C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Philoxenus (c. 435–380 B.C.)

Philoxenus (fi-lok’se-nus). A Greek poet; born in the island of Cythera about 435 B.C.; died at Ephesus, 380 B.C. He was taken prisoner in war, conveyed as a slave to Athens, and sold to the musician Melanippides, who gave him a liberal education. At the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, he brought upon himself condemnation to servitude in the quarries by refusing to praise the autocrat’s verses; when brought again before the tyrant and asked what he thought of the verses now, he answered, “Take me away to the quarries.” He took his revenge on Dionysius in his dithyramb ‘Cyclops.’ He wrote 24 dithyrambs, and a lyric poem on the genealogy of the Æacidæ. Of his writings only scanty fragments remain.

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