ANTIMACHUS OF COLOPHON

flourished c. 410 BC a Greek poet and scholar who wrote a lengthy epic entitled Thebais, an account of the expedition of the Seven Against Thebes. His work was greatly admired in antiquity, and his pedantic style made him the model of the learned Alexandrian epic poets. The emperor Hadrian rated Antimachus above Homer, a judgment that did something to rescue him from obscurity. His work survives chiefly in the quotations cited by later writers to illustrate obscure words and out-of-the-way mythological detail.