RHIANUS of Crete flourished about 200 B.C., and was chiefly celebrated as an epic poet. Besides mythological epics, he wrote metrical histories of Thessaly, Elis, Achaea, and Messene; Pausinias quotes verses from the last of these, /Messen./ i. 6, xvii. 11. Seutonius, /Tiberius/, c. 70, mentions him along with Euphorion as having been greatly admired by Tiberius. There are nine epigrams by him, erotic and dedicatory, in the Palatine Anthology, and another is quoted by Athenaeus. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 11, couples him with the marjoram-blossom.
THEODORIDES of Syracuse, the author of nineteen epigrams in the Anthology, flourished towards the close of the third century B.C., one of his epigrams being an epitaph on Euphorion. He also wrote lyric poetry; Athenaeus mentions a dithyrambic poem of his called the /Centaurs/, and a /Hymn to Love/. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 53, speaks of "the fresh-blooming festal wild-thyme of Theodorides."
A little earlier in date is MNASALCAS of Plataeae, near Sicyon, on whom Theodorides wrote an epitaph (/Anth. Pal./ xiii. 21), which speaks of him as imitating Simonides, and criticises his style as turgid. This criticism is not born out by his eighteen extant epigrams in the Palatine Anthology, which are in the best manner, with something of the simplicity of his great model, and even a slight austerity of style which takes us back to Greece Proper. The /Garland/ of Meleager seizes this quality when it speaks, l. 16, of "the tresses of the sharp pine of Mnasalcas."
MOSCHUS of Syracuse, the last of the pastoral poets, flourished towards the end of the third century B.C., perhaps as late as B.C. 200 if he was the friend of the grammarian Aristarchus. A single epigram of his is extant in Planudes. The Palatine Anthology includes his idyll of /Love the Runaway/ (ix. 440), and the lovely hexameter fragment by Cyrus (ix. 136), which has without authority been attributed to him and is generally included among his poems.
To this period may belong DIOTIMUS, whose name is at the head of eleven epigrams in the Anthology. One of these is headed "Diotimus of Athens," one "Diotimus of Miletus," the rest have the name simply. Nothing is known from other sources of any one of them. An Athenion Diotimus was one of the orators surrendered to Antipater B.C. 322, and some of the epigrams might be of that period. A grammarian Diotimus of Adramyttium is mentioned in an epigram by Aratus of Soli (who fl. 270 B.C.); perhaps he was the poet of the /Garland/ of Meleager, who speaks, l. 27, of "the quince from the boughs of Diotimus."
AUTOMEDON of Aetolia is the author of an epigram in the Palatine Anthology, of which the first two lines are in Planudes under the name of Theocritus; it is in his manner, and in the best style of this period. There are twelve other epigrams by an Automedon of the Roman period in the Anthology, one of them headed "Automedon of Cyzicus." From internal evidence these belong to the reign of Nerva or Trajan. An Automedon was probably one of the poets in the Anthology of Philippus (/Garland/, l. 11), but is most probably different from both of these, as that collection cannot well be put later than the reign of Nero, and purports to include only poets subsequent to Meleager: cf. supra p. 17.
THEAETETUS is only known as the author of three epigrams in the Palatine Anthology (a fourth usually ascribed to him, /Anth. Pal./ vii. 444, should be referred to Theaetetus Scholasticus, a Byzantine epigrammatist of the period of Justinian) and two more in Diogenes Laërtius. One of these last is an epitaph on the philosopher Crantor, who flourished about 300 B.C., but is not necessarily contemporaneous.
(4) ALCAEUS of Messene, who flourished 200 B.C., represents the literary and political energy still surviving in Greece under the Achaean League. Many of his epigrams touch on the history of the period; several are directed against Philip III. of Macedonia. The earliest to which a date can be fixed is on the destruction of Macynus in Aetolia by Philip, B.C. 218 or 219 (Polyb. iv. 65), and the latest on the dead at the battle of Cynoscephalae, B.C. 197, written before their bones were collected and buried by order of Antiochus B.C. 191. This epigram is mentioned by Plutarch as having given offence to the Roman general Flaminius, on account of its giving the Aetolians an equal share with the Romans in the honour of the victory. Another is on the freedom of Flaminius, proclaimed at the Isthmia B.C. 196. An Alcaeus was one of the Epicurean philosophers expelled from Rome by decree of the Senate in B.C. 173, and may be the same. Others of his epigrams are on literary subjects. All are written in a hard style. There are twenty-two in all in the Anthology. Some of them are headed "Alcaeus of Mitylene," but there is no doubt as to the authorship; the confusion of this Alcaeus with the lyric poet of Mitylene could only be made by one very ignorant of Greek literature.
Of the same period is DAMAGETUS, the author of twelve epigrams in the
Anthology, and included as "a dark violet" in the /Garland/ of
Meleager, l. 21. They are chiefly epitaphs, and are in the best style
of the period.
DIONYSIUS of Cyzicus must have flourished soon after 200 B.C. from his epitaph on Eratosthenes, who died B.C. 196. Eight other epigrams in the Palatine Anthology, and four more in Planudes, are attributed to a Dionysius. One is headed "Dionysius of Andros," one "Dionysius of Rhodes" (it is an epitaph on a Rhodian), one "Dionysius the Sophist," the others "Dionysius" simply. There were certainly several authors of the name, which was one of the commonest in Greece; but no distinction in style can be traced among these epigrams, and there is little against the theory that most if not all are by the same author, Dionysius of Cyzicus.