Leonidas of Alexandria

Leonidas of Alexandria (; ; Latin: Leonidas Alexandrinus; ) was a Greek epigrammatist active at Rome during the reigns of Nero and Vespasian. Some of his epigrams are preserved in the Greek Anthology, and in one he lays claim to having invented the isopsephic epigram.

Life Leonides was a native of Egypt: he describes himself as "Nile-born" (Νειλογενής) and some of his poetry was evidently written in Egypt. He claims that he was originally an astrologer or astronomer, but that once he devoted himself to poetry, he became more successful and was "well-known to Italians in high society". He eventually obtained the patronage of the Roman imperial family, and flourished during the reigns of Nero and Vespasian. Today some forty-two epigrams survive, preserved in the Greek Anthology. Almost all of them are isophepic epigrams, in which the alphanumeric values of the Greek letters (α=1, β=2, etc.) are carefully balanced, so that the sums of the numerical values in each verse (in two-line epigrams), or in each couplet (in four-line epigrams), are precisely the same. Leonides claimed to be the originator of the isopsephic epigram, and while he did not invent the principle of isopsephia itself, he appears to have been the first to apply it to poems of this type.