Antiphanes
Ἀντιφάνης
(Ἀντιφάνης), of BERGA in Thrace, a Greek writer on marvellous and incredible things. (Ἄπιστα, Scymnius Chius, 657, &c.) From the manner in which he is mentioned by Strabo (i. p.47, ii. pp. 102, 104; comp. Plb. 33.12), it would seem that he wrote his stories with a view that they should be believed as history, and that consequently he was an impostor. It was owing to Antiphanes that the verb βεργαΐζειν was used in the sense of telling stories. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Βέργη, who however confounds our Antiphanes with the comic writer of Rhodes; comp. Clem. Al. Strom. i. p. 133; Phot. Bibl. 166.) Most writers agree in believing, that Antiphanes of Berga is the same as the Antiphanes who wrote a work on courtezans (περὶ ἑταιρῶν), and whom some writers call Antiphanes the Younger. (Athen. 13.586; Harpocrat. s. vv. Νάννιον, Ἀντίκυρα; Suid. s. v. Νάνιον.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.