- Pigres of Halicarnassus
Pigres, a native of
Halicarnassus , either the brother or the son of the celebrated Artemisia, satrap ofCaria . He is spoken of by theSuda (s.v. where, however, he makes the mistake of conflating Artemisia the wife ofMausolus with Artemisia the advisor of Xerxes in the "Histories"Herodotus ) as the author of theMargites , and theBatrachomyomachia . The latter poem is also attributed to him byPlutarch ("de Herod. malign." 43. p. 873f), and was probably his work. One of his performances was a very singular one, namely, inserting apentameter line after each hexameter in theIliad , thus: — :"Mênin aeide thea Pêlêiadeô Achilêos;":"Mousa gar su pasês peirat' echeis sophiês."Bode ("Gesch. der Hellen. Dichtkunst". i. p. 279) believes that the Margites, though not composed by Pigres, suffered some alterations at his hands, and in that altered shape passed down to posterity. Some suppose that the
iambic lines, which alternated with thehexameter s in the Margites, were inserted by Pigres. He was the first poet, apparently, who introduced the iambictrimeter . (Fabric. "Bibl. Graec." i. p. 519, &c.)References
* [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/2699.html Pigres] from Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology" (1867), from which this article was originally derived
* [http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl?db=REAL&search_method=QUERY&login=guest&enlogin=guest&user_list=LIST&page_num=1&searchstr=pi%2C1551&field=adlerhw_gr&num_per_page=100 Suda On Line: Pigres]
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