ASCLEPIADES, of Samos, epigrammatist and lyric poet, friend of Theocritus, flourished about 270 B.C. He was the earliest and most important of the convivial and erotic epigrammatists. The majority of his compositions are love-songs. It is doubtful whether he is the author of all the epigrams (some 4o in number) which bear his name in the Greek anthology. He possibly gave his name to the Asclepiadean metre.