Minor Middle Comedy poets


The following people were all minor authors of Greek Middle Comedy. None of their works have survived intact, but later writers of Late Antiquity provide the titles of some of their plays as well as brief quotations.

Diocles

The following six titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Diocles' work. The Suda states that some accounts claimed that Diocles invented a means of playing music by striking saucers and pottery vessels with a wooden stick.
  • The Bacchae
  • Bees
  • The Cyclopes
  • Dreams
  • Thalatta
  • ''Thyestes''

Diodorus

The following five titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Diodorus' work.
  • The Corpse
  • The Female Flautist
  • The Heiress
  • The Madman
  • ''People at the Assembly''

Ophelion

Kassel-Austin places Ophelion in the Middle Comedy period. The Suda credits him with six plays: Callaeschrus, Centaur, Deucalion, Muses, Recluses, and Satyrs. Athenaeus cites his work four times.

Philiscus

The following eight titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Philiscus' work.

Polyzelus

The following six titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Polyzelus' work.

Sophilus

The Suda claims that Sophilus was from either Sicyon or Thebes. The following nine titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Sophilus' work.
  • Androcles
  • The Citharode
  • The Deposit
  • The Handbook
  • Marriage
  • The Phylarch
  • Those Running Together
  • The Woman From Delos
  • Tyndareos or ''Leda''

Sotades of Athens

The Suda confuses this playwright with the iambic poet Sotades of Maroneia. Of his work, only the following three titles have come down to us: Charinus, The Ransomed Man, and The Shut-In Women.

Theophilus

The following nine titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Theophilus' work.

Timotheus of Athens

The Suda lists four plays by Timotheus of Athens : The Boxer, The Changing Man, The Deposit, and The Puppy. Only one four-line quotation of Timotheus' work survives, a quotation from The Puppy by Athenaeus.

Xenarchus

The following eight titles, along with associated fragments, are all that survives of Xenarchus' work.
  • Boutalion
  • The Pentathlete
  • Porphyra
  • Priapus
  • The Scythians
  • Sleep
  • The Soldier
  • ''The Twins''