A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

33'2 PHILOXENUS. PHILOXENUS.
in 01. 86. 2, B. C. 435. The time when he most poem, although Athenaeus and some modern critics
flourished was, according to Diodorus (xiv. 46), in suppose the allusion to be to a poem by Philoxenus,
01. 95. 2, B. C. 398. the Leucadian, on the art of cookery. It is true
The brief account of his life in Suidas involves that the latter was known for his fondness of luxsome difficulties; he states that, when the Cythe- urious living; but the coincidence would be too
reans were reduced to slavery by the Lacedaemo- remarkable, and the confusion between the two
nians, Philoxenus was bought by a certain Age- Philoxeni utterly hopeless, if we were to suppose,
sylas, by whom he was brought up, and was called with Schmidt and others, that they both wrote
Mvpjuii: and that, after the death of Agesylas, he poems of so similar a character about the same
was bought by the lyric poet Melanippides, by time. (Meineke, Frag Corn. Graec. vol. ii. pp.
whom he was also educated. Now there isnorecord 672-674; Bergk, Comment. pp. 211, 212;
of the Lacedaemonians having reduced the Cythe- Schmidt, Dithyramb. p. 11, &c.)
reans to slavery; but we know that the island was These testimonies all point to the very end of
seized by an Athenian expedition under Nicias, in the fifth and the beginning of the fourth centuries
B. c. 424 (Thuc. iv. 53, 54; Diod. Sic. xii. 65; B. C., as the time when Philoxenus flourished.
Plut. Nic. 6); and therefore some critics propose There is, indeed, a passage in the Clouds (332),
to read'A071ralcwv for AaKE3atLAovlWv (Meineke, which the scholiast explains as referring to him,
Frag. Com. Graec. vol. iv. p. 635). This solution but which must allude to Philoxenus the Leucais not quite satisfactory, and another, of much in- dian, if to either, as Philoxenus of Cythera was
genuity, is proposed by Schmidt (DitLyramnb. pp. only in his 11th year at the time of the first exhi5, 6); but it is not worth while here to discuss bition of the Clouds, and in his 15th at the time
the question further, since the only important part of the second. Possibly, however, the comment
of the statement, namely, that Philoxenus was results from a mere confusion in the mind of the
really a slave in his youth, is quite sustained by scholiast, who, seeing in the text of Aristophanes
other testimonies, especially by the allusions to him a joke on the voracity of the dithyrambic poets of
in the comic poets (see Hesych. s. v. AoV'Xw'a; his day, and having read of the gluttony of PhiloMeineke, 1. c.). Schmidt (pp. 7, 8) very inge- xenus of Leucadia, identified the latter with Phiniously conjectures that there is an allusion to Phi- loxenus the dithyrambic poet, and therefore suploxenus in the Frogs of Aristophanes (v. 1506), in posed him to be referred to by Aristophanes.
the name M'pwIcKL, which we have seen that At what time Philoxenus left Athens and went
Suidas says to have been given to him by his first to Sicily, cannot be determined. Schmidt (p. 15)
master, and which belongs to a class of words which supposes that he went as a colonist, after the first
seem to have been often used for the names of victories of Dionysius over the Catrthaginians, B. C.
slaves. Others, however, suppose the name to 396; that he speedily obtained the favour of Diohave been a nickname given to him by the comic nysius, and took up his abode at his court at Syrapoets, to express the intricacy of his musical strains, cuse, the luxury of which furnished him with the
the c-'pardlxovs lAvp/TlIcidC, as Pherecrates calls theme of his poem entitled A7~Er'ov. However
them (see below). this may be, we know that he soon offended DionyHe was educated, says Suidas, by Melanippides, sius, and was cast into prison; an act of oppression
of course in that poet's own profession, that of which most writers ascribe to the wounded vanity
dithyrambic poetry, in which, if the above inter- of the tyrant, whose poems I'hiloxenus not only
pretation of the allusion in the Frogs be correct, he refused to praise, but, on being asked to revise one
had already attained to considerable eminence of them, said that the best way of correcting it
before B. C. 408; which agrees very well with the would be to draw a black line through the whole
statement of Diodorus (1. c.), according to which paper. Another account ascribes his disgrace to
he was at the height of his fame seven years too close an intimacy with the tyrant's mistress
later. Pherecrates also attacked him in his Galateia; but this looks like a fiction, arising out
Cleiron, as one of the corruptors of music; at of a misunderstanding of the object of his poem enleast Plutarch applies to him a part of the passage; titled Cyclops or Galateia. It appears that, after
and if this application be correct, we have another some time, he was released from prison, and reallusion to his name MvJppu1, in the mention of stored outwardly to the favour of Dionysius; but
eKcTparrEAovs FUvpi.tlcdsa (Plut. de Mus. 30, p. 1146, either in consequence of some new quarrel, or
as explained and corrected by Meineke, Frag. Corn. because he had a distrust of the tyrant's feelings
(Graec. vol. ii. pp. 326-335). In the Gerytades of towards him, he finally left his court: other accounts
*Aristophanes, which was also on the prevalent cor- say nothing of his reconciliation, but simply that
ruptions of poetry and music, and which seems to he escaped fiom prison, and went to the country
have been acted some little time after the Frogs, of the Cythereans, where he composed his poem
though Philoxenus is not mentioned by name, Galateia (Sclsol. ad Aristoph. Plut. 290). Accordthere are passages which are, to all appearance, ing to Suidas he went to Tarentum (S. a. v. todE'vOL
parodies upon his poem entitled Ae77rVov (Fr. xii. ypajudLrrov). There is a curious story related by
xiii. ed. Bergk, ap. Meineke, Fray. Com. Graec. Plutarch, that he gave up his estate in Sicily, and
vol. ii. pp. 1009, 1010). In the lEcclesiazusae left tle island, in order that he might not be seduced,
also, B. C. 392, there is a passage which is almost by the wealth he derived from it, into the luxury
certainly a similar parody (vv. 1167-1178; which prevailed around him (Plut. de Vit. Aer.
Bergk, Comment. de Reliq. Comoed. Att. Antiq. p. alien. p. 831). Schmidt endeavours to reconcile
212). There is also a long passage in the Phaon this statement with the former, by supposing that,
of the comic poet Plato, which seems to have been after he left the court of Dionysius, he resided for
acted in the year after the Ecclesiazusce, B. C. 391, some time on his Sicilian estate, and afterwards
professing to be read from a book, which the person gave it up, in the way mentioned by Plutarch, and
who has it calls QtoE'Yov cKaLo'Aris O'/apTuvma, then departed finally from the island. It is doubtwhich is almost certainly a parody on the same ful where the last years of his life were spent,