Aelius Antipater
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- For others of this name Antipater (disambiguation).
Aelius Antipater or Antipater of Hierapolis was a Greek sophist and rhetorician.
He was a son of Zeuxidemus, and a pupil of Adrianus, Pollux, and Zeno. In his orations, both extempore and written, some of which are mentioned by Philostratus, Antipater was not superior to his contemporaries, but in the art of writing letters he is said to have excelled all others, and for this reason the emperor Severus made him his private secretary and tutor of his two sons Caracalla and Geta. This emperor adlected him to the consular rank in his early 50s by Septimius Severus and sent him to govern Bithynia and Pontus but, as Antipater used his sword too freely, he was deprived of his office, and retired to his native place, where he died at the age of 68, it is said of voluntary starvation.
His cognomen is derived from the Aelius gens. He also wrote a lost biography of Severus.(Philostr. Vit. Soph. ii. 24, 25. § 4, 26. § 3 ; Galen, De Theriac. ad Pison. ii. p. 458 ; Eudoc. p. 57.)
[edit] Sources
- Paul M. M. Leunissen, Konsuln und Konsulare in der Zeit von Commodus bis Severus Alexander (180-235 n.Chr.) (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1989), p.261
- James H. Oliver, The Sacred Gerusia and the Emperor's Consilium, Hesperia, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1967), pp. 329-335
- Fergus Millar, The Greek East and Roman Law: The Dossier of M. Cn. Licinius Rufinus, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 89, 1999 (1999), pp. 90-108
