Heliodo'rus
（
*(Hlio/dwros), literary :--
I. POETS.
Heliodo'rus
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.)
Heliodo'rus
2. The author of a poem entitled
Protesilaus, from which Stephanus Byzantinus, (
s v. Φυλάκη) quotes an hexameter verse.
Heliodo'rus
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.
Heliodo'rus
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.)
Heliodo'rus
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.)
Heliodo'rus
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.)
Heliodo'rus
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.).
Heliodo'rus
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.)
Heliodo'rus
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.
Heliodo'rus
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
Heliodo'rus
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 ἀφ᾽ Ἡλίου, γένος, Θεοδοσίον παῖς Ἡλιόδωρος.
The words
τῶν ἀφ᾽ 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.）
Heliodo'rus
Works
an iambic poem, in 269 verses, on the art of making gold
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.
Heliodo'rus
1. Of Larissa.
Works
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.
Δααμιανον̂ φιλοσοφου τοῦ Ἡλιοσ῀ώρου 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.
Heliodo'rus
2. Alchymist. (See No. IV.)
Heliodo'rus
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]
Heliodo'rus
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]
Heliodo'rus
（
*)Hlio/dwros), 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]
