Choerilus (Ancient Greek: Χοιρίλος) was an Athenian tragic poet, who exhibited plays as early as 524 BC.
[2] His works are all lost; only Pausanias mentions a play by him entitled Alope (a mythological personage who was the subject of dramas by Euripides and Carcinus).
According to Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, however, the rival of Sophocles was a son of Choerilus, who bore the same name.
His reputation as a writer of satyr plays is attested in the line: The Choerilean metre (a catalectic hexameter[4]), mentioned by the Latin grammarians, is probably so called because the above line is the oldest extant specimen.
Choerilus was also said to have introduced considerable improvements in theatrical masks and costumes.