Chionides (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Χιονίδης or Χιωνίδης) an

Athenian Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

comic poet Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods: Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, an ...

of the 5th century BC, contemporary of Magnes. The ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...

'' says that Chionides flourished eight years before the

Greco-Persian Wars The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the ...

, that is, 487 BC. But

Augustus Meineke Johann Albrecht Friedrich August Meineke (also ''Augustus Meineke''; ; 8 December 179012 December 1870), German classical scholar, was born at Soest in the Duchy of Westphalia. He was father-in-law to philologist Theodor Bergk.

thinks that Chionides flourished no earlier than 460 BC. In confirmation of this date he quotes from

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...

, who quoted a fragment of Chionides' Πτωχοί (Beggars), which mentions

Gnesippus Gnesippus ( el, Γνήσιππος), son of Cleomachus, a Doric lyric poet, according to Meineke, whose light and licentious love verses were attacked by the Athenian comic poets Chionides, Cratinus, and Eupolis. The passages quoted by Athenaeus ...

, a poet contemporary with

Cratinus Cratinus ( grc-gre, Κρατῖνος; 519 BC – 422 BC) was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy. Life Cratinus was victorious 27 known times, eight times at the City Dionysia, first probably in the mid-to-late 450s BCE (IG II2 2325. 50), ...

. Aristotle also notes that Chionides "lived long after Epicharmus". But Athenaeus also noted that some critics at the time regarded Chionides' Πτωχοί as spurious. Similarly, some scholars (e.g.

Heinrich Ritter Heinrich August Ritter (; 21 November 1791 – 3 February 1869) was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. He was born in Zerbst, and studied philosophy and theology at the University of Göttingen and Berlin until 1815. In 1824 he be ...

) strongly argue against the genuineness of Aristotle's observations. Titles of his comedies: *Ἥρωες (''Heroes''), The Heroes *Πτωχοί (''Ptochoi''), Poor People, or Beggars *Πέρσαι (''Persai''), The Persians, or Ἁσσυριοι (''Assyrioi''), The Assyrians

Fragments

*Theodor Kock. ''Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta'', i. (1880). *

. ''Potarum Graecorum comicorum fragmenta'', (1855). *Rudolf Kassel, Colin Austin. ''Poetae comici Graeci'' Volume 4. (1983)

References

Chionides

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 p ...

Chionidestheatrehistory.com
*This article paraphrased from an article i

. 5th-century BC Athenians Ancient Greek dramatists and playwrights 5th-century BC writers Old Comic poets {{AncientGreece-writer-stub