The New International Encyclopædia/Posidippus

POS'IDIP′PUS, or POSEIDIPPUS (Lat., from Gk. Ποσείδιππος, Poseidippos). A Greek comic poet, the last exponent of the new comedy, dating from the first half of the third century B.C. He was born at Cassandria in Macedon, lived at Athens, and wrote 40 comedies, of which 18 titles have come down to us, and a few fragments, published in Kock, Comicorum Atttcorum Fragmenta. His Didymoi ("The Twins") was the original of Plautus's Menæchmi and of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. It is probable that others of his plays were imitated by the Roman comedian. A remarkably fine statue of Posidippus is in the Vatican at Rome.