18.

The Athenians formerly sent Pericles their general, and with him Sophocles the poet, who harassed with the evils of a siege the refractory Samians. Afterwards51 they sent thither a colony of two thousand citizens, among whom was Neocles the father of Epicurus, and, according to report, a school-master. It is said, that Epicurus was educated here and at Teos, and was admitted among the ephebi at Athens, having as his comrade in that class Menander the comic poet. Creophylus was a native of Samos,52 who, it is said, once entertained Homer as his guest, and received, in return, his poem entitled “The taking of Œchalia.” Callimachus, on the contrary, intimates in an epigram that it was the composition of [Pg 10]
[CAS. 639]Creophylus, but ascribed to Homer on account of the story of his hospitable entertainment by Creophylus:

“I am the work of the Samian, who once entertained in his house, as a guest, the divine Homer. I grieve for the sufferings of Eurytus, and mourn for the yellow-haired Ioleia. I am called Homer’s writing. O Jupiter, how glorious this for Creophylus.”

Some say that he was Homer’s master; according to others, it was not Creophylus, but Aristeas of Proconnesus.