Meleager of Gadara

Meleager was the son of Eucrates, born in the city of Gadara, now Umm Qais in Jordan, then part of the Hasmonian Kingdom[1], which was then a partially Hellenized community noted for its "remarkable contribution to Greek culture".

According to short autobiographical poems he wrote, Meleager was proud of his hometown and identified himself as cosmopolitan, being both "Attic" (i.e. Hellenistic) and Syrian, and also praised Tyre for having "made [him] a man" and Cos for taking "care of [him] in [his] old age".

[3][4] The scholiast to the Palatine manuscript of the Greek Anthology says he flourished in the reign of Seleucus VI Epiphanes (95 – 93 BC).

The uppermost date of his compilation of the Anthology is 60 BC, as it did not include Philodemus of Gadara, though later editors added thirty-four epigrams.

[6] Like his compatriot Menippus, Meleager wrote what were known as spoudogeloia (Greek singular: σπουδογέλοιος), satirical prose essays putting philosophy in popular form with humorous illustrations.