prized, and more than once imitated, as by Varro of Atax and Valerius Flaccus. A valuable collection of scholia upon it testifies the esteem in which it was held by the learned of old.
(2) Apollonius of Trallēs. A Greek sculptor of the school of Rhodes, and joint author with his countryman Tauriscus of the celebrated group of Dircē (q.v.). Among other artists of the name, the worthiest of mention is Apollonius of Athens, of the 1st century b.c. From his hand is the Hercŭlēs, now only a torso, preserved in the Belvedere at Rome.
(3) Apollonius of Perga in Pamphylia. A Greek mathematician named "the Geometer," who lived at Pergamus and Alexandria in the 1st century b.c., and wrote a work on Conic Sections in eight books, of which we have only the first four in the original, the fifth, sixth, and seventh in an Arabic translation, and the eighth in extracts. The method he followed is that still in use.
(4) Apollonius of Tyăna in Cappadocia, the most celebrated of the Neo-Pythagoreans, lived about the middle of the 1st century a.d.; by a severely ascetic life on the supposed principles of Pythagŏrās, and by pretended miracles, he obtained such a hold on the multitude that he was worshipped as a god, and set up as a rival to Christ. The account of his life by the elder Philostrătus (q.v.) is more romance than history, and offers little to build upon. Having received his philosophical education, and lived in the temple of Asclēpius at Ægæ till his twentieth year, he divided his patrimony among the poor, and roamed all over the world; he was even said to have reached India and the sources of the Nile. Twice he lived at Rome; first under Nero till the expulsion of the philosophers, and again in Domitian's reign, when he had to answer a charge of conspiring against the emperor. Smuggled out of Rome during his trial, he continued his life as a wandering preacher of morals and worker of marvels for some years longer, and is said to have died at a great age, master of a school at Ephĕsus. Of his alleged writings, eight-five letters have alone survived.
(5) Apollonius, surnamed Dyscŏlus (= the surly). A Greek scholar, of Alexandria, where he had received his education, and where he ended his days a member of the Museum, after having laboured as a teacher at Rome under Antoninus Pius, about 140 a.d. He is the father of Scientific Grammar, having been the first to reduce it to systematic form. His extant works are thetreatises on Pronouns, Adverbs, Conjunctions, and the Syntax of the parts of speech, in four books. He was followed especially by the Latin grammarians, above all by Priscian. His son Herodiānus accomplished even more than he did.
(6) Apollonius the Sophist, of Alexandria. His precise date a.d. is unknown. He was author of an extant Lexicon of Homeric Glosses, based on Apion’s lost glossarial writings,
(7) Apollonius, king of Tyre, the hero of a Greek romance (now lost), composed in Asia Minor, in the 3rd century a.d., on the model of the Ephesian History of Xĕnŏphōn (q.v. 2). We have a free Latin version made by a Christian, about the 6th century, probably in Italy, which was much read in the Middle Ages, and translated into AngloSaxon, English, French, Italian, Middle Greek and German, in prose and verse. Its materials are used in the pseudo-Shakspearian drama of Pericles Prince of Tyre.
Aporraxis. See Ball, Games of.
Apŏthēōsis (Lat. Consecrātiō). The act of placing a human being among the gods, of which the Greeks have an instance as early as Homer, but only in the single case of Leucŏthĕa. The oldest notion was that of a bodily removal; then arose the idea of the mortal element being purged away by fire, as in the case of Hērăclēs. There was a kind of deification which consisted in the decreeing of heroic honours to distinguished men after death, which was done from the time of the Peloponnesian War onwards, even in the case of living men (see Heroes). The successors of Alexander the Great, both the Seleucĭdæ and still more the Ptolemies, caused themselves to be worshipped as gods. Of the Romans, whose legend told of the translation of Ænēās and Rōmulus into heaven, Cæsar was the first who claimed divine honours, if not by building temples to himself, yet by setting his statue among the gods in every sanctuary at Rome and in the empire, and by having a special flamen assigned to him. The belief in his divinity was confirmed by the comet that shone several months after his death, as long as his funeral games lasted; and under the triumvirate he was formally installed among the deities of Rome, as Divus Iulius, by a decree of the senate and people. His adopted son and successor Octavian persistently declined any offer of public worship, but he accepted the title of Augustus (the consecrated), and allowed his person to be adored
