Hermesianax of Colophon ( el, Ἑρμησιάναξ; ''gen''.: Ἑρμησιάνακτος) was an

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

elegiac The adjective ''elegiac'' has two possible meanings. First, it can refer to something of, relating to, or involving, an elegy or something that expresses similar mournfulness or sorrow. Second, it can refer more specifically to poetry composed in ...

poet of the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

, said to be a pupil of

Philitas of Cos Philitas of Cos (; el, Φιλίτας ὁ Κῷος, ''Philītas ho Kōos''; – ), sometimes spelled Philetas (; , ''Philētas''; see Bibliography below), was a Greek scholar, poet and grammarian during the early Hellenistic period of ancien ...

; the dates of his life and work are all but lost, but Philitas is supposed to have been born c. 340 BC. His chief work was a poem in three books, dedicated to his mistress Leontion. Of this poem a fragment of about one hundred lines has been preserved by

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...

.Athenaeus, ''Deipnosophists''
xiii.597
Plaintive in tone, it enumerates instances, mythological and semi-historical, of the irresistible power of love. Hermesianax, whose style is characterized by alternate force and tenderness, was exceedingly popular in his own times, and was highly esteemed even in the Augustan period. Many separate editions have been published of the fragment, the text of which is in a very unsatisfactory condition: by FW Schneidewin (1838), J Bailey (1839, with notes, glossary, and Latin and English versions), and others; R Schulze's ''Quaestiones Hermesianacteae'' (1858) contains an account of the life and writings of the poet and a section on the identity of Leontion.

Representation in art

File:Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, RA, OM - Sappho and Alcaeus - Walters 37159.jpg, ''Sappho and Alcaeus'', 1881. Representation of "Banquet of the Learned," book 2, line 598.

The Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...

Notes

References

* . * . * . * {{Authority control Ancient Greek poets 4th-century BC poets Ancient Greek elegiac poets Hellenistic poets