CHAERILUS

A Greek epic poet, born in Samos about 470 B.C., a friend of Herodotus, and afterwards of the Spartan Lysander. He lived first at Athens and afterwards at the court of King Archelaus of Macedonia, where he was treated with great consideration, and died about 400 B.C. He was the first epic poet who, feeling that the old mythology was exhausted, ventured to treat a historical subject of immediate interest, the Persian wars, in an epic entitled Perseis. According to one account the poem was read in the schools with Homer. The few fragments that remain show that it did not lack talent and merit; but little regard was paid to it by posterity.