FrC 20: Amphis, von Athina Papachrysostomou

Amphis is an exceptional poet of Middle Comedy. He was probably an Athenian, yet his name is otherwise unattested in Attica. His surviving work amounts to forty-nine fragments, yet there is no inscriptional evidence of his dramatic production. Instead, his floruit (ca. 400–325 BC) is established through his references to Plato and Phryne. His corpus features a total of ten hapax terms, and his overall distinctive language made him popular among all major lexicographic authors. From his twenty-six play-titles, some are mythical, others are banausic, and many are shared with the comic poet Alexis. Most conspicuously, Amphis is the only comic playwright outside Old Comedy who exemplifies the motif of comic utopia. The evidence regarding the performance of at least one of his plays in southern Italy rounds off his idiosyncratic profile.