Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/257

APOLLONIUS. a vory flattering letter of recommendation to Cae- sar. (Cic. mt FarniL xiii. 6.) 13. A Christian writer, whose parents and country are unknown, but who is believed to have been bishop of Ephcsus, and to have lived about the year a. d. 19'2. lie wrote a work exposing the errors and the conduct of the Christian sect called Cataphryges, some fragments of which are preserved in Eusebius. {^Hist. Ecdes. v. 18, 21.) Tertullian defended the sect of the Montanists against this Apollonius, and the seventh book of his work irtpl eKaraacons was especially directed against Apollonius. (Auctor Praedestinati, cc. 26, 27, 68 ; Cave, Hist. Lit. i. p. 53 ; Fabric. Bibl. G^ecvii.p. 164.) 14. A Christian, who suffered martyrdom at Rome in the reign of Commodus. He is said to have been a Roman senator. At his trial he made a beautiful defence of Christianity in the Roman senate, which was afterwards translated into Greek and inserted by Eusebius in his history of the Martyrs, but is now lost. (Hieronym. Episi. 84, Catalog. 42, 53 ; Euseb. Hist. Ecdes. v. 21.) Ni- cephorus (iv. 26) confounds the martyr Apollonius with Apollonius the writer against the Cataphryges. (Cave, Hist. Lit. i. p. 53 ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vii. p. 163.) 15. Sumamed Cronos, a native of lassua in Caria, was a philosopher of the Megarian school, a pupil of Eubulides, and teacher of the celebrated Diodorus,who received from his master the surname Cronos. (Strab. xiv. p. 658; Diog. Laert. ii. 111.) 16. Sumamed Dyscolos, that is, the ill-tem- pered, was a son of Mnesitheus and Ariadne, and bom at Alexandria, where he flourished in the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. He was one of the most renowned grammarians of his time, partly on account of his numerous and ex- cellent works, and partly on accoimt of his son, Aelius Herodian, who had been educated by him, and was as great a grammarian as himself. Apollonius is said to have been so poor, that he was obliged to write on shells, as he had no means of procuring the ordinary writing materials ; and this poverty created that state of mind to which he owed the smname of Dyscolos. He lived and was buried in that part of Alexandria which was called Bruchium or Uvpovx^'iov. But, unless he is confounded with Apollonius of Chalcis, he also spent some time at Rome, where he attracted the attention of the emperor M. Antoninus. Apollonius and his son are called by Priscian in several passages the greatest of all grammarians, and he declares, that it was only owing to the assistance which he derived from their works that he was enabled to undertake his task. (Priscian, Praef. ud libb. i. and vi. viii. p. 833, ix. init. and p. 941.) He was the first who reduced grammar to anything like a system, and is therefore called by Priscian "grammaticorum princeps." A list of his works, most of which are lost, is given by Suidas, and a more complete one in Fabricius. DiU. Graec. vi. p. 272, &c.) We confine ourselves here to those which are still extant. 1. riepl (Tvtnd^tiDS tov K6yov (ifpuv, "de Constmctione Orationis," or "de Ordinatione sive Constructione Dictionum," in four books. The first edition of this work is the Aldine. (Venice, 1495, fol.) A much better one, with a Latin translation and notes, was published by Fr. Sylburg, Fmnkf. 1590, 4to. The last edi- tion, which was greatly corrected by the assistimcc APOLLONIUS. 239 of four new MSS,, is I. Bekker's, Bcriin, 1817, 8vo. 2. Tlfpl dvrwfufxiaSy '* de Pronomine liber," wa» first edited by I. Bekker in the Museum. Antiq. Stud. i. 2, Berlin, 1811, 8vo., and afterwards separately, Beriin, 1814, 8vo. 3. Ilepl avvSiarfxav, "de Con- junctionibus," and 4. Hepl ciri^prjfidTwu^ ** de Adverbiis," are both printed in Bekker's Anecdot. ii. p. 477, &c Among the works ascribed to Apollonius by Suidas there is one irfpl KOTeif/euo'Me'^s iaropiasy on fictitious or forged histories. It is generally believed that the work of one Apollonius, which was published together with Antoninus Liberalis by Xylander, under the title "Historiae Comraen- titiae," (Basel, 1568, 8vo.,) is the same as the work ascribed by Suidas to Apollonius Dyscolos ; and Meursius and subsequenUy L. H. Teucher published the work with the name of Apollonius Dyscolos. This work thus edited three times is a collection of wonderful phenomena of nature, ga- thered from the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and others. Now this is something very different from what the title of the work mentioned by Suidas would lead us to expect ; that title can mean nothing else than, that Apollonius Dyscolos wrote a work which was an exposition of certain errors or forgeries which had crept into history. Phlegon, moreover, quotes fi:om the work of Apollonius Dyscolos passages which are not to be found in the one which Meursius and others ascribe to him. (Phlegon, cc. 11, 13, 17.) The conclusion there- fore must be, that the work of Apollonius Dyscolos Trepi KaT€i|/ei;(rjn6V7;s laTopias is lost, and that the one which has been mistaken for it belongs to an Apollonius who is otherwise unknown. (Wester- mann, Scriptores Reiruin viirahil. p. 20, &c., where the work of the unknown Apollonius is also incor- porated, pp. 103—116.) 17. A native of Egypt, a writer who is refer- red to by Theophilus Antiochenus {ad Autolyc. iii. pp. 127, 136, 139) as an authority respecting va- rious opinions upon the age of the world. Whether he is the same as the Apollonius from whom Athe- naeus (v. p. 191) quotes a passage concerning the symposia of the ancient Egyptians, is uncertain. The number of persons of. the name of Apollonius, who were natives of Egypt, is so great, that unless some other distinguishing epithet is added, it is impossible to say who they were. An Apollonius, an Egyptian, is mentioned as a soothsayer, who prophesied the death of Caligula. (Dion Cass, lix. 29.) 18. Sumamed Eidographus (etScrypo^os), a writer referred to by the Scholiast on Pindar (Pyth. ii. 1) respecting a contest in which Hiero won the piize. Some writers have thought he was a poet, but from the Etymol. M. (s. v. elSoSe'a) it is probable that he was some learned grammarian. 19. Of Laodicea, is said to have written five books on astrology {astrologia apotelesmatica) in which he accused the Egj-ptians of various astro- nomical errors. (Paulus Alex. Praef. ad Isa</o<j.) In the royal library of Paris there exists a MS. containing " Apotelesmata" of one Apollonius, which Fabricius believes to be the work of Apollo- nius of Laodicea. 20. Of Myndus, lived at the time of Alexander the Great, and was particuhirly skilled in explain- ing nativities. He professed to have learned his art from the Chaldeans. (Scnec. Quacst. Nat. vii. 3 and 17.) His statements respecting the