Euenus in the context of "Greek Anthology"

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⭐ Core Definition: Euenus

Euenus (or Evenus) of Paros, (Greek: Εὔηνος ὁ Πάριος), was a 5th-century BC poet who was roughly contemporary with Socrates.

Euenus is mentioned several times in Plato's Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Apology of Socrates. According to Maximus Tyre, Evenus was the instructor of Socrates in poetry, a statement which derives some countenance from a passage in Plato from which it may also be inferred that Euenus was alive at the time of Socrates's death, but at such an advanced age that he was likely soon to follow him. Eusebius places him at the 30th Olympiad (B. C. 460) and onwards. His poetry was gnomic, that is, it formed the vehicle for expressing philosophic maxims and opinions. The first six of the epigrams in the Greek Anthology which bear the name "Euenus" are of this character, and may therefore be ascribed to him with tolerable certainty. Perhaps, too, the fifteenth should be assigned to him.

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Euenus in the context of Theognis of Megara

Theognis of Megara (Ancient Greek: Θέογνις ὁ Μεγαρεύς, Théognis ho Megareús) was a Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC. The work attributed to him consists of gnomic poetry quite typical of the time, featuring ethical maxims and practical advice about life. He was the first Greek poet known to express concern over the eventual fate and survival of his own work and, along with Homer, Hesiod and the authors of the Homeric Hymns, he is among the earliest poets whose work has been preserved in a continuous manuscript tradition (the work of other archaic poets is preserved as scattered fragments).

More than half of the extant elegiac poetry of Greece before the Alexandrian period is included in the approximately 1,400 lines of verse attributed to him, though several poems traditionally attributed to him were composed by others, e.g. Solon and Euenus. Some of these verses inspired ancient commentators to value him as a moralist yet the entire corpus is valued today for its "warts and all" portrayal of aristocratic life in archaic Greece.

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