The record of these recensions is preserved by two epigrams, one of which proceeds from Artemidorus of Tarsus, a grammarian, who lived in the time of Sulla and is said to have been the first editor of these poems.

"[3] The second epigram is anonymous, and runs as follows: "The Chian is another man, but I, Theocritus, who wrote these poems, am one of the great populace of Syracuse, the son of Praxagoras and renowned Philinna; and the Muse I have adopted is no alien.

[5] The information concerning his parentage bears the stamp of authenticity, and disposes of a rival theory based upon a misinterpretation of Idyll 7—which made him the son of one Simichus.

Some persons also attribute to him the following: Daughters of Proetus, Hopes, Hymns, Heroines, Dirges, Lyrics, Elegies, Iambics, Epigrams.

[6] In "Idyll 1" Thyrsis sings to a goatherd about how Daphnis, the mythical herdsman, having defied the power of Aphrodite, dies rather than yielding to a passion the goddess has inflicted on him.

In the poem, a series of divine figures from classical mythology, including Hermes, Priapus, and Aphrodite herself, interrogate the shepherd about his lovesickness.

The failure of these figures to comfort Daphnis in his dying moments thematizes classical beliefs about the folly of mortals who challenge the gods.

He praises Philitas, the veteran poet of Kos, and criticizes "the fledgelings of the Muse, who cackle against the Chian bard and find their labour lost."

Other persons mentioned are Nicias, a physician of Miletus, whose name occurs in other poems, and Aratus, whom the scholiasts identify with the author of the Phenomena.

[6] Several of the other bucolic poems consist of singing-matches, conducted according to the rules of amoebaean poetry, in which the second singer takes the subject chosen by the first and contributes a variation on the same theme.

On the other hand, it is clear that both poems were in Virgil's Theocritus, and that they passed the scrutiny of the editor who formed the short collection of Theocritean Bucolics.

In 2 Simaetha, deserted by Delphis, tells the story of her love to the moon; in 14 Aeschines narrates his quarrel with his sweetheart, and is advised to go to Egypt and enlist in the army of Ptolemy Philadelphus; in 15 Gorgo and Praxinoë go to the festival of Adonis.

[6] In addition to the Bucolics and Mimes, there are three poems which cannot be brought into any other class: The genuineness of the last was attacked by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff on account of the crudity of the language, which sometimes degenerates into doggerel.

In 13 he makes use of word-painting; in 16 there is some delicate fancy in the description of his poems as Charites, and a passage at the end, where he foretells the joys of peace after the enemy have been driven out of Sicily, has the true bucolic ring.

This marriage is held to have taken place in 277 BC, and a recently discovered inscription shows that Arsinoë died in 270, in the fifteenth year of her brother's reign.

The encomium upon Hiero II would seem prior to that upon Ptolemy, since in it Theocritus is a hungry poet seeking for a patron, while in the other he is well satisfied with the world.

The first is a very graceful poem presented together with a distaff to Theugenis, wife of Nicias, a doctor of Miletus, on the occasion of a voyage thither undertaken by the poet.