Eupho'rion
4. Of Chersonesus, an author of that kind of licentious poetry which was called
Πριάπεια, is mentioned by Hephaestion (
de Metr. 15.59), who gives three verses, which do not, however, appear to be consecutive, but are probably single verses chosen as specimens of the metre.
But yet some information may be gleaned from them, for the poet refers to rites in honour of the " young Dionysus," celebrated at Pelusium. Hence Meineke infers that this Euphorion was an Egyptian Greek, and that the Chersonesus of which he was a native was the city of that name near Alexandria.
He also conjectures, and upon good grounds, that the " young Dionysus" was Ptolemy Philopator, who began to reign in B. C. 220.
It is probable that the passage in Strabo (
viii. p.382) refers to this Euphorion, and that
Εὔφρονιος in that passage is an error for
Εὐφορίων.
There is an example of the same confusion in Athenaeus (xi. p. 495c.).
That those who make this Euphorion the same as the Chalcidian are quite wrong, is proved by the fact that the lines are neither hexameters nor elegiacs, but in the priapeian metre, which is a kind of antispastic. (Meineke,
Analecta Alexandrina, Epim. i.)
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