“ PARTHENIUS, of Nicaea in Bithynia, Greek grammarian and poet. He was taken prisoner in the Mithradatic War and carried to Rome (72 B.C.) ; subsequently he visited Neapolis, where he taught Virgil Greek. Parthenius was a writer of elegies, especially dirges, and of short epic poems. The pseudo-Virgilian Moretum and Ciris were imitated from his Μυττωτός and Μεταμορφώσεις. ”