Sossianus Hierocles (fl. 303 AD) was a late Roman aristocrat and office-holder. He served as a praeses in Syria under Diocletian at some time in the 290s. He was then made vicarius of some district, perhaps Oriens (the East, including Syria, Palestine, and, at the time, Egypt) until 303, when he was transferred to Bithynia. It is for his anti-Christian activities in Bithynia that he is principally remembered. He was, in the words of the Cambridge Ancient History, "one of the most zealous of persecutors". While in Bithynia, Hierocles authored Lover of Truth (Greek: Φιλαλήθης, Philalethes; also known as Φιλαλήθης λόγος, Philalethes logos), a critique of Christianity. Lover of Truth is noted as the first instance of the trope, popular in later pagan polemic, of comparing the pagan holy man Apollonius of Tyana to Jesus Christ.
Hierocles was among the campaigners for a stronger policy against Christians present at Diocletian's court through the early 4th century. The campaigners' aims were as realized in February 303 with the edicts of the Great Persecution, which expelled Christians from government service, deprived them of normal legal rights, and left them open to imprisonment and execution if they did not comply with traditional religious rites. Hierocles was an avid enforcer of these edicts in his function as praeses of Bithynia, and again while serving as praefectus Aegypti during the late 300s or early 310s. It is largely through incidental notes in the Christian author Lactantius' On the Deaths of the Persecutors and Divine Institutes and Eusebius of Caesarea's On the Martyrs of Palestine and Against Hierocles that we are aware of his activities. Inscriptions at Palmyra preserve the details of his early career.
Career
Hierocles was a praeses at some time between 293 and 303. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE) states that, as praeses, he governed Phoenice Libanensis, the province on the eastern side of Mount Lebanon. The district included Palmyra, where the inscription attesting to Hierocles' career is located. Hierocles was the vicarius of some district (which Simmons and Barnes identify as Oriens) before 303; in that year he was made praeses of Bithynia. Although an apparent demotion (praeses was a lower rank than vicarius, with fewer responsibilities and less prestige), the move brought Hierocles closer to the imperial court, and the real seat of power: the emperor.
Hierocles was later made praefectus Aegypti. He is attested as such by a papyrus from Karanis (Papyri Cairo Isiodrus 69 = Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten 9186 Karanis). However, while the papyrus's date is clear (January), its year is not. It has been identified as either 307 or 310/11; most experts take the later date, though the PLRE takes the former. Eusebius, in the Martyrs of Palestine, gives a similarly ambiguous date: after describing the martyrdom of Apphianus (2 April 306), Eusebius moves to the martyrdom of Apphianus' brother Adesius, who, "a little later", assaulted the prefect Hierocles in Alexandria and was executed. Nor do the existing lists of Egyptian prefects allow further precision: the fasti have gaps between Clodius Culcianus on 29 May 306 (Papyri Oxyrhynchus 1104) and Valerius Victorinus in 308 (Papyri Oxyrhynchus 2674) as well as between Aelius Hyginus 22 June 309 (Papyri Oxyrhynchus 2667) and Aurelius Ammonius on 18 August 312 (Chrestomathie 2.64). Timothy Barnes argues that the balance of probabilities favors the 310/311 date, as it would be consistent with what is known of Maximinus' actions elsewhere in the same period. In Palestine, in 308, he replaced the governor there with another, firmer supporter of his program of persecution.