Herodas

Who is Herodas?

Herodas, or Herondas, was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, probably written in Alexandria during the 3rd century BCE.

Apart from the intrinsic merit of these pieces, they are interesting in the history of Greek literature as being a new species, illustrating Alexandrian methods. They are called Mimiamboi, or mimes. Mimes were the Dorian product of South Italy and Sicily, and the most famous of them – from which Plato is said to have studied the drawing of character – were the work of Sophron.

These were scenes in popular life, written in the language of the people, vigorous with sexual proverbs such as we get in other reflections of that region – in Petronius and the Pentamerone. Two of the best known and the most vital among the Idylls of Theocritus, the 2nd and the 15th, we know to have been derived from mimes of Sophron. What Theocritus is doing there, Herodas, his younger contemporary, is doing in another manner – casting old material into novel form, upon a small scale, under strict conditions of technique.