MIMNERMUS, an ancient poet and musician, flourished about the beginning of the sixth century before our era. He was a native of Smyrna, and contemporary of Solon. Athenæus ascribes to him the invention of pentameter verse. His elegies, of which only a few fragments are preserved, were so much admired in antiquity, that Horace preferred them to those of Callimachus. He composed a poem of this kind, as we learn from Pausanias, upon the battle fought between the people of Smyrna, and the Lydians under Gyges. He was likewise author of a poem in elegiac verse, quoted by Strabo, which he entitled Nanno, and in which we may suppose he chiefly celebrated a young and beautiful girl of that name, who, according to Athenæus, was a player on the flute, and of whom he was enamoured in his old age. With respect to love matters, according to Propertius, his verses were more valuable than all the writings of Homer.