Parthenius of Nicaea

Greek poet and grammarian

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Flourished:: 1st century bc, Rome

Flourished:: c.100 BCE - c.1 BCE; İznik; Turkey

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Parthenius of Nicaea (flourished 1st century bc, Rome) was a Greek poet and grammarian, described as the “last of the Alexandrians.”

Born in Nicaea in Asia Minor, Parthenius was captured in the third Mithradatic war and taken to Italy, where he became the Roman poet Virgil’s teacher in Greek. Parthenius played an important role in spreading a taste for “Callimachean” poetry in Rome. His collection of 36 prose love stories made for the poet Cornelius Gallus has survived, and fragments from two funeral poems, one on his wife Arete, have come to light in papyri. He also wrote an encomium of the same lady in three books. His poems were favourite reading of the emperors Tiberius and Hadrian.

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