HESYCHIUS was a grammarian of Alexandria, as we learn from a letter prefixed to his great work. From the fact that he was apparently unknown to Hesychius the Milesian and other writers of the time of Justinian, M. Schmidt considers that he must have flourished later than 530 A.D. On the other hand he cannot have been later than 642 a.d., when the school of Alexandria was scattered by the Saracen conquest. Many bad Greek words occurring iu his book show that he belonged to this late period. Welcker (Rh. Hus., ii. 269) places him in the latter part of the 4th century. Belonging to the school of Alexandria, he was probably a pagan; and the explanations of words from Gregory Nazianzen and other Christian writers (glossoe sacrae) are interpolations of a later time. He has left a Greek dictionary, containing a copious list of peculiar words, forms, and phrases, with an explanation of their meaning, and often with a reference to the author who used them or to the district of Greece where they were current. Hence the book is of great value to the student of the Greek dialects; while in the restoration of the text of the classical authors generally, and particularly of such writers as Aeschylus and Theocritus, who used many unusual words, its value can hardly be exaggerated. The explanations given of many epithets and phrases reveal to us numberless facts about religion and social life, which are of the highest importance in the study of antiquities. In a prefatory letter addressed to his friend Eudocius (who is probably the Eudocius Scholasticus mentioned in the Ptymologicum Magnum and elsewhere), Hesychius mentions that his work is based on the lexicon of Diogenianus, but that he has also used similar works by Aristarchus, Apion, Heliodorus, &c. (about whom see Μ. Schmidt’s ...