Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/473

HIERONYMUS. dispatched liim with numerous wounds, before his guards could come to his succour, B. c. 215. (Liv. xxiv. 4—7 ; Polyb. vii. 2—6.) The short reign of Hieronymus, which had lasted only 13 months, had presented the most striking contrast to that of his grandfather. Brought up in the midst of all the enervating and corrupting in- fluences of a court, his naturally bad disposition, at once weak and violent, felt them all in their full force ; and he exhibited to the Greeks the first in- stance of a childish tyrant. From the moment of his accession he gave himself up to the influence of flatterers, v/ho urged him to the vilest excesses : he .assumed at once all the external pomp of royalty which Hieron had so studiously avoided ; and while he plunged in the most shameless manner into every species of luxury and debauchery, he displayed the most unrelenting cruelty towards all those who became objects of his suspicion. Poly- bius indeed appears inclined to doubt the state- ments on this subject ; and it is not improbable that they may have been exaggerated by the writers to whom he refers : but there is certainly nothing in the nature of the case to justify his scepticism ; and the example, in later days, of Ela- gabalus, to whose character that of Hieronymus appears to have borne much resemblance, is sufli- cient to show how little any excesses that are re- ported of the latter can be called incredible. Among other instances of his wanton contempt of public decency, he is said to have married a common prostitute, on whom he bestowed the title and honours of a queen. (Polyb. vii. 7 ; Liv. xxiv. 5; Diod. Ejcc. VaUs. xxvi. p. 568, 569 ; Athen. vi. p.-251,x«i. p. 577; Val. Max. iii. 3. Eat. § 5.) The coins of Hieronymus are more abundant than might have been expected from the shortness of his reign: they all bear his portrait on the ob- verse, and a thunderbolt on the reverse. [E.H.B.] HIERONYMUS. 459 COIN OF HIERONYMUS. HIERO'NYMUS {'Upwvvfjios literary. 1. Son of Xenophanes, a tragic and ditliyrambic poet, who is attacked by Aristophanes (^f/iarra. 387, Nub. 347, and Schol. ; Suid. s. v. KAeiTos). 2. Of Rhodes, commonly called a peripatetic, though Cicero questions his right to the title, was a disciple of Aristotle, and contemporary with Ar- cesilalis, about B. c. 300. Pie appears to have lived down to the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. He is frequently mentioned by Cicero, who tells us that he held the highest good to consist in freedom from pain and trouble, and denied that pleasure Avas to be sought for its own sake. There are quotations from his writings Uepl fxcSrjs., IcxTopiKa. vnofj-vritiaTa or rci a-iropaS-nu vivo(xvrip.aTa^ and from his letters. It would seem from Cicero [Or. 5Q)., compared with Rufinus {de Comp. et Metr. p. 318), that he was the same as the Hieronymus wbo wrote on numbers and feet. (Athen. ii. p. 48, b., V. p. 217, d., x. p. 424, f. p. 435, a., xi. p. 499, f., xiii. p. boQ., a. p. 557, e, p. 601, f. p. 604, d. ; Strab. viii. p. 378. ix. p. 443, x. p. 475, xiv. p. 655; Diog. Laert. iv. 41, 45 ; Plut. Ages. 13, Arist. 27; Vossius, de Hist. Grace, pp. 82, 83, ed. Wester- mann ; Fabric. Bihl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 306, vol. iii. p. 495, vol. vi. p. 131.) 3. Very probably the same as the preceding, the author of a work on poets, from the fifth book of which (riepi KiOapcfSwu), and from another book of it {hepl Twv rpayci^Soiroioiv), there are quo- tations. (Athen. xiv. p. 635, f.; Apost. Prov. xi. 41 ; Suidas, s. v. ^Avayvpdaios.) Perhaps he is the same person as the author of a commentary on the 'Affiris of Hesiod, (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p. 582.) [P. S.] HIERO'NYMUS, commonly known as SAINT JEROME. EusEBius Hieronymus Sophro- Nius was a native of Stridon, a town upon the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia, which having been utterly destroyed by the Goths in a. d. 377, its site cannot now be determined. His parents were both Christian, living, it Avould appear, in easy circumstances. The period of his birth is a matter of considerable doubt. Prosper Aquita- nicus, in his chronicle, fixes upon the year a. d. 331 ; Dupin brings down the event as low as 345; while other writers have decided in favour of vari- ous intermediate epochs. That the first of the above dates is too early seems certain, for Jerome, in the commentary upon Habbakuk (c. 3), speaks of himself as having been still occupied with gram- matical studies at the death of Julian the apostate ; but since this took place in 363, he must, accord- ing to the statement of Prosper, have been at that time thirty-two years old, while the calculation adopted by Du Pin would make him just eighteen, an age corresponding much better with the expres- sions employed, unless we are to receive them in a very extended acceptation. After having acquired the first rudiments of a liberal education from his father, Eusebius, he was despatched to Rome for the prosecution of his studies, where he devoted himself with great ardour and success to the Greek and Latin languages, to rhetoric, and to the different branches of philosophy, enjoying the instructions of the most distinguished preceptors of that era, among whom was Aelius Doiiatus [Donatus]. Having been admitted to the rite of baptism, he undertook a journey into Gaul, accompanied by his friend and schoolfellow Bonosus ; and after a lengthened tour, passed some time at Treves, where he occupied himself in transcribing the commentaries of Ilila- rius upon the Psalms, and his voluminous work upon Synods. Here too he seems to have been, for the first time, impressed with a deep religious feeling, to have formed a steadfast resolution to amend his career, which had hitherto been some- wliat irregular, and to have resolved to devote himself with zeal to the interests of Christianity. Upon quitting Gaul, he probably returned to Rome; but in 370 we find him living at Aquileia, in close intimacy with Rufinus and Chromatins; and at this time he composed his first theological essay, the letter to Innocentius, De Muliere septies per- cussa. Having been compelled by some violent cause, now unknown [Suhitus turbo me a latere tuo convu/sit, Ep. iii. ad Ru/.), suddenly to quit this abode in 373, he set out for the East, along with Innocentius, Evagrius, and Heliodorus, and tm- versing Thrace, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappa-