About this Learned men cannot agree, for who was the first Author, is not sufficiently understood; Donatus, tis true, tells us tis proper to the Golden Age, and therefore must needs be the product of that happy time:  but who was the Author, where, what time it was first invented hath been a great Controversy, and not yet sufficiently determined:  Epicharmus one of Pythagoras his School, in his alkyoni mentions one Diomus a Sicilian, who, if we believe Athaenaeus was the first that wrote Pastorals:  those that fed Cattle had a peculiar kind of Poetry, call’d Bucolicks, of which Dotimus a Sicilian was inventer:

Diodorus Siculus en tois mythologoumenois, seems to make Daphnis the son of Mercury and a certain Nymph, to be the Author; and agreeable to this, Theon an old scholiast on Theocritus, in his notes upon the first Idyllium mentioning Daphnis, adds, he was the author of Bucolicks, and Theocritus himself calls him the Muses Darling:  and to this Opinion of Diodorus Siculus Polydore Virgil readily assents.

But Mnaseas of Patara in a discourse of his concerning Europa, speaks thus of a Son of Pan the God of Sheapards:  Panis Filium Bubulcum a quo & Bucolice canere: Now Whether Mnaseas by that Bubulcum, means only a Herds-man, or one skilled in Bucolicks, is uncertain; but if Valla’s {11} judgment be good, tis to be taken of the latter:  yet AElian was of another mind, for he boldly affirms that Stesichorus called Himeraeus was the first, and in the same place adds, that Daphnis the Son of Mercury was the first Subject of Bucolicks.

Some ascribe the Honor to Bacchus the President of the Nymphs, Satyrs, and the other Country Gods, perhaps because he delighted in the Country; and others attribute it to Apollo called Nomius the God of Sheapards, and that he invented it then when he served Admetus in Thessaly, and fed his Herds:  For, tis likely, he to recreate himself, and pass away his time, applied his mind to such Songs as were best suitable to his present condition:  Many think we owe it to Pan the God of Sheapards, not a few to Diana that extreamly delighted in solitude and Woods; and some say Mercury himself:  of all which whilst Grammarians prattle, according to their usual custome they egregiously trifle; they suffer themselves to be put upon by Fables, and resign their judgment up to foolish pretentions, but things and solid truth is that we seek after.

As about the Author, so concerning the place of its Birth there is a great dispute, some say Sparta, others Peloponesus, but most are for Sicily.