PARTHENIUS  , of

Nicaea in Bithynia, Greek grammarian and poet . He was taken prisoner in the Mithradatic War andcarried to Rome (72 B.C.); subsequently he visited Neapolis, where he taught Virgil Greek . Parthenius was a writer of elegies, especially dirges, and of short epic poems . The pseudo-Virgilian Moretum and Ciris were imitated from his MUTTWTOS and M€ra,uopolavecs . His'Epcoruat zraOilµara is still extant, containing a collection of 36 love-stories which ended unhappily, taken from different historians and poets . As Parthenius generally quotes his authorities, these stories are valuable as affording information on the Alexandrian poets and grammarians . See E . Martini in Mythographi graeci, vol. ii . (1902, in Teubner Series); poetical fragments in A . Meineke, Analecta alexandrine (1853) .