Phormis

Phormis (Φόρμις, around 478 BC?) is one of the originators of Greek comedy, or of a parti­cular form of it. Aristotle identified him as one of the originators of comedy, along with Epicharmus of Kos. He was said to be the first to introduce actors with robes reaching to the ankles, and to ornament the stage with skins dyed purple—as drapery it may be presumed.

The Suda gave a list of his comedies:

• Admetus
• Alcinous
• Alcyone
• Atalante
• Cepheus (or Kephalaia)
• Hippos ("The Horse")
• Iliou Porthesis ("The Sacking of Troy")
• Perseus

References

• Aristotle, Poetics, c. 5.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece.
• The Suda Lexicon, ll. cc.
• Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, xiv. p. 652, a.
• Fabricius. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 315.

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