Several persons named Heliodorus are known to us from ancient times, the best known of which is Heliodorus of Emesa, author of the novel Aethiopica.

Heliodorus was a minister of Seleucus IV Philopator ca. 175 BC, and is said to have assassinated Seleucus. 2 Maccabees reports that he entered the Temple in Jerusalem in order to take its treasure, but was turned back by three angels.

Heliodorus of Athens wrote fifteen books on the Acropolis of Athens, possibly about 150 BC.

Another Heliodorus was a metrist in the 1st century AD who did work on the comedies of Aristophanes. He was the principal authority used by Juba of Mauretania.

At about the same time there was a surgeon named Heliodorus, probably from Egypt, and mentioned by Juvenal. This Heliodorus wrote several books on medical technique which have survived in fragments and in the works of Orobasius .

Editions

• A Coraes (1804)
• GA Hirschig (1856)

References

• M Oeftering, Heliodorus und seine Bedeutung für die Literatur, with full bibliographies (1901)
• JC Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction (1888)
• E Robde, Der grechische Roman (1900)

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.