Everything about Olympiodorus Of Thebes totally explained
Olympiodorus (born
ca 380, active
ca 412-25) was an historical writer of classical education, a "poet by profession" as he says of himself, who was born at
Thebes in Egypt, and was sent on a mission to the
Huns on the
Black Sea by
Emperor Honorius about 412, and later lived at the court of
Theodosius II, to whom his
History was dedicated. The record of his diplomatic mission survives in a fragment among the forty-six in the
epitome by the patriarch Photius, who considered Olympiodorus a "pagan", doubtless for his classical education:
» Donatus and the Huns, and the skillfulness of their kings in shooting with the bow. The author relates that he himself was sent on a mission to them and Donatus, and gives a tragic account of his wanderings and perils by the sea. How Donatus, being deceived by an oath, was unlawfully put to death. How
Charaton, the first of the kings, being incensed by the murder, was appeased by presents from the emperor.
— from
Photius'
Bibliotheca, tr.
J. H. Freese
He was the author of a history in twenty-two books of the
Western Empire from
407 to
425, which was used by
Zosimus and
Sozomen and probably
Philostorgius, as J.F. Matthews has demonstrated. The original is lost, but an abstract is given by
Photius, according to whom he was an
alchemist. A manuscript treatise on alchemy, reputed to be by him, is preserved in the
National Library in
Paris, and was printed with a translation by
Berthelot in his
Collection des alchimistes grecs (1887–1888).
From fragments of his
History, it can be inferred that he spent a sojourn in Athens, travelled to the remote parts of
Upper Egypt among the barbarian
Blemmyes, and that he visited Rome towards the end of his career.
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