Anthos (play)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anthos or Antheus (Ancient Greek: Ἄνθος, lit. 'The Flower') is a play by the 5th-century BCE Athenian dramatist Agathon. The play has been lost in its entirety. The play is mentioned by Aristotle in his Poetics (1451b) as an example of a tragedy with a plot which gives pleasure despite the incidents and characters being entirely made up.[1][2] Anthos is thus the only known Greek tragedy play whose plot was entirely invented by the poet.[3] Other 5th-century tragedies were based on myths, or less frequently on actual history.[3]
| Anthos | |
|---|---|
| Original language | Ancient Greek |
| Written by | Agathon |
| Genre | Athenian tragedy |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 5th century BCE |
| Place | Athens |
Possible contents
The play's plot is not clear due to no fragment from it surviving; H. J. Rose claimed that Parthenius of Nicaea sourced the story of Antheus and Cleoboea from this Anthos (or rather Antheus if this was the case), a typical Potiphar's wife tale where Antheus rejects the married Cleoboea's amorous advances, and she in revenge kills him by throwing a boulder on him after convincing him to go down into a well.[4][5] Other scholars suggested that the stage play was the origin of the tale of Anthus, the unfortunate youth who was devoured by the family mares and was transformed into some kind of bird by the gods.[6][7]
