Antheas Lindius

(Ἀνθέας), a Greek poet, of Lindus in Rhodes, flourished about B. C. 596. He was one of the earliest eminent composers of phallic songs, which he himself sung at the head of his phallophori. (Athen. 10.445.) Hence he is ranked by Athenaeus (l.c.) as a comic poet, but this is not precisely correct, since he lived before the period when comedy assumed its proper form. It is well observed by Bode (Dram. Dichtkunst. ii. p. 16), that Antheas, with his comus of phallophori, stands in the same relation to comedy as Arion, with his dithyrambic chorus, to tragedy. (See also Dict. of Ant. s. v. Comoedia.)

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