25.

Among illustrious persons in ancient times natives of Ephesus were Heracleitus, surnamed Scoteinus, or the Obscure, and Hermodorus, of whom Heracleitus himself says:

“The Ephesians, youths and all, deserve hanging, for expelling Hermodorus, an honest citizen,61 a citizen distinguished for his virtues, and saying, let there be no such amongst us; if there be, let it be in another place and among other people.”

Hermodorus seems to have compiled laws for the Romans. Hipponax the poet was an Ephesian, and the painters Parrhasius and Apelles.

In more recent times was Alexander the orator, surnamed Lychnus, or the Lamp;62 he was an administrator of state affairs, a writer of history, and left behind him poems which contain a description of the heavenly phenomena and a geographical account of the continents, each of which forms the subject of a distinct poem.