Thespis
2. Of Thebes, a player of the cithara, whom Lucian mentions as a competitor at one of the musical contests in the Pythian games. There is nothing to determine his time. (Lucian. ad v. Indoct. 9, vol. iii. p. 108.)
The scholiast on a passage in which Aristophanes mentions Thespis ( Vesp. 1470, comp. Suid. s. v.), states that the Thespis here meant was the citharoedic musician, not the tragic poet; but Bentley maintains that this is an error. (Second Dissert. on Phalaris, p. 265, or p. 190, ed. 1777.)
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.