Peisander
2. A poet of Laranda, in Lycia or Lycaonia, was a son of NESTOR [No. 1.
See above, Vol. II. p. 1170a], and flourished in the reign of Alexander Severus (A. D. 222-235).
He wrote a poem, which, according to Zosimus (5.29), was called
Ἠρωικαὶ θεογαμίαι. In most copies of Suidas (
s. v. Πείσανδρος) we find the title given as
Ἡρα̈ικαὶ θεογαμίαι, which, some have thought, derives confirmation from the statement in Macrobius (
Macr. 5.2), that Peisander wrote a sort of universal history, commencing with the nuptials of Jupiter and
Juno. But it seems clear that
Ἡρωικαὶ is the right reading, and the work probably treated of the marriages of gods and goddesses with mortals, and of the heroic progeny thus produced.
It would seem to have been a very voluminous performance, if we adopt the extremely probable alteration of
ξ᾽ for
ἓξ in Suidas, and so consider it as consisting of sixty books (Suid.
s. v. Ἀγάθυρσοι; Steph. Byz.
s. vv. Ἀγάθυρσοι, Ἀπέννιον, Ἄστακος, Βοαύλεια, Κνβέλεια, Λυκόζεια, Οἰνωτρία, Νιφάτης).
There are several passages making mention of Peisander, in which we have no means of ascertaining whether the poet of Cameirus or of Laranda is the person alluded to ; such are Schol.
ad Apoll. Rhod. 1.471, 2.98, 1090, 4.57; Schol.
ad Eur. Phoen. 1748. Macrobius, in the passage above referred to, says that Virgil drew the whole matter of the second book of the Aeneid from Peisander.
But chronology, of course, forbids us to understand this of Peisander of Laranda; and we hear of no such work as that to which Macrobius alludes by any older poet of the same name, for the notion of Valckenaer seems quite untenable, viz. that the
Ἠρωικαὶ θεογαμίαι was written, in spite of the testimony of Suidas, by Peisander of Cameirus, and was in fact one and the same poem with the
Ἠράκλεια (Valcken.
Diatrib. ad Eur. Hipp. p. 24; Heyne, Exc. i. iii.
ad Virg. Aen. ii.; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. i. pp. 215, 590, iv. p. 265; Voss.
de Poet. Graec. 9; Bode,
Gesch. der Episch. Dichtk. p. 500, note ).
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