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Hieronymus of Cardia

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Greek general and historian, contemporary of Alexander the Great. After the death of the king he followed the fortunes of his friend and fellow-countryman Eumenes. He was wounded and taken prisoner by Antigonus, who pardoned him and appointed him superintendent of the asphalt beds in the Dead Sea. He was treated with equal friendliness by Antigonus's son Demetrius, who made him polemarch of Thespiae, and by Antigonus Gonatas, at whose court he died at the age of 104. He wrote a history of the Diadochi and their descendants, embracing the period from the death of Alexander to the war with Pyrrhus (323-272 B.C.), which is one of the chief authorities used by Diodorus Siculus (xviii.-xx.) and also by Plutarch in his life of Pyrrhus. He made use of official papers and was careful in his investigation of facts. The simplicity of his style rendered his work unpopular, but it is probable that it was on a high level as compared with that of his contemporaries. In the last part of his work he made a praiseworthy attempt to acquaint the Greeks with the character and early history of the Romans. He is reproached by Pausanias (i. 9.8) with unfairness towards all rulers with the exception of Antigonus Gonatas.

See Lucian, Macrobii, 22; Plutarch, Demetrius, 39; Diod. Sic. xviii. 4 2.44.50, xix. too; Dion. Halic. Antiq. Rom. i. 6; F. Bruckner, "De vita et scriptis Hieronymi Cardii" in Zeitschrift fur die Alterthumswissenschaft (1842); F. Reuss, Hieronymos von Kardia (Berlin, 1876); C. Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studium der alien Geschichte (1895); fragments in C. W. Muller, Frag. hist. Graec. ii. 450-461.