Life Apollonius the Paradoxographer (Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ παραδοξογράφος) lived in the 2nd century BCE, during the Hellenistic period. He is known only through his surviving work and his epithet, which identifies him as a writer of marvels and wondrous tales. Internal references to historical figures like Magas of Cyrene and Arsinoe II support this dating, placing him within the flourishing genre of paradoxography [1][2].

Works His sole extant work is the Historiae Thaumasiae (Ἱστορίαι Θαυμάσιαι; Marvelous Stories). This prose collection comprises 51 brief chapters detailing paradoxical phenomena concerning animals, plants, minerals, and customs, compiled from earlier authors [1][2][4].

Significance Apollonius is a key representative of Hellenistic paradoxography. His compilation preserves summaries of marvelous accounts from earlier, often lost, sources like Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Callimachus [1][2]. The work is a valuable source for understanding the transmission of knowledge and the Hellenistic scholarly fascination with the natural world's wonders, exemplifying the period's encyclopedic tendencies alongside authors like Antigonus of Carystus [1][3].

Sources 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Paradoxography): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradoxography/ 2. ToposText: Apollonius Paradoxographus: https://topostext.org/people/1569 3. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics (Paradoxography): https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-4692 4. Perseus Digital Library: Apollonius Paradoxographus, Historiae Mirabiles: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0452