Short answers, pulled from the story.
Theocritus was a Greek poet from Sicily, born around 300 BC and died after 260 BC, who created ancient Greek pastoral poetry. He invented the bucolic genre, placing shepherds and country life at the center of serious verse.
Theocritus was from Syracuse in Sicily. He also spent time on the island of Kos and in Alexandria in Egypt, probably during the reign of Ptolemy II. His parents were named Praxagoras and Philinna.
The most celebrated bucolic poems are Idylls 1, 6, 7, and 11. Idyll 7, the Harvest Feast, is considered the most important. Among the mimes, Idyll 15, featuring Gorgo and Praxinoe at the festival of Adonis, was praised as the most vivid and lifelike writing in all of ancient literature.
Idylls 15, 16, and 17 can be dated with confidence to the period between 275 and 270 BC. Idyll 17 celebrates the marriage of Ptolemy Philadelphus to his sister Arsinoë, which took place in 277 BC, while an inscription confirmed Arsinoë died in 270 BC. Idyll 16, praising Hiero II, was written before Hiero's election as king, which occurred in 270 BC.
Artemidorus of Tarsus, a grammarian who lived during the time of Sulla, is credited as the first editor of the poems. He gathered the scattered bucolic works into a single collection, describing the achievement in an epigram.
No. Several poems, including Idylls 19, 20, 21, 23, and 25, are now generally considered spurious. From an early date, two collections existed: one a strict canon of genuine works and another a broader gathering of poems of doubtful authorship. The authenticity of Idyll 26 was specifically contested by the scholar Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.