HERMESIANAX, of Colophon, elegiac poet of the Alex andrian school, flourished about 33o B.c. Of his chief work, a poem in three books, dedicated to his mistress Leontion, Athenaeus (xiii. S97) has preserved about ioo lines, containing instances of the power of love. Hermesianax, whose style is characterized by alternate force and tenderness, was popular in his own times, and was esteemed even in the Augustan period.
Many separate editions have been published of the fragment, the text of which is in a very unsatisfactory condition: by F. W. Schneide win (1838) , J. Bailey (1839, with notes, glossary, and Latin and English versions) , and others ; R. Schulze's Quaestiones Hermesian acteae (1858), contains an account of the life and writings of the poet and a section on the identity of Leontion.