Rhianus (Greek: Ῥιανός) of Crete was a Greek poet and grammatic from the second half of the 3rd century BC. Biographical data
Rhianus was born in Bene, on the island of Crete. According to some sources, he was initially a slave and caretaker in a gym, who in his later life received a good education, devoted himself to grammar studies, and made career as a poet and linguist, probably in Alexandria. He was a friend and contemporaries of Eratosthenes (275-195 BC). Working
As a language-learned, Rhianus delivered a new critical edition of Homer's' Ilias and Odyssey, who judged a judgment and expressed poetry. As a poet, he wrote eps with mythological (eg Heracleia) and historical content (eg Achaica, Eliaca, Thessalica and Messeniaca), of which only a few fragments have been preserved. In the name of Rhianus there are also tens of erotic epigrams, which are recorded in the Anthologia Palatina. Rating
In the six books of his Messeniaca he treated the second Messianic war and made him of the central figure, the aristocracy Aristomenes, a second Achilles. This epic was designated by Pausanias as a reliable authority and served as the source for the fourth book of its Description of Greece.
Another epic was the Heracleia, a long mythological poem about Heracles's adventures, which was probably an imitation of the similar poem by Panyasis, and, as was the model, consisted of fourteen books.
Rhianus, along with Apollonius of Rhodes, opposed the view of Callimachus that the writing of long poems was out of time.
wiki
