1
SUDA "Horapollon"の項。
　パノポリテス属州の村ペネビュティス(Phenebythis)の人。文法学者にして、エジプトのアレクサンドレイアで教え、次いで、テオドシウス〔2世〕の御代〔在位408-450〕、コンスタンティヌウポリスにおいて書いたのが、『神域(temenika)』、『ソポクレス註解(Hypomnema Sophokleous)』、『アルカイオスについてAlkaiou)』、『ホメロスに寄せて(Eis Homeron)』。術知にかけては輝かしい人物で、古来の最も著名な文法学者のうち、何らかの点で彼より大きな名声を得た者は何ひとつない。――エジプト人。ゼーノーン王〔在位474/5、476-491〕の時代の人。ニコメーデースはハルポクラスを探していたが、これを見つけ出すことができなかった。哲学者イシドーロスがこれを知って、手紙で誰が王位後継者たちたるべきかを明らかにした書状を送った。ところが、手紙の運び役が捕らえられ、送り主を白状した。そこで彼らはホーラポッローンとヘーライスコスとを捕らえ、それぞれ弦糸で手から吊して〔拷問にかけ？〕、ハルポクラスとイシドーロスの引き渡しを要求した。ホーラポッローンは性格的には哲学者ではない云々。

2
STEPH. BYZ. "Phenebethis"の項。
　エジプトの都市。よく知られた特徴からして、民族はペネベーティス人(Phenebethites)。哲学者ホーラポッローンがそういうふうに扱われるのが常だからである。

3
PHOT. Bibl. 279 p.536 a 8
　同書には、同じ韻律（すなわち、イアムボス調）で、ヘルムポリス人(Hermopolites)ヘルメイオスの『ヘルムポリスの父祖伝来のしきたり』その他も含まれている……さらにまた、＜文法家ホーラポッローンの『アレクサンドレイアの父祖伝来のしきたりに関して』＞も。この人物もまた同じ方法で劇を著している。

studiolum/a library for the humanistによる解説
Horapollon
(5th c.AD)

　　All we know about Horapollon, we know from Suda, who refers to him in w 159 (Wrapollwn) as a leader of one of the last pagan philosophical schools in Menouthis near Alexandria, under the reign of Emperor Zeno (474-491).
　　Being involved in a riot against Christianity, he had to flee. His school was closed down, his church of Isis and Osiris destroyed; finally he himself was tortured and converted to Christianity. However, in the same entry Suda also refers to another Horapollon - probably the uncle of the above - who was a grammarian from Phanebytis under the reign of Theodosius II (408-450), and who taught in Alexandria and Constantinople. In the 16th century, the Hieroglyphica was generally attributed to him.
　　There were also more fantastic attributions, which ascribed this work to a king of Egypt, to Horus, son of Osiris, or to the god Horus himself, as one can read on the title page of Nostradamus痴 manuscript translation (ed. Rollet, 1968):Horapollon, Son of Osiris, King of Egypt. From other fragments of Suda we can even reconstruct the intellectual world of Horapollon.
　　These small circles of highly educated pagan philosophers carefully collected the last traces of the Egyptian past, and attended to the relics of Egyptian cults, reinterpreted in the light of contemporary Neoplatonism.
　　Egyptian culture, and within it the knowledge of hieroglyphs, had been propagated in Greek before Horapollon by Manetho, Bolos of Mende, Apion and Chairemon.
　　All these works, which have survived only in fragments, were written in the same style as Horapollon痴 Hieroglyphica, the only surviving complete ancient treatise on Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphica

　　The two books of the Hieroglyphica contain the interpretations of 189 hieroglyphs: Book 1 describes 70, and Book 2 119.
　　In the Renaissance they were generally regarded as authentic Egyptian characters, and although their authenticity was seriously called into question in the 17th and 18th centuries, present-day Egyptology recognises that the whole of Book 1, and about one third of Book 2 were based on actual Egyptian signs of writing.
　　The interpretations, however, do not focus on their functional meaning within the system of Egyptian script, but decipher them as symbols of higher - moral, theological or physical - realities, in the spirit of the contemporary Physiologus.
　　This genre, the symbolic reinterpretation of hieroglyphs - called enigmatic hieroglyphs by Rigoni and Zanco (1996) - was very popular in the late Hellenistic period.
　　No wonder that Renaissance humanists - to whom this kind of interpretation of hieroglyphs was already familiar from Lucan, Apuleius, Plutarch, St. Clement of Alexandria, and especially from the 5th Ennead of Plotinos - found the Hieroglyphica a genuine mediator of Egyptian symbols and wisdom.
　　The non-hieroglyphic matter of the Hieroglyphica - ch. 31-117 of Book 2 - may have fostered this familiarity further, for these include allegorical interpretations of animals, based primarily on Aristotle, Aelian, Pliny, and Artemidorus.
　　These symbols were added to the original hieroglyphic material by its Greek translator, one Philippus, who in the introduction to Book 2 explicitly states that they are interpretations of signs gathered from different sources. The manuscript of the Hieroglyphica was brought to Florence from the island of Andros by Cristoforo Buondelmonti in 1422 (today in Florence, Bibliotheca Laurenziana, Plut.69,27).
　　Although certainly known by a narrow Florentine circle of humanists throughout the 15th century, it became really popular only towards the end of the century, characterised by a new sensitivity to Egyptian wisdom, as hallmarked by Francesco Colonnas Hypnerotomachia Poliphilii (written before 1467, published Venice: Aldus Manutius 1499).
　　Its editio princeps in Greek was also published by Aldus in 1505, and it had more than 30 editions and translations throughout the 16th century, adaptations and commentaries not counted.
　　The Hieroglyphica offered a treasure of new allegories, borrowed by humanists either directly from this work - like the renowned Ehrenpforte of Albrecht Drer - or even more from that comprehensive and systematic compilation of Giovanni Pierio Valeriano, entitled also Hieroglyphica (first edition 1556).
　　The real significance of Horapollons book, however, was to offer a new and popular model for symbolic communication.
　　With reference to Plotinos, Enneades 5.8, and its commentary by Ficino, they regarded hieroglyphic representation as an immediate, total, divine-like form of knowledge, as opposed to the mediated, incomplete and time-bound discursive speech.
　　This idea inspired not only Ficino and Giordano Bruno, but also Erasmus, Athanasius Kircher, and even Leibniz.
　　On the other hand, it created the idea and fashion of writing with mute signs (Alciato) - as echoed in many prefaces to emblematic works, from Erasmus to Valeriano, and from Alciato to Quarles Hieroglyphikes -, thus contributing to a decisive extent to the evolution and popularity of the genre of emblematics.
　　In fact, as Mario Praz puts it, emblems were generally regarded in this period as modern equivalents of the sacred signs of the Egyptians.

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