Leonidas
2. Of Alexandria, was born, as he informs us (Ep. 8), on the banks of the Nile, whence he went to Rome (Ep. 27), and there taught grammar for a long time without attracting any notice, but ultimately he became very popular, and obtained the patronage of the imperial family. Leonidas' epigrams show that he flourished under Nero, and probably down to the reign of Vespasian.
Works
Epigrams
In the Greek Anthology, forty-three epigrams are ascribed to him, but some of these belong to Leonidas of Tarentum.
Assessment
The epigrams of Leonidas of Alexandria are of a very low order of merit. Several of them are distinguished by the petty conceit of having an equal number of letters in each distich; these are called ἰσόψηφα ἐπιγράμματα.
Further Information
Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. xiii. pp. 908-909; Meineke, Prolusio ad utriusque Leonidae Carmina, Lips. 1791; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iv. pp. 479-480.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.