Antipater of Sidon

Antipater of Sidon (Greek: Ἀντίπατρος Antipatros) or Antipatros Sidonios (Ἀντίπατρος Σιδώνιος) in the Anthologies, was an ancient Greek poet in the second half of the 2nd century BC. His poems preserved in the Greek Anthology include evocations of art and literature and some epitaphs. But there appears to be confusion in the Anthology between Antipater of Sidon and Antipater of Thessalonice, who lived in the next century.

Cicero describes Antipater as living at Rome in the time of Crassus and Catulus.[1]

Antipater composed an epitaph for Sappho, in which he stated that she died of natural causes and was buried in her homeland. Cicero (Oratore, III, 50 and de Fato, 2) described him as a brilliant epigrammist but sometimes too fond of imitation.

He, along with Philo of Byzantium, Strabo, Herodotus and Diodoros of Sicily, is attributed with the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which he described in a poem composed about 140 BC:

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, 'Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.'

— Antipater, Greek Anthology IX.58

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References

  1. ↑ Cicero, Or. 3:194

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