Xanthus

(Ξάνθος), literary.

1. A lyric poet, older than Stesichorus, who mentioned him in one at least of his poems, and who borrowed from him in some of them. Among the rest, Stesichorus composed his poem entitled Oresteia (Ὀρέστεια), in imitation of Xanthus. We also learn from Megacleides, on the authority of Stesichorus himself, that Xanthus represented Heracles as equipped, not in the dress and arms ascribed to him by Stesichorus and the later poets, but in the fashion in which he is described by Homer. (Megacleid. apud Ath. xii. p. 513a.; Kleine, Stesich. Frag. xxxvii. p. 83; on the general subject of the mention of the older poets by their successors, see Kleine, p. 71.)

Xanthus is also mentioned by Aelian (V. H. 4.26), who quotes a statement respecting Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, which is no doubt taken from the Oresteia. Clinton places Xanthus about B. C. 650, before Peisander, and 45 years before Stesichorus. No fragments of his poetry survive. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 159; Bode, Gesch. d. Hellen. Dichlkunst, vol. ii. pt. 2, pp. 82, 83; Clinton F. H. vol. i p. 365.)