Apsines

(Ἀψίνης).

1. An Athenian sophist, called by Suidas (s.v. comp. Eudoc. p. 67) a man worthy of note, and father of Onasimus, but otherwise unknown.

2. A son of Onasimus, and grandson of Apsines No. 1, is likewise called an Athenian sophist. It is not impossible that he may be the Apsines whose commentary on Demosthenes is mentioned by Ulpian (ad Demosth. Leptin. p. 11; comp. Schol. ad Hermog. p. 402), and who taught rhetoric at Athens at the time of Aedesius, in the fourth century of our era, though this Apsines is called a Lacedaemonian. (Eunap. Vit. Soph. p. 113, ed. Antwerp. 1568.) This Apsines and his disciples were hostile to Julianus, a contemporary rhetorician at Athens, and to his school. This enmity grew so much that Athens in the end found itself in a state of civil warfare, which required the presence of a Roman proconsul to suppress. (Eunap. p. 115, &c.)

3. Of Gadara in Phoenicia, a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the reign of Maximinus, about A. D. 235. He studied at Smyrna under Heracleides, the Lycian, and afterwards at Nicomedia under Basilicus. He subsequently taught rhetoric at Athens, and distinguished himself so much that he was honoured with the consular dignity. (Suidas, s.v. Tzetzes. Chil. 8.696.) He was a friend of Philostratus (Vit. Soph. 2.33.4), who praises the strength and fidelity of his memory, but is afraid to say more for fear of being suspected of flattery or partiality. Works

We still possess two rhetorical works of Apsines: 1.

Περὶ τῶν μέρων τοῦ πολιτικοῦ λόγου τέχνη, which was first printed by Aldus in his Rhetores Graeci (pp. 682-726), under the incorrect title τέχνη ῥητορικὴ περὶ προοιμίων, as it is called by the Scholiast on Hermogenes (p. 14, but see p. 297). This work, however, is only a part of a greater work, and is so much interpolated that it is scarcely possible to form a correct notion of it. In some of the interpolated parts Apsines himself is quoted. A considerable portion of it was discovered by Rhunken to belong to a work of Longinus on rhetoric, which is now lost, and this portion has consequently been omitted in the new edition of Walz in his Rhetores Graeci. Further Information

ix. p. 465, &c.; comp. Westermann, Gesch. d. Griech. Beredtsamk. § 98, n. 6. 2. Περὶ τῶν ἐσχηματισμένων προβλημὰτων

Περὶ τῶν ἐσχηματισμένων προβλημὰτων, is of little importance and very short. Editions

It is printed in Aldus' Rhetor. Graec. pp. 727-730, and in Walz. Rhetor. Graec. ix. p. 534, &c. [L.S]

(Ἀψίνης). A Greek rhetorician of Gadara, who taught at Athens in the first half of the third century A.D., and wrote a valuable treatise on rhetoric, and also a work on the questions usually discussed in the schools of the rhetoricians. These two treatises are printed in the Rhetores Graeci, by Walz, ix. p. 534 foll.