EP'ICHAR'MUS (Lat., from Gk. 'Er(xappos, Epicharmos). The greatest of the Sicilian comic poets. He was born in Cos, but while still a child emigrated to Sicily early in the fifth cen tury. The details of his life are little known; tradition says that he lived to be ninety years of age, and was greatly honored by the Syracusans. Epieharmus doubtless owed much to the Syra cusan tyrants, Gelon and Hiero, who generously aided lyric and dramatic poets, that they might increase the brilliancy of the courts; and it was probably under their patronage that he produced his comedies. These numbered 36 (according to some authorities 32), and roughly fall into two elasses—mythological travesties and realistic scenes from common life—as the extant titles show. To the first belonged his liusiris, r.yelops, Ilepla•stus, Ha•riagc of Ilebe, and Prometheus; to the second, The Peasant, The Visitors at the Pesaro?, etc. The first class preserved the t•adi tional character of early comedy, but the second introduced new themes, closely allied to those of the Mime (q.v.). which was also first developed
in Syracuse. While Athenian comedy was a local development, no doubt Epieharnms's influence on Attie comedians of the fifth century was II at without its effect. Yet the statement that Epi eharmus was the inventor of comedy (clue to an epigram, No. 17 of Thcocritus) can be true only in this, that Epicharmus was one of the first to give comedy developed and artistic form. Epi charmus was 1:1DV/us for his philosophical utter mires, and his comedies continued to be studied long by philosophers and grammarians; Apollo dorus, of Athens, in the second century B.C., pub lished an edition in ten books. The extant frag ments are edited by Lorenz (Berlin, 1864) ; Kai hel, Orweorunt Fraymenla, pt. i. (Leipzig, 1S99).