couat

Updated: May 5, 2025

Theocritus has been supposed to aim at him as a vain rival of Homer, but M. Couat points out that Theocritus was seventy when Apollonius began to write. The literary fashions of Alexandria are only of moment to us so far as they directly affected Theocritus. They could not make him obscure, affected, tedious, but his nature probably inclined him to obey fashion so far as only to write short poems.

of Phlossa near Smyrna Bion - Theocritus Bion and Moschus Rendered into English Prose

Theocritus was probably born in an early decade of the third century, or, according to Couat, about 315 B.C., and was a native of Syracuse, 'the greatest of Greek cities, the fairest of all cities. So Cicero calls it, describing the four quarters that were encircled by its walls, each quarter as large as a town, the fountain Arethusa, the stately temples with their doors of ivory and gold.

of Phlossa near Smyrna Bion - Theocritus Bion and Moschus Rendered into English Prose