Chion

(Χίων), the son of Matris, a noble citizen of Heracleia, on the Pontus, was a disciple of Plato. With the aid of Leon (or Leonides), Euxenon, and other noble youths, he put to death Clearchus, the tyrant of Heracleia. (B. C. 353.) Most of the conspirators were cut down by the tyrant's body-guards upon the spot, others were afterwards taken and put to death with cruel tortures, and the city fell again beneath the worse tyranny of Satyrus, the brother of Clearchus. (Memnon, apud Phot. Cod. 224, pp. 222, 223, ed. Bekker; Just. 16.5.) Works Letters ascribed to Chion

There are extant thirteen letters which are ascribed to Chion, and which are of considerable merit; but they are undoubtedly spurious. Probably they are the composition of one of the later Platonists. Editions

They were first printed in Greek in the Aldine collection of Greek Letters, Venet. 1499, 8vo.; again, in Greek and Latin, in the reprint of that collection, Aurel. Allob. 1606. The first edition in a separate form was by J. Caselius, printed by Steph. Myliander, Rostoch, 1583, 4to.; there was also a Latin translation published in the same volume with a Latin version of the fourth book of Xenophon's Cyropaedeia, by the same editor and printer, Rostoch, 1584, 4to. A more complete edition of the Greek text, founded on a new recension of some Medicean MSS., with notes and indices, was published by J. T. Coberus, Lips. and Dresd. 1765, 8vo.

The best edition, containing all that is valuable in the preceding ones, is that of J. Conr. Orelli, in the same volume with his edition of Memnon, Lips. 1816, 8vo. It contains the Greek text, the Latin version of Caselius, the Prolegomena of A. G. Hoffmann, the Preface of Coberus, and the Notes of Coberus, Hoffmann, and Orelli. There are several selections from the letters of Chion. Further Information

A. G. Hoffmann, Prolegom. ad Chionis Epist. Graec. futuram edit. conscripta ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. i. p. 677. [P.S]

of Corinth, a sculptor, who attained to no distinction, not from the want of industry or skill, but of good fortune. (Vitruv. iii. Praef.) [P.S]

(Χίων). A native of Heraclea Pontica, and disciple of Plato. Animated by political zeal, he left Athens, where he had resided for the space of five years, attending the instructions of Plato, and returned home with the determination of freeing his native city from the yoke of tyranny. Clearchus, who ruled at Heraclea, was not, it is true, a good prince; but, in slaying him, Chion was the cause of this city's falling under a worse tyrant, Satyrus, the brother of Clearchus. Chion himself fell a victim to the latter's elevation to power (B.C. 353). We have seventeen letters said to have been written by Chion. They are principally addressed to his father, Matris; but their authenticity has been called in question, and the real author is supposed to have been a Platonist of the fourth century. The style is clear, simple, and animated. Edition by Orelli (Leipzig, 1816).