The scattered biographical details in the ancient sources are so contradictory that it was sometimes assumed that there were two Hellenistic authors with the same name.[1] He may have been born atClaros (Ahmetbeyli in modern Turkey), nearColophon, where his family is said to have held the hereditary priesthood ofApollo. The chronological indications range from the middle of the 3rd century BC until the late 2nd century BC.[2]
He wrote a number of works both in prose and verse, of which two survive complete. The longest,Theriaca, is ahexameter poem (958 lines) on the nature of venomous animals and the wounds which they inflict. The other,Alexipharmaca, consists of 630 hexameters treating ofpoisons and theirantidotes.[3] Nicander's main source for medical information was the physician Apollodorus of Egypt.[a] Among his lost works,Heteroeumena was a mythological epic, used byOvid in theMetamorphoses and epitomized byAntoninus Liberalis;Georgica,[3] of which considerable fragments survive, was perhaps imitated byVirgil.[5]
The works of Nicander were praised byCicero (De oratore, i. 16), imitated byOvid andLucan, and frequently quoted byPliny and other writers[3] (e.g.,Tertullian inDe Scorpiace, I, 1).
Theriaca et Alexipharmaca recensuit et emendavit, fragmenta collegit, commentationes addidit Otto Schneider. Accedunt scholia in Theriaca ex recensione Henrici Keil., scholia in Alexipharmaca ex recognitione Bussemakeri et R. Bentlei emedationes, Lipsiae sumptibus et typis B. G. Teubneri, 1856.
Poetae bucolici et didactici. Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Nicander, Oppianus, Marcellus de piscibus, poeta de herbis, C. Fr. Ameis, F. S. Lehrs (ed.), Parisiis, editore Ambrosio Firmin Didot, 1862,pp. 127-163.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nicander".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 642.
