2. Of Byzantium, the author of the well-known geographical lexicon, entitled Ἐθνικά, of which unfortunately we only possess an epitome. There are few ancient writers of any importance of whom we know so little as of Stephanus. All that can be affirmed of him with certainty is that he was a grammarian at Constantinople, and lived after the time of Arcadius and Honorius, and before that of Justinian II. The ancient writers, often as they quote the Ἐθνικά, give us absolutely no information about its author, except his name. We learn from them, however, that the work was reduced to an epitome by a certain Hermolaus, who dedicated his abridgement to the emperor Justinian. [HERMOLAUS.] Hence, in turning to the few incidental pieces of information which the work contains respecting its author, we are met by the question, whether such passages were written by Stephanus
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himself, or by the epitomator Hermolaus. The most important of these passages is the following, which occurs in the article Ἀνακτόριον Καὶ Εὐγένιος δὲ, ὁ πρὸ ἡμῶν τὰς ἐν τῆ βασιλίδι σχολὰς διακοσμήσας, which cannot refer to any other Eugenius than the eminent grammarian of Augustopolis in Phrygia, who, as we learn from Suidas, taught at Constantinople, under the emperor Anastasius, at the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth. (Suid. s. v.) This passage was pointed out by Thomas de Pinedo, the translator of Stephanus, as an indication of the author's age; but nearly all the editors of Stephanus, as well as Isaac Vossius and Fabricius, have chosen to regard it as an insertion made by Hermolaus, for the following reason; if Eugenius flourished under Anastasius, who died in A. D. 518, his successor in the presidency of the schools would in all probability be in office under Justinian I., who came to the throne in A. D. 527, which agrees with the statement of Suidas, that Hermolaus dedicated his epitome to Justinian. Plausible as this argument is, it is far from being conclusive. It evidently rests in part, if not chiefly, on the tacit assumption that, when a personal reference is made in an abridged work to the author, without any thing to show whether the writer of the passage is the original author or the epitomator, the presumption is, that it has been inserted by the latter. Now we believe that the presumption is just the other way; both on the general principle that, in an abridged work, whatever cannot be proved to be an interpolation should be referred to the original author, and also on account of the well-known habit of compilers and epitomators of the later period of Greek literature to copy their author almost verbatim, so far as they follow him at all, and to make their abridgement by the simple omission of whole passages, often in such a manner as even to destroy the grammatical coherence of what is left, as is frequently the case in this very epitome of Stephanus. On this presumption, we think, the question mainly turns. It would be rash to regard it as decided; but it may be safely said that the passage should probably be referred to Stephanus, unless some positive and decisive proof be produced that it was inserted by Hermolaus. The chronological argument stated above is not such a proof; for Suidas does not say to which of the two Justinians Hermolaus dedicated his epitome ; and, even if it was to Justinian I., there is nothing to prevent our supposing that the work of Stephanus was composed under Justin or in the early part of the reign of Justinian, and that the epitome was made very soon afterwards; but, considering how little Suidas troubles himself about minute distinctions, it is perhaps better to keep to the explanation that the Justinian to whom Hermolaus dedicated his epitome was Justinian II., and that Stephanus himself flourished under Justinian I., in the former part of the sixth century. Westermann argues further, that it is unlikely that a person of so little learning and judgment, as the epitomator of Stephanus appears by his work to have possessed, would have been placed at the head of the imperial schools of Constantinople, or would have written such a work as the Byzantine history quoted in the article Τότθοι, or as the disquisition on the Aethiopians referred to under Αἰθίοψ; but, in these cases also, it appears better to rest on the simple presumption that these passages proceed from the pen of the original author there being no proof to the contrary. A more important piece of collateral evidence respecting the time of Stephanus, pointed out by Westermann, is his eulogy of Petrus Patricius (s. v. Ἀκόναι), who died soon after A. D. 562, and was therefore a contemporary of Stephanus, supposing that the latter flourished at the time above assigned to him.[P.S]