HIERONYMUS OF CARDIA, Greek general and historian, contemporary of
Alexander the Great. After the death of the king he followed the
fortunes of his friend and fellow-countryman Eumenes. He was wounded and
taken prisoner by Antigonus, who pardoned him and appointed him
superintendent of the asphalt beds in the Dead Sea. He was treated with
equal friendliness by Antigonus's son Demetrius, who made him polemarch
of Thespiae, and by Antigonus Gonatas, at whose court he died at the age
of 104. He wrote a history of the Diadochi and their descendants,
embracing the period from the death of Alexander to the war with Pyrrhus
(323-272 B.C.), which is one of the chief authorities used by Diodorus
Siculus (xviii.-xx.) and also by Plutarch in his life of Pyrrhus. He
made use of official papers and was careful in his investigation of
facts. The simplicity of his style rendered his work unpopular, but it
is probable that it was on a high level as compared with that of his
contemporaries. In the last part of his work he made a praiseworthy
attempt to acquaint the Greeks with the character and early history of
the Romans. He is reproached by Pausanias (i. 9. 8) with unfairness
towards all rulers with the exception of Antigonus Gonatas.
See Lucian, _Macrobii_, 22; Plutarch, _Demetrius_, 39; Diod. Sic.
xviii. 42. 44. 50, xix. 100; Dion. Halic. _Antiq. Rom._ i. 6; F.
Bruckner, "De vita et scriptis Hieronymi Cardii" in _Zeitschrift fur
die Alterthumswissenschaft_ (1842); F. Reuss, _Hieronymus von Kardia_
(Berlin, 1876); C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der alten
Geschichte_ (1895); fragments in C. W. Muller, _Frag. hist. Graec._
ii. 450-461.
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