HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 454 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA , Neoplatonist writer, flourished c. A.D. 430. He studied under Vie celebrated Neoplatonist Plutarch at Athens, and taught for some years in his native city. He seems to have been banished from Alexandria and to have taken up his abode in

Constantinople

CONSTANTINOPLE
CONSTANTINOPLE, COUNCILS OF

, where he gave such offence by his religious opinions that he was thrown into prison and cruelly flogged. The only complete

work

WORK

of his which has been preserved is the commentary on the Carmina Aurea of

Pythagoras

PYTHAGORAS
PYTHAGORAS (6th century B.C.)

. It enjoyed a

great

GREAT

reputation in middle age and Renaissance times, and there are numerous translations in various European languages. Several other writings, especially one on providence and fate, a consolatory treatise dedicated to his patron Olympiodorus of Thebes, author of ivropu col Xoyoc, are quoted or referred to by Photius and Stobaeus. The collection of some 26o witticisms (hvreia) called titi.X67ek.as (ed. A. Eberhard, Berlin, 1869), attributed to Hierocles and Philagrius, has no connexion with Hierocles of Alexandria, but is probably a compilation of later date, founded on two older collections. It is now agreed that the fragments of the Elements of Ethics ('IIOu ci orocxELWo'ts) preserved in Stobaeus are from a

work

WORK

by a Stoic named Hierocles, contemporary of

Epictetus

EPICTETUS (born c. A.D. 6o)

, who has been identified with the " Hierocles Stoicus vir sanctus et gravis " in Aulus Gellius (ix. 5. 8). This theory is confirmed by the discovery of a papyrus (ed. H. von Arnim in Berliner Klassikertexte, iv. 1906; see also C. Prachter, Hierokles der Stoiker, 1901).
There is an edition of the commentary by F. W. Mullach in Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum (186o), 1. 408, including full information concerning Hierocles, the poem and the commentary; see also E. Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen (2nd ed.), iii. 2, pp. 681-687; W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (1898), PP. 834. 849.
Another Hierocles, who flourished during the reign of Justinian, was the author of a

list

LIST (O.E.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
, a Teutonic word, cf. Dut. lust, Ger. Leiste, adapted in Ital. lista and Fr.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
)
LIST,
FRIEDRICH
- FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )
(1789-1846)

of provinces and towns in the Eastern Empire. called Eupjx r os (" fellow-traveller "; ed. A. Burckhardt, 1893) ; it was one of the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

authorities used by

Constantine

CONSTANTINE

Porphyrogenitus in his work on the " themes " of the Roman Empire (see C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, 1897, p. 417). In Fabricius's Bibliotheca Graeca (ed. Harles), i. 791, sixteen persons named Hierocles, chiefly literary, are mentioned.

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