# Epicharmus — The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers character guide

> Epicharmus in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Epicharmus of Cos

**First appearance:** 0074-epicharmus

## Snapshot

A comic playwright from Cos whose verses on flux and identity were quoted by Plato and later philosophers as evidence that even drama could do metaphysics.

## Who they are

Epicharmus sits at the strange intersection of Athenian comedy and pre-Socratic thought, a writer whose stagecraft doubled as philosophy. His surviving lines argue that nothing stays the same — that you and I are different people from what we were yesterday — a doctrine Plato found congenial enough to cite. He matters because he shows that in the Greek world, wisdom could arrive in meter and laughter as easily as in treatise form.

## In the story

### [Epicharmus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/epicharmus)

Native of Cos, pupil of Pythagoras, brought to Megara and Syracuse, author of commentaries on natural philosophy, medicine, and apothegms.

## Links

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