Adaeus

Who is Adaeus?

Adaeus, or Addaeus, a Greek epigrammatic poet, a native most probably of Macedonia. The epithet Μακεδών is appended to his name before the third epigram in the Vat. MS.; and the subjects of the second, eighth, ninth, and tenth epigrams agree with this account of his origin. He lived in the time of Alexander the Great, to whose death he alludes. His date is further fixed by the mention of Potidaea in another epigram, as Cassander, who died B.C. 296, changed the name of the city into Cassandreia. His extant poems are chiefly about country life and hunting.

The fifth epigram is inscribed Αδδαίου Μυτιληναίου, and there was a Mytilenaean of this name, who wrote two prose works Περί αγαλματοποιών and Περί Διαθέσεως The time when he lived cannot be fixed with certainty. Reiske, though on insufficient grounds, believes these two to be the same person. [C. P. M.]

There was also another Adaeus, a rhetorician, to whom Seneca the elder frequently refers.