Wikipedia
Peisander of Camirus in Rhodes, Ancient Greek epic poet, supposed to have flourished about 640 BC.
He was the author of a Heracleia - Ἡράκλεια, in which he introduced a new conception of the hero Heracles costume, the lions skin and club taking the place of the older armor of the heroic era. He is also said to have fixed the number of the labors of Heracles at twelve. The work, which according to Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, yr. ch. 2) was simply a plagiarism from an unknown Pisinus of Lindus, enjoyed so high a reputation that the Alexandrian critics admitted the author to the epic canon. From an epigram (20) of Theocritus we learn that a statue was erected in honor of Peisander by his countrymen. He is to be distinguished from Peisander of Laranda in Lycia, who lived during the reign of Alexander Severus and wrote a poem on the mixed marriages of gods and mortals, after the manner of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women.
See fragments in G. Kinkel, Epicorum graecorum fragmenta (1878); also F. G. Welcher, Kuleana Schriften, vol. i. (1844), on the twelve labors of Heracles in Peisander.
Peisander was a Spartan general during the Corinthian War. In 395 BC, he was placed in command of the Spartan fleet in the Aegean by his brother-in-law, the king Agesilaus II. Peisander was a relatively inexperienced general, and in the first action his fleet saw, at the Battle of Cnidus, the Spartan fleet was decisively defeated. Peisander died fighting aboard his ship.
The name Peisander or Pisander (, Peisandros) can refer to several historical figures:
- Peisander of Camirus in Rhodes, Ancient Greek epic poet, supposed to have flourished about 640 BC
- Peisander, a Spartan general during the Corinthian War
- Peisander of Laranda, an epic poet who flourished during the reign of Alexander Severus