List of Famous people named Apollonius

Apollonius of Tyana, sometimes also called Apollonios of Tyana, was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Anatolia. He is the subject of Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by Philostratus over a century after his death.

Apollonius of Rhodes was an ancient Greek author, best known for the Argonautica, an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. The poem is one of the few extant examples of the epic genre and it was both innovative and influential, providing Ptolemaic Egypt with a "cultural mnemonic" or national "archive of images", and offering the Latin poets Virgil and Gaius Valerius Flaccus a model for their own epics. His other poems, which survive only in small fragments, concerned the beginnings or foundations of cities, such as Alexandria and Cnidus places of interest to the Ptolemies, whom he served as a scholar and librarian at the Library of Alexandria. A literary dispute with Callimachus, another Alexandrian librarian/poet, is a topic much discussed by modern scholars since it is thought to give some insight into their poetry, although there is very little evidence that there ever was such a dispute between the two men. In fact almost nothing at all is known about Apollonius and even his connection with Rhodes is a matter for speculation. Once considered a mere imitator of Homer, and therefore a failure as a poet, his reputation has been enhanced by recent studies, with an emphasis on the special characteristics of Hellenistic poets as scholarly heirs of a long literary tradition writing at a unique time in history.

Apollonius Molon or Molo of Rhodes, was a Greek rhetorician. He was a native of Alabanda, a pupil of Menecles, and settled at Rhodes, where he opened a school of rhetoric. Prior to that, he twice visited Rome as an ambassador from Rhodes. Marcus Tullius Cicero studied with him during his trip to Greece in 79–77 BC, as did Gaius Julius Caesar a few years later. Perhaps it is at least partially due to Apollonius Molon's instruction that Caesar, and Cicero especially, achieved fame as orators in the Roman Republic. Molon is reputed to have quoted Demosthenes in telling his pupils that the first three elements in rhetoric were "Delivery, Delivery and Delivery." He had a stellar reputation in Roman Law courts, and was even invited to address the Roman Senate in Greek - an honor not usually bestowed upon foreign ambassadors.