PANYASSIS

flourished 5th century BC, , Ionia epic poet from Halicarnassus, on the coast of Asia Minor. The Roman rhetorician Quintilian stated that some later critics regarded Panyassis' work as being second only to Homer. His chief poems, extant only in fragments, were the Heracleia, describing the mythical adventures of the hero Heracles (Hercules), and the Ionica, relating the founding of Ionic Greek colonies in Asia Minor.