The New International Encyclopædia/Pherecrates

PHERECRATES, fḗ-rĕk′rȧ-tēz (Lat., from Gk. Φερεκράτης, Pherekratēs) One of the most eminent writers of the Old Attic Comedy; a contemporary of Cratinus, Crates, Eupolis, Plato, and Aristophanes. He invented the Pherecratean metre ( ′__ ′_ υ υ _′ __ ), which is frequently used in the choruses of the Greek tragedies and in Horace. A few fragments and the titles of eighteen of his plays are extant. Consult: Meineke, Fragmenta Comicorum Græcorum (Berlin, 1839); and Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (Leipzig. 1880). Among the ancients he was famed for his wealth of invention and the purity of his Attic Greek.