Hedylus, the son of Melicertus, was a native of Samos or of Athens, and an epigrammatic poet. According to Athenaeus, he killed himself for love of a certain Glaucus. His epigrams were included in the Garland of Meleager. (Prooem. 45.) Eleven of them are in the Greek Anthology (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 483, vol. ii. p. 526; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. i. p. 233), but the genuineness of two of these (ix. and x.) is very doubtful. Most of his epigrams are in praise of wine, and all of them are sportive. In some he describes the dedicatory offerings in the temple of Arsinoë, among which he mentions the hydraulic organ of Ctesibius. Besides this indication of his time, we know that he was the contemporary and rival of Callimachus. He lived therefore in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about the middle of the third century of our era, and is to be classed with the Alexandrian school of poets. (Athen. vii. p. 297, b., viii. p. 344, f.; Casaub. ad Athen. xi. p. 817; Pierson, ad Moerid. p. 413; Etym. Mag. s. v. alutarchês; Callim. Epig. xxxi. in Anthol. Graec. ; Strab. xiv. p. 683; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iv. p. 476; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. xiii. p. 899.)