Philoxenus of Cythera was a Greek dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "New Music". He was one of the most important dithyrambic poets of ancient Greece.

The dithyramb was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god. Plato, in The Laws, while discussing various kinds of music mentions "the birth of Dionysos, called, I think, the dithyramb." Plato also remarks in the Republic that dithyrambs are the clearest example of poetry in which the poet is the only speaker.