Pigres a native of Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...

, either the brother or the son of the celebrated Artemisia

Artemisia I of Caria

Artemisia I of Caria became the ruler, after the death of her husband, as a client of the Persians – who in the 5th century BC ruled as the overlords of Ionia....

, satrap of Caria

Caria

Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there...

. He is spoken of by the Suda

Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often...

(s.v. where, however, its author makes the mistake of conflating Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus

Mausolus

Mausolus was ruler of Caria . He took part in the revolt against Artaxerxes Mnemon , conquered a great part of Lycia, Ionia and several Greek islands and cooperated with the Rhodians in the Social War against Athens...

, with Artemisia, the advisor of Xerxes in the Histories of Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

) as the author of the Margites

Margites

The Margites, a comic mock-epic of Ancient Greece,is about an idiot named "Margites" who was so dense he did not know which parent had given birth to him...

, and the Batrachomyomachia

Batrachomyomachia

Batrachomyomachia or the Battle of Frogs and Mice is a comic epic or parody on the Iliad, definitely attributed to Homer by the Romans, but according to Plutarch the work of Pigres of Halicarnassus, the brother of Artemisia, queen of Caria and ally of Xerxes...

. The latter poem is also attributed to him by Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 (de Herod. malign. 43. p. 873f), and was probably his work. One of his performances was a very singular one, namely, inserting a pentameter

Pentameter

Pentameter may refer to:*the iambic pentameter of the modern period*the dactylic pentameter of antiquity...

 line after each hexameter in the Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

, thus: —

Bode (Gesch. der Hellen. Dichtkunst. i. p. 279) believes that the Margites, though not composed by Pigres, suffered some alterations at his hands, and in that altered shape passed down to posterity. Some suppose that the iambic lines, which alternated with the hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

s in the Margites, were inserted by Pigres. He was the first poet, apparently, who introduced the iambic trimeter

Trimeter

In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line—example:...

. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. i. p. 519, &c.)