had been some years in prison Theocritus wrote the Harvest-home, hinting that Sotades had suffered long enough, and sheltering himself under a reminder of his own early acquaintance with the king and a declaration of his allegiance to the great court-poet Callimachus. On the unfortunate man’s escape, we may imagine, the story of the frustration of the mythical king’s cruel purpose became directly applicable to the situation; the phrase κακαῖσιν ἀτασθαλίαισιν ἄνακτος was now genuine censure and the particle θήν real sarcasm; and when the admiral sent word of the recapture, Ptolemy with a grim irony ordered that the modern Comatas should be shut up in a modern chest and put beyond reach of the assistance of the bees. Here again we can arrive at no date. All we know is that Sotades’ offence must have been committed about 275 and that he lay a long time in prison.
We do not know for certain where Theocritus spent the rest of his life. Perhaps after the protest of the Harvest—home and its tragic sequel he found it prudent to retire from Alexandria. But whether he now left Egypt or not, it is more than probable that he spent some time during his later years in Cos. There was close intercourse during this period between Cos and Alexandria, and if he did not make the island his home, he may well have paid long Summer visits there. Besides the Harvest-home, there are two certainly Coan poems, the Thyrsis and the Spell, and these would seem to belong rather to this
