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Adamantius

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Dictionary of Early Christian Biography
• Adamantius (1).
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The Jewish Encyclopedia
• Adamantius

Jewish physician, author, and naturalist (ἰατρικ࿶ν λόγων σοφιστής; see Socrates, "Hist. Eccl." 7:13); lived in Alexandria in the fourth century. He prepared an abridgment, in two volumes, of the Φυσιογνωμικά, a work on physiognomy, written by Polemon the rhetor, who is supposed to have lived in the time of Hadrian. Of this work an Arabic version in manuscript exists in the University Library at Leyden. He dedicated his abridgment to the emperor Constantius. The various editions of this work are "Adamantii Sophistæ Physiognomica," in Greek, Paris, 1540; "Adamantii Sophistæ Physiognomicon, id est de Naturæ Indiciis Cognoscendis Libri Duo," in Greek and Latin, Basel, 1544; in Greek, together with the works of Ælian, Polemon, and others, Rome, 1545. An uncritical edition in Greek and Latin was published by I. G. Franz under the title "Scriptores Physiognomiæ Veteres," Altenburg, 1780. Another work by Adamantius, "On the Winds" (Περὶ 'Ανέμων), was published by V. Rose, in "Anecdota Græca," 1:29. Two quotations from this are known, one cited by Ætius, a physician of Amida (see Photius, "Bibliotheca," cod. 221, 3:163), Περὶ 'Ανέμων, 'Αδαμαντίου Σοφιστοῦ ed. I. Hirschberg, Leipsic, 1899, and one in the late Byzantine period by Joannes Diaconus Galenus. Adamantius himself declares that in this work he followed more the method of the "Physiognomica" of Aristotlethan any other, an important fact for the textual criticism of the works both of Aristotle and of Adamantius. Adamantius was also a naturalist; medicaments introduced by him are mentioned by Oribasius, who compiled a medical work during the reign of the emperor Julian.