MUSEUS, an ancient Greek poet, flourished at Athens in the mystic period of Grecian history. Some legends represent him as the son of Orpheus. At any rate, he is generally supposed to have been the disciple and imitator of that famous poet. He presided over the Eleusinian mysteries, and in that capacity he composed and sung his hymns. A hill near the citadel of Athens, to which he was wont to resort for meditation and study, and on which he was afterwards buried, is said to have been called Museum after him. His works are only known in a few detached passages quoted by Plato, Pausanias, Clemens Alexandrinus, Philostratus, and Aristotle. They are said to have consisted of oracles, precepts addressed to his son Eumolpus, a hymn to Ceres, a theogony, a poem on the War of the Giants, a treatise entitled Sphaera, and a work on Mysteries.

Museus, a grammarian, supposed by the elder Scaliger to be the same as the preceding, is considered, from the internal evidence of his style, to have flourished in the later periods of the Roman empire. His only extant work, a poem on the famous love story of Hero and Leander, was first discovered in the thirteenth century; and ever since that time it has continued to be a great favourite with scholars. Among the many editions, those of Passow (Leipsic, 1810) and Schaefer (Leipsic, 1825) are the latest. It has been translated into English by Stapleton, into German by Stolberg and Passow, and into French by Marot. Marlowe's poem is rather a paraphrase than a translation of Museus.