάτωρ Philopator -The Father-loving
  • Χορεύουσαι Chorevousae -Dancing Girls

But Poseidippus the comic writer, in his Pornoboscus, says

 The man who never went to sea has never shipwrecked been.
 But we have been more miserable than monomachs

Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists 4.150 F

Now the comic poet Poseidippus says of her these words, in The Woman from Ephesus(Ephesia) Phryne was once the most illustrious of us courtesans by far. And even though you are too young to remember that time, you must at least have heard of her trial. Although she was thought to have wrought too great injury to men's lives, she nevertheless captured the court when tried for her life, and, clasping the hands of the judges, one by one, she with the help of her tears saved her life at last.

Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists Book 13

[edit] Poseidippus Sculpture

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[edit] References

  • Suidas Lexicon
  • Ancient Library
  • Graecorum comicorum fragmenta Augustus Meineke
  • Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae Latin text -Attic Nights ii.23 Translation
  • Acosta-Hughes, Benjamin, Elizabeth Kosmetatou, Manuel Baumbach, Labored in Papyrus Leaves: Perspectives on an Epigram Collection attributed to Posidippus (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), Pp. 377.
  • Lapini, Walter, Capitoli su Posidippo (Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2007), Pp. xvii, 493 (Hellenica, 25).