Basilicus (Ancient Greek: Βασιλικός) was a rhetorician and sophist of Nicomedeia. Many scholars believe he was one of the teachers of Apsines of Gadara, therefore he must have lived about 200 CE.12
However, some scholars disagree that he was a teacher of Apsines, as the evidence for this is that Apsines calls him "the divine Basilicus", a convention that could mean he was a teacher of Apsines, but, some argue, also could mean that he had taught one of Apsines's teachers, or was a man simply admired by Apsines.3 However the general scholarly consensus is that he was, in fact, Apsines's teacher.4
He was the author of several rhetorical works:
- On the patterns of words (περὶ τῶν διὰ τῶν λέξεων σχημάτων)
- On rhetorical preparation (περὶ ῥητορικῆς παρασκενῆς)
- On exercise (περὶ ἀσκήσεως)
- On transformation (πεπὶ μεταποιήσεως)
There were several other, more obscure sophists with this name in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
References
References
- Suda, s.vv. Βασιλικὸς and Ἀψίνης
- Eudokia Makrembolitissa, Collection p. 93
- Heath, Malcolm (2004). Menander: A Rhetor in Context. Oxford University Press. p. 58. ISBN 9780199259205. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
- Apsines (2018). Kennedy, George; Dilts, Mervin (eds.). Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text, and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric Attributed to Anonymous Seguerianus and to Apsines of Gadara. Brill Publishers. p. 77. ISBN 9789004330313. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). "Basilicus". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 465.