Philocles (), was an

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

tragic poet during the 5th century BC. Through his mother, Philopatho (), he had three famous uncles:

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

, the famous poet, Cynaegirus, hero of the

battle of Marathon The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens (polis), Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Achaemenid Empire, Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaph ...

, and Ameinias, hero of the

battle of Salamis The Battle of Salamis ( ) was a naval battle fought in 480 BC, between an alliance of Greek city-states under Themistocles, and the Achaemenid Empire under King Xerxes. It resulted in a victory for the outnumbered Greeks. The battle was fou ...

. The ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

'' claims that Philocles was the father of the tragic playwright Morsimus, who was in turn the father of the tragedian

Astydamas the Elder Astydamas () was a tragic poet of ancient Greece who lived around the turn of 4th century BCE, from roughly 423 to 363 BCE. He is very often confounded in ancient sources with his more well known and successful son Astydamas, Astydamas the Younger, ...

and was in his turn the father of the tragedian

Astydamas the Younger Astydamas (), or sometimes Astydamas the Younger or Astydamas Minor, was a tragic poet of ancient Greece, who lived at Athens and was by far the most celebrated and prolific dramatist of the 4th century BCE. He was active from roughly 373 BCE to ...

.Suda φ 378

Works

According to the ''Suda'', Philocles wrote 100 tragedies. Philocles is best known for winning first prize in the competition against

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

' ''

Oedipus Rex ''Oedipus Rex'', also known by its Greek title, ''Oedipus Tyrannus'' (, ), or ''Oedipus the King'', is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. While some scholars have argued that the play was first performed , this is highly uncertain. Originally, to ...

''. Philocles also wrote a play on the subject of

Tereus In Greek mythology, Tereus (; Ancient Greek: Τηρεύς) was a Thracian king,Thucydides: ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' 2:29 the son of Ares and the naiad Bistonis. He was the brother of Dryas. Tereus was the husband of the Athenian pr ...

, which was parodied in

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

' '' The Birds'' along with Sophocles' treatment of the same subject. A

scholiast Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient au ...

has noted that Philocles' ''Tereus'' was part of his '' Pandionis'' tetralogy. An extant fragment shows that Philocles wrote a play covering the story of Hermione,

Neoptolemus In Greek mythology, Neoptolemus (; ), originally called Pyrrhus at birth (; ), was the son of the mythical warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia, and the brother of Oneiros. He became the progenitor of the ruling dynasty of the Molossian ...

and

Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; ) was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and the brother of Electra and Iphigenia. He was also known by the patronymic Agamemnonides (), meaning "son of Agamemnon." He is the subject of several ...

, a subject also addressed by

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

in his play ''

Andromache In Greek mythology, Andromache (; , ) was the wife of Hector, daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, over which her father ruled. The name means "man battler", "fighter of men" or "m ...

'' and by Sophocles in his '' Hermione''. In Philocles' version of the Hermione myth, Hermione is betrothed to Neoptolemus by her father

Menelaus In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; ) was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre- Dorian) Sparta. According to the ''Iliad'', the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus's wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. Menelaus was a central ...

while she is pregnant with Orestes' child. Philocles also wrote plays entitled ''

Oedipus Oedipus (, ; "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family. ...

'' and ''

Philoctetes Philoctetes ( ''Philoktētēs''; , ), or Philocthetes, according to Greek mythology, was the son of Poeas, king of Meliboea (Magnesia), Meliboea in Thessaly, and Demonassa or Methone (Greek myth), Methone. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer ...

''. The ''Suda'' also names the following as plays of Philocles: ''Erigone'', ''Nauplius'', ''Oineus'', ''Priam'', and ''Penelope''.

References

Ancient Greek tragic poets 5th-century BC Athenians 5th-century BC Greek poets Ancient Athenian dramatists and playwrights {{AncientGreece-poet-stub

Works

See also

References