Sophron Syracusanus, Mimi, fragment 10 title*: female spectators at the Isthmian games (?)

Sophron Syracusanus, Mimi, fragment 10 title*: female spectators at the Isthmian games (?)

5th century BCE

Mime

Literary source

An ancient introduction to the 15th Idyll of Theocritus mentions that the poem was inspired by Sophron's mime on the women watching the Isthmian games. Nothing further is known about this particular mime of Sophron’s, and it is uncertain whether it even proves that women were allowed to attend the Isthmian games rather than representing some form of comedic reversal.

The women watching the Isthmian games

translation by Alexander Meeus for the Cynisca project

Ταὶ θάμεναι τὰ Ἴσθμια

G. Kaibel, Comicorum Graecorum fragmenta, vol. 1.1 (Poetarum Graecorum fragmenta 6.1), Berlin 1899.

Hordern, J. H., Sophron's Mimes: Text, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford, 2004.