November 16, 2023
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PAGE SPONSOR		 Alexander Aetolus (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Αἰτωλός) was a Greek poet and grammarian, the only known representative of Aetolian poetry. He was the son of Satyrus and Stratocleia, and was a native of Pleuron in Aetolia, although he spent the greater part of his life at Alexandria, where he was reckoned one of the seven tragic poets who constituted the Tragic Pleiad. He flourished about 280 BC, in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.

He had an office in the Library of Alexandria, and was commissioned by Ptolemy to make a collection of all the tragedies and satyric dramas that were extant. He spent some time, together with Antagoras and Aratus, at the court of Antigonus II Gonatas. Notwithstanding the distinction he enjoyed as a tragic poet, he appears to have had greater merit as a writer of epic poems, elegies, epigrams and cynaedi. Among his epic poems, we possess the titles and some fragments of three pieces: the Fisherman, Kirka or Krika, which, however, is designated by Athenaeus as doubtful, and Helena. Of his elegies, some beautiful fragments are still extant. His Cynaedi, or Ionic poems (Ἰωνικὰ ποιήματα), are mentioned by Strabo and Athenaeus. Some anapaestic verses in praise of Euripides are preserved in Gellius.

Sositheus (c. 280 BC), Greek tragic poet, of Alexandria Troas, a member of the Alexandrian "pleiad".

He must have resided at some time in Athens, since Diogenes Laërtius tells us that he attacked the Stoic Cleanthes on the stage, and was hissed off by the audience. As the Suda also calls him a Syracusan, it is conjectured that he belonged to the literary circle at the court of Hiero II.

According to an epigram of Dioscorides in the Greek Anthology (Anth. Pal. vii.707) he restored the satyric drama in its original form. A considerable fragment is extant of his pastoral play Daphnis or Lityerses, in which the Sicilian shepherd, in search of his love Pimplea, is brought into connection with the Phrygian reaper, son of Midas, who slew all who unsuccessfully competed with him in reaping his grain. Heracles came to the aid of Daphnis and slew Lityerses.

See Otto Crusius s.v. Lityerses in Röscher's Lexikon der griechischen and römischen Mythologie. The fragment of twenty - one lines in Nauck's Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta apparently contains the beginning of the drama. Two lines from the Aethlius (probably the traditional first king of Elis, father of Endymion) are quoted by Stobaeus (Flor. li. 23).