Alexis (poet)

Alexis (Ancient Greek: Ἄλεξις; fl. 350s – 288 BC) was a Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy period. He was born in Thurii (in present-day Calabria, Italy) in Magna Graecia and taken early to Athens,¹ where he became a citizen, being enrolled in the deme Oion (Οἶον) and the tribe Leontides.²³ It is thought he lived to the age of 106 and died on the stage while being crowned. According to the Suda, a 10th-century encyclopedia, Alexis was the paternal uncle of the dramatist Menander and wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments now survive, including some 130 preserved titles.

Life

He appears to have been rather addicted to the pleasures of the table, according to Athenaeus.³⁴ He had a son named Stephanus (Στέφανος) who was also a comic poet.⁵

He won his first Lenaean victory in the 350s BC, most likely, where he was sixth after Eubulus, and fourth after Antiphanes. While being a Middle Comic poet, Alexis was contemporary with several leading figures of New Comedy, such as Philippides, Philemon, Diphilus, and even Menander. There is also some evidence that, during his old age, he wrote plays in the style of New Comedy.

Plutarch says that he lived to the age of 106 and 5 months, and that he died on the stage while being crowned victor. He was certainly alive after 345 BC, for mentions him as alive in that year. He was also living at least as late as 288 BC, from which his birth date is calculated. According to the he wrote 245 comedies, of which only fragments including some 130 titles survive. His plays include , , , (exhibited in 360 BC, in which he ridiculed ), (in which he ridiculed Misgolas), and the and the , in which he satirized , and acted shortly after 343 BC. Also (316 BC) (in which he referred to the decree of against the philosophers), (312 BC), (306 BC), (306 BC), and .