Twenty-three of Posidippus' poems were included in the
Greek Anthology, and several more were quoted in either part or whole by
Athenaeus of Naucratis in his
Deipnosophistae. Until 2001, based on these remains, it was assumed that Posidippus wrote only about drinking and love. In that year the
Milan Papyrus P.Mil.Vogl. VIII 309 was recovered from the wrappings of an Egyptian
mummy dating to about 180 BC. It contained 112 poems, two of which were previously known to have been written by Posidippus, which address subjects that include events of the court of the
Ptolemaic dynasty,
gemstones, and bird
divination. Because of Posidippus' authorship of these two poems, scholars have concluded that the other poems of the
Milan Papyrus were also written by him. The poems of the
Milan Papyrus are grouped into sections, and the papyrus largely preserves the section headers for the surviving poems: • On Stones (
Lithika [title restored from two partially preserved letters], poems 1-20) • On Omens (
Oionoskopika, 21-35) • Dedications (
Anathematika, 36-41) • Epitaphs (
Epitumbia [conjecture: title not preserved], 42-61) • On Statues (
Andriantopoiika, 62-70) • On Equestrian Victories (
Hippika, 71-88) • On Shipwrecks (
Nauagika, 89-94) • On Cures (
Iamatika, 95-101) • Characters (
Tropoi, 102-109) • [title lost] (110-112) ==Editions==