PHERECRATES, a writer of the ancient comedy, was
Pherecydes a native of Athens, and contemporary of Plato, Aristophanes, Phrynichus, and Eupolis. According to Suidas, he was a soldier in his youth, but afterwards attached himself to the stage, and became one of the most successful dramatic writers. We know that he exhibited a play entitled Savages (Ἀγγῖαι), B. C. 420 (Plato, Protag. 327, d; Athen. v. 218, d). He invented a species of verse, called from his name Pherecratian, consisting of a spondee, and the two last feet of an hexameter line. Suidas attributes seventeen plays to him, referring probably to those only which he considered as genuine, since the titles of twenty are found in Athenaeus. The fragments of Pherecrates have been collected by Hertel in Vetustissimorum Comicorum Sententiae, p. 340-57. Of all the fragments of Pherecrates, the most remarkable is that entitled Cheiron, in which he introduces music, clad in rags, to which state she says she has been reduced by Melanippides, Phrygoris, and Timotheus, the authors of some innovations on that art. (See Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscrip. xv. 330.)