Cleomachus

(Κλεόμαχος).

1. It is supposed that there was a tragic poet of this name, contemporary with Cratinus; but there can be little doubt that the passages of Cratinus on which this notion is founded (apud Athen. xiv. p. 638f.) refer to the lyric poet Gnesippus, the son of Cleomachus, and that for τῷ Κλεομάχῳ and ὁ Κλεόμαχος we ought to read τῷ Κλεομάχου and ὁ Κλεομάχου. (Bergk, Reliq. Com. Att. p. 33, &c. ; Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. ii. pp. 27-29 ; Gnesippus.) Of Cleomachus, the father of Gnesippus, nothing is known, unless he be the same as the lyric poet mentioned below.

2. Of Magnesia, a lyric poet, was at first a boxer, but having fallen violently in love, he devoted himself to the composition of poems of a very licentious character. (Strab. xiv. p.648; Tricha, de Metris, p. 34.) From the resemblance in character between his poetry and that of Gnesippus, it might be inferred that he is the same person as the father of Gnesippus; but Strabo mentions him among the celebrated men of Magnesia in such a way that, if he adheres in this case to his usual practice of giving the names in chronological order, this Cleomachus would fall much later than the time of Gnesippus. His name was given to a variety of the Ionic a Majore metre. (Hephaestion, xi. p. 62, ed. Gaisford.) [P.S]