Batrachomyomachia

thumb|upright=1.25|Illustration from an 1878 German edition of the Batrachomyomachia.

The Batrachomyomachia (, from , "frog", , "mouse", and , "battle") or Battle of the Frogs and Mice is a comic epic, or a parody of the Iliad. Although its date and authorship are uncertain, it belongs to the classical period, as it was known to Plutarch. Its composition date was traditionally placed in the 5th century BC, but linguistic studies suggested the poem's origin in Ionia during the 3rd or 2nd century BC. A minority view considers it to be a Roman era-poem and attributes it to Lucian (2nd century AD). A manuscript from the High Middle Ages attributes the poem to Timarchus of Caria, who is otherwise unknown. He has been identified with either the tyrant Timarchus of Miletus (killed in 258 BC while serving in the Syrian Wars) or the usurper king Timarchus (killed in 160 BC while serving in the early phases of the Seleucid Dynastic Wars). Both men were thought to have originated in Miletus.