Parthenius of Nicaea (Παρθένιος ὁ Νικαεύς), known as the Elegist, was a Greek poet and grammarian of the 1st century BCE. Born in Nicaea in Bithynia, he was taken to Italy as a prisoner during the Mithridatic Wars. Freed in Rome, he became a teacher of Greek, instructing the poet Gaius Cornelius Gallus, to whom he later dedicated his Erotika Pathemata. He was also associated with Virgil and served as a key conduit of Hellenistic literary culture to Roman poets [1][2][3].

His only substantially surviving work is the Erotika Pathemata (Ἐρωτικὰ Παθήματα, Love Romances), a prose collection of 36 love-story summaries compiled for Gallus [1][2][4]. Other attested but lost poetic works include Metamorphoses, Delphica, Arete, Iphiclus, and an Encomium of Arete [2][4].

Parthenius is significant as a direct cultural intermediary. His Erotika Pathemata provided Roman poets with mythological source material, influencing the neoteric and Augustan literary movements. Through his teaching and writings, he helped shape the development of Latin love elegy and other poetic genres [1][2][4].

Sources 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parthenius/ 2. Perseus Digital Library, Erotika Pathemata: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0449 3. Encyclopædia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Parthenius-of-Nicaea 4. ToposText, Parthenius: https://topostext.org/author/350