A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

10. Of PETRA, son of Ulpianus, was a sophist or rhetorician of considerable reputation. He taught rhetoric at Petra and at Athens. He lived also at Laodiceia in Syria, where he was very intimate with the two Apollinarii, father and son, of whom the latter afterwards became the founder of the sect of the Apollinaristae. The Apollinarii were excommunicated by the bishop of Laodiceia on account of their intimacy with Epiphanius, who, it was feared would convert them to the religion of the Greeks; from which it appears that Epiphanius was a heathen. While he was at Athens, Libanius, then a young man, came thither, but did not apply for instruction to Epiphanius, then in the height of his reputation, though they were both from Syria ; neither is this Epiphanius the person to whom Libanius wrote. (Libanius, Epist. 831.) Epiphanius did not live to be very old; and both he and his wife, who was eminent for her beauty, died of the same disease, an affection of the blood. He wrote many works, which are enumerated by Suidas. They are as follows: 1. Περὶ κοινωνίας καὶ διαφορᾶς τῶν στάσεων. 2. Προγυμνάσματα. 3. Μελέται. 4. Δήμαρχοι. 5. Πολεμαρχικός. 6. Λόγοι Ἐπιδεικτικοί : and, 7. Miscellanies. Socrates mentions a hymn to Bacchus, recited by him, attendance on which recitation was the immediate occasion of the excommunication of the Apollinarii. (Socrates, Hist. Eccl. 2.46; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. 5.25; Eunapius, Sophist. Vitae (Epiphanius and Libanius); Eudocia, Ἰωνιά, in the Anecdote Graeca of Villoison, vol. i.; Suidas, s. v. Ἐπιφάνιος; the passages in Suidas and Eudocia are the same.)