Agathon of Athens

Agathon of Athens ( ancient Greek Ἀγάθων Agáthōn ; * around 448 BC ; † around 400 BC ) was an ancient Greek tragedy poet .

Agathon's father was the wealthy Athenian Tisamenus. The poet was a friend of Euripides and Plato . Plato immortalized the feast with which Agathon celebrated his first dramatic victory in 417 through his symposium . Agathon stayed with Euripides at the court of King Archelaos I of Macedonia. There he apparently died around 402.

Agathon introduced various rhythmic and musical innovations. He was also the first who, in his tragedy Anthos ( The Flower ), did not take the material from the history of myths, but dared to invent the plot and characters. In his style he had the sophist Gorgias as a model.

Only a few fragmentary verses have survived from his literary work. He is mentioned as the winner of a tragedy competition during the Dionysus festival in Athens in Plato's symposium .

Wieland made him the hero of his novel Agathon .

Text output

August Nauck (Ed.): Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta . 2nd Edition. Teubner, Leipzig 1889, p. 763-769 ( archive.org ).

literature

Bernhard Zimmermann : The Attic Tragedy . In: Bernhard Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Handbook of the Greek literature of antiquity , Volume 1: The literature of the archaic and classical times . CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-57673-7 , pp. 484-610, here: 608
Albrecht Dieterich : Agathon 13 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 760-762. - Outdated state of research

personal data
SURNAME	Agathon of Athens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	ancient Greek tragedy poet
DATE OF BIRTH	around 448 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	around 400 BC Chr.