FRISCHLIN, PHILIPP NIKODEMUS German philologist and poet, was born on Sept. 22, at Balin gen, Wurttemberg, where his father was parish minister. He was educated at Tubingen, where he became (1568) professor of poetry and history. In 1575 for his comedy of Rebecca, which he read at Regensburg before the emperor Maximilian II., he was rewarded with the laureateship, and in 1577 he was made a count palatine (comes palatines) or P f alzgra f . In 1582 he had to leave Tubingen, and spent two years teaching at Laibach. Shortly after his return to Tubingen in 1584, he was threatened with a criminal prosecution for immoral conduct, and fled to FrankfUrt-on-Main (1587). For 18 months he taught in the Brunswick gymnasium, and he appears also to have resided occasionally at Strasbourg, Marburg and Mainz. From Mainz he wrote libellous letters, which led to his arrest in March 159o. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Hohenurach, near Reutlingen, where, on the night of Nov. 29, 1590, he was killed by a fall in attempting to let himself down from the window of his cell.
In his Latin verse Frischlin often successfully imitated the classical models ; his comedies have freshness and vivacity, and his commentaries on the Georgics and Bucolics of Virgil were important contributions to the scholarship of his time. His Opera poetica were published 12 times between 1535 and 1636. See D. F. Strauss, Leben and Schri f ten des Dichters and Philologen Frischlin (1856).