Year:
between 445 and 415 BC
Scripts:
Genres:
Tragedy
Medium of performance:
Fully Staged Play
Languages:
Greek, Ancient (to 1453)
People involved:
(Dramatist)
Known from:
Venues and occasions:
Production notes:
Philocles is said in the Suda to have been a contemporary of Euripides. We also know that he beat Sophocles (producing Oedipus Tyrannus) in the Dionysia c. 429 BC. His son Morsimus is referred to as an established tragedian by 424 BC, see Aristophanes' Knights (l.400f = TrGF1, 29 Morsimus T1); this suggests that Philocles himself was already of a certain age. This tetralogy is also alluded to in Aristophanes' Birds (279f), which was performed in 414 BC. The date range for performance is not certain, but is based on all of these considerations. This tetralogy is mentioned in the scholia on Aristophanes' Birds 279f (see sources); this commentator also quotes the only fragment from the tetralogy that we have.