Jump to content

Philitas of Cos: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
→‎Notes: Use two-column reference list.
The preferred spelling in English has been "Philitas" for some time now, so make that the preferred spelling in Wikipedia too.
Line 1: Line 1:
[[Image:Pseudo-Seneca-Brogi.jpeg|thumb|right|Ancient bronze bust, the so-called ''[[Pseudo-Seneca]]'', conjectured by archaeologist Edoardo Brizio (1846–1907) to be a portrait of Philetas of Cos.<ref>{{cite book |pages=147–150 |title= Buried Herculaneum |author= Ethel Ross Barker |location=London |publisher= Adam & Charles Black |date=1908}}</ref> More recent scholars conjecture it to be an imaginative portrait of [[Hesiod]].<ref>{{cite book |author= Erika Simon |title= Pergamon und Hesiod |location= Mainz am Rhein |publisher= Philipp von Zabern |year=1975}}</ref>]]
[[Image:Pseudo-Seneca-Brogi.jpeg|thumb|right|Ancient bronze bust, the so-called ''[[Pseudo-Seneca]]'', conjectured by archaeologist Edoardo Brizio (1846–1907) to be a portrait of Philitas of Cos.<ref>{{cite book |pages=147–150 |title= Buried Herculaneum |author= Ethel Ross Barker |location=London |publisher= Adam & Charles Black |date=1908}}</ref> More recent scholars conjecture it to be an imaginative portrait of [[Hesiod]].<ref>{{cite book |author= Erika Simon |title= Pergamon und Hesiod |location= Mainz am Rhein |publisher= Philipp von Zabern |year=1975}}</ref>]]
'''Philetas of Cos''' (also, '''Philitas of Cos''') was an [[Alexandria]]n [[poet]] and [[critic]] who flourished in the second half of the [[4th century BC]]. The [[Ancient Greek]] spelling of his name is uncertain; Φιλίτας (Philitas) is ancient and was common in [[Kos|Cos]] but the [[Doric Greek]] color Φιλήτας (Philetas) is also ancient; the accentuation Φιλητᾶς (Philetâs) did not exist before Imperial times.<ref>{{cite book |author= Konstantinos Spanoudakis |title= Philitas of Cos |publisher= Brill |year= 2002 |isbn= 9004124284 |pages=19–22}}</ref>
'''Philitas of Cos''' (also, '''Philetas of Cos''') was an [[Alexandria]]n [[poet]] and [[critic]] who flourished in the second half of the [[4th century BC]]. The [[Ancient Greek]] spelling of his name is uncertain; Φιλίτας (Philitas) is ancient and was common in [[Kos|Cos]] but the [[Doric Greek]] color Φιλήτας (Philetas) is also ancient; the accentuation Φιλητᾶς (Philetâs) did not exist before Imperial times.<ref>{{cite book |author= Konstantinos Spanoudakis |title= Philitas of Cos |publisher= Brill |year= 2002 |isbn= 9004124284 |pages=19–22}}</ref>


== Life ==
== Life ==


He was [[preceptor]] to [[Ptolemy II Philadelphus]], and also taught the poets [[Hermesianax]] and{{Polytonic|}} [[Theocritus]] and the [[grammarian]] [[Zenodotus]]. His thinness made him an object of ridicule; according to the comic poets, he carried lead in his shoes to keep himself from being blown away.<ref>{{cite journal |journal= The Classical Quarterly |volume=41 |issue=2 |year=1991 |pages=534–8 |author=Alan Cameron |title= How thin was Philitas?}}</ref> Over-study of Megarian dialectic subtleties is said to have shortened his life. If we are to believe St. George Stock's analysis of the story in [[Athenaeus of Naucratis]]'s ''Deipnosophists'' IX.401e, Philetas worried so much over the [[Liar paradox]] that he wasted away and died of insomnia, as, according to Athenaeus, his epitaph recorded:
He was [[preceptor]] to [[Ptolemy II Philadelphus]], and also taught the poets [[Hermesianax]] and{{Polytonic|}} [[Theocritus]] and the [[grammarian]] [[Zenodotus]]. His thinness made him an object of ridicule; according to the comic poets, he carried lead in his shoes to keep himself from being blown away.<ref>{{cite journal |journal= The Classical Quarterly |volume=41 |issue=2 |year=1991 |pages=534–8 |author=Alan Cameron |title= How thin was Philitas?}}</ref> Over-study of Megarian dialectic subtleties is said to have shortened his life. If we are to believe St. George Stock's analysis of the story in [[Athenaeus of Naucratis]]'s ''Deipnosophists'' IX.401e, Philitas worried so much over the [[Liar paradox]] that he wasted away and died of insomnia, as, according to Athenaeus, his epitaph recorded:


<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
Line 12: Line 12:


<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
Philetas of Cos am I
Philetâs of Cos am I
’Twas The Liar who made me die,
’Twas The Liar who made me die,
And the bad nights caused thereby.<ref>Athenaeus ix. 401 C, tr. St. George Stock
And the bad nights caused thereby.<ref>Athenaeus ix. 401 C, tr. St. George Stock
Line 19: Line 19:
</poem>
</poem>


A more literal translation suggests that the fictitious funerary epigram merely pokes fun at Philetas' literary exactitude:
A more literal translation suggests that the fictitious funerary epigram merely pokes fun at Philitas' literary exactitude:


<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
Stranger, I am Philetas. The word wrongly used and
Stranger, I am Philitas. The word wrongly used and
nights' evening-thoughts destroyed me.<ref>{{cite web |author= Alexander Sens |title= The new Posidippus, Asclepiades, and Hecataeus’ Philitas-statue |work= The Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association |url=http://www.apaclassics.org/Publications/Posidippus/SensPosidippus.pdf |accessdate=2007-09-21 |date=2002}}</ref>
nights' evening-thoughts destroyed me.<ref>{{cite web |author= Alexander Sens |title= The new Posidippus, Asclepiades, and Hecataeus’ Philitas-statue |work= The Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association |url=http://www.apaclassics.org/Publications/Posidippus/SensPosidippus.pdf |accessdate=2007-09-21 |date=2002}}</ref>
</poem>
</poem>
Line 32: Line 32:
<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
''Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetae,''
''Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetae,''
''in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus.''<ref>{{cite web |author=Propertius |title= Elegies III |url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/prop3.html |accessdate=2007-06-30}} Allen argues that ''Philetae'' is a corruption of ''poetae'', alluding to rather than naming Philetas. {{cite journal |author= Archibald Allen |title= Propertius and 'Coan Philitas' |journal= The Classical Quarterly |volume=46 |issue=1 |year=1996 |pages=308–309}}</ref>
''in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus.''<ref>{{cite web |author=Propertius |title= Elegies III |url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/prop3.html |accessdate=2007-06-30}} Allen argues that ''Philetae'' is a corruption of ''poetae'', alluding to rather than naming Philitas. {{cite journal |author= Archibald Allen |title= Propertius and 'Coan Philitas' |journal= The Classical Quarterly |volume=46 |issue=1 |year=1996 |pages=308–309}}</ref>
</poem>
</poem>


Line 40: Line 40:
</poem>
</poem>


Philetas wrote Ἂτακτοι γλῶσσαι (''Ataktoi glôssai'', or ''Disorderly Words''), a vocabulary explaining the meanings of rare and obscure poetic words, including words peculiar to certain dialects.<ref name='Bing'>{{cite journal |author= Peter Bing |title= The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet |journal= Classical Philology |volume=98 |issue=4 |date=2003 |pages=330–48}}</ref> He also wrote notes on [[Homer]], severely criticized by [[Aristarchus of Samothrace]]. About 292 he returned to Cos, where he seems to have led a brotherhood of poets including Theocritus and [[Aratus]]. Cos had been captured from [[Antigonus I Monophthalmus]] by [[Ptolemy I Soter]] in 310, and Philadelphius had been born there in 308; it was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of [[Alexandria]].<ref>{{cite book |title= A History of Classical Scholarship: from the Sixth Century B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages |author= John Edwin Sandys |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location=London |date=1903 |pages=118–119}}</ref>
Philitas wrote Ἂτακτοι γλῶσσαι (''Ataktoi glôssai'', or ''Disorderly Words''), a vocabulary explaining the meanings of rare and obscure poetic words, including words peculiar to certain dialects.<ref name='Bing'>{{cite journal |author= Peter Bing |title= The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet |journal= Classical Philology |volume=98 |issue=4 |date=2003 |pages=330–48}}</ref> He also wrote notes on [[Homer]], severely criticized by [[Aristarchus of Samothrace]]. About 292 he returned to Cos, where he seems to have led a brotherhood of poets including Theocritus and [[Aratus]]. Cos had been captured from [[Antigonus I Monophthalmus]] by [[Ptolemy I Soter]] in 310, and Philadelphius had been born there in 308; it was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of [[Alexandria]].<ref>{{cite book |title= A History of Classical Scholarship: from the Sixth Century B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages |author= John Edwin Sandys |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location=London |date=1903 |pages=118–119}}</ref>


At most fifty verses of Philetas survive. Here are two, showing the confluence of his interests in poetry and obscure words:
At most fifty verses of Philitas survive. Here are two, showing the confluence of his interests in poetry and obscure words:


<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
<poem style='margin-left: 2em'>
Line 54: Line 54:
</poem>
</poem>


According to [[Antigonus of Carystus]], the ''kaktos'' was a thorny plant from Sicily, and "When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philetas spoke of it."<ref name='Bing'/>
According to [[Antigonus of Carystus]], the ''kaktos'' was a thorny plant from Sicily, and "When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philitas spoke of it."<ref name='Bing'/>


Fragments edited by C. P. Kayser,<ref>{{cite book |author= Carol. Phil. (Karl Philipp) Kayser |title= Philetae Coi Fragmenta, quæ reperiuntur |publisher= Typis Barmeierianis |location= Göttingen |date=1793 |language=Latin}}</ref> by N. Bach,<ref>{{cite book |author= Nicolaus Bachius (Bach) |title= Philetae Coi, Hermesianactis Colophonii, atque Phanoclis Reliquiae |location= Halle |publisher= Libraria Gebaueria |date=1829 |language=Latin}}</ref> and [[Theodor Bergk]], ''Poetae lyrici graeci''; see also Ernst Maass, ''De tribus Philetae carminibus''.<ref>{{cite book |author= Ernestus (Ernst) Maass |title= De tribus Philetae carminibus |location=Marburg |publisher= N. G. Elwertum |date=1895 |language=Latin |oclc = 9861455}}</ref>
Fragments edited by C. P. Kayser,<ref>{{cite book |author= Carol. Phil. (Karl Philipp) Kayser |title= Philetae Coi Fragmenta, quæ reperiuntur |publisher= Typis Barmeierianis |location= Göttingen |date=1793 |language=Latin}}</ref> by N. Bach,<ref>{{cite book |author= Nicolaus Bachius (Bach) |title= Philetae Coi, Hermesianactis Colophonii, atque Phanoclis Reliquiae |location= Halle |publisher= Libraria Gebaueria |date=1829 |language=Latin}}</ref> and [[Theodor Bergk]], ''Poetae lyrici graeci''; see also Ernst Maass, ''De tribus Philetae carminibus''.<ref>{{cite book |author= Ernestus (Ernst) Maass |title= De tribus Philetae carminibus |location=Marburg |publisher= N. G. Elwertum |date=1895 |language=Latin |oclc = 9861455}}</ref>

Revision as of 05:01, 30 September 2007

File:Pseudo-Seneca-Brogi.jpeg
Ancient bronze bust, the so-called Pseudo-Seneca, conjectured by archaeologist Edoardo Brizio (1846–1907) to be a portrait of Philitas of Cos.[1] More recent scholars conjecture it to be an imaginative portrait of Hesiod.[2]

Philitas of Cos (also, Philetas of Cos) was an Alexandrian poet and critic who flourished in the second half of the 4th century BC. The Ancient Greek spelling of his name is uncertain; Φιλίτας (Philitas) is ancient and was common in Cos but the Doric Greek color Φιλήτας (Philetas) is also ancient; the accentuation Φιλητᾶς (Philetâs) did not exist before Imperial times.[3]

Life

He was preceptor to Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and also taught the poets Hermesianax and[] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) Theocritus and the grammarian Zenodotus. His thinness made him an object of ridicule; according to the comic poets, he carried lead in his shoes to keep himself from being blown away.[4] Over-study of Megarian dialectic subtleties is said to have shortened his life. If we are to believe St. George Stock's analysis of the story in Athenaeus of Naucratis's Deipnosophists IX.401e, Philitas worried so much over the Liar paradox that he wasted away and died of insomnia, as, according to Athenaeus, his epitaph recorded:

ξεῖνε, Φιλητᾶς εἰμί· λόγων ὁ ψευδὁμενὁς με
ὥλεσε καὶ νυκτῶν φροντίδες ἑσπέριοι.

Philetâs of Cos am I
’Twas The Liar who made me die,
And the bad nights caused thereby.[5]

A more literal translation suggests that the fictitious funerary epigram merely pokes fun at Philitas' literary exactitude:

Stranger, I am Philitas. The word wrongly used and
nights' evening-thoughts destroyed me.[6]

Works

His elegies, chiefly of an amatory nature and singing the praises of his mistress Battis (or Bittis), were much admired by the Romans. He is frequently mentioned by Ovid and Propertius, the latter of whom imitated him and preferred him to his rival Callimachus, whose superior mythological lore was more to the taste of the Alexandrian critics. Propertius linked together the rival poets with the following well-known couplet:

Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetae,
in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus.[7]

Callimachus's spirit, and shrine of Philetas of Cos,
let me enter your sacred grove, I beseech you.

Philitas wrote Ἂτακτοι γλῶσσαι (Ataktoi glôssai, or Disorderly Words), a vocabulary explaining the meanings of rare and obscure poetic words, including words peculiar to certain dialects.[8] He also wrote notes on Homer, severely criticized by Aristarchus of Samothrace. About 292 he returned to Cos, where he seems to have led a brotherhood of poets including Theocritus and Aratus. Cos had been captured from Antigonus I Monophthalmus by Ptolemy I Soter in 310, and Philadelphius had been born there in 308; it was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of Alexandria.[9]

At most fifty verses of Philitas survive. Here are two, showing the confluence of his interests in poetry and obscure words:

γηρύσαιτο δὲ νεβρὸς ἀπὸ ζωὴν ὀλέσασα
ὀξείης κάκτου τύμμα φυλαξαμένη

The deer can sing when it has lost its life
if it avoids the prick of the sharp kaktos.

According to Antigonus of Carystus, the kaktos was a thorny plant from Sicily, and "When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philitas spoke of it."[8]

Fragments edited by C. P. Kayser,[10] by N. Bach,[11] and Theodor Bergk, Poetae lyrici graeci; see also Ernst Maass, De tribus Philetae carminibus.[12]

Notes

  1. ^ Ethel Ross Barker (1908). Buried Herculaneum. London: Adam & Charles Black. pp. 147–150.
  2. ^ Erika Simon (1975). Pergamon und Hesiod. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
  3. ^ Konstantinos Spanoudakis (2002). Philitas of Cos. Brill. pp. 19–22. ISBN 9004124284.
  4. ^ Alan Cameron (1991). "How thin was Philitas?". The Classical Quarterly. 41 (2): 534–8.
  5. ^ Athenaeus ix. 401 C, tr. St. George Stock
    • St. George Stock (1908). Stoicism. London: Archibald Constable. p. 36.
    • Paul Vincent Spade (2005). "Insolubles". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Alexander Sens (2002). "The new Posidippus, Asclepiades, and Hecataeus' Philitas-statue" (PDF). The Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association. Retrieved 2007-09-21.
  7. ^ Propertius. "Elegies III". Retrieved 2007-06-30. Allen argues that Philetae is a corruption of poetae, alluding to rather than naming Philitas. Archibald Allen (1996). "Propertius and 'Coan Philitas'". The Classical Quarterly. 46 (1): 308–309.
  8. ^ a b Peter Bing (2003). "The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet". Classical Philology. 98 (4): 330–48.
  9. ^ John Edwin Sandys (1903). A History of Classical Scholarship: from the Sixth Century B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages. London: Cambridge University Press. pp. 118–119.
  10. ^ Carol. Phil. (Karl Philipp) Kayser (1793). Philetae Coi Fragmenta, quæ reperiuntur (in Latin). Göttingen: Typis Barmeierianis.
  11. ^ Nicolaus Bachius (Bach) (1829). Philetae Coi, Hermesianactis Colophonii, atque Phanoclis Reliquiae (in Latin). Halle: Libraria Gebaueria.
  12. ^ Ernestus (Ernst) Maass (1895). De tribus Philetae carminibus (in Latin). Marburg: N. G. Elwertum. OCLC 9861455.

Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philitas_of_Cos&oldid=161255466"