Chion Heraclea Letters (Χίωνος Ἐπιστολαί)

Life No historical author named "Chion" is attested. The name is a pseudonym attached to a collection of fictional letters composed in the 1st or 2nd century CE [1]. The letters are presented as the work of Chion of Heraclea, a student of Plato who assassinated the tyrant Clearchus in 353/2 BCE, but they are a later Roman-era literary creation [1].

Works The sole work is the Letters (Epistolai), a collection of seventeen fictional epistles surviving in full. They are pseudepigraphically attributed to the historical tyrannicide Chion [1].

Significance The Letters of Chion constitute the only complete Greek epistolary novel preserved from antiquity [1]. As a key example of the "tyrannicide" genre, the work reflects the Roman-era reception of Platonic philosophy and the idealized philosopher, while exemplifying contemporary literary tastes for rhetorical and pseudepigraphical fiction [1].

Sources 1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chion-heraclea/