Theocritus of Syracuse (first half of the third century BC) was the inventor of 'bucolic' poetry, the principal model for Virgil in the Eclogues and the foundational figure of the western pastoral tradition. The great variety of his other poems - hymns, short narrative epics, mimes, encomia, and epigrams - illustrates the rich and flourishing poetic culture of what was a golden age for Greek poetry.