Machon ( Ancient Greek: Μάχων, fl. 3rd century BC) was a

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

of the New Comedy. He was born in Corinth or

Sicyon Sicyon (; el, Σικυών; ''gen''.: Σικυῶνος) or Sikyon was an ancient Greek city state situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day regional unit of Corinthia. An ancient mona ...

, and lived in Alexandria. It is said that he taught the grammarian

Aristophanes of Byzantium __NOTOC__ Aristophanes of Byzantium ( grc-gre, Ἀριστοφάνης ὁ Βυζάντιος ; BC) was a Hellenistic Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other ...

. Two fragments from two of his plays, ''Agnoia'' (Ignorance) and ''Epistole'' (The Letter), survive, along with 462 verses from a book of anecdotes about the words and deeds of notorious

Athenians 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 a ...

, preserved in the ''

Deipnosophistae The ''Deipnosophistae'' is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work ( grc, Δειπνοσοφισταί, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. "The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts") by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of liter ...

'' of Athenaeus. Dioscorides wrote an epitaph for Machon that has also survived.

References

A. S. F. Gow Andrew Sydenham Farrar Gow (27 August 1886 – 2 February 1978) was an English classical scholar and teacher. Apart from eleven years as a master at Eton College between 1914 and 1925 his career was entirely at Trinity College, Cambridge. At T ...

, ''Machon: The Fragments'' (Cambridge, 1965) hardback , paperback
info online
* Rudolf Kassel and Colin Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci (for the comic fragments) * Harry Thurston Peck, ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'' (1898
Machon
Ancient Greek dramatists and playwrights Ancient Corinthians Ancient Sicyonians Ptolemaic court New Comic poets 3rd-century BC Greek people {{AncientGreece-writer-stub