(F. Ll. G.)
HERMESIANAX, of Colophon, elegiac poet of the Alexandrian school, flourished about 330 B.C. His chief work was a poem in three books, dedicated to his mistress Leontion. Of this poem a fragment of about one hundred lines has been preserved by Athenaeus (xiii. 597). Plaintive in tone, it enumerates instances, mythological and historical, of the irresistible power of love. Hermesianax, whose style is characterized by alternate force and tenderness, was exceedingly popular in his own times, and was highly esteemed even in the Augustan period.
Many separate editions have been published of the fragment, the text of which is in a very unsatisfactory condition: by F. W. Schneidewin (1838), J. Bailey (1839, with notes, glossary, and Latin and English versions), and others; R. Schulze’s Quaestiones Hermesianacteae (1858), contains an account of the life and writings of the poet and a section on the identity of Leontion.
HERMIAS. (1) A Greek philosopher of the Alexandrian school. A disciple of Proclus, he was known best for the lucidity of his method rather than for any original ideas. His chief works were a study of the Isagoge of Porphyry and a commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus. Unlike the majority of logicians of the time, he admitted the absolute validity of the second and third figures of the syllogism.
(2) A Christian apologist and philosopher who flourished probably in the 4th and 5th centuries. Nothing is known about his life, but there has been preserved of his writings a small thesis entitled Διασυρμὸς τῶν ἔξω φιλοσόφων. In this work he attacked pagan philosophy for its lack of logic in dealing with the root problems of life, the soul, the cosmos and the first cause or vital principle. There is an edition by von Otto published in the Corpus apologetarum (Jena, 1872). It is interesting, but without any claim to profundity of reasoning.
Two minor philosophers of the same name are known. Of these, one was a disciple of Plato and a friend of Aristotle; he became tyrant of Atarneus and invited Aristotle to his court. Aristotle subsequently married Pythias, who was either niece or sister of Hermias. Another Hermias was a Phoenician philosopher of the Alexandrian school; when Justinian closed the school of Athens, he was one of the five representatives of the school who took refuge at the Persian court.
HERMIPPUS, “the one-eyed,” Athenian writer of the Old Comedy, flourished during the Peloponnesian War. He is said to have written 40 plays, of which the titles and fragments of nine are preserved. He was a bitter opponent of Pericles, whom he accused (probably in the Μοῖραι) of being a bully and a coward, and of carousing with his boon companions while the Lacedaemonians were invading Attica. He also accused Aspasia of impiety and offences against morality, and her acquittal was only secured by the tears of Pericles (Plutarch, Pericles, 32). In the Ἀρτοπωλίδες (“Bakeresses”) he attacked the demagogue Hyperbolus. The Φορμοφόροι (Mat-carriers) contains many parodies of Homer. Hermippus also appears to have written scurrilous iambic poems after the manner of Archilochus.