View source for Pherecrates

{{Short description|5th-century BC Athenian Old Comedy poet}}
'''Pherecrates''' ([[Greek_Language|Greek]]: Φερεκράτης) was a [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] [[poet]] of Athenian [[Old Comedy]], and a rough contemporary of [[Cratinus]], [[Crates (comic poet)|Crates]] and [[Aristophanes]]. 

He was victorious at least once at the [[City Dionysia]], first probably in the mid-440s (IG II2 2325. 56; the fourth entry after [[Teleclides]] and three poets whose names have been lost, and just before [[Hermippus]]), and twice at the [[Lenaia]], first probably in the mid- to late 430s (IG II2 2325. 122; just after Cratinus and just before Hermippus). He was especially famous for his inventive imagination, and the elegance and purity of his diction are attested by the epithet Ἀττικώτατος (most Attic) applied to him by [[Athenaeus]] and the [[sophist]] [[Phrynichus Arabius|Phrynichus]]. He was the inventor of a new [[meter (poetry)|meter]], called after him, the [[Pherecratean]], which frequently occurs in the choruses of [[Greek tragedies]] and in [[Horace]]. According to an anonymous essay on tragedy,{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} Pherecrates wrote 18 plays, suggesting that one or more of the 19 surviving titles must be eliminated somehow (i.e. by assigning the play to another author who wrote a comedy by the same name, and assuming an ancient scholarly error, or by identifying e.g. The Human Heracles and The Fake Heracles as a single play with multiple titles).

==Surviving Titles and Fragments==
288 fragments (including six dubia) of his comedies survive, along with the following 19 titles:

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
*''Agathoi'' ("The Good Men")
*''Agrioi'' ("The Wild Men," or "The Savages")
*''Anthropherakles'' ("The Human Heracles"; possibly the same play as ''Pseuderakles'')
*''Automoloi'' ("The Deserters")
*''Graes'' ("The Old Women," or "The Hags")
*''Doulodidaskalos'' ("The Slave Teacher")
*''Epilesmon'' ("The Forgetful Man") or ''Thalatta'' ("The Sea")
*''Ipnos'' ("The Kitchen") or ''Pannychis'' (The All-Night Festival")
*''Korianno'' ("Corianno")
*''Krapataloi'' ("The Good-For-Nothings")
*''Leroi'' ("Jewelry")
*''Metalles'' ("The Miners")
*''Metoikoi'' ("The Resident Aliens")
*''Myrmekanthropoi'' ("The Ant-Men")
*''Persai'' ("The Persians")
*''Petale'' ("Petale")
*''Tyrannis'' ("Tyranny")
*''Cheiron'' ("[[Chiron]]")
*''Pseuderakles'' ("The Fake Heracles"; possibly the same play as ''Anthropherakles'')
{{div col end}}

The standard edition of the fragments and testimonia is in [[Rudolf Kassel]] and [[Colin François Lloyd Austin]]'s ''Poetae Comici Graeci'' Vol. VII. The eight-volume ''Poetae Comici Graeci'' produced from 1983 to 2001 replaces the outdated collections {{interlanguage link|Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum|lt=''Fragmenta comicorum graecorum''|de||fr}} by [[August Meineke]] (1839-1857), ''Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta'' by [[Theodor Kock]] (1880-1888) and ''Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta'' by [[Georg Kaibel]] (1899).

==References==
*{{EB1911|wstitle = Pherecrates|volume=21}}
*{{NIE|wstitle = Pherecrates|volume=}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Ancient Athenian dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Old Comic poets]]
[[Category:5th-century BC Athenians]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:5th-century BC Greek poets]]