Syrinx [attributed]
Syracuse (Sicily)
T
Theocritus
Theocritus
c. 300 BCE–c. 260 BCE · Syracuse (Sicily)
Theocritus (c. 300 – c. 260 BCE) was a Greek poet generally regarded as the originator of bucolic (pastoral) poetry. Probably born in Syracuse on Sicily, he studied on the island of Cos (associated with the poet Philetas) and worked for a time in Alexandria under the patronage of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. His surviving corpus, collected as the Idylls, comprises hexameter poems including pastoral dialogues set among herdsmen, mythological narratives, urban mimes, and encomia of rulers; a number of epigrams are also transmitted under his name. The pastoral conventions he established were later taken up by Virgil in the Eclogues and shaped the broader European pastoral tradition.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→
✦
Stop 1 of 1
Syracuse (Sicily)Magna Graecia
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
About Syracuse (Sicily)
Syracuse is a city on the southeastern coast of Sicily, Italy. Founded by colonists from Corinth around 733 BCE it became one of the largest cities of the Greek world, resisting both Athens and Carthage. Plato visited three times, hoping to influence its rulers Dionysius I and II, and the comic poet Epicharmus and the pastoral poet Theocritus are associated with it. The mathematician Archimedes was killed when Rome took the city in 212 BCE, after which it became the capital of Roman Sicily. According to the Book of Acts, Paul stayed there for three days, and its early Christian catacombs survive. It was briefly the Byzantine capital (663-668) before the Arab conquest of 878.
In Syracuse (Sicily) at the same time
In the same place & time
✦
Sages whose lives overlapped with Theocritus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
✦
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Theocritus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.