Thespis

• the founder of the Greek drama, Hor. A. P. 276; id. Ep. 2, 1, 163.

(Θέσπις).

1. The celebrated father of Greek tragedy, has no personal history disconnected from the history of his art, and it is therefore considered unnecessary to repeat here what has already been said with sufficient fulness respecting him, under Tragoedia, in the Dictionary of Antiquities.

2. Of Thebes, a player of the cithara, whom Lucian mentions as a competitor at one of the musical contests in the Pythian games. There is nothing to determine his time. (Lucian. ad v. Indoct. 9, vol. iii. p. 108.)

The scholiast on a passage in which Aristophanes mentions Thespis ( Vesp. 1470, comp. Suid. s. v.), states that the Thespis here meant was the citharoedic musician, not the tragic poet; but Bentley maintains that this is an error. (Second Dissert. on Phalaris, p. 265, or p. 190, ed. 1777.)

3. A flute player, at the court of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, of whom nothing is known except the little anecdote in Lucian. (Prometh. 4, vol. i. p. 30.) [P.S]

(Θέσπις). The father of Greek Tragedy. He was a contemporary of Pisistratus, and a native of Icarus, one of the demes in Attica, where the worship of Dionysus had long prevailed. The alteration made by Thespis , which gave to the old Tragedy a new and dramatic character, was very simple but very important. Before his time the leader of the Chorus had recited the adventures of Dionysus and had been answered by the Chorus. Thespis introduced an actor (ὑποκριτής, or “answerer”) to reply to the leader of the Chorus. It is clear that, though the performance still remained, as far as can be gathered, chiefly lyrical, and the dialogue was of comparatively small account, yet a decided step towards the drama had been made. Some modern scholars have credited Horace's statement that Thespis went about in a wagon as a strolling player (A. P. 276). It is suggested that the expressions for the freedom of jesting at the festival of the Lenaea (τὰ ἐξ ἁμαξῶν, ἐξ ἁμάξης ὑβρίζειν) may have given rise to the story. See tragoedia.