Antipater of Sidon

Who is Antipater of Sidon?

Antipater of Sidon or Antipatros Sidonios in the Anthologies, was an ancient Greek poet in the second half of the 2nd century BC. His poems preserved in the Greek Anthology include evocations of art and literature and some epitaphs. But there appears to be confusion in the Anthology between Antipater of Sidon and Antipater of Thessalonice, who lived in the next century.

Cicero describes Antipater as living at Rome in the time of Crassus and Catulus.

Antipater composed an epitaph for Sappho, in which he stated that she died of natural causes and was buried in her homeland. Cicero described him as a brilliant epigrammist but sometimes too fond of imitation.

He, along with Philo of Byzantium, Strabo, Herodotus and Diodoros of Sicily, is attributed with the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which he described in a poem composed about 140 BC: