Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/312

 276 A P I O N. printed at Amfrerdam, 1709, in I2mo. It was humorcufly ridiculed by Dr. King in his ** Art of Cookery." APION, a famous gran?maria'n, born at Oafis in Fgypt, Bajle'sDift. was a profeflor at Rome in Tibenus's reign. He was unu'e- niably a man of learning, had made the moft diligent en- quiries into the abllrufcft fubjecls of antiquity, and was mailer of all thofe points, which give to erudition the cha- A. Gelhus, ra ^ er O f accuracy and variety. But he appears to have had withal the prime charactqriltics of a downright pedant: for he was arrogant, a great boafter, and moft importantly bufied in difficult and infignificant enquiries. Bayle quotes Julius ApudEufeb. Africanus, as calling him TrzcawoTotT&s Vaxu.u.y.-riKw the Pra?par. ., . n, . c ' ' '. ' ,, . T Ivaiig.x.io. molt minutely curious of all grammarians; and I won- der that he did not apply to him, what Strabo has applied to a pedant he had to do with, c? ^iK^oXo'yuron ^atrriv mpi TUF Lib.r.p.qe.j/papflf, who vainly trifles about the reading of a paflage," Amil ' I7 7 * though the fenfe was exactly the fame, : as far as they were concerned with it, whichever way it was read. An idea, may be formed of this man, from his imagining that he had done fomething extraordinary, when he di (covered that the two firft letters of the Iliad, taken numerically, made up 48 ; M-.IVW. a "d that Komer chofe to begin his Iliad with a word, the two firft letters of which would (hew, that his two poems- would contain forty-eight books. Apion ufed to boaft, with the greateft aflurance,. that he, as gave immortality to thofe to whom he dedicated his work's. How would his vanity be mortified, if he knew that none of thefe works remain, and that his name and perfon had long- ago been buried in oblivion, if other writers had not made mention of them ! One of his chief works was '* The ami- V quities of Egypt," in which he takes occafion to abufe the Jews i and not content with this, he compofed a work exprdsly againft them. He had before fliewn his malice againft this people: for, being at the head of an e.nbalTy, which the Alexandrians had fent to Caligula, to complain of the Jews in their city, he ace ufed them of fe ver a 1 crimes ; and infilled principally upon a point, the moft likely to pro- voke the Emperor, which w<is, that, while all other people of the empire dedicated temples and altars to him, the Jews refufed. With regard to his writings agaiiift them, Jofephus thought himfeif obliged to confute th^ calumnies contained in them. He did not howeve; write, on purpofe to confute Apion; but, feveral ciitics having attacked his *' Jewifh " Antiquities," he defends himfeif againft them, and ag^inft Apion