Articoli
Published 2020-07-03
Keywords
- Polyidus,
- Dithyramb,
- post-classical Tragedy,
- Aristotle’s Poetics
Abstract
Many scholars believe that Polyidus of Selymbria, a very famous author of dithyrambs and “nomoi” of the V-IV century B.C., might have been a playwright too, on the basis of Arist. Poet. 16, 1455a 6-8 and 17, 1455b 8-12. In this paper I try to show that he never wrote tragedies and the work quoted by Aristotle was probably a lyric composition. In addition, Polyidus, allegedly the author of a fictitious letter to Darius, should probably be considered a fictitious person too.