Philostratus

For other people named Philostratus, see Philostratus (disambiguation).

Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (Greek: Φλάβιος Φιλόστρατος) , (ca. 170/172-247/250), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 172, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab (244-249). His death possibly occurred in Tyre ca. 250 AD.

Name and identity

Some ambiguity surrounds his name. The praenom Flavius is given in The Lives of the Sophists and Tzetzes. Eunapius and Synesius call him a Lemnian; Photius a Tyrian; his letters refer to him as an Athenian.

It is probable that he was born in Lemnos, studied and taught at Athens, and then settled in Rome (where he would naturally be called Atheniensis) as a member of the learned circle with which empress Julia Domna surrounded herself.

Works attributed to Philostratus

Historians agree that Philostratus authored at minimum five works: Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Lives of the Sophists, Gymnasticus, Heroicus and Epistolae. Another work, Imagines, is usually assigned to his son-in-law Philostratus of Lemnos.

The earliest of his works, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written between 217 and 238 AD, tells the story of Apollonius of Tyana (ca. 40—ca. 120 AD), a Pythagorean philosopher and teacher. Philostratus wrote the book for Julia Domna, wife of Septimus Severus and mother of Caracalla. The book was completed after her death.

Lives of the Sophists, written between 231 and 237 AD, is a semi-biographical history of the Greek sophists. The book is dedicated to a consul Antonius Gordianus, perhaps one of the two Gordians who were killed in 238. The work is divided into two parts: the first dealing with the ancient Sophists, e.g. Gorgias, the second with the later school, e.g. Herodes Atticus. The Lives are not in the true sense biographical, but rather picturesque impressions of leading representatives of an attitude of mind full of curiosity, alert and versatile, but lacking scientific method, preferring the external excellence of style and manner to the solid achievements of serious writing. The philosopher, as he says, investigates truth; the sophist embellishes it, and takes it for granted.

Gymnasticus, written after 220 AD, contains accounts concerning the Olympic games and athletic contents in general.

Epistolae, or Love Letters, are letters of an erotic character. The Letters breathe the spirit of the New Comedy and the Alexandrine poets; portions of Letter 33 are almost literally translated in Ben Jonson's Song to Celia, "Drink to me only with thine eyes." The letters are mainly of an erotic character. Their publication date is unknown.

Internal evidence confirms that the authors of Life of Apollonius and Lives of the Sophists are one and the same^{[citation needed]}. The Lives of the Sophists was to have an enormous impact upon later writers, particularly Neoplatonists.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Apollonius of Tyana
• Life of Apollonius of Tyana

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Further reading

• Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus, The Letters. Translated by A. R. Benner, F. H. Fobes. 1949. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 9780674994218
• Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists. Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists. Translated by Wilmer C. Wright. 1921. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 9780674991491
• Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana. 3 volumes. Translated by Christopher P. Jones. 2005-6. Loeb Classical Library. ISBN 9780674996137, ISBN 9780674996144, and ISBN 9780674996175
• Côté, Dominique. "La figure d’Eschine dans les Vies des sophistes de Philostrate", Cahiers des études anciennes 42 (2005), p. 389-420.
• Côté, Dominique. "Les deux sophistiques de Philostrate", Rhetorica 24 (2006), 1-35.
• Bowie, Ewen and Jaś Elsner (edd.). Philostratus. Greek culture in the Roman world (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

External links

• Livius, Philostratus Updates the preceding article with some ninety years of more recent research.
• Online Text: Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana translated by F. C. Conybeare
• Flavius Philostratus entry in historical sourcebook with fresh translations of excerpts from the Life of Apollonius by Mahlon H. Smith
• Imagines in National Széchényi Library, Budapest