Hermodorus

• An Ephesian prince, Cic. Tusc. 5, 36, 105; Plin. 34, 5, 11, § 21.—
• II A famous architect of Salamis, Cic. de Or. 1, 14, 62; cf. Vitr. 3, 2.

(Ἑρμόδωρος).

1. Of Ephesus, a person of great distinction, but was expelled by his fellow-citizens, for which Heracleitus censured them very severely. (D. L. 9.2; Cic. Tusc. 5.36.) He is said to have gone to Rome to have explained to the decemvirs the Greek laws, and thus assisted them in drawing up the laws of the Twelve Tables, B. C. 451. (Pompon. de Orig. Jur. Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 4.) Pliny (Plin. Nat. 34.11) further states, that the Romans expressed their gratitude towards him, by erecting a statue to him in the comitium. This story of his having assisted the decemvirs has been treated by some modern critics as a fiction, or at least has been modified in a manner which reduces his influence upon that legislation to a mere nothing. But, in the first place, it would be arbitrary to reject the authority of Pomponius, or to doubt the merits of Hermodorus, which are sufficiently attested by the statue in the comitium, and, in the second, there is nothing for at all improbable in the statement, that a distinguished Greek assisted the Romans in the framing of written laws, in which they were surely less experienced than the Greeks. In what his assistance consisted is only matter of conjecture: he probably gave accounts of the laws of some Greek states with which he was acquainted, and we may further believe with Niebuhr (Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 310), that the share he took related only to the constitution. (Ser. Gratama, de Hermodoro Ephesio vero XII. Tabularum Auctore, Groningen, 1818, 4to.)

2. A disciple of Plato, is said to have circulated the works of Plato, and to have sold them in Sicily, whence arose the proverb λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται. (Suid. s. v. λόγοισι; Cic. Att. 13.20.) Hermodorus himself appears to have been a philosopher, for we know the titles of two works that were attributed to him, viz. Περὶ πλάτωνος and Περὶ μαθημάτων. (Comp. Diog. Laert. Prooem. 8, 2.106, 3.6; Ionsius, de Script. Hist. Philos. 1.10. 2.)

3. An Epicurean philosopher, known only from Lucian (Icaromenipp. 16), according to whom he committed perjury for a bribe of 1000 drachmae.

4. A lyric poet, whose songs were incorporated in the Anthology of Melcager. We still possess an epigram of his on the Aphrodite of Cnidus (Brunck, Analect. 1.162), but he is otherwise unknown. There is a fragment of two lines quoted by Stobaeus (Flor. tit. 9.2), under the name of Hermodotus, which, according to some critics, is a mistake for Hermodorus; but nothing can be said about the matter. (Jacobs, ad Anthol. xiii. p. 902.) [L.S]

of Salamis, was the architect of the temple of Mars in the Flaminian Circus (Cornel. Nepos, apud priscian, Gr. Lat. viii. col. 792, Fr. xi.), and also, if we accept the emendation of Turnebus (Hermodori for Hermodi), of the temple of Jupiter Stator in the portico of Metellus Macedonicus (Vitr. 3.2.5, Schneider). There was also a Hermodorus of Salamis, a naval architect at Rome, whom the great Antonius defended in the year of his consulship, B. C. 99. (Cicero, Cic. de Orat. 1.12.) Now Metellus triumphed over Andriscus in B. C. 148. These two architects, therefore, can hardly be the same. In fact, the conjecture of Turnebus is suspicious, for the very reason that it is so plausible. Schneider reads hujusmodi instead of the Hermodi of the MSS. (Comment. in Vitruv. l.c.) [P.S]

(Ἑρμόδωρος). A philosopher of Ephesus, who is said to have assisted, as interpreter, the Roman decemvirs in the composition of the first ten tables of laws which had been collected in Greece (B.C. 451) (Cic. Tusc. v. 36). “An ancient tradition mentions,” says Niebuhr, “as an auxiliary to the Decemviri, in this code, Hermodorus, an Ephesian, the friend of the sage Heraclitus, whom his fellow-citizens had banished because he filled them with shame, and they desired to be all on an equality in profligacy of conduct. It cannot, indeed, be well explained how this story could have been invented, for which nothing but a celebrated name could have given occasion, while that of Hermodorus appears to have been known to the Greeks themselves only by the saying of his friend. On this ground, the naming of the statue, which was inscribed as his at Rome, may pass for genuine.” See Twelve Tables.

(2) A native of Salamis, the architect of the Temple of Mars in the Flaminian Circus at Rome.