APHTHONIUS, of Antioch, lived about A.D. 315, and was the author of an elementary treatise on rhetoric (προγυμνασμάτα), much read in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He has also left about 40 Esopic fables. The earliest edition of the Progymnasmata was contained in the Aldine Rhetores Graeci, 1508. The best and latest edition, including all the annotations, is in the "Rhetores Graeci" of Walz, Stuttg. and Tübing. 1832-35.
APHYLLOUS (α, priv., and φῦλον), in Botany, a term applied to plants which are leafless; such as the rush, mushroom, &c.