Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Helpidius 4.
HELPI´DIUS or ELPI´DIUS, sometimes written Helfridius, was a Christian poet, who flourished towards the close of the fifth century, was physician to the Gothic monarch Theodoric, and is believed by many to be the Rusticus Helpidius commemorated in an inscription with the title of Exquaestor. The following compositions, still extant, are ascribed to this author:—
1. Historiarum Testamenti Veteris et Novi Tristicha XXIV., twenty-four epigrammatic narratives, taken from the Bible history, each comprised in three dactylic hexameters, with titles descriptive of the subjects, such as “Eva a diabolo seducta,” “Joseph a fratribus venditur,” “Lazarus a morte revocatus,” “Christus in monte docet,” and the like.
2. De Christi Jesu Beneficiis, a song of praise and thanksgiving, comprised in 150 hexameters, not altogether destitute of elegance, and certainly very superior in every respect to the weak and pointless tristichs.
It would appear from an allusion, somewhat ambiguous, however, contained in the last-named piece (l. 45, &c.), that Helpidius had written a poem to comfort himself while in sorrow, but, if such a production was ever published, it is now lost.
Both of the above works are given in the Poetarum veterum Eccles. Opera Christiana of G. Fabricius, fol. Basil. 1564; in the Bibl. Magn. Patr. fol. Paris, 1644, vol. viii., and in the Bibl. Patr. Max. fol. Lugdun. 1677, vol. ix. p. 462. (Cassiodor. Var. iv. 24; Ennod. Ep. ix. 21, xi. 19, and notes of Sirmond.) [W. R.]