Peisander of Laranda

Peisander or Pisander of Laranda (/paɪˈsændər, ˈpaɪˌsændər/; Ancient Greek: Πείσανδρος ὁ Λαρανδινός, Peísandros ho Larandinós) was a Greek poet who flourished during the reign of Alexander Severus (222–235 AD).^[1] He wrote a sixty-book epic called the Heroikai Theogamiai (Ἡρωικαὶ θεογαμίαι, "Heroic Marriages of the Gods") which, like the poetry of his father Nestor of Laranda, appears to have influenced Nonnus' Dionysiaca.^[2] Peisander's poem, of which only small fragments survive as quotations in other authors, amounted to "a comprehensive epic on world history".^[3] Among the extant fragments, there is mention of Io, Cadmus and the Argonauts, but the most significant fragment is the testimony of Macrobius that states that Peisander's history of the world began from the marriage of Zeus and Hera.^[4]