  Cicero says that Philodemus wrote very pleasant, elegant, clever verse to Piso and, at Piso’s urging, about him, mirroring the man himself in perfect verse descriptions of his lusts, immoral acts, banquets and adulteries. We do not have poetry of Philodemus’ which would confirm the latter description, but Philodemus is the author of 30 or more elegant epigrams anthologized in the ‘Garland’ of Philip of Thessalonica in the first century CE, which was in turn included in the ‘Palatine Anthology’ (AP) of the tenth century, ensuring the poems’ survival.