Dion Chrysostom

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Dion Chrysostomos (also Dion of Prusa ; * after 40; † before 120) was an ancient Greek orator , writer and philosopher of the 1st century. Eighty of his speeches have survived. His nickname Chrysostom means "gold mouth" in Greek .

Life

Dion was born between 40 and 45 in Prusa in the Roman province of Bithynia (now Bursa in northwestern Turkey). As a philosopher he was a cynic and a stoic ; he is included in the second school of the sophists . Under Emperor Titus , Dion apparently lived in Rome and wrote about a scandalous association between the emperor and the boxer Melankomas . Dion also criticized the Emperor Domitian , who followed Titus and banished him from Rome, Italy and Bithynia in 82, because Dion had advised a conspiratorial relative of the emperor. Dion is said to have traveled throughout the Roman Empire during his exile , allegedly often living in poor clothing and by hand.

After Domitian, who was popular with soldiers, was murdered in 96, Dion is said to have talked Roman troops out of mutiny in an army camp and convinced them to accept the will of the Roman people. Under Emperor Marcus Cocceius Nerva his banishment was lifted, whereupon Dion took the nickname Cocceianus . After Nerva's death, he became a close friend of the Emperor Trajan . Dion spent the final years of his life in his hometown of Prusa, where he appears to have enjoyed some reputation, and there are reports that he was embroiled in a lawsuit over the city's renewal around 111. Today it is believed that he died soon after 112, probably between 115 and 120.

Dion Chrysostom should not be confused with his presumed grandson Cassius Dio , who was a Roman historian; nor with the church father John of Antioch , who lived around the year 400 and was also nicknamed Chrysostom because of his eloquence .

plant

One page of the Florence manuscript written in 1328, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Conventi soppressi 114, fol. 141v, which contains speeches of Dion

Dion's speeches cover a wide range of subjects. Some of them may have been worked out to be presented to Trajan. They deal with kingship, the Diogenes lifestyle , virtue, freedom, slavery, wealth, greed, vice, war, enmity and peace, good administration and other moral questions. Dion vigorously argued against permission to prostitute.

Dion was a contemporary of Plutarch , Tacitus and Pliny the Younger . Although he did not write about Christians as such, they seem to have referred to his Cynical and Stoic philosophy as a moral parallel to the teaching of the Apostle Paul . He would be an example of the influence of pagan philosophy on the development of early Christianity.

Translations

  • Dion Chrysostom: All the speeches. Introduced, translated and explained by Winfried Elliger . Artemis Verlag, Zurich [1967].

literature

Overview representations

  • Paolo Desideri: Dion Cocceianus de Pruse dit Chrysostome. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 2, CNRS Éditions, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-271-05195-9 , pp. 841-856
  • Krystyna Stebnicka: Dion of Prusa. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat: Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-871340-1 , pp. 93-95

Investigations

  • Eugenio Amato: Xenophontis imitator fidelissimus. Studi su tradizione e fortuna erudite di Dione Crisostomo tra XVI e XIX secolo , Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2011.
  • Eugenio Amato: Traiani Praeceptor. Studi su biografia, cronologia e fortuna di Dione Crisostomo , Besançon: PUFC, 2014.
  • Dio of Prusa. The philosopher and his picture [Discourses 54–55, 70–72], ed. By H.-G. Nesselrath, introduction, critical edition, commentary, translation, and essays by E. Amato et al., Tübingen: 2009.
  • Friedrich Heege: The 43rd and 48th speech of Dio von Prusa . Fock, Leipzig 1905. ( digitized version )

Web links

Wikisource: Dion Chrysostom  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Dion Chrysostom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dio Cocceianus; Dion of Prusa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek orator, writer and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH after 40
PLACE OF BIRTH Bursa
DATE OF DEATH before 120