Hege'mon
（
Ἡγήμων).
1. of Thasos, was a comic poet of the old comedy at Athens, but was more celebrated for his parodies, of which kind of poetry he was, according to Aristotle, the inventor.
He was nicknamed
Φακῆ, on account of his fondness for that kind of pulse.
He lived in the time of the Peloponnesian war, and was contemporary with Cratinus when the latter was an old man, and with Alcibiades. His parody of the
Gigantomachia was the piece to which the Athenians were listening, when the news was brought to them in the theatre of the destruction of the expedition to Sicily, and when, in order not to betray their feelings, they remained in the theatre to the end of the performance.
The only comedy of his which is mentioned is the
Φιλινη, of which one fragment is preserved by Athenaeus, who also gives some amusing particulars respecting him. (
Aristot. Poet. 2, and Hitter's note, p. 92;
Athen. 1.5b.; iii. p. 108e.; ix. pp. 406, 407; xv. pp. 698, 699 ; Meineke,
Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 214, 215 ; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. ii. p. 448.)
