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SERENA.
their language. It is, therefore, scarcely to be doubted that this Serapion is the same poet from whose eTrrj Clemens Alexandrinus quotes certain statements respecting the Sibylline oracles. (Strom. vol. i. p. 304.) Stobaeus, again, quotes two iambic verses from a certain Serapion. (Serm. 10.)
9. There are also some Christian writers of this name, but not of sufficient importance to require particular notice. What is known of them, as well as of the other Serapions, will be found in Fabricius. (Bill. Graec. vol. ix. pp. 154—158, and the other passages there referred to). [P. S.]
SERAPION (Sepoirfoj/), a physician of Alexandria (Galen, Introd. c. 4. vol. xiv. p. 683), who lived in the third century b. c., after Herophilus, Erasistratus, and Philinus, and before Apollonius Empiricus, Glaucias, Heraclides of Tarentum, Me-nodotus, Sextus Empiricus (Gal. /. c.; Celsus, .De Med. i. praef. p. 5), and Crito (Galen, De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen.vi. 4. vol. xiii. p. 883). He belonged to the sect of the Empirici, and so much extended and improved the system of Philinus, that the invention of it is by some authors attributed to him (Gels. I. c.). Dr. Mead, in his " Dissert, de Numis quibusdam a Smyrnaeis in Medicorum Honorem cusis"(Lond. 1724,4 to. p. 51), tries to prove that he was a follower of Erasistratus, because his name appears upon a medal discovered at Smyrna, where it is known that the school of Erasistratus flourished ; but it is not at all certain that the physician is the person in whose honour the coin was struck. Serapion wrote against Hippocrates with much vehemence (Galen, De Subfig. Empir. c. 13, vol. ii. p. 346, ed. Chart.), but neither this, nor any of his other works, are now extant. He is several times mentioned and quoted by Celsus (v. 28. 17, p. 115), Galen (De Meth. Med. ii. 7, vol. x. pp. 136, 143 ; De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. x. 2, De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen. ii. 9, vi. 4, vol. xiii. pp. 343, 509, 883; De Remed. Parab. ii. 17, vol. xiv. p. 450), Caelius Aurelianus (De Morb. Acut. ii. 6, iii. 4, 8, 17, 21, De Morb. Cliron. i. 4. pp. 84, 195, 212, 246, 263, 322), Aetius (ii. 2. 96, iv. 3. 11,17, pp. 296, 747, 767), Paulus Aegineta (iii. 64, iv. 25, vii. 17, pp. 484, 515, 678), and Nicolaus Myrepsus (De Compos. Medicam. i. 66, x. 149, pp. 374, 580), who have preserved some of his medical formulae, which are not of much value. (See SprengePs Gesch. der Arzneik. vol. i. ed. 1846.)
It may be useful to remark that this Serapion must not be confounded with either of the two Arabic physicians of the same name. (See Penny Cyclop.} [W. A. G.]
SERAPION, a highly celebrated scene-painter, who failed, however, in his attempts to depict the human figure. We have no better clue to the time at which he flourished than the following obscure passage in Pliny : —Maeniana, inquit Varro, omnia openebat Serapionis tabula sub Veteribus (Plin. H.N. xxxv. 10. s. 37). The invention of scene- painting is ascribed to Sophocles. (Aristot. Poet. 4.) [P. S.]
SERAPIS or SARA'PIS (Sapcm*), an Egyp tian divinity, the worship of which was introduced into Greece in the time of the Ptolemies. Apol- lodorus (ii. 1. § 1) states that Serapis was the name given to Apis after his death and deification. (Comp. Callim. Ep. 39, and Isis.) [L. S.]
SERENA, niece of Theodosiua the Great,
foster-mother of the emperor Honorius, and wife of Stilicho. [honorius ; stilicho.] [W. P.]
SERENIANUS, AE'LIUS, a member of the consilium of the emperor Alexander Severus, is called by Lampridius " omnium vir sanctissimus." (Alex. Sever. 68.)
SERENUS, AE'LIUS, an Athenian grammarian of uncertain date, wrote an epitome of the work of Philo on Cities and their illustrious men, in three books, and an epitome of the commentary of Philoxenus on Homer, in one book (Suidas, s. v. ; comp. Etym. M. s. vv. "'Apo'tvorj and Bou-Serenus also wrote 'ATro^j^oyeifyiaTa, from which Stobaeus makes numerous extracts (Stobaeus, Floril. xi. 15, et passim). Photius makes mention (Bibl. Cod. 279, p. 536, a., ed. Bekker) of dramas, written in different metres, by the grammarian Serenus, who is probably the same person as the preceding. ( Vossius, De Hist. Graecis, p. 498, ed. Westermann.)
SERENUS, AMU'LIUS, one of the principal centurions (primipilares) in Galba's army in Rome in a. d. 69. (Tac. Hist. i. 31.)
SERENUS, ANNAEUS, one of the most intimate friends of the philosopher Seneca, who dedicated to him his work De Tranquillitate. He was praefectus vigilum under Nero, and died in consequence of eating a poisonous kind of fungus. (Senec. Ep. 63 ; Tac. Ann. xiii. 13 ; Plin. H. N. xxii. 23. s. 47.)
SERENUS, GRA'NIUS, legatus of the em-peror Hadrian in Asia, wrote to the latter, remonstrating with him upon the injustice of condemning Christians to death without any definite charge being brought against them. In consequence of this letter Hadrian ordered Minucius Fundanus, the successor of Serenus in Asia, to condemn no Christian unless convicted of some crime. (Oros. vii. 13 ; Euseb. H.E. iv. 8, 9.)
SERENUS, Q. SAMMONICUS (or Samo-nicus), enjoyed a high reputation at Rome, in the early part of the third century, as a man of taste and varied knowledge. He lived upon terms of intimacy with the court, and must have been possessed of great wealth, since he accumulated a library amounting, it is said, to 62,000 volumes (Capitolin. Gordian. 18). As the friend of Geta, by whom his compositions were studied with great pleasure, he was murdered while at supper, by command of Caracalla, in the year a. d. 212 (Spartian. Caracall. 4, Get. 5), leaving behind him many learned works (cuius Libri plurimi ad doctrinam constant, Spartian. /. c.). Sidonius Apollinaris (Carm. xiii. 21) celebrates his mathematical lore, and that he turned his attention to antiquarian pursuits may be gathered from Arno-bius (adv. Gentcs, vi. 17) and Macrobius (Sat. ii. 1 3), of whom the latter quotes some remarks by Sammonicus upon the sumptuary Lex Fannia, while in another place (Sat. iii. 9), he extracts at full length from the fifth book of his Res Reconditae, the ancient forms by which the gods of a beleaguered town were summoned forth by the besiegers, and the place itself devoted to the destroying powers. In the Saturnalia also (ii. 12), is preserved a letter by Sammonicus addressed to the emperor Septimius Severus, on the honours rendered at solemn banquets to the sturgeon. According to Lampridius he must have been either an orator or a poet, or perhaps both, for it is recorded by the Augustan historian in his life of
