Sophron of Syracuse (, ''

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

'' 430 BC),

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

, was a writer of mimes (μῖμος, a kind of prose drama). Sophron was the author of prose dialogues in the Doric dialect, containing both male and female characters, some serious, others humorous in style, and depicting scenes from the daily life of the Sicilian Greeks. Although in prose, they were regarded as poems; in any case they were not intended for stage representation. They were written in pithy and popular language, full of proverbs and colloquialisms.

Influence

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

is said to have introduced Sophron's works into

Athens 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 ...

and to have made use of them in his dialogues; according to

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; , ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving book ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek ph ...

, they were Plato's constant companions, and he even slept with them under his pillow; 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 ...

'' says of the mimes of Sophron, "Plato the philosopher always read them, so as to be sent into an occasional doze." Some idea of their general character may be gathered from the 2nd and 15th idylls of

Theocritus Theocritus (; , ''Theokritos''; ; born 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily, Magna Graecia, and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry. Life Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings ...

, which are said to have been imitated from the ''Akestriai'' and ''Isthmiazousai'' of his Syracusan predecessor. Their influence is also to be traced in the satires of Persius.

Editions

The fragments of Sophron are collected in: * Ahrens, H. L., ''De graecae linguae dialectis'' (1843), ii. (app.), and C. J. Botzon (1867); see also his ''De Sophrone et Xenarcho mimographis'' (1856). The most recent edition is: * Hordern, J. H., ''Sophron's Mimes: Text, Translation, and Commentary'', Oxford, 2004. .

References

Ancient Syracusans 5th-century BC Greek poets Ancient Greek comic poets Doric Greek poets Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{AncientGreece-writer-stub