Parthenius of Nicaea

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Parthenius of Nicaea in Bithynia was a Greek grammarian and poet. He was taken prisoner by Cinna in the Mithridatic Wars and carried to Rome in 72 BC.^[1] He subsequently visited Neapolis, where he taught Virgil Greek. Parthenius was a writer of elegies, especially dirges, and of short epic poems. His only surviving work, the Erotica Pathemata (Of the Sorrows of Love), was set out, the poet says in his preface, "in the shortest possible form" and dedicated to the poet Cornelius Gallus, as "a storehouse from which to draw material". Erotica Pathemata is a collection of thirty-six epitomes of love-stories, all of which which have tragic or sentimental endings, taken from histories and historicised fictions as well as poetry.

As Parthenius generally quotes his authorities, these stories are valuable as affording information on the Alexandrian poets and grammarians. Parthenius is said to have lived until the accession of Tiberius in 14 AD. He is sometimes called "the last of the Alexandrians".

[edit] See also

• Lyrcus

[edit] References

• Online text: Parthenius, Love Romances translated by S. Gaselee, 1916