Euphorion

Euphorion is a name referring to multiple figures in ancient Greek culture, encompassing both mythological characters and historical literary figures.

Mythological Figure

Euphorion was the son of Achilles and Helen of Troy[3][1], named after the fertility of the Land of the Blessed where he was born[3]. He was a winged youth[3] who attempted to fly to heaven but Zeus caught him and knocked him down[1][3]. His body was buried by the naiades of the island of Melos, which Zeus had expressly forbidden[5][1]. Zeus punished the naiades for their disobedience by transforming them into frogs[5][1].

The mythological account is preserved in Ptolemy Hephaestion's New History[5], which describes how "There was born of Helene and Akhilleus (Achilles) in the Islands of the Blest a winged child named Euphorion after the fertility of this land; Zeus caught him and with a blow knocked him to earth in the isle of Melos"[5].

Euphorion of Chalcis

Euphorion of Chalcis (born c. 275 BC) was a Greek poet and grammarian from Chalcis in Euboea[23][4], whose poetry was highly regarded in Hellenistic literary circles and later among Catullus's generation of Roman poets in the 1st century BC[4]. In Book III of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero called some younger poets of his day "cantores Euphorionis" ("singers of Euphorion")[4].

Education and Early Life

Euphorion was instructed in philosophy by Lacydes, who flourished about 241 BC, and Prytanis, and in poetry by Archebulus of Thera[2]. He studied philosophy at Athens[4] and was possibly given Athenian citizenship[7]. Though he was sallow, fat, and bandylegged, he was beloved by Nicia (or Nicaea), the wife of Alexander, king of Euboea[2].

Career as Librarian

Having amassed great wealth, he went into Syria to Antiochus the Great (around 223 BC), who made him his librarian[2][4]. He became the librarian of Antiochus the Great in 221 BC[23] and held the position until his death[26]. He died in Syria, and was buried at Apameia, or, according to others, at Antioch[2].

Literary Works

Euphorion wrote numerous works, both in poetry and prose, relating chiefly to mythological history[2]. His works included small-scale epics (epyllia) on mythological themes, poetic invectives and epigrams, as well as scholarly treatises[4]. Monographs on the Isthmian Games and other historical and mythological subjects are attested; he is also credited with a lexicon to Hippocrates, and two of his epigrams appear in Meleager's anthology (Garland, c.100 BC)[7].

The Suda mentions only three works, Hesiod, Mopsopia, and Chiliades, but other sources yield over twenty titles[7]. At least three (Thrax, Curses or The Goblet-thief, Chiliades) were curse-poems, recounting obscure mythological stories in abstruse terms: Chiliades apparently predicted the certain punishment of Euphorion's adversaries by citing oracles which had been fulfilled after a lapse of a thousand years[7].

Literary Style and Influence

Surviving fragments reveal him as one of the earliest and most enthusiastic followers of Callimachus, possessed of a willfully obscure and sophisticated style[4]. His interest in recondite lore and aetiology is reminiscent of Callimachus, whose style he closely imitated; his diction is basically Homeric, with learned elaborations[7]. The best of succeeding writers made complaints of the obscurity, verboseness, and tediousness of Euphorion, Callimachus, Parthenius, Lycophron, and the other chief writers of the long period during which the Alexandrian grammarians ruled the literary world[2].

His epigrams were both erotic; and that such was the character of most of his epigrams, is clear from the manner in which he is mentioned by Meleager, as well as from the fact that he was among the poets who were imitated by Propertius, Tibullus, and Gallus[2]. It was therefore quite natural that Euphorion should be a great favourite with the emperor Tiberius, who wrote Greek poems in imitation of him[2].

Euphorion, Son of Aeschylus

Euphorion was the son of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus, and himself an author of tragedies[10]. In the Dionysia of 431 BCE, Euphorion won 1st prize, defeating both Sophocles (who took 2nd prize) and Euripides, who took 3rd prize with a tetralogy that includes the extant play Medea[10][13]. Both of Aeschylus' sons, Euphorion and Euaion were playwrights[14], and after Aeschylus' death, his son, playwright Euphorion, restaged many of his plays[14].

Prometheus Bound

Prometheus Bound is usually attributed by modern scholars to an unknown playwright[11], though it has been traditionally ascribed to Aeschylus. Many believe that this editor was none other than Aeschylus' son, Euphorion, who won the first prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in 431 BC ahead of both Sophocles and Euripides[12]. While history attributes the writing of Prometheus Bound to Aeschylus, many scholars maintain that it was the work of a different writer—potentially even Aeschylus's son, also named Euphorion, who was also a poet and playwright[13].

There's a growing consensus that even if Aeschylus was the original author of Prometheus Bound, the play was either completed or, quite possibly, severely revised by someone after his death[12]. The play is strange for several reasons: it is the only one of Aeschylus' plays in which Zeus is depicted as a tyrant, and the play's style and meter differ significantly from Aeschylus' practice and strongly suggest that this play couldn't have been written by anyone at least until a few years after Aeschylus' death[12].

Euphorion, also a playwright, could have edited these two plays for a posthumous production in Athens, completing the trilogy with a third play of his own composition[18]. The attribution remains a subject of scholarly debate, with some scholars suggesting that it may be the work of Aeschylus' son, Euphorion, who was also a playwright, though the ongoing debate will probably never be resolved definitively[19].