Valerius Harpocration was a Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 grammarian of Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, probably working in the 2nd century CE. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus (Life of Verus, 2) as the Greek tutor of Lucius Verus

Lucius Verus

Lucius Verus , was Roman co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, from 161 until his death.-Early life and career:Lucius Verus was the first born son to Avidia Plautia and Lucius Aelius Verus Caesar, the first adopted son and heir of Roman Emperor Hadrian . He was born and raised in Rome...

 (2nd century AD); some authorities place him much later, on the ground that he borrowed from Athenaeus

Athenaeus

Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...

. His Lexicon of the Ten Orators, which has come down to us in an incomplete form, contains, in more or less alphabetical order, notes on well-known events and persons mentioned by the orators, and explanations of legal and commercial expressions. As nearly all the lexicons to the Greek orators have been lost, Harpocration's work is especially valuable. Amongst his authorities were the writers of Atthides (histories of Attica), the grammarian Didymus Chalcenterus

Didymus Chalcenterus

Didymus Chalcenterus , ca. 63 BCE to 10 CE, was a Hellenistic Greek scholar and grammarian who flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus.- Life :...

, Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...

, and the lexicographer Dionysius, son of Tryphon. The book also contains contributions to the history of Attic oratory and Greek literature

Greek literature

Greek literature refers to writings composed in areas of Greek influence, typically though not necessarily in one of the Greek dialects, throughout the whole period in which the Greek-speaking people have existed.-Ancient Greek literature :...

 generally. His Collection of Florid Expressions, a sort of anthology or chrestomathy

Chrestomathy

Chrestomathy is a collection of choice literary passages, used especially as an aid in learning a foreign language.In philology or in the study of literature, it is a type of reader or anthology which presents a sequence of example texts, selected to demonstrate the development of language or...

 attributed to him by the Suda

Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often...

, is lost, but elements of it survive in later lexica. A series of articles in the margin of a Cambridge manuscript of the Lexicon forms the basis of the Lexicon rhetoricum Cantabrigiense by Peter Paul Dobree

Peter Paul Dobree

Peter Paul Dobree , English classical scholar and critic, was born in Guernsey.He was educated at Reading School under Richard Valpy and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow...

.

Editions

• Immanuel Bekker (1833)
• W. Dindorf
  Karl Wilhelm Dindorf
  Karl Wilhelm Dindorf , German classical scholar, was born at Leipzig....
  
   (1853)
• Georg Kalkoff, De cod. epitomes Harpocrationeae (1886)
• John J. Keaney, Harpocration: Lexeis of the Ten Orators (1991)

Britannica References

• J. E. Sandys
  John Edwin Sandys
  Sir John Edwin Sandys FBA , was a classical scholar.He was born at Leicester on 19 May 1844, a son of the Reverend Timothy Sandys of the Church Missionary Society and Rebecca . Living at first in India, he returned to England at the age of eleven, and was educated at the Church Missionary Society...
  
  , History of Classical Scholarship, i. (1906), p. 325
• C. Boysen, De Harpocrationis fontibus (Kiel, 1876).