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Academy · Biography & Mythology

Nicostratus

literary.

1. The youngest of the three sons of Aristophanes, according to Apollodorus. He was himself a comic poet. By Athenaeus (xiii. p. 597d.) he is expressly called a poet of the middle comedy. But he belonged also in part to the new comedy. Harpocration (p. 266) speaks of his play called Ὀρνιθευτής, as belonging to that species of comedy; and some of the characters which he introduced in other dramas demonstrate the same. In his Βασιλεῖς he introduced a boasting soldier (Athen. 6.230d.); in his Τοκιστής, an avaricious money-lender (Athen. 15.685f.) and a vaunting cook (Athen. 14.664b.). Photius (Phot. Bibl. 190, p. 153, ed. Bekk.) has got a story that Nicostratus being inflamed with a mad passion for some one named Tettigidaea, leapt off the Leucadian rock.

The titles of nineteen of the plays of Nicostratus have come down to us. Three of these, the Ἀντυλλος (Ath. 3.108, 118 e.), the Οἰνοτίων (Athen. 4.169e. vii. p. 280d.; Suidas, s. v. Φιλέταιρος), and the Πάνδροσος (Athen. 13.587d. xv. p. 693a. b.) were also attributed to Philetaerus, who, according to some authorities (Schol. ad Plat. Apol. Socr. p. 331), was the third son of Aristophanes [PHILETAERUS]. The remaining plays of Nicostratus were: 7. Ἱεροφάντης. 8. Κλίνη 9. Ἅβρα. 10. Ἡσίοδος. 11. Διάβολος. 12. Ἀντερωσα. 13. Ἐκάτη. 14. Μάγειρος. 15. Ὦτις. 16. Πλοῦτος. 17. Σύρος. 18. Ἀπελαυνόμενος. 19. Ψευδοστιγματίας. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 472; Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 346, &c.; Bode, Gesch. der Hellen. Dichtkunst, vol. iii. part. ii. p. 410.)

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.