Diphilus

Who was Diphilus?

Diphilus, of Sinope, was a poet of the new Attic comedy and contemporary of Menander. Most of his plays were written and acted at Athens, but he led a wandering life, and died at Smyrna.

He was on intimate terms with the famous courtesan Gnathaena. He is said to have written 100 comedies, the titles of fifty of which are preserved. He sometimes acted himself. To judge from the imitations of Plautus, he was very skilful in the construction of his plots. Terence also tells us that he introduced into the Adelphi a scene from the Συναποθνήσκοντες, which had been omitted by Plautus in his adaptation of the same play.

The style of Diphilus was simple and natural, and his language on the whole good Attic; he paid great attention to versification, and was supposed to have invented a peculiar kind of metre. The ancients were undecided whether to class him among the writers of the New or Middle comedy. In his fondness for mythological subjects and his introduction on the stage of the poets Archilochus and Hipponax as rivals of Sappho, he approximates to the spirit of the latter.