Lynceus of Samos

Lynceus of Samos (Ancient Greek: Λυγκεὺς ὁ Σάμιος) brother of the historian Duris of Samos,[1] was a classical Greek author of comedies, letters and humorous anecdotes. He lived in the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC and was a pupil of Theophrastus.[2] His works, especially his letters and the essay Shopping for Food, show a special interest in gastronomy. He was also the addressee of an important letter by Hippolochus on dining in Macedon.[3] He would be practically unknown if it were not for numerous quotations from his works in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus.

As a comedy author Lynceus is classed among the writers of Athenian New Comedy, and the single surviving fragment from his play Kentauros ("The Centaur"), as quoted by Athenaeus (131f), appears in the standard collections of comic fragments. It is a scene set at Athens in which a dinner menu is discussed with reference to the guests' cities of origin and probable food preferences.

The only collection of the fragments from Lynceus's prose works is in Andrew Dalby's paper published in 2000.

Notes
  1. Suda, Lynceus
  2. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 4.128.
  3. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, Book 4.
gollark: There is also extreme weirdness with, er, `x = ([], [])x[0] += ["bees"]`.
gollark: Which can have some unexpected results.
gollark: Also, it has weird special casing with comparison operators: `5 <= x <= 10` is actually valid and does what you might expect if you were a MATHS PERSON.
gollark: Oh, and the way everything is mutable by default can cause badness.
gollark: Plus !!referential transparency!!.

References
  • Andrew Dalby, "Lynceus and the anecdotists" in Athenaeus and his world: reading Greek culture in the Roman Empire ed. David Braund, John Wilkins (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000) pp. 372–394.
  • R. Kassel and C. Austin, editors, P C G: Poetae comici Graeci. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983– .
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.