Idyll IV, also titled Νομεῖς ('The Herdsmen'), is a bucolic poem by the 3rd-century BC Greek poet Theocritus.^[1] The poem is a conversation between a goatherd named Battus and his fellow goatherd Corydon, who is acting oxherd in place of a certain Aegon who has been persuaded by one Milon son of Lampriadas to go and compete in a boxing-match at Olympia.^[a][1] Corydon's temporary rise in rank gives occasion for some friendly banter, varied with bitter references to Milon's having supplanted Battus in the favours of Amaryllis.^[1]

Battus and Corydon, two rustics, meeting in a glade, gossip about their neighbour, Aegon, who has gone to try his fortune at the Olympic games.^[2] After some banter, the talk turns on the death of Amaryllis, and the grief of Battus is disturbed by the roaming of his cattle.^[2] Corydon removes a thorn that has run into his friend's foot, and the conversation comes back to matters of rural scandal.^[2] The poem, like many of the Idylls, contains a song.^[1] The scene is near Crotona in Southern Italy.^[1]

The reference to Glaucè of Chios, a contemporary of Theocritus, fixes the imaginary date of the poem.^[1][3]

• Corydon (character)
• Ζacynthus
• Eclogue 3

• Cholmeley, R. J., ed. (1919). The Idylls of Theocritus (2nd ed.). London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. pp. 220–8.

Attribution: This article incorporates text from these sources, which are in the public domain.

• Edmonds, J. M., ed. (1919). The Greek Bucolic Poets (3rd ed.). William Heinemann. pp. 49–59.
• Lang, Andrew, ed. (1880). Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. London: Macmillan and Co. pp. 19–23.

• Giangrande, G. (1971). "Theocritus' Twelfth and Fourth Idylls: A Study in Hellenistic Irony". Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica (12): 95–113. doi:10.2307/20537648. JSTOR 20537648.
• Gow, A. S. F., ed. (1950). Theocritus. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 35–40.
• Gow, A. S. F., ed. (1950). Theocritus. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 76–91.
• Kampakoglou, A. (2014). "Cowherd or Athlete: Aegon's Ambiguous Status and the Erotics of Genre in Theocritus Idyll 4". Phoenix. 68 (1/2). doi:10.7834/phoenix.68.1-2.0001.

•  Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Νομεῖς
• "Theocritus, Idylls, νομεῖς Βάττος καὶ Κορύδων". Perseus Digital Library.