1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Agathon

AGATHON (c. 448–400 B.C.), Athenian tragic poet, friend of Euripides and Plato, best known from his mention by Aristophanes (Thesmophoriazusae) and in Plato's Symposium, which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for a tragedy (416). He probably died at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia. He introduced certain innovations, and Aristotle (Poetica, 9) tells us that the plot of his Ἄνθος was original, not, as usually, borrowed from mythological subjects.

See Aristophanes, Thesmoph. 59, 106, Eccles. 100; Plato, Symp. 198 c; Plutarch, Symp. 3; Aelian, Var. Hist. xiv. 13; Ritsch, Opuscula, i.; fragments in Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.