Names of several Greek grammarians, frequently confused. The following are the most important. (1) Orion of Thebes in Egypt (5th century A.D.), the teacher of Proclus the neo-Platonist and of Eudocia, the wife of the younger Theodosius. He taught at Alexandria, Cæsarea in Cappadocia and Byzantium. He was the author of a partly extant etymological Lexicon (ed. F. W. Sturz, 1820), largely used by the compilers of the Etymologicum Magnum, the Etymologicum Gudianum and other similar works; a collection of maxims in three books, addressed to Eudocia, also ascribed to him by Suïdas, still exists in a Warsaw MS. (2) Orus of Miletus, who, according to Ritschl, flourished not later than the 2nd century A.D., and was a contemporary of Herodian and a little junior to Phrynichus (according to Reitzenstein he was a contemporary of Orion). His chief works were treatises on orthography; on Atticisms, written in opposition to Phrynichus; on the names of nations.
See F. Ritschl, De Oro et Orione Commentatio (1834); R. Reitzenstein, Geschichte der griechischen Etymologika (1897); and article “Orion” in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography.
