Achaeus of Eretria

Achaeus from Eretria (c. 484 BC; † before 406 BC) was a Greek tragedians, of which only a few fragments survive.

Life and work

We are aware of only sporadic information in Athenaeus, and by a Byzantine Vita Suda ( 10th century ) About his work. According to Suda his father Pythodoros or Pythorides was called; he was so born during the 76th Olympics by 484 BC and was a lot younger than his contemporaries, Sophocles and Euripides. At the 83rd Olympiad ( around 454 BC), he appeared for the first time in Athens on a piece and competed with Euripides. He is said to have suffered only one win in the tragedy competition in the course of his career. He must have died before the performance of the Frogs of Aristophanes, since it is not mentioned among the enumerated therein surviving tragedy writers.

About the number of his pieces are merely the Suda information: He is said to have written 44, 30 or 24 pieces, eleven, eight, or six tetralogies. His pieces have to have survived to the Hellenistic period, where Achaeus was next to Ion of Chios and Iophon in the " second tier " of the Attic tragedians queued ( behind Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides ). Only 19 titles are known to us today, of which at least six are probably ten satyr plays. This focus makes the judgment of the philosopher of Eretria Menedemus understandable that Achaeus in the satyr play only inferior to Aeschylus.

The effect of history of Achaeus can only fragmentary reconstructed. The comedy writer Aristophanes parodied him once proven, his colleague Euripides is said to have taken a sentence from him, the grammarian and philologist Didymos Chalkenteros written after the news of Athenaeus a review of his dramas.

Known pieces

The fragments are quoted from the page numbers and the consecutive numbering of Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1889 by August Nauck. The first fragment collection to Achaeus delivered Ludwig von Urlichs in his dissertation Achaei Eretriensis quae super sunt (Bonn 1834).