Dictionary.net

The greatest of Greek bucolic poets; commonly reputed to have been a native of Syracuse, but Cos also claims him; he lived in the first half of the third century B. C. He wrote in the Doric dialect, pastorals and idyls of lowly life, which have ever since been regarded as the consummate models of that kind of poetry. Virgil imitated him in his "Bucolics". We have 31 of his idyls and pastorals, and a number of his epigrams: there are English translations by Calverley (1869) in verse, by Andrew Lang (1860) in prose, and by others.