Sannyrion
Σαννυρίων
(Σαννυρίων), an Athenian comic poet, belonging to the latter years of the Old Comedy, and the beginning of the Middle.
He was contemporary with Diocles and Philyllius (Suid. s. v. Διοκλῆς). Since he ridiculed the pronunciation of Hegelochus, the actor of the Orestes of Euripides, which was brought out in B. C. 408, he must have been exhibiting comedies soon after that year (Schol. ad Eur. Orest. 279; Schol. ad Aristoph. Frogs 305; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. s. a. 407, and Preface, p. xxix.). On the other hand, if the comedy entitled Io, which is mentioned in the didascalic monument (Böckh, Corp. Inscr. vol. i. p. 353) be the Io of Sannyrion, his age would be brought down to S. C. 374.
We know nothing of his personal history, except that his excessive leanness was ridiculed by Strattis in his Cinesias and Psychastae (Pollux, 10.189; Ath. xii. p. 551c.; for explanations of the passages, see Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 769, 785); and also by Aristophanes in the Gerytades, where he and Meletus and Cinesias are chosen as ambassadors from the poets to the shades below, because, being shades themselves, they were frequent visitants of that region (ᾁδοφοῖται, Ath. l.c. a; comp. the editions of the Fragments by Bekker, Dindorf, and Bergk apud Meineke). It is a proof of how lightly and good-humouredly such jests were thrown about by the comic poets, that Sannyrion himself ridiculed Meletus on precisely the same ground in his Τέλως, calling him τὸν ὰπὸ Ληναίου νεκρόν (Ath. l c.). He also returned the compliment to Aristophanes, by ridiculing him for spending his life in working for others; referring doubtless to his habit of bringing out his comedies in other persons' names. (Schol. ad Plat. p. 331, ed. Bekker; comp. PHILONIDES.)
Works
The following are mentioned as his dramas by Suidas (s. c.):--Τέλως, Δανάη, Ἰώ, Ψυχασταί; but the reference which Suidas proceeds to make to Athenaeus, as his authority, proves that he has got the last title by a careless reading of the passage above quoted, in which Athenaeus says that Sannyrion was ridiculed in the Psychastae of Strattis.
Eudocia (p. 382) omits the Δανάη, and adds the Ἰνώ and Σαρδανάπαλλος, of which there is no other mention made.
A few scattered lines are preserved from the Τέλως, and a fragment of five lines from the Δανάη, in which he ridicules, as Aristophanes also does in the Frogs (305), Hegelochus's pronunciation of the word γάλην̓, in a line of the Orestes of Euripides (Schol. ad Eurip. et Aristoph. ll. cc.).
There are a few words from the Io in Athenaeus (vi. p. 261f.).
The Danae and Io evidently belong, in subject, to the Middle Comedy, although, from the circumstance just mentioned, the date of the former cannot be placed much lower than B. C. 407.
Further Information
Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 263, 264, vol. ii. pp. 873-875; Bergk, Reliq. Comoed. Att. Ant. p. 430; Bode, Gesch. d. Hellen. Dichtkunst, vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 387.
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.