Quick Facts
Biography
Moero (Μοιρώ) or Myro (Μυρώ) was a poet of the Hellenistic period from the city of Byzantium. She was the wife of Andromachus Philologus and the mother – the Suda says daughter, but this is less likely – of the tragedian Homerus of Byzantium. Moero was probably active during the late fourth and early third centuries BC.
Little of Moero's poetry has survived. Ten lines from her epic poem Mnemosyne are quoted by Athenaeus, and two four-line epigrams, quoted by Meleager in his Garland, survive. Additionally, she is known to have written a poem called Arai ("Curses"); a synopsis of the myth of Alcinoe given in Parthenius of Nicaea's Erotica Pathemata, and a scholion notes that the story of Alcinoe is told in Moero's Curses. Finally, Eustathios mentions that she wrote a hymn to Poseidon.
The surviving fragment of Moero's Mnemonsyne tells the story of Zeus' childhood on Crete, where he had been hidden by his mother Rhea to save him from being killed by his father Cronus. The fragment, like the surviving fragment of Corinna's poem on the contest between Cithaeron and Helicon (PMG 654 col. i), retells an episode of Zeus' early life to emphasise the role of women.
Moero seems to have had a high reputation as a poet in antiquity. Antipater of Thessalonica includes Moero in his list of famous women poets, and Meleager's proem to his Garland refers to her as a "lily", putting her alongside Sappho and Anyte. According to Tatian, Cephisodotus, the son of Praxiteles, sculpted her. Two epigrams which refer to Moero, composed by Anyte and Marcus Argentarius, survive in the Greek Anthology, and may be a reworking of a now-lost poem by Moero.