Theocritus
Θεόκριτος3rd century BC
Theocritus of Syracuse, a Greek poet of the early third century BC who worked on Cos and at the court of Ptolemy II in Alexandria, is the founder of pastoral poetry. His Idylls, short poems in hexameter, put shepherds, goatherds and cowherds in song-contests and love-laments, and also include mimes of city life, small epics on Heracles and the Dioscuri, and poems in praise of rulers.
