Philetaerus
（
*File/tairos), an Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, is said by Athenaeus to have been contemporary with Hyperides and Diopeithes, the latter perhaps the same person as the father of the poet Menander (Ath. vii. p. 342a., xiii. p. 587).
According to Dicaearchus Philetaerus was the third son of Aristophanes, but others maintained that it was Nicostratus (see the Greek lives of Aristophanes, and Suid.
s. vv. Ἀριστοφάνης, Φιλέταιρος).
He wrote twenty-one plays, according to Suidas, from whom and from Athenaeus the following titles are obtained :--
Ἀσκληπιός, Ἀταλάντη, Α᾿χιλλεύς, Κέφαλος, Κορινθιαστής, Κυνηγίς, Λαμπαδηφός, Τηρεύς, Φίλαυλος ; to which must be added the
μῆνες, quoted in a MS. grammatical work.
There are also a few doubtful titles, namely :
Ἀδωνιάζουσαι, which is the title of a play by Philippides;
Ἄντυλλος and
ὀνοπίων, which are also ascribed to Nicostratus; and
Μέλεαγρος, which is perhaps the same as the
Ἀταλάντη.
The fragments of Philetaerus show that many of his plays referred to courtezans. (Meineke,
Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 349. 350, vol. iii. pp. 292-300.)
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