Heliodorus

• A celebrated surgeon, Juv. 6, 372.—
• II A celebrated rhetorician, Hor. S. 1, 5, 2.

(Ἡλιόδωρος), the treasurer of Seleucus Philopator, king of Syria, murdered his master, and attempted to seize the crown for himself, but was expelled by Eumenes and Attalus, of Pergamus, who established Antiochus Epiphanes in the kingdom, B. C. 175. (Appian, App. Syr. 45; Liv. 41.24.) The well-known story of his being sent by Seleucus to rob the temple at Jerusalem, and of his miraculous punishment (2 Maccab. iii.), is rendered somewhat suspicious by the silence of Josephus. The author of the anonymous work on the Maccabees tells the story of Apollonius, instead of Heliodorus, and says nothing about the miraculous part of it. De Maccab. 4.) [P.S]

praefectus urbi at Constantinople, A. D. 432, is probably the Heliodorus mentioned with a high encomium by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, in a letter included in the works of Cassiodorus. A person of the same name, possibly the same person, was comes sacrarum largitionum, A. D. 468. (Cod. Theod. 6. tit. 24.11, with the note of Gothofredus; Cassiodor. Variar. 1.4.) [J.C.M]

(Ἡλιόδωρος), literary :-- I. Poets.

1. Of Athens. A tragedian, and author of a poem entitled ἀπολυτικά, from which Galen quotes some verses about poisons. (De Antidot. 2.7, vol. xiv. p. 145; Welcker, die Griech. Tragöd. p. 1323.)

2. The author of a poem entitled Protesilaus, from which Stephanus Byzantinus, (s v. Φυλάκη) quotes an hexameter verse.

3. The author of a poem entitled Ἰταλικὰ Θεάματα, from which Stobaeus (Floril. tit. 100, 100.6) quotes six verses. He probably lived after Cicero. (Meineke, Comm. Misc. Spec. 1.3, p. 38.) II. Philosophers, Rhetoricians, and Grammarians.

1. A writer on metres, whose ) Ἐγχειρίδιον is often quoted by Hephaestion, Rufinus, and others, and who also wrote Περὶ μουσικῆς. (Priscian, de Fig. Num 2.396, ed. Krehl.) He was the father of the grammarian Irenaeus, and the teacher of Minutius Pacatas. He probably lived shortly before the time of Augustus. (Suid. s. v. Εἰρηναῖος ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p. 512, vol. vi. pp. 206, 344, 368, vol. viii. p. 126; Ritschl, Die Alexandr. Bibl. pp. 138, &c.)

2. Perhaps the same as the preceding, a grammarian, whose commentaries on Homer are quoted by Eustathius and other scholiasts on Homer, and by Apollonius and Hesychius. Iriarte mentions some grammatical MSS. by a certain Heliodorus in the Royal Library at Madrid. (Villoison, Proleg. in Apollon. Lex. Hom. pp. 24, 61; Fabric. ll. cc.; Ritschl, l.c., who considers the Heliodorus who wrote scholia to the τέχνη γραμματική of Dionysius Thrax, to be a different person.)

3. A rhetorician at Rome in the time of Augustus, whom Horace mentions as the companion of his journey to Brundisium, calling him " by far the most learned of the Greeks." (Sat. 1.5. 2, 3.)

4. A Stoic philosopher at Rome, who became a delator in the reign of Nero. Among his victims was his own disciple, Licinius Silanius. He was attacked by Juvenal (Sat. i. vv. 33, 35, and schol.).

5. A rhetorician, and also private secretary to the emperor Hadrian. He was a contemporary and rival of Dionysius of Miletus, who, we are told, once said to him, " The emperor can give you money and honour, but he cannot make you an orator." He was probably the same person as Heliodorus of Syria, who, as the reward of his skill in rhetoric, was made praefect of Egypt, and whose son, Avidius Cassius, attempted to usurp the purple in the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. [Cassius Avidius.] (Dion, 69.3, 71.22, and Reimarus ad loc.) Reimarus confounds Heliodorus with Hadrian's other secretary, Celer. That they were not the same person is proved by the distinct mention of both of them in an oration of Aristeides. (Orat. Sac. iv. pp. 595, 602.) There can be little doubt that this is also the Heliodorus whom Aelius Spartianus mentions as a philosopher and friend of Hadrian, but who, the same writer tells us, suffered the usual fate of Hadrian's friends, and was abused by the emperor " famosissimis literis." (Spart. Had. 15, 16.) It is doubtful whether this Heliodorus or the preceding [No. 3] is the grammarian who is satirically alluded to by the epigrammatists of the Greek Anthology. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. ll, vol. ii. pp. 327, 332.)

6. Philostratus relates the life of an Arabian sophist, Heliodorus, who lived under Caracalla, and gained the favour of the emperor in a curious way, and who, after his patron's death, was made the praefect of a certain island. (Vit. Sophist. 22.) III. Historian.

An Athenian, surnamed Περιηγητής, wrote a description of the works of art in the Acropolis at Athens, which is quoted under the various titles, Περὶ ἀκροπόλεως, Περὶ τῶν Ἀθήνῃσι τριπόδων, Ἀναθήματα, and de Atheninsium Anathematis. This work was one of the authorities for Pliny's account of the Greek artists. Heliodorus lived after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, at least if he be the person meant in the first passage of Athenaeus now referred to. (Athen. 2.45c. vi. p. 229e. ix. p. 406c.; Suid., Phot., Harpocrat. s.. vv. Θετταλός, Νίκη, Ὀνητωρ, Προπύλααια; Plin. Elench. in Lib. xxxiii. xxxiv. xxxv.) He is also apparently mentioned in a passage of I lutarch as the author of a work Περὶ μνημάτων (Vit. X. Orat. p. 849c), but in that passage we should probably read Διόδωρος for Ἡλιόδωρος. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 448, ed. Westermann.) IV. Romance-Writer

The author of the oldest and by far the best of the Greek romances, Heliodorus, the son of Theodosius, was a native of Syria, and was born, not, as Photius says, at Aminda, but at Emesa, as he himself tells us at the end of his romance :--Τοιόνδε πέρας ἔσχε τὸ σύνταγμα τῶν περὶ Θεαγένην καὶ Χαρίκλείκλειαν Αἰθιοπικῶν ὁ συνέταξεν ἀνὴρ Φοίνιξ Ἐμεσηνὸς, τῶν ἀφʼ Ἡλίου, γένος, Θεοδοσίον παῖς Ἡλιόδωρος. The words τῶν ἀφʼ Ἡλίου γενος no doubt mean that he was of the family of priests of the Syrian god of the Sun (Elagabalus). He lived about the end of the fourth century of our era, under Theodosius and his sons. He wrote his romance in early life. He afterwards became bishop of Tricca in Thessaly, where he introduced the regulation, that every priest who did not, upon his ordination, separate himself from his wife, should be deposed. (Socrat. H. E. 5.22.) Nicephorus (H. E. 12.34) adds that, on the ground of the alleged injury which had been done to the morals of young persons by the reading of the Aethiopica, a provincial synod decreed that Heliodorus must either suffer his book to be burnt, or lay down his bishopric, and that Heliodorus chose the latter alternative. The story has been wisely rejected by Valesius, Petavius, Huet, and other scholars ; and it is the more improbable from the fact that there is nothing of a corrupting tendency in the Aethiopica. We have no further accounts of the life of Heliodorus. (Phot. Bibl. 73.) Works

His romance is in ten books, and is entitled Aethiopica, because the scene of the beginning and the end of the story is laid in Aethiopia. It relates the loves of Theagenes and Charicleia. Persine, the wife of Hydaspes, king of Aethiopia, bore a daugnter, whose complexion, through the effect of a Greek statue on the queen's mind, was white. Fearing that this circumstance might cause her husband to doubt her fidelity, she resolved to expose the child, and committed her, with tokens by which she might afterwards be known, to Sisimithras, a gymnosophist, who, being sent on an embassy into Egypt, took the child with him, and gave her to Charicles, the Pythian priest, who hapopened to be in Egypt. Charicles took the child to Delphi, where he brought her up as his own daughter, by the name of Charicleia, and made her priestess of Apollo. In course of time there came to Delphi a noble Thessalian, descended from the Aeacidae, and named Theagenes, between whom and Charicleia a mutual love sprung up at first sight. At the same time Calasiris, an Egyptian priest, whom the queen of Aethiopia had employed to seek for her daughter, happened to arrive at Delphi; and by his help Theagenes carried off Charicleia. Then follows a long and rapid series of perilous adventures, from pirates and other lawless men, till at last the chief persons of the story meet at Meroe, at the very moment when Charicleia, who has fallen as a captive into her father's hands, is about to be sacrificed to the gods : she is made known by the tokens and by the testimony of Sisimithras, and the lovers are happily married.

Though very deficient in those characteristics of modern fiction which appeal to the universal sympathies of our nature, the romance of Heliodorus is extremely interesting on account of the rapid succession of strange and not altogether improbable adventures, the many and various characters introduced, and the beautiful scenes described. The opening scene is admirable, and the point of the story at which it occurs is very well chosen. The language is simple and elegant, though it is sometimes too diffuse, and often deviates from the pure Attic standard. The whole work, as compared with the best of later Greek romances, that of Achilles Tatius for example, has the superiority of greater nature, less artificial and rhetorical elaboration, with more real eloquence, less improbability in its incidents, and greater skill in the management of the episodes, and, in short, the superiority of a work of original talent over an imitation. It formed the model for subsequent Greek romance writers. It is often quoted by the title of Χαρίκλεια, just as the work of Achilles is quoted by that of Λευκίππη, from the names of the respective heroines. Editions>

In modern times the Aethiopica was scarcely known till, at the sacking of Ofen in 1526, a MS. of the work in the library of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, attracted, by its rich binding, the attention of a soldier, who brought it into Germany, and at last it came into the hands of Vincentius (Opsopoeus, who printed it at Basel, 1534, 4to. Several better MSS. were afterwards discovered, and in 1596 a new edition was brought out in folio, at Heidelberg, by Commelinus, with the Latin version of Stanislaus Warsichewiczki, which had been printed in 1552 at Basel, and in 1556 at Antwerp. The edition of Commelinus was re printed at Lyon in 1611, 8vo., and at Frankfort in 1631, 8vo. This last edition, by Daniel Pareus, was the first divided into chapters. The edition of Bourdelot, Paris, 1619, 8vo., is full of errors, and the notes are of little value. The edition of Peter Schmid, Lips. 1772, 8vo., only differs from that of Bourdelot by the introduction of new errors. At length, in 1799, an excellent edition of the text and Latin version, with a few notes, chiefly critical, appeared in Mitscherlich's Scriptores Graeci Erotici, of which it forms the 2d volume, in two parts, 8vo. Argentorat. anno VI. A still better edition was brought out in 1804, at Paris, by the learned Greek Coraes, at the expense of his friend, Alexander Basilius, in 2 vols. 8vo. The first volume contains an introduction, in modern Greek, in the form of a letter to Alexander Basilius, and the text, with various readings. The second volume contains notes in ancient Greek, and other illustra tive matter. Translations

The Aethiopica has been translated into nearly all modern languages. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. viii. p. 111; the Prefaces of Mitscherlich and Coraes ; Jacobs, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopädie, s. v.; Hoffmann, Lex. Bibliog. Script. Graec. s. v.)

There is an iambic poem, in 269 verses, on the art of making gold, which is attributed by a MS. in the royal library at Paris to Heliodorus the bishop of Tricca. Editions

It exists in MS. in several libraries in Europe, and is printed, from the Paris MS., in Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. viii. p. 119. The title is Ἡλιοδώρου φιλοσόφου πρὸς Φεοδόσιον τὸν μέλαν *Basile/a, peri\ th=s tw=n filoso/fwn *Mustikh=s te/xnhs (i. e. Alchymy), δἰ Ἰάμβων Kühn and Hoffmann (Lex. Bibl. s. v.) believe the poem to be genuine, but Jacobs calls it the clumsy fabrication of a later time, to which the name of Theodosius was prefixed to give it the semblance of authority; and he suggests that the name Heliodorus may have been used, after the fashion of the Alchymists and Rosicrucians, on account of its etymological signification. Further Information

Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopädie, s. v. V. Scientific.

1. Of Larissa. Works Κεφάλαια τῶν̓ Ὀπτικῶν

He was the author of a little work on optics, entitled Κεφάλαια τῶν̓ Ὀπτικῶν, which seems to be a fragment or abridgement of the larger work, which is entitled in some MSS. Δααμιανον͂ φιλοσοφου τοῦ Ἡλιοσ͂ώρου Λαρισσαίου περὶ ὀπτικῶν ὑποθέσεων Βιβλία β́ which makes it doubtful whether his true name was Dalmianus or Heliodorus. The work is chiefly taken from Euclid's Optics. Editions

The work was printed at Florence, with an Italian version, by Ignatius Dante, with the Optics of Euclid, in 1573, 4to.; at Hamburgh by F. Lindenbrog, 1610, 4to; at Paris, by Erasmus Bartholinus, 1657, 4to (reprinted 1680); at Cambridge, in Gale's Opuscula Mythologica, 1670, 8vo. (but it is omitted in the Amsterdam edition, 1688); and lastly, with a Latin version and a dissertation upon the author, by A. Matani, Pistorii, 1758, 8vo. Other works

Some other scientific works of Heliodorus are mentioned. Further Information

Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. viii. p. 128.

2. Alchymist. (See No. IV.)

VI. Several Heliodori of less importance are mentioned by Fabricius. (Bibl. Graec. vol. viii. pp. 126, 127.)

The Greek writers confound this name with Herodianus, Herodorus, Herodotus, Hesiodus, and Diodorus. [P.S]

a statuary in bronze and marble, mentioned by Pliny among the artists who made " athletas et armatos et venatores sacrificantesque" (34.8. s. 19.34). He was the maker of a celebrated marble group, representing Pan and Olympus wrestling, which stood in the portico of Octavia, in the time of Pliny, who calls it " alterum in terris symplegma nobile" (36.5. s. 4.10; comp. §. 6, and Cephisodotus.) [P.S]

(Ἠλιόδωρος), a surgeon at Rome, probably a contemporary of Juvenal, in the first century after Christ. (Juv. 6.373.) Works Work on Surgery

He may be the same person who wrote a work on surgery, which is quoted by Asclepiades Pharmacion (ap. (Gal. De Compos. Medic. sec. Gen. 6.14, vol. xiii. p. 849), and Paulus Aegineta (De Re Med. 4.49). Only some fragments remain, chiefly preserved by Oribasius and Nicetas. Editions

These fragments are to be found in the twelfth volume of Chartier's edition of Galen, and in the Collection of Greek Surgical Writers published by Cocchi, Florence, 1754, fol. Further Information

Haller's Biblioth. Chirurg. vol. i. p.71 ; Kühn, Additam. ad Elench. Medic. Vet. a J.A. Fabricio, &c. exhibitum. [W.A.G]

(Ἡλιόδωρος). (1) A Greek poet, from whom sixteen hexameters are cited by Stobaeus (Serm. 98), containing a description of that part of Campania situated between the Lucrine Lake and Puteoli, and where Cicero had a country residence. Some suppose him to have been the same with the rhetorician Heliodorus mentioned by Horace (Hor. Sat. i. 5. 2), as one of the companions of his journey to Brundisium.

(2) An Athenian physician, of whom Galen makes mention, and who also wrote a didactic poem, under the title of Ἀπολυτικά, “Justification,” of which Galen cites seven hexameters.

(3) A native of Larissa, who left a treatise on optics, under the title of Κεφάλαια τῶν Ὀπτικῶν, which is scarcely anything more than an abridgment of the optical work ascribed to Euclid. He cites the optics of Ptolemy. The time when he flourished is uncertain; from the manner, however, in which he speaks of Tiberius, it is probable that he lived a long time after that emperor. Oribasius has preserved for us a fragment of another work of Heliodorus, which treats of the κοχλίας, a machine furnished with a screw for drawing water.

(4) A Greek romance-writer, who was born at Emesa in Phoenicia, and flourished under the emperors Theodosius and Arcadius at the close of the fourth century. He was raised to the dignity of a bishop of Tricca in Thessaly. Heliodorus is best known as the author of a Greek romance, entitled Αἰθιοπικά, being the history of Theagenes and Chariclea, the latter a daughter of a king of Aethiopia. It is in ten books. This work was unknown in the West until a soldier of Anspach, under the Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg, assisting at the pillage of the library of Matthias Corvinus, at Buda, in 1526, being attracted by the rich binding of a manuscript, carried it off. He sold the prize afterwards to Vincent Obsopaeus, who published it at Basle in 1534. This was the celebrated romance of Heliodorus. Poetry, battles, piracies, and recognitions fill up the piece; there is no picture of the mind, no attempt at character-drawing carried on with the development of the action. The incidents point to no particular era of society, although one may perceive, from the tone of sentiment throughout, that the struggle had commenced between the spirit of Christianity and the grossness of pagan idolatry. Egypt is neither ancient Egypt, nor the Egypt of the Ptolemies, nor the Egypt of the Romans. Athens is neither Athens free nor Athens conquered—in short, there is no individuality either in the places or persons; and the vague pictures of the French romances of the seventeenth century give scarcely a caricatured idea of the model from which they were drawn. Various editions have been published of the romance of Heliodorus. The best are those of Bekker (1855) and Hirschig, in his Erotici Scriptores (1856). There is an English translation by Smith (London, 1856). See, also, Dunlop, History of Fiction, pp. 18-24 (3d ed. 1845), where an analysis of the novel is given; Chauvin, Les Romanciers Grecs et Latins, ch. viii. (1862); Rohde, Der griechische Roman (1876); and the article novels and romances.