(5) MELEAGER son of Eucrates was born at the partially Hellenised town of Gadara in northern Palestine (the Ramoth-Gilead of the Old Testament), and educated at Tyre. His later life was spent in the island of Cos, where he died at an advanced age. The scholiast to the Palatine MS. says he flourished in the reign of the last Seleucus; this was Seleucus VI. Epiphanes, who reigned B.C. 95-93. The date of his celebrated Anthology cannot be much later, as it did not include the poems of his fellow-townsman Philodemus, who flourished about B.C. 60 or a little earlier. Like his contemporary Menippus, also a Gadarene, he wrote what were known as {spoudogeloia}, miscellaneous prose essays putting philosophy in popular form with humorous illustrations. These are completely lost, but we have fragments of the "Saturae Menippeae" of Varro written in imitation of them, and they seem to have had a reputation like that of Addison and the English essayists of the eighteenth century. Meleager's fame however is securely founded on the one hundred and thirty-four epigrams of his own which he included in his Anthology. Some further account of the erotic epigrams, which are about four-fifths of the whole number, is given above. For all of these the MSS. of the Anthology are the sole source.

DIODORUS of Sardis, commonly called ZONAS, is spoken of by Strabo, who was a friend of his kinsman Diodorus the younger, as having flourished at the time of the invasion of Asia by Mithridates B.C. 88. He was a distinguished orator. Both of these poets were included in the Anthology of Philippus, and in the case of some of the epigrams it is not quite certain to which of the two they should be referred. Eight are usually ascribed to Zonas: they are chiefly dedicatory and pastoral, with great beauty of style and feeling for nature.

ERYCIUS of Cyzicus flourished about the middle of the first century B.C. One of his epigrams is on an Athenian woman who had in early life been captured at the sack of Athens by Sulla B.C. 80; another is against a grammarian Parthenius of Phocaea, possibly the same who was the master of Virgil. Of the fourteen epigrams in the Anthology under the name of Erycius one is headed "Erycius the Macedonian" and may be by a different author.

PHILODEMUS of Gadara was a distinguished Epicurean philosopher who lived at Rome in the best society of the Ciceronian age. He was an intimate friend of Piso, the Consul of B.C. 58, to whom two of his epigrams are addressed. Cicero, "in Pis." § 68 foll., where he attacks Piso for consorting with "Graeculi," almost goes out of his way to compliment Philodemus on his poetical genius and the unusual literary culture which he combined with the profession of philosophy: and again in the "de Finibus" speaks of him as "a most worthy and learned man." He is also referred to by Horace, 1 "Sat." ii. 121. Thirty-two of his epigrams, chiefly amatory, are in the Anthology, and five more are ascribed to him on doubtful authenticity.