Apion

APION. - Alexandrian grammarian of the first half of the 1st century AD, called Pleistonikès "rich in victory," on account of his oratorical successes.

He was famous in his time for his commentaries on Homer and Aristophanes. An Egyptian from the Oasis, he studied, then taught with great success at Alexandria, which granted him citizenship. He kept a school at Rome under Tiberius, and again under Claudius. Pliny the Elder, who attended his lectures, says that Tiberius called him "cymbalum mundi," while on account 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 special interest. In book II he asserts the spurious origin and the expulsion from Egypt of the Jews, and there gives vent to his antisemitism, demonstrated by his actions, when (39 AD) he was sent to Rome as head of the Alexandrian embassy, which demanded the persecution of the Jews (v. FILONE). It does not appear that he also wrote a work "Against the Jews," because Flavius Josephus, in his Against A. (around 95 AD), does not mention one. He popularized in the Roman world the insulting fables (refuted by Flavius Josephus in book II of the aforementioned apology) about the origin of the Jews, about their ritual cannibalism, about the worship of the ass's head, rumors which even Tacitus believed (Hist., 5, 4).

Enrico Galbiati