Leonidas of Tarentum (;

Doric Greek Doric or Dorian ( grc, Δωρισμός, Dōrismós), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, that included ...

: ) was an

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...

matist and

lyric poet Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

. He lived in Italy in the third century B.C. at

Tarentum Tarentum may refer to: * Taranto, Apulia, Italy, on the site of the ancient Roman city of Tarentum (formerly the Greek colony of Taras) **See also History of Taranto * Tarentum (Campus Martius), also Terentum, an area in or on the edge of the Camp ...

, on the coast of

Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...

(

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia (, ; , , grc, Μεγάλη Ἑλλάς, ', it, Magna Grecia) was the name given by the Romans to the coastal areas of Southern Italy in the present-day Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily; these re ...

). Over a hundred of his epigrams are present in the

Greek Anthology The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...

compiled in the 10th and 14th centuries. Most of his poems are dedicatory or sepulchral. The youth of Leonidas coincided with the first awakening of the Greek cities on the south coast of Italy to the danger threatening them from Rome and their first attempts to seek protection from the warlike kings of

Epirus sq, Epiri rup, Epiru , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = Historical region , image_map = Epirus antiquus tabula.jpg , map_alt = , map_caption = Map of ancient Epirus by Heinrich ...

. One of Leonidas's earliest extent poems chronicles a journey which he himself took to the court of

Neoptolemus In Greek mythology, Neoptolemus (; ), also called Pyrrhus (; ), was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia, and the brother of Oneiros. He became the mythical progenitor of the ruling dynasty of the Molossians of ancient Epi ...

, son of Aeacides, seeking promise of protection. Soon after the poet's arrival, Neoptolemus was assassinated by his more warlike cousin, Pyrrhus, who eagerly agreed to become the Greeks' champion, and Leonidas returned to Italy to rally his countrymen for war.Wright, F.A. "Leonidas of Tarentum." The Edinburgh Review. Apr. 1922. Although he became quite famous after his death, Leonidas was only able to earn a bare subsistence from his poetry during his lifetime. In one grim poem, he addresses the mice that share his meal tub, reminding them that he needs only one lump of salt and two

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...

cakes for himself. According to the translator

Edwyn Bevan Edwyn Robert Bevan OBE, FBA (15 February 1870 in London – 18 October 1943 in London) was a versatile British philosopher and historian of the Hellenistic world. Life Edwyn Robert Bevan was the fourteenth of sixteen children of Robert Cooper L ...

, "the thought of death pervades most of the poetry of Leonidas ... there does not seem to be for Leonidas any feeling of transcendental meaning to life ... Leonidas seems almost to find satisfaction in thinking that outside this little sunlit world of every day there is nothing but opaque blackness into which the figures of this world one by one disappear".

References

English translations

* ''The Poems of Leonidas of Tarentum'' (1931) Introduced and Translated by

, Oxford: The Clarendon Press. (The only complete English translation of specifically Leonidas' works in one volume.)

External links

Poems by Leonidas of Tarentum
– English translations

at ''attalus.org''; adapted from W.R.Paton (1916–18) Ancient Tarantines 3rd-century BC Greek people 3rd-century BC poets Epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology Ancient Greek lyric poets Doric Greek poets Poets of Magna Graecia Ancient Epirus Pyrrhic War Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown {{AncientGreece-poet-stub