Herodicus

(Ἡρόδικος).

1. An historical writer, who lived in the time of Pericles, and was contemporary with Thrasymachus of Chalcedon and Polus of Agrigentum. (Aristot. Rh. 2.23, 29, and Schol; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 36, ed. Westermann.)

2. Of Babylon, whose epigram, attacking the grammarians of the school of Aristarchus, is quoted by Athenaeus (v. p. 222), and is included in the Greek Anthology. (Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 65; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. ii. p. 64.) From the subject of this epigram it may be safely inferred that this Herodicus of Babylon was the same person as the grammarian Herodieus, whom Athenaeus (v. p. 219 c.) calls the Crateteian (ὁ Κρατήτειος), and who is quoted by the Scholiast on Homer (H. 13.29, 20.53) as differing from Aristarchus. (Comp. Athen. 5.192. b.) His time cannot be certainly fixed, but in all probability he was one of the immediate successors of (Crates of Mallus, and one of the chief supporters of the critical school of Crates against the followers of Aristarchus. He wrote a work on comedy, entitled Κωμῳδούμενα, after the example of the Τραγῳδούμενα of Asclepiades Tragilensis. (Athen. 13.586a. p. 591c.; Harpocrat. s. v. Σινώπη; Schol. in Aristoph. Vesp. 1231, where the common reading Ἁρμόδιος should be changed to Ἡρόδικος.) Athenaeus (viii. p. 340e.) also refers to his σύμμικτα ὑπομνήματα, and in. another passage (v. p. 215f.) to his books Πρὸς τὸν Φιλοσωκράτην. (Ionsius, de Script. Hist. Phil. 2.13; Wolf, Proleg. p. cclxxvii. not. 65; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p. 515; Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 13, 14; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. xiii. p. 903; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 182, 183, ed. Westermann.) [P.S]

(Ἡρόδικος), a physician of Selybria or Selymbria in Thrace, who lived in the fifth century B. C. He was one of the tutors of Hippocrates (Suid. s. v. Ἱπποκράτης; Sorani Vita Hiippocr.; Jo. Tzetz. Chil. vii. Hist. 155. ap. Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xii. p. 681, ed. vet.). He is mentioned, together with Iccus of Tarentum, as being one of the first persons who applied gymnastics to the treatment of disease and the preservation of health. (Plat. Protag. § 20. p. 316; Lucian, Quomiodo Histor. sit conscrib. § 35.) He was not only a physician, but also a παιδοτρίβης, or gymnastic-master (Plat. De Rep. iii. p. 406), and a sophist (Id. Protag. l. c.), and was induced to study gymnastics in a medical point of view, from having himself been benefited by them. From a passage in Plato (Phaedr. init., et Schol.), it has been supposed that he used to order his patients to walk from Athens to Megara, and to return as soon as they had reached the walls of the latter town. The distance, however, which would be more than seventy miles, renders this quite impossible ; nor do the words of Plato necessarily imply that he ever gave any such directions. A passage also in the sixth book of Hippocrates, De Morbis Vulgaribus (6.3, vol. iii. p. 599), has been quoted as confirming Plato's words, and accusing Herodicus of killing his patients by walking, &c. ; but the reading in this place is uncertain, and M. Littré considers that we should probably read Πρόδικος, and not Ἡρόδικος (Oeuvres d'Hippocr. vol. i. p. 51). It should, however. be added, that Galen, in his commentary on the above passage (3.31, vol. xvii. pt. ii. p. 99), though he reads Πρόδικος, considers him to be the same person who is mentioned by Plato; and Pliny, when he speaks of Prodicus (H. N. 29.2), is probably alluding to him also. He is mentioned by several other ancient authors; as Plutarch (De Sera Num. Vind. 100.9.), Aristotle (De Rhet. 1.5.10), Eustathius (ad Il. i. p. 763, 16), Caelius Aurelianus (De Morb. Chron. 5.1), and in Cramer's Anecd. Graec. Paris. vol. iii. [W.A.G]

(Ἡρόδικος). (1) A Babylonian grammarian, a follower of Crates of Mallos, and a violent opponent of the school of Aristarchus, against whose followers he wrote an epigram that is preserved in the Greek Anthology (Jacobs, Anth. Graec. ii. p. 64). He wrote a work on Comedy, entitled Κωμῳδούμενα, and various miscellanies.

(2) A Thracian physician, who was one of the preceptors of Hippocrates. He seems to have been among the first to insist upon the great importance of systematic exercise in preserving the health. See Plato, Protag. 20.