Euphorion in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

An epic and epigrammatic poet, born at Chalcis in Euboea, B.C. 276, and who became librarian to Antiochus the Great. He wrote various poems, entitled Hesiod, Alexander, Arius, Apollodorus, etc. His Mopsopia or Miscellanies (Μοψοπία ἤ ἄτακτα) was a collection, in five books, of fables and histories relative to Attica, a very learned work, but rivalling in obscurity the Cassandra of Lycophron. The fifth book bore the title of Chiliad (Χιλιάς), either because it consisted of a thousand verses, or because it contained the ancient oracles that referred to a period of a thousand years. Perhaps, however, each of the five books contained a thousand verses, for the passage of Suidas respecting this writer is somewhat obscure and defective, and Eudocia, in the "Garden of Violets," speaks of a fifth Chiliad, entitled Περὶ Χρησμῶν, "Of Oracles." Quintilian recommends the reading of this poet, and Vergil is said to have esteemed his productions very highly. A passage in the tenth eclogue (v. 50 foll.) and a remark made by Servius (Ad Eclog. vi. 72) have led Heyne to suppose that C. Cornelius Gallus , the friend of Vergil, had translated Euphorion into Latin verse. This poet was one of the favourite authors of the emperor Tiberius, one of those whom he imitated, and whose busts he placed in his library. The fragments of Euphorion were collected and published by Meineke in his work De Euphorionis Chalc. Vita et Scriptis (1823), and in his Analecta Alexandrina (Berlin, 1843). See also Kock, Frag. Com. Graec. (1880). The amours of Euphorion with Nicia or Nicaea, the wife of King Alexandria of Euboea, are often alluded to in the poems of the Greek Anthology. See Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. pp. 3, 43.