POLYHISTOR, the surname of Alexander Cornelius, a native of Ephesus, or, according to some, of Cotyacum. The first part of his career was attended with misfortune.
Enrolled in the forces of Mithridates the Great, he was taken prisoner in Greece by the army of Sulla, and was exposed for sale as a slave. Cornelius Lentulus bought him, and taking him to Rome, employed him as a pedagogue. In course of time, however, fortune began to smile upon the enslaved Alexander. His master liberated him; and Sulla is said to have bestowed upon him the Roman franchise. His varied and extensive learning, and the many miscellaneous works which he produced, secured for him the surname of Polyhistor, and introduced him to the notice of patrons. He was living in easy circumstances at his villa at Laurentium when he perished in a fire which consumed his household effects. A list of the works of Polyhistor is given in De Historicis Graecis of Vossius. But a part of a History of Judæa, found in Eusebius, and a few fragments of a History of Rome preserved in Servius, are the only remnants of his great and multifarious erudition.