AELIUS

THEON  , Alexandrian sophist of uncertain date, author of a collection of preliminary exercises (pro-gymnasmata) for the training of orators . The work (extant, though incomplete), which probably formed an appendix to a manual of rhetoric, shows learning and taste, and contains valuable notices on the style and speeches of the masters of Attic oratory . Theon also wrote commentaries on Xenophon, Isocrates and Demosthenes, and treatises on style . He is to be distinguished from the Stoic Theon, who lived in the time of Augustus and also wrote on rhetoric (Quintilian, Inst . Orat. ix . 3, 77) .