Antipater of Sidon

Antipater of Sidon was a Greek poet of the second century BC, known especially for epigrams preserved in later anthologies. He is often associated with the literary culture of the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean, where Greek language and education moved through cities, courts and sanctuaries.

Antipater is remembered chiefly through the Greek Anthology, where epigrams attributed to him range across epitaph, literary criticism and descriptions of art and monuments. He is also associated with one of the ancient lists of the Seven Wonders of the World. Because several poets named Antipater were active in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the precise attribution of individual poems remains a matter of scholarly debate.

In Steven Saylor’s Wrath of the Furies, Gordianus receives evidence that his former tutor Antipater of Sidon is in danger at the court of Mithridates VI. In Steven Saylor’s The Seven Wonders (Ancient World Book 1), In 92 BC, the young Gordianus leaves Rome with the poet Antipater of Sidon to see the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.