(Ἱμέριος).
1. A celebrated Greek sophist of Prusa in Bithynia, where his father Ameinias distinguished himself as a rhetorician. (Suid. s. n. Ἱμέριος.) According to the most correct calculation, the life of Himerius belongs to the period from A. D. 315 to 386. He appears to have received his first education and instruction in rhetoric in his father's house, and he then went to Athens, which was still the principal seat of intellectual culture, to complete his studies. It is not improbable that he there was a pupil of Proaeresius, whose rival he afterwards became. (Eunap. Proaeres. p. 110.) Afterwards he travelled, according to the custom of the sophists of the time, in various parts of the East: he thus visited Constantinople, Nicomedeia, Lacedaemon, Thessalonica, Philippi, and other places, and in some of them he stayed for some time, and delivered his show speeches. At length, however, he returned to Athens, and settled there. He now began his career as a teacher of rhetoric, and at first gave only private instruction, but soon after he was appointed professor of rhetoric, and received a salary. (Phot. Bibl. Cod. 165. p. 109, ed. Bekk.) In this position he acquired a very extensive reputation, and some of the most distinguished men of the time, such as Basilius and Gregorius Nazianzenus, were among his pupils. The emperor Julian, who likewise heard him, probably during his visit at Athens in A. D. 355 and 356 (Eunap. Himer.; Liban. Orat. x. p. 267, ed. Morel.; Zosimus, Hist. Eccles. 3.2), conceived so great an admiration for Himerius, that soon after he invited him to his court at Antioch, A. D. 362, and made him his secretary. (Tzetz. Chil. 6.128.) Himerius did not return to Athens till after the death of his rival, Proaeresius (A. D. 368), although the emperor Julian had fallen five years before, A. D. 363. He there took his former position again, and distinguished himself both by his instruction and his oratory. He lived to an advanced age, but the latter years were not free from calamities, for he lost his only promising son, Rufinus, and was blind during the last period of his life. According to Suidas, he died in a fit of epilepsy (ἱερὰ νόσος).
Himerius was a Pagan, and, like Libanius and other eminent men, remained a Pagan, though we do not perceive in his writings any hatred or animosity against the Christians; he speaks of them with mildness and moderation, and seems, on the whole, to have been a man of an amiable disposition.