Nonnus of Panopolis was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Roman period. His chief work is the Dionysiaca, a hexameter poem in forty-eight books; its main subject, submerged in a chaos of by-episodes, is the expedition of the god Dionysus to India. He is also the author of Paraphrase of the Gospel of John, composed in the meter of the epic—the dactylic hexameter. He was the often-imitated leader of the last Greek epic school. There is no secure information on his life.