(Φιλητᾶς).
1. Of Cos, the son of Telephus, was a distinguished poet and grammarian (ποιητὴς ἅμα καὶ κριτικός, Strab. xiv. p.657).
Philetas flourished during the earlier years of the Alexandrian school, at the period when the earnest study of the classical literature of Greece was combined, in many scholars, with considerable power of original composition. According to Suidas, he flourished under Philip and Alexander but this statement is loose and inaccurate. His youth may have fallen in the times of those kings, but the chief period of his literary activity was during the reign of the first Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, who appointed him as the tutor of his son, Ptoleimy II. Philadelphus. Clinton calculates that his death may be placed about B. C. 290 (Fast. Hell. vol. iii. app. 12, No. 16); but he may possibly have lived some years longer, as he is said to have been contemporary with Aratus, whom Eusebius places at B. C. 272. It is, however, certain that he was contemporary with Hermesianax, who was his intimate friend, and with Alexander Aetolus. He was the instructor, if not formally, at least by his example and influence, of Theocritus and Zenodotus of Ephesus. Theocritus expressly mentions him as the model which he strove to imitate. (Id. 7.39; see the Scholia ad loc.)
Philetas seems to have been naturally of a very weak constitution, which at last broke down under excessive study. He was so remarkably thin as to become an object for the ridicule of the comic poets, Who represented him as wearing leaden soles to his shoes, to prevent his being blown away by a strong wind; a joke which Aelian takes literally, sagels questioning, however, if he was too weak to stand against the wind, how could he be strong enough to carry his leaden shoes ? (Plut. An Seni sit ger. Resupab, 15, p. 791e.; Ath. xii. p. 552b.; Aelian, V.H. 9.14, 10.6). The cause of his death is referred to in the following epigram (ap Ath. ix. p. 401e.) :--
Ξεῖνε, Φιλητᾶς εἰμί · λόγων ὁ ψευδόμενός με ὤλεσε καὶ νυιξτῶν Φροντίδες ἐσπέριοι.
We learn from Hermesianax (ap. Ath. xiii. p. 598f.) that a bronze statue was erected to the memory of Philetas by the inhabitants of his native island, his attachment to which during his life-time he had expressed in his poems. (Schol. ad Theoc. l.c.)