Alpheus Mytilenaeus

Alpheus Mytilenaeus (Gr. Ἀλφείος Μυτιληναῖος) was the author of about twelve epigrams in the Greek Anthology, some of which seem to point out the time when he wrote.[1] In the seventh epigram he refers to the state of the Roman Empire, as embracing almost all the known world; in the ninth he speaks of the restored and flourishing city of Troy; and in the tenth he alludes to an epigram by Antipater of Sidon. Antipater lived under Augustus, in the second half of the 1st century BC, and Troy had received great favors from Julius Caesar and Augustus.[2] Therefore it is not improbable that Alpheus also wrote under Augustus. It is true that in the fourth epigram he addresses a certain Macrinus, but there is no reason to suppose that this was the emperor Macrinus. Another difficulty has been stated, on the ground that the eleventh epigram was inscribed, as we learn from Pausanias,[3] on the statue of Philopoemen in Tegea, and that it is very improbable that such a statue should have stood without an inscription till the time of Alpheus. This may be moot, as scholarly opinion is divided about whether or not this epigram can even be attributed to Alpheus.[4]

References

  1. ^ Smith, Philip (1867). "Alpheus Mytilenaeus". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. pp. 134. http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0143.html. 
  2. ^ Strabo, Geographica xiii. p. 889
  3. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece viii. 52. § 3
  4. ^ Jacobs, Anthol. Graec. xiii. p. 839

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).