(Horapollo) in the seventh century after Christ by any one who regards
the author of the Hieroglyphica as identical with the Egyptian
philosopher of the same name who, according to Suidas, lived under
Theodosius, and to whom Stephanus of Byzantium refers, writing so early
as at the end of the fifth century. But the lexicographer Suidas
enumerates the works of Horapollo, the philologer and commentator on
Greek poetry, without naming the Hieroglyphica, which is the only
treatise alluded to by Stephanus. Besides, all the other ancient writers
who mention Horapollo at all leave us quite free to suppose that there
may have been two sages of the same name--as does C. Leemans, who is most
intimately versed in the Hieroglyphica--and the second certainly cannot
have lived earlier than the VIIth century, since an accurate knowledge of
hieroglyphic writing must have been lost far more completely in his time
than we can suppose possible in the IVth century. It must be remembered
that we still possess well-executed hieroglyphic inscriptions dating from
the time of Decius, 250 years after Christ. Thus the Egyptian
commentator on Greek poetry could hardly have needed a translator,
whereas the Hieroglyphica seems to have been first rendered into Greek by
Philippus. The combination by which the author called in Egyptian Horus
(the son of Isis) is supposed to have been born in Philae, where the
cultus of the Egyptian heathen was longest practised, and where some
familiarity with hieroglyphics must have been preserved to a late date,
takes into due account the real state of affairs at the period I have
selected for my story.

GEORG EBERS.
October 1st, 1886.