ASCLEPIADES  , of

Samos, epigrammatist and lyric poet, friend of Theocritus, .flourished about 270 B.C . He was the earliest and most important of the convivial and erotic epigrammatists . Only a few of his compositions are actual " inscriptions "; others sing the praises of the poets whom he specially admired, but the majority of them are love-songs . It is doubtful whether he is the author of all the epigrams (some 40 ill number) which bear his name in the Greek Anthology . He possibly gave his name to the Asclepiadean metre .