Hierophilus

(Ἱερόφιλος), a name which has been supposed by Marx (De Herophili Vita, &c. pp. 7, 13) and others to be a corruption of Herophilus, but probably without sufficient reason.

1. A physician at Athens, whose lectures were attended by Agnodice disguised in male attire. If the story is not wholly apocryphal (for it rests only on the authority of Hyginus, Hyg. Fab. 274), Hierophilus may be conjectured to have lived in the fifth or sixth century B. C. Some of the reasons which render it unlikely that Herophilus is the true reading in this passage of Hyginus, are given in the article Agnodice.

2. Works Ἱεροφιλου Σοφιστοῦ περὶ Τροφῶν Κύκλος· ποίᾳ δεῖ χρᾶσθαι ἑκάστῳ μηνὶ, καὶ ὁποίοις ἀπέχεσθαι

The author of a short Greek medical treatise, entitled Ἱεροφιλου Σοφιστοῦ περὶ Τροφῶν Κύκλος· ποίᾳ δεῖ χρᾶσθαι ἑκάστῳ μηνὶ, καὶ ὁποίοις ἀπέχεσθαι, Hierophili Sophistae de Alimentis Circulus ; quibusnam uti, et a quibusnam abstinere oportcat. This was for some time, while still in MS., supposed to be the work of Herophilus, but as soon as it was examined and published, it plainly appeared to belong to some late writer of the eleventh or twelfth century after Christ. It contains dietetical directions for every month in the year, and is full of words unknown to the older Greek writers. Editions

It was first published by Boissonade in the eleventh volume of the Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Biblioth. du Roi (Paris, 1827), p. 178, &c.; and is inserted in the first volume of Ideler's Physici et Medici Graeci Minores, Berol. 1841. 8vo. [W.A.G]