Philitas of Cos

Philitas of Cos , sometimes spelled Philetas , was a scholar and poet during the early Hellenistic period of ancient Greece. A Greek associated with Alexandria, he flourished in the second half of the 4th century160BC and was appointed tutor to the heir to the throne of Ptolemaic Egypt. He was thin and frail Athenaeus later caricatured him as an academic so consumed by his studies that he wasted away and died.

Little is known of Philitas life. Ancient sources refer to him as a Coan, a native or longtime inhabitant of Cos, one of the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea just off the coast of Asia. His student Theocritus wrote that Philetas father was Telephos and his mother, assuming the manuscript is supplemented correctly, Euctione . From a comment about Philitas in the Suda, a 10thcentury160AD historical encyclopedia, it is estimated he was born c.340 BC , and that he might have established a reputation in Cos by c.3098 BC . During the Wars of the Diadochi that followed the death of Alexander the Great and divided Alexanders empire, Ptolemy had captured Cos from his rival successor, Antigonus, in 310160BC his son, Ptolemy160II Philadelphus, was born there in 308160BC. It was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of Alexandria.

Source: Wikipedia