Posidippus

Posidippus (also transliterated Poseidippos) was a Hellenistic Greek epigrammatic poet (c.280 - 240 BC). Born in the Macedonian city of Pella, he lived for some time in Samos before moving permanently to Egypt. An inscription from Thermon in Aetolia records that he was granted the liberties of that city in 264/3 BC. He was friends with the poets Asclepiades and Hedylus. Twenty of his poems were included in the Greek Anthology, and several more were quoted in either part or whole by Athenaeus of Naucratis in his Deipnosophistairum.

Until 2001, it was assumed that Posidippus wrote only about drinking and love. In that year the Milan Papyrus was recovered from the wrappings of an Egyptian mummy, which contained 112 poems, two of which were previously known to have been written by Posidippus, which address subjects that include events of the court of the Ptolemaic dynasty, gemstones, and bird divination. Because of Posidippus' authorship of these two poems, scholars have concluded that the other poems of the Milan Papyrus were also written by him.