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Table of Contents
Roman Period
Aelian
Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so perfectly that he was called “honey-tongued” (meliglossos); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself. His two chief works are valuable for the numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost, and for the surprising lore, which offers unexpected glimpses into the Greco-Roman world-view.
Albinus
Platonist philosopher, who lived at Smyrna, and was teacher of Galen. A short tract by him, entitled Introduction to Plato's Dialogues, has come down to us. From the title of one of the extant manuscripts we learn that Albinus was a pupil of Gaius the Platonist. The original title of his work was probably Prologos, and it may have originally formed the initial section of notes taken at the lectures of Gaius. After explaining the nature of the Dialogue, which he compares to a Drama, the writer goes on to divide the Dialogues of Plato into four classes, logical, critical, physical, ethical, and mentions another division of them into Tetralogies, according to their subjects. He advises that the Alcibiades, Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus, should be read in a series.
Alciphron
Ancient Greek sophist, and the most eminent among the Greek epistolographers. Regarding his life or the age in which he lived we possess no direct information whatsoever. We possess under the name of Alciphron 116 fictional letters, in 3 books, the object of which is to delineate the characters of certain classes of men by introducing them as expressing their peculiar sentiments and opinions upon subjects with which they were familiar.
Apollodorus
Appian
Roman historian of Greek ethnicity who flourished during the reigns of Emperors of Rome Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. He was born circa 95 in Alexandria. He tells us, after having filled the chief offices in the province of Aegyptus (Egypt), he went to Rome circa 120, where he practised as an advocate, pleading cases before the emperors (probably as advocatus fisci), that in 147 at the earliest he was appointed to the office of procurator, probably in Egypt, on the recommendation of his friend Marcus Cornelius Fronto, a well-known litterateur. Because the position of procurator was open only to members of the equestrian order (the “knightly” class), his possession of this office tells us about Appian's family background. His principal surviving work (Ῥωμαϊκά, known in Latin as Historia Romana and in English as Roman History) was written in Greek in 24 books, before 165. This work more closely resembles a series of monographs than a connected history. It gives an account of various peoples and countries from the earliest times down to their incorporation into the Roman Empire, and survives in complete books and considerable fragments. The work is very valuable, especially for the period of the civil wars. The Civil Wars, five of the later books in the corpus, concern mainly the end of the Roman Republic and take a conflict-based approach to history.
Arrian
Roman (ethnic Greek) historian, public servant, military commander and philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period. As with other authors of the Second Sophistic, Arrian wrote primarily in Attic (Indica is in Herodotus' Ionic dialect, his philosophical works in Koine Greek). The Anabasis of Alexander is perhaps his best-known work, and is generally considered one of the best sources for the campaigns of Alexander the Great. (It is not to be confused with Anabasis, the best-known work of the Athenian military leader and author Xenophon from the 5th-4th century BC.) Arrian is also considered as one of the founders of a primarily military-based focus on history. His other works include Discourses of Epictetus and Indica.
Athenaeus
Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcus Aurelius, but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus, who died in 192, shows that he survived that emperor. Several of his publications are lost, but the fifteen volume Deipnosophistae mostly survives.
Callistratus
Greek sophist and rhetorician, probably flourished in the 3rd (or possibly 4th) century AD. He wrote Ekphraseis (also known by the Latin title Statuarum descriptiones), descriptions of fourteen works of art in stone or brass by distinguished artists. This little work, which is written in a dry and affected style, without any real artistic feeling, is usually edited with the Eikones of Philostratus (whose form it imitates).
Cassius Dio
Roman consul and noted historian who wrote in Greek. Dio published a history of Rome in 80 volumes, beginning with the legendary arrival of Aeneas in Italy; the volumes then documented the subsequent founding of Rome (753 BC), the formation of the Republic (509 BC), and the creation of the Empire (31 BC), up until AD 229. The entire period covered by Dio's work is approximately 1,400 years. Of the 80 books, written over 22 years, many survive into the modern age, intact, or as fragments, providing modern scholars with a detailed perspective on Roman history.
Dio Chrysostom
Greek orator, writer, philosopher and historian of the Roman Empire in the 1st century. Eighty of his Discourses (or Orations) are extant, as well as a few Letters and a funny mock essay In Praise of Hair, as well as a few other fragments. His surname Chrysostom comes from the Greek chrysostomos, which literally means “golden-mouthed”.
Diodorus Siculus
Greek historian, who wrote works of history between 60 and 30 BC. He is known for the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira). With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work. Only Jerome, in his Chronicon under the “year of Abraham 1968” (i.e., 49 BC), writes, “Diodorus of Sicily, a writer of Greek history, became illustrious”. His English translator, Charles Henry Oldfather, remarks on the “striking coincidence” that one of only two known Greek inscriptions from Agyrium is the tombstone of one “Diodorus, the son of Apollonius”.
Diogenes Laertius
Biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a principal source for the history of Greek philosophy.
Epictetus
Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey), and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses. Philosophy, Epictetus taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering occurs from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, it is our duty to care for all our fellow men. Those who follow these precepts will achieve happiness and peace of mind.
Eunapius
Greek sophist and historian of the 4th century AD. His principal surviving work is the Lives of the Sophists, a collection of the biographies of twenty-three philosophers and sophists.
Herodian
Minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus in eight books covering the years 180 to 238. His work is not entirely reliable although his relatively unbiased account of Elagabalus is more useful than that of Cassius Dio. He was a Greek (perhaps from Antioch) who appears to have lived for a considerable period of time in Rome, but possibly without holding any public office. From his extant work, we gather that he was still living at an advanced age during the reign of Gordianus III, who ascended the throne in 238
Hermes Trismegistus
Purported author of the Hermetic Corpus, a series of sacred texts that are the basis of Hermeticism. He may be a representation of the syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. In Hellenistic Egypt, the Greeks recognised the congruence of their god Hermes with Thoth. Subsequently the two gods were worshipped as one in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemnu, which the Greeks called Hermopolis.
Iambulus
Ancient Greek merchant and the likely author of an Utopian novel about the strange forms and figures of the inhabitants of the “Islands of the Sun”.
Josephus
First-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian and hagiographer, who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada, but the imperial patronage of his work has sometimes caused it to be characterized as pro-Roman propaganda. His most important works were The Jewish War (c. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94). The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation (66–70). Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity.
Longinus
Conventional name of the author of the treatise On the Sublime (Περὶ ὕψους, Perì hýpsous), a work which focuses on the effect of good writing. Longinus, sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Longinus because his real name is unknown, was a Greek teacher of rhetoric or a literary critic who may have lived in the 1st or 3rd century AD. Longinus is known only for On the Sublime.
Lucian
rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature. Although he wrote solely in Greek, mainly Attic Greek, he was ethnically Syrian. Lucian claimed to be a native speaker of a “barbarian tongue” which was most likely Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic.