Page:The Greek bucolic poets (1912).djvu/17

Rh and its friendly flattery of Philadelphus, was in all probability written about this time. There is no doubt as to the approximate dates of the Ptolemy and the Women at the Adonis Festival. They must both have been written at Alexandria between the king's marriage with his sister Arsinoë—this took place sometime between 278 and 273—and her death in 270. The Ptolemy cannot be much later than 273; for it is clear that the Syrian war was in its early days, and this began in 274.

At this point it becomes necessary to discuss a question of great importance not only to the biographer of Theocritus but to the historian of the Pastoral. Does the Harvest-home deal with real persons? The scene of the poem is Cos. We have the characters Simichidas and Lycidas and the dumb characters Eucritus and Amyntas; the two songs mention in connexion with one or other of these persons Ageanax, Tityrus, Aratus, Aristis, Philinus, and two unnamed shepherds of Acharnae and Lycope; in another part of the poem—though these are not necessarily to be reckoned as friends of the others—we have Philitas, and Sicelidas of Samos. Of these, Philitas certainly, and Aratus possibly, are the well-known poets; Philinus may or may not be the Coan Philinus who won at Olympia in 264 and 260 and who is probably the Philinus of the Spell; Aristis is a clip—form of some compound like Aristodamus; Amyntas is also called Amyntichus. The Tityrus, to whom, in the guise of a goatherd, Rh