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Aelius Herodianus

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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'AELIUS HERODIANUS, called O TEXvLKOS, Alexandrian grammarian, flourished in the 2nd century A.D. He early took up his residence at Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Marcus Aurelius (161-180), to whom he dedicated his great treatise on prosody. This work in twenty-one books ( KaOoXLKit 7rpocrcp5La) included also an account of the etymological part of grammar. The work itself is lost, but several epitomes of it have been preserved. His Ert j €ptaµoi dealt with difficult words and peculiar forms in Homer. Herodianus also wrote numerous grammatical treatises, of which only one has come down to us in a complete form (IIepi µovr t pous Wews, on peculiar style), articles on exceptional or anomalous words. Numerous quotations and fragments still exist, chiefly in the Homeric scholiasts and Stephanus of Byzantium. Herodianus enjoyed a great reputation as a grammarian, and Priscian styles him "maximus auctor artis grammaticae." The best edition is by A. Lentz, Herodiani Technici reliquiae (1867-1870); a supplementary volume is included in Uhling's Corpus grammaticorum Graecorum; for further bibliographical information see W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (1898).