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Aegyptiaca, and Homeric Glosses

Known · Attestedin Alexandria?Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placementLegend · Told storya told story on its tag

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of History

Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

Apion of Alexandria

Aegyptiaca, and Homeric Glosses

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives in fragments

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Attested

Written in Alexandria.

On the table: written in Alexandria; no evidence it was in the Library.

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III · In the show

The show has not yet spoken of this work.

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references (3)
  • Pliny, Natural History, preface 25; 30.18
  • Josephus, Against Apion 2
  • Aulus Gellius 5.14
Modern scholarship
  • J. Dillery, 'Putting Him Back Together Again: Apion Historian, Apion Grammatikos', Classical Philology 98.4 (2003): 383-390.

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

AEGYPTIACA, AND HOMERIC GLOSSES

Read what is told

The back of the tag: a story told of this work, in its teller's voice.

Legend: told story

Apion asks Homer's ghost

Pliny reports, a generation later, Apion's own claim that he had called up spirits to ask Homer his birthplace and parents, and dared not reveal the answer.

Told by Pliny, 77 CE, a generation later

What the evidence supports

Apion was a grammarian and lecturer on Homer in Alexandria and sat on the Greek embassy against the Jews before Caligula. The necromancy rests on his own boast.

Sources (2)
  • Pliny, Natural History 30.18
  • Josephus, Against Apion 2
The Hall of Told Stories

Beside it on the table