Hegemon ofThasos (Greek:Ἡγήμων ὁ Θάσιος) was aGreek writer of theOld Comedy. Hardly anything is known of him, except that he flourished during thePeloponnesian War. According toAristotle (Poetics, ii. 5) he was the inventor of a kind ofparody; by slightly altering the wording in well-known poems he transformed the sublime into the ridiculous. When the news of the disastrous defeat of theSicilian Expedition reached Athens, his parody of theGigantomachia was being performed: it is said that the audience were so amused by it that, instead of leaving to show their grief, they remained in their seats.[1]
He was also the author of a comedy calledPhilinne (Philine), written in the manner ofEupolis andCratinus, in which he attacked a well-knowncourtesan.Athenaeus (p. 698), who preserves some parodichexameters of his, relates other anecdotes concerning him (pp. 5, 108, 407).[2]
InAristotle'sPoetics, Aristotle states "Homer, for example, makes men better than they are;Cleophon as they are; Hegemon the Thasian, the inventor of parodies, andNicochares, the author of theDiliad, worse than they are."[3]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hegemon of Thasos".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 207–208. This work in turn cites:See alsoThe Oxford Classical Dictionary (=OCD), edited by S. Hornblower et al., Oxford 2012, s.v. Hegemon, of Thasos, p. 652. This article in turn cites:
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See also D. Panomitros,"Hegemon of Thasos and Pleasure from Parody, Ancient Testimonies and Eustathius on the Parodist",Proceedings of the XIth Congress of FIEC, v.3, Athens 2004:504-513.
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