HIMERIUS (c. A.D. 315-386), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was born at Prusa in Bithynia. He completed his education at Athens, whence he was summoned to Antioch in 362 by the em peror Julian to act as his private secretary. After the death of Julian in the following year Himerius returned to Athens, where he established a school of rhetoric, to which pupils came from all over the world ; among them were Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea; in his later years he became blind and he died of epilepsy. Although a heathen, who had been initiated into the mysteries of Mithra by Julian, he shows no prejudice against the Christians. Himerius is a typical representative of the later rhetorical schools. Photius (cod. 165, 243 Bekker) had read 71 speeches by him, of 36 of which he has given an epitome; 24 have come down to us complete and fragments of io or 12 others. They consist of epideictic or "dis play" speeches after the style of Aristides, the majority of them having been delivered on special occasions, such as the arrival of a new governor, visits to different cities (Thessalonica, Con stantinople), or the death of friends or well-known personages.
The Polemarcliicus is a panegyric of those who had given their lives for their country. Other declamations, only known from the excerpts in Photius, were imaginary orations put into the mouth of famous persons—Demosthenes advocating the recall of Aes chines from banishment, or Themistocles inveighing against the king of Persia. Himerius is more of a poet than a rhetorician, and his declamations are valuable as giving prose versions or even the actual words of lost poems by Greek lyric writers. The prose poem on the marriage of Severus and his greeting to Basil at the beginning of spring are quite in the spirit of the old lyric. Himerius possesses vigour of language and descriptive powers, though his productions are spoilt by too frequent use of imagery, allegorical and metaphorical obscurities, mannerism and osten tatious learning. But they are valuable for the history and social conditions of the time, although lacking the sincerity characteristic of Libanius.
See Eunapius, Vitae sophistarum; Suidas, s.v.; editions by G. Wernsdorf (i 790) , with valuable introduction and commentaries, and by F. Diibner (1849) in the Didot series; C. Teuber, Quaestiones Himerianae (Breslau, 1882) ; on the style, E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (1898) .