IAMBLICHUS  , of

Syria, the earliest of the Greek romance writers, flourished in the 2nd century A.D . He was the author of Ba,BuXwveaeh, the loves of Rhodanes and Sinonis, of which an epitome is preserved in Photius (cod . 94) . Garmus, a legendary king of Babylon, forces Sinonis to marry him and throws Rhodanes into prison . The lovers manage to escape, and after many singular adventures, in which magic plays a considerable part, Garmus is overthrown by Rhodanes, who becomes king of Babylon . According to Suidas, Iamblichus was a freedman, and a scholiast's note on Photius further informs us that he was a native Syrian (not descended from Greek settlers); that he borrowed the material for his romance from a love story told him by his Babylonian tutor, and that he subsequently applied himself with great success to the study of Greek . A MS. of the original in the library of the Escorial is said to have been destroyed by fire in 167o . Only a few fragments have been preserved, in addition to Photius's epitome . See Scriptores erotici, ed . A . Hirschig (1856) and R . Hercher (1858) ; A .

Mai, Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, ii.; E . Rohde, Der griechische Roman (1900) .