HEGEMON OF THASOS

hegemon of thasos, greek writer of the old comedy, nicknamed [greek: phake] from his fondness for lentils. hardly anything is known of him, except that he flourished during the peloponnesian war. according to aristotle (_poetics_, ii. 5) he was the inventor of a kind of parody; by slightly altering the wording in well-known poems he transformed the sublime into the ridiculous. when the news of the disaster in sicily reached athens, his parody of the _gigantomachia_ 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. he was also the author of a comedy called _philinne_ (_philine_), written in the manner of eupolis and cratinus, in which he attacked a well-known courtesan. athenaeus (p. 698), who preserves some parodic hexameters of his, relates other anecdotes concerning him (pp. 5, 108, 407). fragments in t. kock, _comicorum atticorum fragmenta_, i. (1880); b. j. peltzer, _de parodica graecorum poesi_ (1855). hegemony (gr. [greek: hegemonia], leadership, from [greek: hegeisthai], to lead), the leadership especially of one particular state in a group of federated or loosely united states. the term was first applied in greek history to the position claimed by different individual city-states, e.g. by athens and sparta, at different times to a position of predominance (_primus inter pares_) among other equal states, coupled with individual autonomy. the reversion of this position was claimed by macedon (see greece: _ancient history_, and delian league). hegesias of magnesia (in lydia), greek rhetorician and historian, flourished about 300 b.c. strabo (xiv. 648), speaks of him as the founder of the florid style of composition known as "asiatic" (cf. timaeus). agatharchides, dionysius of halicarnassus and cicero all speak of him in disparaging terms, although varro seems to have approved of his work. he professed to imitate the simple style of lysias, avoiding long periods, and expressing himself in short, jerky sentences, without modulation or finish. his vulgar affectation and bombast made his writings a mere caricature of the old attic. dionysius describes his composition as tinselled, ignoble and effeminate. it is generally supposed, from the fragment quoted as a specimen by dionysius, that hegesias is to be classed among the writers of lives of alexander the great. this fragment describes the treatment of gaza and its inhabitants by alexander after its conquest, but it is possible that it is only part of an epideictic or show-speech, not of an historical work. this view is supported by a remark of agatharchides in photius (_cod._ 250) that the only aim of hegesias was to exhibit his skill in describing sensational events. see cicero, _brutus_ 83, _orator_ 67, 69, with j. e. sandys's note, _ad att._ xii. 6; dion. halic. _de verborum comp._ iv.; aulus gellius ix. 4; plutarch, _alexander_, 3; c. w. muller, _scriptores rerum alexandri magni_, p. 138 (appendix to didot ed. of arrian, 1846); norden, _die antike kunstprosa_ (1898); j. b. bury, _ancient greek historians_ (1909), pp. 169-172, on origin and development of "asiatic" style, with example from hegesias.