LYCOPHRON, a Greek poet, was a native of Chalcis, a city in the island of Euboea, and the son of Socles; but of his private history we are almost entirely ignorant. It is supposed that Lycophron began to be distinguished in the beginning of the reign of Philadelphus, b. c. 280, and continued to rise in reputation till b. c. 250, during the first years of the first Punic war, a period of thirty years. If we be correctly informed respecting the mode in which he acquired the friendship and favour of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who then held his court at Alexandreia, it is not much to the credit of Lycophron. It is said that he owed it to the flattering compliments he contrived to convey to the prince through ingenious anagrams. Thus, from ∏τo- Xεμαιος, he made αvο μελιτoς (of honey) ; in Arsinoe, the name of the queen, he found ιον , Hgaς (violet of Juno). Lycophron is included amongst those seven poets who from their number were called the Pleias. They were all contemporary, and all graced the court of Philadelphus. Their names were, Homerus, Sositheus, Lycophron, Alexander (Aetolus), Philiseus, Sosiphanes or Dionysides, and Aeantides. Lycophron was the author of sixty-four, or, according to others, of forty-six, tragedies (Tzetzes adLyc. p. 270). Suidas gives the names of nineteen of them. They have all however disappeared, and the only fragment of them that has been preserved is a verse of four lines of his tragedy entitled Pelopidae, by Stobaeus. The idea is beautiful, and is expressed with great simplicity. “The unhappy call upon death to relieve them while he is at a distance; but when the last moments of life approach, we are anxious to live. Man is never tired of life.” Lycophron is also said to have been the author of satires, one of which, directed against Menedemus, and where he ridiculed the frugal table of this founder of the Eretrian school, has been particularly mentioned. (Athen, x. p. 420; xi. p. 55.) He also wrote some books on comedy; but the work which has been preserved, and for which he is best known, is entitled Alexandra or Cassandra, from the daughter of Priam, who had two appellations, like her brother Paris. The poem consists of 1474 lines. Cassandra had acquired by a trick the power of prophecy from Apollo; but, having refused to fulfil her engagement, the god prevented any credit being attached to her words, and caused her to be regarded as mad. She is shut up in a tower by Priam, that she may not alarm the city, and from the summit of the tower she observes the vessel depart which bore Paris to the shores of Greece. This spectacle excites her prophetic powers, and a servant who overhears her words repeats them to Priam. She commences by deploring the fate which she foresees must inevitably overtake her native city, and then proceeds to foretell the various calamities which will arise out of the Trojan war. She first recounts those which will befall Helen, her parents, brothers, and sisters; and then notices the fates of the different Grecian leaders, such as Ajax, Diomede, Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Idomeneus. This causes her to [7:13:606]refer to the numerous wars which had been carried on at various times between the inhabitants of Europe and Asia. She begins with the rape of Io and Europa, and, giving an historical sketch of the Argonauts, the Amazons, the Trojans, Midas, and Xerxes, she brings down her history to the time of Alexander the Great. Besides, there are many episodes scattered throughout the work, such as the Labours of Hercules, the Deluge of Deucalion, the Wanderings of Aeneas, and the colony planted in Latium. This work of Lycophron is one of the most obscure which antiquity has handed down to us, and it appears that the author exerted all his ingenuity to render it so. He has succeeded principally by the employment of unusual modes of syntax, of rare and obsolete words, of expressions far removed from the common dialect, of confused metaphors, and of periods so involved that the reader loses himself in a labyrinth of words. There have been many commentaries on the Alexandra, but the best is that by Tzetzes. The best edition is that of Potter (Oxford, 1697,1702), in which the text is accompanied by the scholia of Tzetzes, the remarks of Canter and Meursius, and a valuable index. Reichard (Lip. 1788), rejecting the commentaries of Tzetzes, Meursius, and Potter, published the simple text and notes of Canter, adding a continued paraphrase like that which is found in the editions of the classics ad usum Delphini. The Scholia have been published separately by Müller (3 vols. Lips. 1811), Royston translation.