Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Elpidius 2.
ELPI´DIUS or HELPIDIUS (Ἐλπίδιος), one of the physicians of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, A. D. 493—526, whom he attended in his last illness. (Procop. de Bello Goth. lib. i. p. 167, ed. Höschel.) He was a Christian, and in deacon's orders, and probably a native of Milan. There is extant a letter to him from king Theodoric (ap. Cassiod. Variar. iv. 24), and four from Ennodius. (Epist. vii. 7, viii. 8, ix. 14, 21; ap. Sirmondi Opera, vol. i.) [W. A. G.]