VALERIUS

See also:

• VALERIUS HARPOCRATION

HARPOCRATION  , Greek grammarian of Alexandria . He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus (Life of Verus, 2) as the Greek tutor of Antoninus Verus (2nd century A.D.); some authorities place him much later, on the ground that he borrowed from Athenaeus . He is the author of a AeEdam (or lIepI Tiav )iEewv) i&w Sfsa p1]TOpcov, which has come down to us in an incomplete form . The work contains, in more or less alphabetical order, notes on well-known events and persons mentioned by the orators, and explanations of legal and commercial expressions . As nearly all the lexicons to the Greek orators have been lost, Harpocration's work is especially valuable . Amongst his authorities were the writers of Atthides (histories of Attica), the grammarian Didymus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and the lexicographer Dionysius, son of Tryphon . The book also contains contributions to the history of Attic oratory and Greek literature generally . Nothing is known of an 'AvOnPwv vuvaye.yi7, a sort of anthology or chrestomathy attributed to him by Suidas . A series of articles in the margin of a Cambridge MS. of the lexicon forms the basis of the Lexicon rhetoricum Cantabrigiense (see DOBREE, P . P.) . The best edition is by W . Dindorf (1853); see also J .

E .

Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, i . (1906), p . 325; C . Boysen, De Harpocrationis fontibus (Kiel, 1876) .