Susarion

Who is Susarion?

Susarion was an Archaic Greek comic poet, was a native of Tripodiscus in Megaris and is considered one of the originators of metrical comedy and, by others, he was considered the founder of Attic Comedy. Nothing of his work, however, survives except one iambic fragment and this is not from a comedy but instead seems to belong within the Iambus tradition.

About 580 BC he transplanted the Megarian comedy into the Attic deme of Icaria, the cradle also of Greek tragedy and the oldest seat of the worship of Dionysus. According to the Parian Chronicle, there appears to have been a competition on this occasion, in which the prize was a basket of figs and an amphora of wine.

Susarion's improvements in his native farces did not include a separate actor or a regular plot, but probably consisted in substituting metrical compositions for the old extempore effusions of the chorus. These were intended for recitation, and not committed to writing. But such performances did not suit the taste of the Athenians, and nothing more is heard of them until eighty years after the time of Susarion.