fore the Christian æra, under the reign of Plotemy Euergetes, king of Egypt. He was the son of Asclepiades, and the disciple of Aristarchus the grammarian, and of the philosopher Panatius. He composed a very voluminous work on the origin of the gods, of which Harpocration has quoted the sixth book, Macrobius the fourteenth, and Hermolaus the seventeenth. Besides this work he wrote a "Chro nicle," a "Treatise on legislators," another " on the phi losophical sects," and others which we find mentioned in the writings of the ancients. There is, however, only now extant, an abridgement of his book on the origin of the gods, Rome, 1555, and Antwerp, 1565, of which M. le Fevre of Saumur (Tanaquil Faber), published a Latin translation, under the title of "Apollodori Atheniensis bibliothecæ, siye de Diis, libri tres." Imperfect as this abridgement is, it is very useful in illustrating fabulous history. It commences with Inachus, and comes down to Theseus, prince of Athens, consequently comprising the space of 622 years, from A. M. 2177 to A. M. 2799. But we owe a very superior edition to the labours of that eminent classical scholar and critic, Heyne, who published in 1782, "Apollodori Atheniensis Bibliothecæ Libri tres. Ad codd. MSS. fidem recensiti," Gottingen, 8vo, and the following year," Ad Apollodori Atheniensis Bibliothecam Notæ, cum commentatione de Apollodoro argumento et consilio operis et cum Apollodori fragmentis," ibid. 2 vols. 8vo. Four years before the first of these publications, Mr. Heyne gave a course of lectures on Apollodorus, which became very popular and interesting to young scholars. At the commencement of this undertaking, he found that the editions of Apollodorus were very scarce, and Gale's, although the best, yet very inaccurate. He determined therefore to publish one himself, in executing which he was assisted by three manuscripts, one formerly belonging to Dorville, a second prepared for the press by Gerard James Vanswinden, and a third in the king's library at Paris. None of his works do Heyne more credit, and his notes are highly valuable and entertaining to students of mythology.

APOLLODORUS, a famous architect under Trajan and Adrian, was born at Damascus; and had the direction of that most magnificent bridge, which the former ordered

1 Moreri. Saxii Onomasticon.-Biog. Universelle.

to be built over the Danube, in the year 104. Adrian, who always valued himself highly upon his knowledge of arts and sciences, and hated every one of whose eminence in his profession he had reason to be jealous, conceived a very early disaffection to this artist, upon the following occasion: As Trajan was one day discoursing with Apollodorus upon the buildings he had raised at Rome, Adrian gave his judgment, but shewed himself ignorant: on which the artist, turning bluntly upon him, bid him "go paint citruls, for that he knew nothing of the subject they were talking of" now Adrian was at that time engaged in painting citruls (a yellow kind of cucumber), and even boasted of it. This was the first step towards the ruin of Apollodorus; which he was so far from attempting to retrieve, that he even added a new offence, and that too after Adrian was advanced to the empire. To shew Apollodorus that he had no absolute occasion for him, Adrian sent him the plan of a temple of Venus; and, though he asked his opinion, yet he did not mean to be directed by it, for the temple was actually built. Apollodorus wrote his opinion very freely, and found such essential faults with it, as the emperor could neither deny or remedy. He shewed, that it was neither high nor large enough; that the statues in it were disproportioned to its bulk; “for,” said he, "if the goddesses should have a mind to rise and go out, they could not do it." This irritated Adrian, and prompted him to get rid of Apollodorus. He banished him at first, and at last had him put to death; without stating the true cause, of which he would have been ashamed, but under the pretext of several crimes, of which he procured him to be accused and convicted. '

APOLLONIUS, a Greek writer, born in Alexandria, under the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes king of Egypt, was a scholar of Callimachus, whom he is accused of having treated with ingratitude; by which he drew upon himself the indignation of this poet, who gave him the name of Ibis, from a bird of Egypt, which used to purge itself with its bill. Apollonius wrote a poem upon the expedition of the Golden Fleece; the work is styled "Argonautica," and consists of four books. Quintilian, in his "Institutiones Oratoriæ," says that this performance is written "æquali quâdam mediocritate:" that the author

1 Gen. Dict.

observed an exact medium between the sublime and low style in writing. Longinus says also that Apollonius never sinks in his poem, but has kept it up in an uniform and equal manner: yet that he falls infinitely short of Homer, notwithstanding the faults of the latter; because the sublime, though subject to irregularities, is always preferable to every other kind of writing. Gyraldus, speaking of this poem, commends it as a work of great variety and labour: the passion of Medea is so finely described, that Virgil himself is supposed to have copied it almost entirely, and to have interwoven it with the story of Dido.

Apollonius, not meeting at first with that encouragement which he expected at Alexandria, removed to Rhodes, where he set up a school for rhetoric, and gave lectures for a considerable time; thence acquiring the name of Rhodius. Here it was that he corrected and put the finishing hand to his Argonautics, which being publicly recited, met with universal applause, and the author was complimented with the freedom of the city. He is said to have written a book "Concerning Archilochus," a treatise" Of the origin of Alexandria, "Cnidos," and other works. He published his poem of the Argonautics at Alexandria, upon his return thither, when sent for by Ptolemy Euergetes, to succeed Eratosthenes as keeper of the public library. It is supposed that he died in this office, and that he was buried in the same tomb with his master Callimachus. The ancient Scholia upon his Argonautics are still extant: they are thought to be written by Tarrhæus, Theon, and others.

Of late years his reputation has rather increased in this country. Mr. Hayley has bestowed great praise on him. "His poems," says this excellent critic, "abound in animated description, and in passages of the most tender and pathetic beauty. How finely painted is the first setting forth of the Argo! and how beautifully is the wife of Chiron introduced, holding up the little Achilles in her arms, and shewing him to his father Peleus as he sailed along the shore! But the chief excellence in our poet, is the spirit and delicacy with which he has delineated the passion of love in his Medea. That Virgil thought very highly of his merit in this particular, is sufficiently evident from the minute exactness with which he has copied many tender touches of the Grecian poet." The best editions of Apollonius are those printed at Oxford in 4to, by Dr. John

Shaw, fellow of Magdalen college, 1777, and by the same in Svo, 1779, that of Brunck, Argentora, 1780, 4to and 8vo; that of Flangini, Rome, 4to, 1794, and of Beck, Leipsic, 1797, 2 vols. 8vo. The princeps editio is a quarto, dated Florent. 1496, a copy of which sold at the Pinelli sale for seventeen guineas. Several English poets have contended for the honour of transfusing the beauties of Apollonius into our language. Dr. Broome published many years ago, the Loves of Jason and Medea, and the story of Talus. Mr. West also published some detached pieces. In 1771, Mr. Ekins translated the third Book of the Argonautics, and a part of the fourth, 4to, with very valuable preliminary matter. In 1780, two translations of the Argonautics appeared, the one, a posthumous work of Fawkes, the other by Edward Burnaby Green; and in 1803, another translation was published in 3 vols. 12mo, by Mr. Preston.

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APOLLONIUS, of Perga, a city in Pamphilia, was a celebrated geometrician who flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, about 240 years before Christ; being about 60 years after Euclid, and 30 years later than Archimedes. He studied a long time in Alexandria under the disciples of Euclid; and afterwards he composed several curious and ingenious geometrical works, of which only his books of Conic Sections are now extant, and even these not perfect. For it appears from the author's dedicatory epistle to Eudemus, a geometrician in Pergamus, that this work consisted of eight books; only seven of which however have come down to us.

From the collections of Pappus, and the commentaries of Eutocius, it appears that Apollonius was the author of various pieces in geometry, on account of which he acquired the title of the Great Geometrician. His Conics was the principal of them. Some have thought that Apollonius appropriated the writings and discoveries of Archimedes; Heraclius, who wrote the life of Archimedes, affirms it; though Eutocius endeavours to refute him. Although it should be allowed a groundless supposition, that Archimedes was the first who wrote upon Conics, notwithstanding his treatise on Conics was greatly esteemed; yet it is highly probable that Apollonius would avail himself of the writings of that author, as well as others who had gone before him; and, upon the whole, he is allowed

'Gen. Dict.-Fabr. Bibl. Græc.-Vossius,-Saxii Onomasticon.-Dibdin's Classics, vol. I.

the honour of explaining a difficult subject better than had been done before; having made several improvements both in Archimedes's problems, and in Euclid. His work upon Conics was doubtless the most perfect of the kind among the ancients, and in some respects among the moderns also. Before Apollonius, it had been customary, as we are informed by Eutocius, for the writers on Conics to require three different sorts of cones to cut the three different sections from, viz. the parabola from a right angled cone, the ellipse from an acute, and the hyperbola from an obtuse cone; because they always supposed the sections made by a plane cutting the cones to be perpendicular to the side of them: but Apollonius cut his sections all from any one cone, by only varying the inclination or position of the cutting plane; an improvement that has been followed by all other authors since his time. But that Archimedes was acquainted with the same manner of cutting any cone, is sufficiently proved, against Eutocius, Pappus, and others, by Guido Ubaldus, in the beginning of his commentary on the second book of Archimedes's Equiponderants, published at Pisa in 1588.

The first four books of Apollonius's Conics only have come down to us in their original Greek language; but the next three, the fifth, sixth, and seventh, in an Arabic version; and the eighth not at all. These have been commented upon, translated, and published by various authors. Pappus, in his Mathematical Collections, has left some account of his various works, with notes and lemmas upon them, and particularly on the Conics. And Eutocius wrote a regular elaborate commentary on the propositions of several of the books of the Conics.

The first four books were badly translated by Joan, Baptista Memmius. But a better translation of these in Latin was made by Commandine, and published at Bononia in 1566.-Vossius mentions an edition of the Conics in 1650; the fifth, sixth, and seventh books being recovered by Golius. -Claude Richard, professor of mathematics in the imperial college of his order at Madrid, in the year 1632, explained, in his public lectures, the first four books of Apollonius, which were printed at Antwerp in 1655, in folio.And the grand duke Ferdinand the second, and his brother prince Leopold de Medicis, employed a professor of the Oriental languages at Rome to translate the fifth, sixth, and seventh books into Latin. These were published at Flo