His only surviving work, the Erotica Pathemata (Ἐρωτικὰ Παθήματα, 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 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.
The only surviving manuscript of Parthenius was called Palatinus Heidelbergensis graecus 398 (P), probably written in the mid-9th century AD.
It contains a diverse mixture of geography, excerpts from Hesychius of Alexandria, paradoxography, epistolography and mythology.