Epicharmus (ca. 530-440 BCE) is the first known Greek comic poet, but his influence in antiquity was in no way limited to dramatic literature. As the result of the interest in moral, linguistic, and philosophical subjects displayed in Epicharmus' comedies, after his death Epicharmus was believed to have had a real competence in those fields, and a number of moral, philosophical, and scientific treatises in verse, known as the pseudo-Epicharmean writings, were thus composed so as to collect and circulate the doctrines which came to be identified as Epicharmus'. Beside discussing the evidence for serious subjects in Epicharmus' comedies, this volume provides an analytic study of the fragments from the pseudo-Epicharmean writings and makes a case for considering the so-called fragments ex Alcimo as genuine examples of philosophical parody from Epicharmus' authentic comedies. All these materials are presented with a revised text and a word-by-word philological and exegetical commentary.
