Table of Contents
Elegy and Iambus. with an English Translation by. J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 2.
Astydamas: Poems
“Astydamas the Elder: —Son of Morsimus son of Philocles, both writers of tragedy; of Athens; writer of tragedy; wrote 240 plays; was 15 times victorious; he was a disciple of Isocrates, and changed his subject for tragedy.”
Suidas Lexicon
“At this time (398 B.C.) Astydamas the tragedy-writer produced his first play. He lived to be sixty (?) years of age.”
Diodorus of Sicily Historical Library
“From the time when Astydamas won at Athens 109 years, in the archonship of Asteius at Athens (373 B.C.).1”
Parian Chronicle
“The Athenians honoured Astydamas above poets like Aeschylus by giving him a bronze statue.”
Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers 2. 43
Inscription
You praise yourself like old Astydamas:—Astydamas son of Morsimus, having won the prize with his tragedy Parthenopaeus , was accorded by the Athenians the right of dedicating his portrait in the Theatre, and composed on himself the following boastful inscription:
Would I had lived in their day or they in mine, who bear the palm for a happy tongue: then should I have been truly judged if I had come off first; but alas! the competitors beyond cavil were before my day.2
Photius Lexicon:
1 inscriptions mention the performance of his tragedies in 348,342, and 341 ( Parthernopaeus ) cf. Dittenb. 1078; we should therefore prob. read his age above as 90, but there has perh. been confusion between A. and his son of the same name
2 cf. Suid. σαυτὴν ἐπαινεῖς , Zenob. 5. 100