Alpheus Mytilenaeus was the author of about twelve epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s in the Greek Anthology

Greek Anthology

The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature...

, some of which seem to point out the time when he wrote. In the seventh epigram he refers to the state of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, as embracing almost all the known world; in the ninth he speaks of the restored and flourishing city of Troy

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

; and in the tenth he alludes to an epigram by Antipater of Sidon

Antipater of Sidon

Antipater of Sidon , Antipatros or Antipatros Sidonios in the Anthologies, was a Greek poet in the second half of the 2nd century BC....

. Antipater lived under Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

, in the second half of the 1st century BC, and Troy had received great favors from Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 and Augustus. Therefore it is not improbable that Alpheus also wrote under Augustus. It is true that in the fourth epigram he addresses a certain Macrinus, but there is no reason to suppose that this was the emperor Macrinus

Macrinus

Macrinus , was Roman Emperor from 217 to 218. Macrinus was of "Moorish" descent and the first emperor to become so without membership in the senatorial class.-Background and career:...

. Another difficulty has been stated, on the ground that the eleventh epigram was inscribed, as we learn from Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, on the statue of Philopoemen

Philopoemen

Philopoemen , was a skilled Greek general and statesman, who was Achaean strategos on eight occasions....

 in Tegea

Tegea

Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Tripoli, of which it is a municipal unit. Its seat was the village Stadio....

, and that it is very improbable that such a statue should have stood without an inscription till the time of Alpheus. This may be moot, as scholarly opinion is divided about whether or not this epigram can even be attributed to Alpheus.