1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Horapollon

HORAPOLLON, of Phaenebythis in the nome of Panopolis in Egypt, Greek grammarian, flourished in the 4th century A.D. during the reign of Theodosius I. According to Suidas, he wrote commentaries on Sophocles, Alcaeus and Homer, and a work (Τεμενικά) on places consecrated to the gods. Photius (cod. 279), who calls him a dramatist as well as a grammarian, ascribes to him a history of the foundation and antiquities of Alexandria (unless this is by an Egyptian of the same name, who lived in the reign of Zeno, 474–491). Under the name of Horapollon two books on Hieroglyphics are extant, which profess to be a translation from an Egyptian original into Greek by a certain Philippus, of whom nothing is known. The inferior Greek of the translation, and the character of the additions in the second book point to its being of late date; some have even assigned it to the 15th century. Though a very large proportion of the statements seem absurd and cannot be accounted for by anything known in the latest and most fanciful usage, yet there is ample evidence in both the books, in individual cases, that the tradition of the values of the hieroglyphic signs was not yet extinct in the days of their author.

Bibliography.—Editions by C. Leemans (1835) and A. T. Cory (1840) with English translation and notes; see also G. Rathgeber in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie; H. Schäfer, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache (1905), p. 72.