Daphnis and Chloe by Longus dates from the mid-third century CE. The English language edition by George Thornley and J.M. Edmonds (1935) opens its introduction explaining, "Nothing is known of the author of the Pastoralia. He describes Mytilene as if he knew it well, and he mentions the peculiarities of the Lesbian vine. He may have been a Lesbian, but such local colouring need not have been gathered on the spot, nor if so, by a native. His style and language are Graeco-Roman rather than Hellenistic; he probably knew Vergil's Bucolics; like Strabo and Lucian he writes in Greek and yet bears a Roman name. Till the diggers discover a dated papyrus-fragment, we can say provisionally that he may have written as early as the beginning of the second century after Christ, probably not much later than the beginning of the third."