Theocritus
a Greek poet; a native of Syracuse and son of Praxagoras and Philina. Suidas, however, says that some made him the son of Simichus or Simachidas, and that he was a native of Cos and only a metoikos at Syracuse.
This statement vanishes on investigation.
Theocritus seems to have been intimately associated with the poet Aratus, author of the "Phænomena." The court of the Ptolemies was the mart of intellect then; and it is known that Theocritus at least once in his life visited that great center of poetry and philosophy. More than one of his idylls may have been written there. His 10th "Idyll" was unquestionably written at Syracuse, after the accession of Hiero (270 в. c.). The inference from all that can be gleaned from the poet himself as to his period, is that he flourished 284-262 в. c. It is at least certain that Theocritus was in Syracuse during the reign of Hiero II., and it is extremely probable that his 16th "Idyll" was written after that monarch's alliance with the Romans, 263 в. c. How he spent his later years is wholly unknown. The genuineness of some of the idylls is disputed. This could hardly be otherwise. But the chief glory of Theocritus lies in his being the founder of a fresh and fertile school of poetry.
Bion and Moschus, a little later, achieved distinction in the same walk. Vergil drawing from the same sweet well enriched Roman literature with poems of marvelous beauty, however inferior to those of his prototype. His idylls might have been written yesterday. In character they are mimetic and dramatic. In- THEOCRITUS It may be mentioned that the pieces, the genuineness of which is disputed, are the 12th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 26th, 27th, 29th, 30th. For full information on the integrity of the poems, the reader is referred to the works of Eichstädt (1794); E. Rheinhold (1819), and A.
Wissova (1828), with the prefaces of Wharton, Meineke and Wüstemann, in their editions of Theocritus. The editio princeps of the idylls without place or date is supposed to have been printed at Venice in 1481. The next is the Aldine (1495). More recent editions are those of Wharton (1770); Brunck (1772); Gaisford (1816, 1820-1823); Meineke (1825); Wüstermann (1830); Wordsworth (1844), and Paley (1863). One of the best versions in verse is C. S. Calverly's (1869), Andrew Lang's prose version (1889) may be commended.