RHIANUS

A Greek poet and grammarian, a native of Bene in Crete, in the latter half of the 3rd century B.C. In his youth he was a slave and the overseer of a paloestra; in his later life he wrote, in the learned manner of the Alexandrines, besides epigrams, a number of epics. Of these the most famous was the Messeniaca, celebrating in six books the second Messenian War and its mythical hero Aristomenes. Besides an epic fragment, we still possess eleven of his epigrams.