Suda in the context of Lexicon

Delphi (/ˈdɛlfaɪ, ˈdɛlfi/; Greek: Δελφοί [ðelˈfi]), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct in central Greece. It was the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The ancient Greeks considered the centre of the world to be in Delphi, marked by the stone monument known as the Omphalos of Delphi. The term omphalos was the Greek word for "navel".

According to the Suda, Delphi took its name from the Delphyne, the she-serpent (drakaina) who lived there and was killed by the god Apollo (in other accounts the serpent was the male serpent (drakon) Python).

Euripides (/jʊəˈrɪpɪdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Eὐριπίδης, romanized: Eurīpídēs, pronounced [eu̯.riː.pí.dɛːs]; c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three authors of Greek tragedy for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Nineteen plays attributed to Euripides have survived more or less complete, although one of these (Rhesus) is often considered not to be genuinely his work. Many fragments (some of them substantial) survive from most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined: he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.

Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He was referred to by Aristotle as "the most tragic of poets", probably in reference to a perceived preference for unhappy endings, but Aristotle's remark is seen by Bernard Knox as having wider relevance, since "in his representation of human suffering Euripides pushes to the limits of what an audience can stand; some of his scenes are almost unbearable." Focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown, Euripides was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.

Athenaeus of Naucratis (/ˌæθəˈniːəs/, Ancient Greek: Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, Athēnaios Naukratitēs or Naukratios; Latin: Athenaeus Naucratita) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcus Aurelius, but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus, who died in 192, implies that he survived that emperor. He was a contemporary of Adrantus.

Athenaeus himself states that he was the author of a treatise on the thratta, a type of fish mentioned by Archippus and other comic poets, and of a history of the Syrian kings. Both works are lost. Of his works, only the fifteen-volume Deipnosophistae mostly survives.

Nicomachus (Ancient Greek: Νικόμαχος; fl. c. 375 BC) was the father of Aristotle. The Suda states that he was a doctor descended from Nicomachus, son of Machaon the son of Asclepius. Greenhill notes he had another son named Arimnestus, and a daughter named Arimneste, by his wife Phaestis, or Phaestias, who was descended from Asclepius as well. He was a native of Stageira, and the friend and physician of Amyntas III, king of Macedonia, 393–369 BC. Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's work on Ethics may have been dedicated to his father. Aristotle's son was also called Nicomachus.

The Colossus of Rhodes (Ancient Greek: ὁ Κολοσσὸς Ῥόδιος, romanized: ho Kolossòs Rhódios; Modern Greek: Κολοσσός της Ρόδου, romanized: Kolossós tis Ródou) was a statue of the Greek sun god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, by Chares of Lindos in 280 BC. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was constructed to celebrate the successful defence of Rhodes against an attack by Demetrius I of Macedon, who had besieged it for a year with a large army and navy.

According to most contemporary descriptions, the Colossus stood approximately 70 cubits, or 33 metres (108 feet) high – approximately two-thirds of the height of the modern Statue of Liberty from feet to crown – making it the tallest statue in the ancient world. It collapsed during the earthquake of 226 BC, although parts of it were preserved. In accordance with the Oracle of Delphi, the Rhodians did not rebuild it. John Malalas wrote that Hadrian in his reign re-erected the Colossus, but he was mistaken. According to the Suda, the Rhodians were called Colossaeans (Κολοσσαεῖς), because they erected the statue on the island.

Milo or Milon of Croton (fl. 540 – 511 BC) was a famous ancient Greek athlete from Croton, which is today in the Magna Graecia region of southern Italy.

Milo was a six-time winner at the Olympics, once for boys' wrestling in 540 BC at the 60th Olympics and later five times for wrestling at the 62nd to 66th Olympics. He continued competing long after what would have been considered a normal Olympic athlete's prime, and would have been over 40 years of age by the 67th Olympiad. He also attended many of the Pythian Games. His historicity is attested by many classical authors, among them Aristotle, Pausanias, Cicero, Herodotus, Vitruvius, Epictetus, and the author of the Suda, but there are many legendary stories surrounding him.

Sitalces (Sitalkes) (/sɪˈtælˌsiːz/; Ancient Greek: Σιτάλκης; reigned 431–424 BC) was one of the kings of the Thracian Odrysian state. The Suda called him Sitalcus (Σίταλκος).

He was the son of Teres I, and on the sudden death of his father in 431 BC succeeded to the throne. Sitalces enlarged his kingdom by successful wars, and it soon comprised the whole territory from Abdera in the south to the mouths of the Danube in the north, and from the Black Sea in the east to the sources of the Struma in the west.

In Greek mythology, Delphyne (Greek: Δελφύνη) is the name given, by some accounts, to the monstrous serpent killed by Apollo at Delphi. Although, in Hellenistic and later accounts, the Delphic monster slain by Apollo is usually said to be the male serpent Python, in the earliest known account of this story, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (6th century BC), the god kills a nameless she-serpent (drakaina), subsequently called Delphyne. According to the Suda, Delphi was named after Delphyne.

Mimnermus (Ancient Greek: Μίμνερμος Mímnermos) was a Greek elegiac poet from either Colophon or Smyrna in Ionia, who flourished about 632–629 BC (i.e. in the 37th Olympiad, according to Suda). He was strongly influenced by Homer, yet he wrote short poems suitable for performance at drinking parties and was remembered by ancient authorities chiefly as a love poet. Mimnermus in turn exerted a strong influence on Hellenistic poets such as Callimachus and thus also on Roman poets such as Propertius, who even preferred him to Homer for his eloquence on love themes (see Comments by other poets below).

His work was collected by Alexandrian scholars in just two "books" (relatively few compared for example with the twenty-six books for Stesichorus) and today only small fragments survive. The fragments confirm the ancient estimate of him as a "consummate poet" but also indicate that he was a "sturdier character" than the indulgent love poet he was assumed to be by various ancient commentators. Almost no reliable biographical details have been recorded. One ancient account linked him romantically with a flute girl who subsequently gave her name, Nanno, to one of his two books.

Euphorion (Ancient Greek: Εὐφορίων, Euphoríōn, fl. 431 BC) was the son of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus, and himself an author of tragedies. He is known solely for his victory over Sophocles and Euripides in the Dionysia of 431 BC. According to the 10th century AD Suda, he won four victories by producing Aeschylus' plays, but it is suggested that this may have been a single victory with four plays.

No work bearing his name survives. He is purported by some to have been the author of Prometheus Bound—previously assumed to be the work of his father, to whom it was attributed at the Library of Alexandria,—for several reasons, chiefly that the portrayal of Zeus in Prometheus Bound is far less reverent than in other works attributed to Aeschylus, and that references to the play appear in the plays of the comic Aristophanes. This has led historians to date it as late as 415 BC, long after Aeschylus's death. If Euphorion wrote Prometheus Bound, then there may be as many as five ancient Greek tragedians with one or more fully surviving plays: Aeschylus, Euphorion, Sophocles, Euripides, and possibly the author of the tragedy Rhesus if its attribution to Euripides is incorrect.

Sopater of Paphos (Ancient Greek: Σώπατρος ὁ Πάφιος) was a 3rd-century BC parodist and playwright. Atheneus reports on his lifetime in his Deipnosophistae. According to Atheneus, Sopater lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and "was still alive in the reign of the second king of Egypt". After Ptolemy II Philadelphus (308-246 BC) succeeded his father on the throne of Egypt in 283/2 BC, and considering that the work of Sopater was likely composed after Ptolemy II's victory against the Gauls in 270 BC and makes reference to him, scholars place Sopater in the last thirty years of the 4th and the first half of the 3rd century BC. He is believed to have spent a significant part of his life spent in Alexandria.

A few of Sopater's works are known to us through Atheneus' Deipnosophistae, these are: Bacchus, Eubulotheombrutus, Pylaeus and Phacis are described in the ancient source as dramas. Other sources like the 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia Suidas count nine works in total: Hippolytus, Physiologus, Silpho, Cnidia, Nekia, Pylaeus, Orestes, Phacis and Bacchus. Sopatros, in addition to the indicative of his Paphos descent, is called a parodist and a phlyax writer in Athenaeus, and a comedian in Suidas.

Nicomachus (Greek: Νικόμαχος; fl. c. 325 BC) was the son of Aristotle. The Suda states that Nicomachus was from Stageira, was a philosopher, a pupil of Theophrastus, and, according to Aristippus, his lover. He may have written a commentary on his father's lectures in physics. Nicomachus was born to the slave Herpyllis, and his father's will commended his care as a boy to several tutors, then to his adopted son, Nicanor. Historians think the Nicomachean Ethics, a compilation of Aristotle's lecture notes, was probably named after or dedicated to Aristotle's son. However, Nicomachus is also believed to be the name of Aristotle's father. Several ancient authorities may have conflated Aristotle's ethical works with the commentaries that Nicomachus wrote on them. Ancient sources indicate that Nicomachus died in battle while still a "lad".

Marsyas of Pella (Ancient Greek: Μαρσύας Περιάνδρου Πελλαῖος; c. 356 BC – c. 294 BC), son of Periander, was a Greek historian. According to the Suda Encyclopedia, he was a brother of Antigonus I Monophthalmus, who was afterwards king of Asia, by which an uterine brother alone can be meant, as the father of Antigonus was named Philip. Both of these statements point to his being of noble birth, and appear strangely at variance with the assertion that he was a mere professional grammarian Grammatodidascalus, a statement which Robert Geier conjectures plausibly enough to refer in fact to Marsyas of Philippi. Suidas, indeed, seems in many points to have confounded the two. The only other fact transmitted to us concerning the life of Marsyas, is that he was appointed by Demetrius Poliorcetes to command one division of his fleet in the Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC) (Diodorus, xx. 50.). However, this circumstance is alone sufficient to show that he was a person who himself took an active part in public affairs, not a mere man of letters. It is probable that he followed the fortunes of his stepbrother Antigonus.

His principal work was a history of Macedonia, Makedonika, in 10 books, commencing from the earliest times, and coming down to the wars of Alexander in Asia, when it terminated abruptly in 331 BC, with the return of the monarch into Syria, after the conquest of Egypt and the foundation of Alexandria. It is repeatedly cited by Athenaeus, Plutarch, Harpocration, Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus and Justin (historian). Suidas also speaks of a history on the education of Alexander, (Αλεξάνδρου αγωγή) and a treatise on the history of antiquities of Athens (Αττικά) in 12 books, which is considered by Bernhardy and Geier to be the same with Archaeology of Marsyas the younger.

Aristeas (Greek: Ἀριστέας) was a semi-legendary Greek poet and miracle-worker, a native of Proconnesus in Asia Minor, active ca. 7th century BC. The Suda claims that, whenever he wished, his soul could leave his body and return again. In book IV.13-16 of The Histories, Herodotus reports:

Two hundred and forty years after his death, Aristeas is said to have appeared in Metapontum in southern Italy to command that a statue of himself be set up and a new altar dedicated to Apollo, saying that since his death he had been travelling with Apollo in the form of a sacred raven.

The Thyamis (Greek: Θύαμις), also known as Glykys (Γλυκύς) or Kalamas (Καλαμάς), is a river in the Epirus region of Greece. The 115 km (71 mi) long, river flows into the Ionian Sea while on its course it drains an area of about 1,800 km (690 sq mi), over 99% of which on Greek territory. Thyamis in ancient Greece was mentioned by Pausanias as forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine. In addition, Suda and Ptolemaeus mentioned it.

Pherecydes of Athens (Ancient Greek: Φερεκύδης) (fl. c. 465 BC) was a Greek mythographer who wrote an ancient work in ten books, now lost, variously titled "Historiai" (Ἱστορίαι) or "Genealogiai" (Γενελογίαι). He is one of the authors (= FGrHist 3) whose fragments were collected in Felix Jacoby's Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.

He is generally thought to be different from the sixth-century Pre-Socratic philosopher Pherecydes of Syros, who was sometimes mentioned as one of the Seven Sages of Greece and was reputed to have been the teacher of Pythagoras. Although the Suda considers them separately, he is possibly the same person as Pherecydes of Leros.

Carcinus (Greek: Καρκίνος) was an Ancient Greek tragedian from Thoricus, the son of the playwright Xenocles and grandson of Carcinus. Another Xenocles, mentioned by a scholiast on Aristophanes' Frogs, may have been Carcinus' son. The Suda records that he wrote one hundred and sixty plays. He won eleven victories at the Dionysia. His exact dates are uncertain, though he was certainly active in the 370s BC. According to the Suda, his floruit was in the 100th Olympiad (380–377 BC); and his first victory at the Dionysia can be dated to before 372. Dionysius II of Syracuse was a patron of Carcinus. Nine or ten titles of his plays are known: Aerope, Ajax, Alope, Amphiaraus, Medea, Oedipus, Orestes, Semele, Thyestes, and possibly Tyro. His work survives only in fragments.

Carcinus is mentioned briefly by Aristotle. In the Poetics, Chapter 17 (1455a lines 22 to 29), Aristotle discusses the necessity for a playwright to see the composition on the stage, rather than just in print, in order to weed out any inconsistencies. Aristotle points to an unnamed play of Carcinus which had a character, Amphiaraus, exit a temple. For some reason this seemed outrageously inconsistent when viewed on the stage, and the audience "hissed" the actors right off the stage.

Agallis (Ancient Greek: Ἀγαλλίς; called Anagallis Ancient Greek: Ἀναγαλλίς by the Suda) of Corcyra was a female grammarian who wrote about Homer. She, or her father, was a student of Aristophanes of Byzantium.

According to Athenaeus, she argued that ball games were invented by Nausicaa. Two scholiasts on the Iliad quote an argument that the two cities that Homer describes on the Shield of Achilles represented Athens and Eleusis; one attributes this to "Agallias of Corcyra", the other to "Dalis of Corcyra". Some scholars believe that Agallias was Agallis' father; others that it is an error and Agallis was the source of this argument.

Polyaenus or Polyenus (/ˌpɒliˈiːnəs/ POL-ee-EE-nəs; see ae (æ) vs. e; Ancient Greek: Πoλύαινoς, romanized: Polyainos, "much-praised") was a 2nd-century Roman Macedonian author and rhetorician, known best for his Stratagems in War (Ancient Greek: Στρατηγήματα, romanized: Strategemata), which has been preserved. He was born in Bithynia, Asia Minor. The Suda calls him a rhetorician, and Polyaenus himself writes that he was accustomed to plead causes before the Roman emperor. Polyaenus dedicated Stratagems in War to the two emperors Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) and Lucius Verus (r. 161–169), while they were engaged in the Roman–Parthian War of 161–166, about 163, at which time he was too old to accompany them in their campaigns.