HIEROCLES, proconsul of Bithynia and Alexandria, lived during the reign of Diocletian (A.D. 284-305). He is said to have been the instigator of the fierce persecution of the Christians under Galerius in 303. He was the author of a work (not extant) entitled [Greek: logoi philaletheis pros tous Christianous] in two books, in which he endeavoured to persuade the Christians that their sacred books were full of contradictions, and that in moral influence and miraculous power Christ was inferior to Apollonius of Tyana. Our knowledge of this treatise is derived from Lactantius (_Instit. div._ v. 2) and Eusebius, who wrote a refutation entitled [Greek: Antirrhetikos pros ta Hierokleous]. HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA, Neoplatonist writer, flourished c. A.D. 430. He studied under the celebrated Neoplatonist Plutarch at Athens, and taught for some years in his native city. He seems to have been banished from Alexandria and to have taken up his abode in Constantinople, where he gave such offence by his religious opinions that he was thrown into prison and cruelly flogged. The only complete work of his which has been preserved is the commentary on the _Carmina Aurea_ of Pythagoras. It enjoyed a great reputation in middle age and Renaissance times, and there are numerous translations in various European languages. Several other writings, especially one on providence and fate, a consolatory treatise dedicated to his patron Olympiodorus of Thebes, author of [Greek: historikoi logoi], are quoted or referred to by Photius and Stobaeus. The collection of some 260 witticisms ([Greek: asteia]) called [Greek: Philogelos] (ed. A. Eberhard, Berlin, 1869), attributed to Hierocles and Philagrius, has no connexion with Hierocles of Alexandria, but is probably a compilation of later date, founded on two older collections. It is now agreed that the fragments of the _Elements of Ethics_ ([Greek: Ethike stoicheiosis]) preserved in Stobaeus are from a work by a Stoic named Hierocles, contemporary of Epictetus, who has been identified with the "Hierocles Stoicus vir sanctus et gravis" in Aulus Gellius (ix. 5. 8). This theory is confirmed by the discovery of a papyrus (ed. H. von Arnim in _Berliner Klassikertexte_, iv. 1906; see also C. Prachter, _Hierokles der Stoiker_, 1901). There is an edition of the commentary by F. W. Mullach in _Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum_ (1860), i. 408, including full information concerning Hierocles, the poem and the commentary; see also E. Zeller, _Philosophie der Griechen_ (2nd ed.), iii. 2, pp. 681-687; W. Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Literatur_ (1898), pp. 834, 849.