Telecleides
（
Τηλεκλείδης), a distinguished Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy, flourished about the same time as Crates and Cratinus, and a little earlier than Aristophanes, with whom, however, he may have been partly contemporary, and like whom he was an earnest advocate of peace, and a great admirer of the ancient manners of the age of Themistocles. Six plays are attributed to him (Anon.
de Com. p. xxxiv.), perhaps including the one which the ancient critics considered spurious (Phryn.
Ed. Att. p. 291); for there are only five titles extant,
Ἀμφικτύονες,
Ἀψευδεῖς,
Ἡσίοδοι,
Πρυτάνεις,
Στερ̀ῥοί, Of these plays we possess some interesting fragments, especially those in which he attacks Pericles and extols Nicias. (
Plut. Per. 3,
16,
Nic. 4.) Meineke conjectures that the second of these fragments was written soon after the ostracism of Thucydides and the complete establishment of the power of Pericles, in Ol. 83. 4, B. C. 444. Bergk thinks that the anonymous quotation in Plutarch (
Per. 7), referring to the subjugation of Euboea by Pericles, after it had revolted (B. C. 445), ought to be assigned to Telecleides, as well as a fragment in Herodian (
Περὶ μον. λέξ. p. 17, 11) respecting Aegina, which may very probably refer to the expulsion of the Aeginetans in B. C. 431 (Thue. 2.27 There are several other chronological allusions in the extant fragments, which are fully discussed by Meineke. (Meineke,
Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 87-90, vol. ii. pp. 361-379, Editio Minor, pp. 130-138; Bergk,
Reliq. Com. Att. Ant. pp. 327-331.)
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