Rhinthon
Rhinthon (, "gen".: Ῥίνθωνος; c. 323 – 285 BC) was a Hellenistic dramatist. The son of a potter, he was probably a native of Syracuse and afterwards settled at Tarentum. He invented the "hilarotragoedia," a burlesque of tragic subjects. Such burlesques were also called "phlyakes" ("fooleries") and their writers "phlyakographoi". He was the author of thirty-eight plays, of which only a few titles ("Amphitryon," "Heracles," "Medea", "Orestes") and lines have been preserved, chiefly by the grammarians, as illustrating dialectic Tarentine forms. The metre is iambic, in which the greatest licence is allowed. The scant fragments of his plays are collected  in R. Kassel and C. Austin, "Poetae Comici Graeci", vol. 1, pp. 260–70. Influence. The "Amphitruo" of Plautus was probably imitated from a different writer (Archippus of Middle Comedy), but illustrates how such subjects were treated. The "hilarotragoedia" exercised considerable influence on Latin comedy, the "Rhinthonica" (or "fabula") being mentioned by various authorities amongst other kinds of drama known to the Romans. Scenes from these travesties are probably represented in certain vase paintings from Southern Italy.