Herodiānus
（
Ἡρωδιανός).
1.
The author of an extant history, in the Greek language, of the Roman Empire, in eight
books, from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the commencement of the reign of Gordianus III.
(A.D. 180-238). He states that the events described by him occurred during the period of his
own life, which serves to fix his date, but of the details of his career nothing is known. He
seems to have made Thucydides his model, and his narrative is characterized by sobriety,
impartiality, and in general by accuracy. His style is good in spite of numerous Latinisms.
There are editions by Bekker
(1855) and Mendelssohn
(1883). See
Kreuzer,
De Herodiani Vita, etc.
(1881); and on the language and
style, the treatise of P. Schmidt,
Die Syntax des Historikers Herodian, pt. i.
(1891); pt. ii.
(1893).
2.
Aelius. A celebrated grammarian, son of Apollonius
Dyscolus, and a native of Alexandria, from which place he went to Rome, where he secured the
favour of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, to whom he dedicated his work on prosody (
Καθολικὴ Προσῳδία), in twentyone books. His reputation in
antiquity was very great, so that Priscian styles him
maximus auctor
artis grammaticae. Of his numerous works, only fragmentary selections now exist,
largely in citations in other grammarians. These are enumerated by Fabricius (
Bibl.
Graec. vi. pp. 278 foll.), and edited by Lentz, with indexes, in 2 vols.
(Leipzig, 1870). See Lehrs,
Herodiani Scripta Tria
(Königsberg, 1848); Hiller,
Quaestiones Herodianae
(Bonn, 1866); Hilgard,
Excerpta ex Libris Herodiani (Leipzig,
1887); and Stephan,
De Herodiani Technici Dialectologia
(Strassburg, 1889).
