Sophilus the Comic Poet (Σώφιλος ὁ κωμικός)

Life Sophilus was an Athenian comic poet of the 4th century BCE, a contemporary of the orator Demosthenes [1]. The 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda, records that he wrote seven plays and was victorious once in competition [1]. The ancient scholar Athenaeus refers to him as a poet of Middle Comedy, the period from roughly 400 to 320 BCE [2].

Works Only two play titles are known: Γάμος (The Marriage), from which a single fragment concerning a food item survives [2], and Τυρρηνός (The Tyrrhenian) [1]. All his works are lost except for such brief citations.

Significance Sophilus is a minor figure, but his work confirms him as a practitioner of Middle Comedy, the transitional phase between Old and New Comedy. The title Τυρρηνός suggests an engagement with non-Greek cultures, a known interest in the period. His surviving fragment is typical of Middle Comedy remnants preserved in Athenaeus’s dining-focused Deipnosophistae [2].

Sources 1. Suda Online, entry "Σώφιλος" (The Stoa Consortium): http://www.stoa.org/sol-entries/sigma/829 2. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 14.646c (Perseus Digital Library): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0008.tlg001.perseus-grc1:14.646c