Heliconios of Byzantium

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Helikonios of Byzantium was a late antique historian . He lived in the late 4th century.

Helikonios is only mentioned in the Central Byzantine lexicon Suda . Accordingly, he was a sophist from Byzantium ( Constantinople ) and wrote a comprehensive world chronicle (chronike epitome) , which reached from Adam to Emperor Theodosius I and comprised ten books. In the Suda, Helikonios is cited briefly in two places. In the latter entry, the education of the historian Arrian is emphasized and Helikonios is given as the source.

Since Helikonios began his chronicle with Adam, he was evidently a Christian. The work may also have served as a source for Hesychios of Miletus . Warren Treadgold has suggested that Helikonios might be the author of the anonymous sequel to the history of Cassius Dio , known as Anonymus post Dionem . As the author of this work, however, Petros Patrikios is mostly assumed.

literature

  • Paweł Janiszewski: Helikonios. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat: Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-871340-1 , p. 157 f.
  • Paweł Janiszewski: The Missing Link. Greek Pagan Historiography in the Second Half of the Third Century and in the Fourth Century AD. Warszawa 2006, pp. 411-415.
  • Warren Treadgold: The Early Byzantine Historians . Basingstoke 2007, p. 48f.
  • Gerhard Wirth : Helikonios the Sophist . In: Historia 13, 1964, pp. 506-509.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Suda E 851 .
  2. ↑ Suda A 3215 and A 3868.
personal data
SURNAME Heliconios of Byzantium
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late antique historian
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century
DATE OF DEATH 4th century or 5th century