LONGINUS (Lat., from Gk. Ao-ryivos) (c.213 7:3 A.D.). DioNYstus CASSIUS. A Platonic phi losopher and rhetorician. Ile was born, according to some, at Emesa, in Syria. or, according to others, with more probability, at Athens. about A.n. 213. In his earlier years he traveled a great deal in the company of his parents, and made the acquaintance of many celebrated scholars and philosophers. Be studied Greek literature at Alexandria, where he was for a considerable time the pupil of Ammonius, Plotinus. and Gni gen, and subsequently settled as a teacher of rhetoric in Athens. where he soon acquired a great reputation. His knowledge was immense, but his taste and critical acuteness were no less wonderful. He was probably the best critic of all antiquity. In an age when Platonism was giving plate to the semi-Oriental mysticism of Neo-Platonism. Longinus is conspicuous as a genuine disciple of the great master. Clea r. calm. rational, yet lofty, he despised the fan tastic speculation of Plotinus, who consequently would not admit that Longinus was a philos opher, but—since he stooped to criticise the dic tion and style of Plato—pronounced him a mere philologist. In the latter years of his life he
accepted the invitation of Zenobia to undertake the education of her children at Palmyra : but. becoming also her chief political adviser, he was beheaded as a traitor, by command of the Emperor Aurelian. A.D. 273. Longinus was a heathen. but generous and tolerant. Of the greater part of his works only the barest frag ments have survived. A very important and val uable work, entitled On the Sublime (IleprWous), was attributed to Longinu; by its first editor. Robortello (Basel, 1554) , and was accepted as his without question by all subsequent editors until the nineteenth century. The controversy has not been finally settled, hut it is believed by many that the treatise belongs rather to the first century A.D. See, for the arguments. Roberts, Longinus on the Sublime (Cambridge. 1S99). and Saintsbury. History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe, vol. i. (New York, 1900). The treatise has been edited by Vahlen (Bonn, 1887), and by Roberts. with an English translation in the hook above quoted. There is also an English translation by Havell (London, 1890).