Parthenius of Nicaea in Bithynia was a Greek grammarian and poet. He was taken prisoner by Cinna in the Mithradatic War and carried to Rome in 72 BC. He subsequently visited Neapolis, where he taught Virgil Greek. Parthenius was a writer of elegies, especially dirges, and of short epic poems. His only surviving work, the Erotica Pathemata (Of the Sorrows of Love), made for the poet Cornelius Gallus, is a collection of 36 love-stories which ended unhappily, taken from different historians and poets. As Parthenius generally quotes his authorities, these stories are valuable as affording information on the Alexandrian poets and grammarians. Parthenius is said to have lived until the accession of Tiberius in 14 AD. He is sometimes called "the last of the Alexandrians".