Hermesianax
(Ἐρμησιάναξ).
1. Of Colophon, a distinguished elegiac poet, the friend and disciple of Philetas, lived in the time of Philip and Alexander the Great, and seems to have died before the destruction of Colophon by Lysimachus, B. C. 302. (Paus. 1.9.8.) His chief work was an elegiac poem, in three books, addressed to his mistress, Leontium, whose name formed the title of the poem, like the Cynthia of Propertius. A great part of the third book is quoted by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 597). The poem is also quoted by Pausanias (7.17.5, 8.12.1, 9.35.1), by Parthenius (Erot. 5, 22), and by Antonins Liberalis (Metam. 39). We learn from another quotation in Pausanias, that Hermesianax wrote an elegy on the Centaur Eurytion (7.18.1). It is somewhat doubtful whether the Hermesianax who is mentioned by the scholiast on Nicander (Theriaca, 3), and who wrote a poem entitled Περσικά, was the same or a younger poet. The fragment of Hermesianax has been edited separately by Ruhnken (Append. ad Epist. Crit. ii. p. 283, Opusc. p. 614), by Weston, Lond. 1784, 8vo., by C. D. Ilgen (Opusc. Var. Philol. vol. i. p. 247, Erford, 1797, 8vo.), by Rigler and Axt, Colon. 1828, 16mo., by Hermann (Opusc. Acad. vol. iv. p. 239), by Bach (Philet. et Phanoc. Relig. Hal. 1829, 8vo.), by J. Bailey, with a critical epistle by G. Burgess, Lond. 1839, 8vo., and by Schneidewin (Delect. Poes. Eleg. p. 147). Comp. Bergk, De Hermesianactis Elegia, Marburgi, 1845.
2. Of Cyprus, an historian, whose Φρυγιακά is quoted by Plutarch (De Fluv. 2, 24, 12.)
3. Of Colophon, the son of Agoneus, an athlete, whose statue was erected by his fellow-citizens in honour of his victory at Olympia (Paus. 6.17.3). If he had been, as Vossius (l.c.) supposes, the same person as the poet, we may be sure that Pausanias would have said so. [P.S]
(Ἑρμησιάναξ). A Greek elegiac poet of Colophon in Ionia, who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, about B.C. 330, and was a scholar and friend of Philetas. He composed erotic elegies in the style of those by his compatriot, Antimachus. The three books containing his compositions he entitled Leontium (Λεόντιον), after his mistress. A fragment of ninety-eight lines of the third book has been preserved, in which lovestories of poets and wise men from Orpheus down to Philetas are treated in a rather disconnected manner, but not without spirit. There are editions by Hermann (Opuscula Academica, iv. p. 239), by Bach (Halle, 1829), and by Bailey (London, 1839). See Bergk, De Hermesianactis Elegia (Marburg, 1845).
- Paus. 1.9.7, Paus. 7.17.9, Paus. 7.18.1, Paus. 8.12.1, Paus. 9.35.5
- a Colophonian, Olympic victor: Paus. 6.17.4