Plato (comic poet)

Plato the comic poet (also the comedian Plato, Plato Latin comicus called ) was a senior by 20 years as a contemporary of the same name famous philosophers and lived like this in Athens. He began his career as a playwright Aristophanes at the same time (428 BC) and still led under the Archon Philocles ( 391 BC) comedies. He is considered one of the more important representatives of the older Attic comedy. Some literary historians, he is also associated with the middle comedy.

Little is known about his personal circumstances. Allegedly, he has also sealed with others comedies that have been submitted by buyers as legally acquired property, under their own names in the dramatic competitions. This could indicate that Plato came from modest circumstances and was dependent on these cash receipts.

Of the comedies Plato some fragments and title information are preserved. Fragments of his comedies Hyperbolos, Kleophon and Cinesias bear witness to the bitterness of his attacks on popular leader, speaker and fellow poets of his time. In Athenaeus alone to find out citing 23 of his comedies, of which he (at least) has written 28. In the comedy The victories he made ​​fun of Aristophanes ' colossal goddess of peace in its peace. 405 BC Plato Kleophon of Aristophanes ' frogs and Phrynichus ' muses defeated in the favor of the audience. His play The Desolate had the desperate situation of the state to the object.

Besides political comedies Plato also wrote literary as The Laconians or the poet. The play The Sophists possibly followed a similar trend as Aristophanes ' Clouds. The play The stage apparatus seems to have been a satire on the equipment of the tragedies. In the garbage he satirically took the Myniskos Schlemmer, an actor of Aeschylus, before. About The Griffins, the only piece of Plato with a symbolic choir, giving the surviving fragments is not the slightest indication. Myths comedies were: Adonis, Laius, Menelaus, Europe, Io. The play The long night was referring to the night, spent the father of the gods Zeus with Alcmene. From the content of the play The battered Zeus the title reveals little. From Phaon some fragments have received, which shows that this comedy had thematic parallels to Grillparzer's Sappho.

Expenditure

• Rudolf Kassel, Colin Austin (ed.): poetae Comici Graeci, Volume 7, De Gruyter, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-11-012035-6, pp. 431-548