NICIAS of Miletus, physician, scholar, and poet, was the contemporary and close friend of Theocritus. Idyl xi. is addressed to him, and the scholiast says he wrote an idyl in reply to it; idyl xxii was sent with the gift of an ivory spindle to his wife, Theugenis; and one of Theocritus' epigrams (/Anth. Pal./ vi. 337) was written for him as a dedication. There are eight epigrams of his in the Anthology (/Anth. Pal./ xi. 398 is wrongly attributed to him, and should be referred to Nicarchus), chiefly dedications and inscriptions for rural places in the idyllic manner. "The green mint of Nicias" is mentioned, probably with an allusion to his profession, in the /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 19. CALLIMACHUS of Alexandria, the most celebrated and the most wide in his influence of Alexandrian scholars and poets, was descended from the noble family of the Battiadae of Cyrene. He studied at Alexandria, and was appointed principal keeper of the Alexandrian library by Ptolemy II., about the year 260 B.C. This position he held till his death, about B.C. 240. He was a prolific author in both prose and verse. Sixty-three epigrams of his are preserved in the Palatine Anthology, and two more by Strabo and Athenaeus; five others in the Anthology are ascribed to him on more or less doubtful authority. He brought to the epigram the utmost finish of which it is capable. Many of his epigrams are spoiled by over-elaboration and affected daintiness of style; but when he writes simply his execution is incomparable. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 21, speaks of "the sweet myrtle-berry of Callimachus, ever full of acid honey"; and there is in all his work a pungent flavour which is sometimes bitter and sometimes exquisite. POSIDIPPUS, the author of twenty-five extant epigrams, of which twenty are in the Anthology, is more than once referred to as "the epigrammatist," and so is probably a different person from the comedian, the last distinguished name of the New Comedy, who began to exhibit after the death of Menander in B.C. 291. He probably lived somewhat later; the /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 45, couples "the wild corn-flowers of Posidippus and Hedylus," and Hedylus was the contemporary of Callimachus. One of his epigrams refers to the Stoic Cleanthes, who became head of the school B.C. 263 and died about B.C. 220, as though already an old master. With Posidippus may be placed METRODORUS, the author of an epigram in reply to one by Posidippus (xii. 39, 40 in this selection). Whether this be contemporary or not, it can hardly be by the same Metrodorus as the forty arithmetical problems which are given in an appendix to the Palatine Anthology (Section xiv.), or the epigram on a Byzantine lawyer, /Anth. Pal./ ix. 712. These may be all by a geometrician of the name who is mentioned as having lived in the age of Constantine.