HEGE'SIAS ('liricdas), a Greek rhetorician and historian, was a native of Magnesia, and lived about the time of the historian Timzeue, that is, about B.C. 250. Respecting his life no particulars are known, but as an author he appears to have been of some importance in antiquity, though more for his bad than for his good qualities. Strabo (xiv. p. 648) calls him the founder of that florid and iuflated style of oratory which was afterwards designated by the name of the Asiatic ; and this testimony is borne out by Cicero (`Brat.; 83 ; 'Drat.; 67, 69) and others. Hegesias himself pretended to imitate the Attic orators, especially Lysias. He eeema to have been destitute of all the qualities required of an orator, and to have taken a great delight in childish conceits and a pretty way of expressing them. This we must conclude both from the opinions of ancient critics as well as from the few speci mens of his oratory which have come down to us, and are preserved in Dionysius (' Do Compos. Verb.,' 4, 18) and Photiva Biblioth. Cod.,' 250). As an historian be appears not to have been much better than as an orator. The subject which he chose was the history of Alex ander the Great, but that he had no notion of the dignity of history is evident from the speeimeos given by Dionysius, Photius, and Plutarch (' Alex.; 3) ; and A. Gellius (ix. 4) does not appear to be much mistaken in classing him among those who, unconcerned about historical truth, filled their books with marvellous occurrences and incredible stories. (Compare Strabo, ix. p. 396 ; Longinus, 'De Sublim.; 3; Theon, Progymnaem.; 2; St. Croix, Examen critique des Histarieus d'Alex andre,' p. 47, &c.) From this Hegesias we must distinguish HEGESIAS 'the Cyrenaic philosopher,' who lived somewhat earlier, in the reign of Ptolemmus Philadelphus, and was a disciple of Paraebates. His doctrines how
ever differed in several points from those of other Cyrenaics, and so much so that his followers were regarded as a distinct school, and are called as such Hegesiaci. In the main points they agreed with Aristippua, tho founder of the Cyrenaic school, who maintained that pleasure was the great object of man's life; but Hegesias and his school want forther; they denied that kindness, friendship, and benevolence had any independent existence, but that they arise and disappear with our feeling of the want of them. Happiness, they said, is a thing impossible to attain, for our body is subject to many sufferings, and the soul suffers with it. Life and death are equally desirable; nothing is by nature either agreeable or disagreeable, but becomes ao through the circumstances in which a man lives. A wise person therefore looks upon life with indifference, and regards nothing and nobody so much as himself, reducing everything to his own convenience. This miserable view of human life was somewhat softened down and improved by Annicaria, the disciple of Hegesias. Hegesias wroth a work entitled 'Arwcapreptor, in which ha introduced a person resolved to starve himself, and explaining to his friends why death was more desirable than life. He seems to have taught philosophy at Alexandria, but as in consequence of his doctrines many persons destroyed them selves, King Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have forbidden him to teach any more. (Diogenes Lewd., Li. 86, 93-96; Cicero, TuecuL; 1. 84.)