Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/47

Rh AELIA'NUS, LU'CIUS, one of the thirty tyrants (A. D. 259-268) under the Roman empire. He assumed the purple in Gaul after the death of Postumus, and was killed by his own soldiers, because he would not allow them to plunder Moguntiacum. Trebellius Pollio and others call him Lollianus; Eckhel (Doctr. Num. vii. p. 448) thinks, that his true name was Laelianus; but there seems most authority in favour of L. Aelianus. (Eutrop. 9.7; Trebell. Poll. Trig. Tyr. 4; Aurel. Vict. de Caes. 33, Epit. 32.)

AELIA'NUS ME'CCIUS (Ἀιλιανὸς Μέκκιος), an ancient physician, who must have lived in the second century after Christ, as he is mentioned by Galen (De Theriaca ad Pamphil. init. vol. xiv. p. 299) as the oldest of his tutors. His father is supposed to have also been a physician, as Aelianus is said by Galen (De Dissect. Muscul. c. 1. p. 2. ed. Dietz) to have made an epitome of his father's anatomical writings. Galen speaks of that part of his work which treated of the Dissection of the Muscles as being held in some repute in his time (ibid.), and he always mentions his tutor with respect. (Ibid. c. 7, 22, pp. 11, 57.) During the prevalence of an epidemic in Italy, Aelianus is said by Galen (De Theriaca ad Pamphil. ibid.) to have used the Theriaca (Dict. of Ant. art. Theriaca) with great success, both as a means of cure and also as a preservative against the disease. He must have been a person of some celebrity, as this same anecdote is mentioned by the Arabic Historian Abú 'l-Faraj (Histor. Compend. Dynast. p. 77), with exactly the same circumstances except that he makes the epidemic to have broken out at Antioch instead of in Italy. None of his works (as far as the writer is aware) are now extant.

AELIA'NUS, PLAUTIUS, offered up the prayer as pontifex, when the first stone of the new Capitol was laid in A. D. 71. (Tac. Hist. 4.53.) We learn from an inscription (Gruter, p.453; Orelli, n. 750), that his full name was Ti. Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, that he held many important military commands, and that he was twice consul. His first consulship was in A. D. 47; the date of his second is unknown.

AELIA'NUS TA'CTICUS (Αἰλιανός Τακτικός) was most probably a Greek, but not the same as Claudius Aelianus. He lived in Rome and wrote a work in fifty-three chapters on the Military Tactics of the Greeks (Περὶ Στρατηγικῶν Τάξεων Ἑλληνικῶν, which he dedicated to the emperor Hadrian. He also gives a brief account of the constitution of a Roman army at that time. The work arose, he says (Dedic.), from a conversation he had with the emperor Nerva at Frontinus's house at Formiae. He promises a work on Naval Tactics also; but this, if it was written, is lost. The first edition of the Tactics (a very bad one) was published in 1532; the next, much better, was by Franciscus Robortellus, Venice, 1552, 4to., which contains a new Latin version by the editor, and is illustrated with many cuts. The best edition is that printed by Elzevir at Leyden, 1613. It is usually found bound up with Leo's Tactica [LEO]. It was translated into Latin first by Theodorus of Thessalonica. This translation was published at Rome, 1487, together with Vegetius, Frontinus, and Modestus. It is printed also in Robortellus's edition, which therefore contains two Latin versions. It has been translated into English by Capt. John Bingham, Lond. 1616, fol., and by Lord Dillon, 1814, 4to.

AE'LIUS ARISTI'DES. [ARISTIDES.]

AK'LIUS ASCLEPI'ADES. [ASCLEPIADES.]

AE'LIUS DIONY'SIUS. [DIONYSIUS.]

AE'LIUS DONA'TUS. [DONATUS.]

AE'LIUS LAMPRI'DIUS. [LAMPRIDIUS.]

AE'LIUS MARCIA'NUS. [MARCIANUS.]

AE'LIUS MAURUS. [MAURUS.]

AE'LIUS PROMO'TUS (Αἴλιος προμῶτος), an ancient physician of Alexandria, of whose personal history no particulars are known, and whose date is uncertain. He is supposed by Villoison (Anecd. Graec. vol. ii. p. 179. note 1) to have lived after the time of Pompey the Great, that is, in the first century before Christ; by others he is considered to be much more ancient; and by Choulant (Handbuch der Bücherkunde für die Aeltere Medicin, Ed. 2. Leipzig, 1840, 8vo.), on the other hand, he is placed as late as the second half of the first century after Christ. He is most probably the same person who is quoted by Galen (De Compos. Medicam. secund. Locos, 4.7, vol. xii. p. 730) simply by the name of Aelius. He wrote several Greek medical works, which are still to be found in manuscript in different libraries in Europe, but of which none (as far as the writer is aware) have ever been published, though Kühn intended his works to have been included in his collection of Greek medical writers. Some extracts from one of his works entitled Δυναμερόν,* Medicinalium Formularum Collectio, are inserted by C. G. Kühn in his Additam. ad Elench. Med. Vet. a J. A. Fabricio in " Bibl. Gr." Exhib., and by Bona in his Tractatus de Scorbuto, Verona, 1781, 4to. Two other of his works are quoted or mentioned by Hieron. Mercurialis in his Variae Lectiones, 3.4, and his work De Venenis et Morbis Venenosis, 1.16, 2.2; and also by Schneider in his Prefaces to Nicander's Theriaca, p. xi., and Alexipharmaca, p. xix.

AELLO. [HARPYIAE.]

AELLOPUS (Ἀελλόπους), a surname of Iris, the messenger of the gods, by which she is described as swift-footed like a storm-wind. Homer uses the form ἀελλόπος. (Il. 409.)

AELURUS. [TIMOTHEUS AELURUS.]

AEMI'LIA. 1. A vestal virgin, who, when the sacred fire was extinguished on one occasion, prayed to the goddess for her assistance, and miraculously rekindled it by throwing a piece of her garment upon the extinct embers. (Dionys. A. R. 2.68; V. Max. 1.1.7.)

2. The third daughter of L. Aemilius Paullus, who fell in the battle of Cannae, was the wife of Scipio Africanus I. and the mother of the celebrated Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi. She was of a mild disposition, and long survived her husband. Her property, which was large, was inherited by her grandson by adoption, Scipio Africanus II., who gave it to his own mother Papiria, who had been divorced by his own father L. Aemilius.


 * Δυναμερὸν is a word used by the later Greek writers, and is explained by Du Cange (Gloss. Med. et Infim. Graecit.) to mean vis, virtus. It is however frequently used in the sense given to it in the text. See Leo, Conspect. Medic. 4.1, 11. ap. Ermerin. Anecd. Med. Graec. pp. 153, 157.