Aelianus

• originating from an Aelius: oratiunculae, composed by the Stoic philosopher L. Aelius, Cic. Brut. 56 fin.: studia, of the same, id. de Or. 1, 43, 193: jus, a code of laws, now lost, compiled by Sext. Aelius Paetus, in the sixth century A. U. C., Dig. 1, 2, 2, § 7; cf. Teuffel, Röm. Lit. § 114.

was together with Amandus the leader of an insurrection of Gallic peasants, called Bagaudae, in the reign of Diocletian. It was put down by the Caesar Maximianus Herculius. (Eutrop. 9.13; Aurel. Vict. de Caes. 39.)

prefect of the Praetorian guards under Domitian and Nerva. He excited an insurrection of the guards against Nerva, in order to obtain the punishment of some obnoxious persons, but was killed by Trajan with his accomplices. (D. C. 68.3, 5.)

(Κλαύδιος Αἰλιανός), was born according to Suidas (s. v. Αἰλιανός) at Praeneste in Italy, and lived at Rome. He calls himself a Roman (V. H. 12.25), as possessing the rights of Roman citizenship. He was particularly fond of the Greeks and of Greek literature and oratory. (V. H. 9.32, 12.25.) He studied under Pausanias the rhetorician, and imitated the eloquence of Nicostratus and the style of Dion Chrysostom; but especially admired Herodes Atticus more than all. He taught rhetoric at Rome in the time of Hadrian, and hence was called ὁ σοφιστής. So complete was the command he acquired over the Greek language that he could speak as well as a native Athenian, and hence was called ὁ μελίγλωττος or μελίφθογγος (Philost. Vit. Soph. 2.31.) That rhetoric, however, was not his forte may easily be believed from the style of his works; and he appears to have given up teaching for writing. Suidas calls him Ἀρχιερεὺς (Pontifex). He lived to above sixty years of age, and had no children. He did not marry, because he would not have any. Works

There are two considerable works of Aelian remaining: one a collection of miscellaneous history (Ποικίλη Ἱστορία) in fourteen books, commonly called his Varia Historia, and the other a work on the peculiarities of animals (Περὶ Ζώων ἰδιότητος) in seventeen books, commonly called his De Animalium Natura. Varia Historia

The Varia Historia contains short narrations and anecdotes, historical, biographical, antiquarian, &c., selected from various authors, generally without their names being given, and on a great variety of subjects. Its chief value arises from its containing many passages from works of older authors which are now lost. It is to be regretted that in selecting from Thucydides, Herodotus, and other writers, he has sometimes given himself the trouble of altering their language. But he tells us he liked to have his own way and to follow his own taste, and so he would seem to have altered for the mere sake of putting something different. Editions

The Varia Historia was first edited by Camillus Peruscus, Rome, 1545, 4to.; the principal editions since are by Perizonius, Leyden, 1701, 8vo., by Gronovius, Leyden, 1731, 2 vols. 4to., and by Kühn, Leipzig, 1780, 2 vols. 8vo. Translations

The Varia Historia has been translated into Latin by C. Gesner, and into English by A. Fleming, Lond. 1576, and by Stanley, 1665; this last has been reprinted more than once. De Animalium Natura

The De Animalium Natura is of the same kind, scrappy and gossiping. It is partly collected from older writers, and partly the result of his own observations both in Italy and abroad. According to Philostratus (in Vit.) he was scarcely ever out of Italy; but he tells us himself that he travelled as far as Aegypt; and that he saw at Alexandria an ox with five feet. (De Anim. 11.40; comp. 11.11.) This book would appear to have become a popular and standard work on zoology, since in the fourteenth century Manuel Philes, a Byzantine poet, founded upon it a poem on animals. At the end of the work is a concluding chapter (ἐπίλογος), where he states the general principles on which he has composed his work :--that he has spent great labour, care, and thought in writing it ;--that he has preferred the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of wealth; and that, for his part, he found much more pleasure in observing the habits of the lion, the panther, and the fox, in listening to the song of the nightingale, and in studying the migrations of cranes, than in mere heaping up riches and being numbered among the great : -- that throughout his work he has sought to adhere to the truth. Nothing can be imagined more deficient in arrangement than this work : he goes from one subject to another without the least link of association ; as (e. g.) from elephants (11.15) to dragons (11.16), from the liver of mice (2.56) to the uses of oxen (2.57). But this absence of arrangement, treating things ποικίλα ποικίλως he says, is intentional; he adopted this plan to give variety to the work, and to avoid tedium to the reader. His style, which he commends to the indulgence of crities, though free from any great fault, has no particular merit. The similarity of plan in the two works, with other internal evidences, seems to shew that they were both written by the same Aelian, and not, as Voss and Valckenaer conjecture, by two different persons. Editions

The De Animalium Natura was edited by Gronovius, Lond. 1744, 2 vols. 4to., and by J. G. Schneider, Leipzig, 1784, 2 vols. 8vo. The last edition is that by Fr. Jacobs, Jena, 1832, 2 vols. 8vo. This contains the valuable materials which Schneider had collected and left for a new edition. Translations

The De Animalium Natura has been translated into Latin by Peter Gillius (a Frenchman) and by Conrad Gesner. It does not appear to have been translated into English. Treatises on philosphical and relgious subjects

In both works he seems desirous to inculcate moral and religious principles (see V. H. 7.44; De Anim. 6.2, 7.10, 11, 9.7, and Epilog.); and he wrote some treatises expressly on philosophical and religious subjects, especially one on Providence (Θεοὶ Προνοίας) in three books (Suidas, s. v. Ἀβασανίστοις), and one on the Divine Manifestations (Περὶ θειῶν Ἐνεργειῶν), directed against the Epicureans, whom he alludes to elsewhere. (De Anim. 7.44.) Letters

There are also attributed to Aelian twenty letters on husbandry and such-like matters (Ἀγροικικαὶ Ἐπιστολαὶ), which are by feigned characters, are written in a rhetorical unreal style, and are of no value. Editions

The Letters were published apart from the other works by Aldus Manutius in his " Collectio Epistolarum Graecarum," Venice, 1499, 4to. Attack against Gunnis

There has also been attributed to Aelian a work called Κατηγορία τοῦ Γύννιδος, an attack on an effeminate man, probably meant for Elagabalus. Editions

The first edition of all his works was by Conrad Gesner, 1556, fol., containing also the works of Heraclides, Polemo, Adamantius and Melampus. Further Information

Suidas, s. v. Ἄρ̀ῥεν.) [A.A]

one of the thirty tyrants (A. D. 259-268) under the Roman empire. He assumed the purple in Gaul after the death of Postumus, and was killed by his own soldiers, because he would not allow them to plunder Moguntiacum. Trebellius Pollio and others call him Lollianus; Eckhel (Doctr. Num. vii. p. 448) thinks, that his true name was Laelianus; but there seems most authority in favour of L. Aelianus. (Eutrop. 9.7; Trebell. Poll. Trig. Tyr. 4; Aurel. Vict. de Caes. 33, Epit. 32.)

(Ἀιλιανὸς Μέκκιος), an ancient physician, who must have lived in the second century after Christ, as he is mentioned by Galen (De Theriaca ad Pamphil. init. vol. xiv. p. 299) as the oldest of his tutors. His father is supposed to have also been a physician, as Aelianus is said by Galen (De Dissect. Muscul. c. 1. p. 2. ed. Dietz) to have made an epitome of his father's anatomical writings. Galen speaks of that part of his work which treated of the Dissection of the Muscles as being held in some repute in his time (ibid.), and he always mentions his tutor with respect. (Ibid. c. 7, 22, pp. 11, 57.) During the prevalence of an epidemic in Italy, Aelianus is said by Galen (De Theriaca ad Pamphil. ibid.) to have used the Theriaca (Dict. of Ant. art. Theriaca) with great success, both as a means of cure and also as a preservative against the disease. He must have been a person of some celebrity, as this same anecdote is mentioned by the Arabic Historian Abú 'l-Faraj (Histor. Compend. Dynast. p. 77), with exactly the same circumstances except that he makes the epidemic to have broken out at Antioch instead of in Italy. None of his works (as far as the writer is aware) are now extant. [W.A.G]

offered up the prayer as pontifex, when the first stone of the new Capitol was laid in A. D. 71. (Tac. Hist. 4.53.) We learn from an inscription (Gruter, p.453; Orelli, n. 750), that his full name was Ti. Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, that he held many important military commands, and that he was twice consul. His first consulship was in A. D. 47; the date of his second is unknown.

(Αἰλιανός Τακτικός) was most probably a Greek, but not the same as Claudius Aelianus. He lived in Rome. Works On Military Tactics (Περὶ Στρατηγικῶν Τάξεων Ἑλληνικῶν)

Aelian wrote a work in fifty-three chapters on the Military Tactics of the Greeks (Περὶ Στρατηγικῶν Τάξεων Ἑλληνικῶν, which he dedicated to the emperor Hadrian. He also gives a brief account of the constitution of a Roman army at that time. The work arose, he says (Dedic.), from a conversation he had with the emperor Nerva at Frontinus's house at Formiae. Other works

Aelian promises a work on Naval Tactics also; but this, if it was written, is lost. Editions

The first edition of the Tactics (a very bad one) was published in 1532; the next, much better, was by Franciscus Robortellus, Venice, 1552, 4to., which contains a new Latin version by the editor, and is illustrated with many cuts. The best edition is that printed by Elzevir at Leyden, 1613. It is usually found bound up with Leo's Tactica [Leo]. Translations

It was translated into Latin first by Theodorus of Thessalonica. This translation was published at Rome, 1487, together with Vegetius, Frontinus, and Modestus. It is printed also in Robortellus's edition, which therefore contains two Latin versions. It has been translated into English by Capt. John Bingham, Lond. 1616, fol., and by Lord Dillon, 1814, 4to. [A.A]

(1) The Tactician, a Greek writer on war, about 100 A.D., composed a work dedicated to Trajan on the Greek order of battle, with special reference to Macedonian tactics (Τακτικὴ Θεωρία), which is extant both in its original and in an enlarged form. The original used falsely to be attributed to Arrian. See Köchly, De Libris Tacticis (1852).

(2) Claudius Aeliānus, called the Sophist, a Roman of Praenesté, who wrote in Greek, lived at Rome in the second century A.D. as a teacher of rhetoric. His surviving works are: (a) Twenty insignificant Peasants' Letters (Ἀγροικικαὶ Ἐπιστολαί), so called because attributed to Attic peasants; (b) Variae Historiae (Ποικίλη Ἱστορία) or miscellanies, in fourteen books, some preserved only in extracts; and (c) De Natura Animalium (Περὶ Ζῴων Ἰδιότητος). The two last-mentioned are copious and valuable collections of all kinds of curiosities in human and animal life. See Lübbe, De Aeliani Varia Hist. (1888); and the ed. of the last by Jacobs (1832).