APIONE. - Alexandrian grammarian of the first half of the 1st century A.D., called Pleistonikès, “rich in victory,” because of his successes as an orator.
He was famous in his time for his commentaries on Homer and Aristophanes. An Egyptian from the Oasis, he studied and then taught with great success at Alexandria, which granted him citizenship. He taught at Rome under Tiberius, and again under Claudius. Pliny the Elder, who attended his lectures, says that Tiberius called him “cymbalum mundi,” whereas, because of his vanity, he seemed rather “propriae famae tympanum” (Hist. Nat., praef., 25).
Of his many works, of which only fragments remain, the History of Egypt (Αἴγυπτιακά) is of particular interest. In Book II he asserted the illegitimate origin and the expulsion from Egypt of the Jews, and there gave vent to his anti-Semitism, demonstrated in deeds when (39 A.D.) he was sent to Rome as head of the Alexandrian embassy, which demanded the persecution of the Jews (v. FILONE). He does not appear to have written a work “Against the Jews” as well, because Flavius Josephus, in his Contro A. (about 95 A.D.), does not mention II. He popularized in the Roman world the injurious tales (refuted by Flavius Josephus in Books I–II of the aforementioned apologia) concerning the origin of the Jews, their ritual cannibalism, and the worship of the donkey’s head—rumours also believed by Tacitus (Hist., 5, 4).