  Philodemus was born in the Greek city of Gadara, now Umm Qais in Jordan, a fortified city on a ridge overlooking the southern tip of the Sea of Tiberias, whose main claim to fame in antiquity were its intellectual sons: besides Philodemus, the Cynic philosophers and poets Menippus, Meleager and Oenomaus and the rhetors Theodorus and Apsines all hailed from Gadara. Of Philodemus’ life before he came to Italy, we know little. Scholars generally infer from Cicero’s evidence that he was born around 110 BCE, and a rough indication of his birthdate is the fact that his epigrams (see Section 2.1) were not included in the ‘Garland’ edited, probably in the 90s BCE, by his countryman Meleager, in which the latest poet to have his work included was born around 120 BCE.