Epaphroditos of Chaeronea

Epaphroditos of Chaeronea (Ἐπαφρόδιτοϲ, Χαιρωνεύϲ, born around 22/23 AD in Chaeronea ; died around 96/98 AD in Rome ) was a teacher of Greek language and literature ( grammarian ) living in Rome .

Information from the Suda

The Suda gives the following information about his biography: Born in Boeotia , he grew up in the household of the grammarian Archias in Alexandria and was trained by him. Marcus Mettius Modestus, Prefect of Egypt , acquired him as a slave. Epaphroditos tutored Modestus' son Petelinus and was later released by his master. From the reign of Nero to the reign of Nerva , Epaphroditos lived in Rome "in the so-called Phainianokoria ", where he owned two houses. In the course of time he acquired around 30,000 books, including old and hard-to-reach works ( καὶ τούτων ϲπουδαίων καὶ ἀνακεχωρηκότων ). Epaphroditos, who according to Suda was "tall and dark-skinned, of massive stature", died of dropsy at the age of 75. He left numerous books.

Historical classification

Identity of the patron; social status

A person named Marcus Mettius Modestus is not recorded in the time of Nero; a prefect of this name cannot be included in the fasti of the province of Egypt. Thus the patron of Epaphroditus is unknown. Francis Cairns suggests that the misinformation was spun out of the whereabouts of Alexandria and Rome: the grammarian trained in Alexandria became a book collector in Rome because he was a slave and then a freedman of the Prefect of Egypt. The fact that a later prefect of Egypt had the cognomen Mettius may have had a reinforcing effect.

The social status of a freedman , however, depends on that of his patron; consequently, Epaphroditos' status cannot be determined. As the owner of a large book collection, however, he was undoubtedly wealthy. It can be assumed that after his release he opened a school in Rome, which became the source of his prosperity.

It is generally believed that he needed two houses for his book collection. The location Horrea Faeniana refers to granaries that L. Faenius Rufus had built. The indication of the Suda causes difficulties: it is neither likely that new granaries have been demolished and replaced by houses, nor that an expensive collection of books has been stored in granaries. Perhaps Horrea Faeniana was the name of a neighborhood.

Own works

Epaphroditus' own writings are known through mentions in other sources:

• Commentaries on the books of the Iliad ;
• Comments on the books of the Odyssey ;
• Commentary on the shield of the pseudo-Hesiod ;
• Commentary on the Aitia of Callimachus , a contribution to understanding Alexandrian poetry;
• Alphabetical lexicographical work entitled Λέξεις;
• Etymological work that explained the meaning of words using the derivation method popular in the imperial era.

"What we can still grasp of his scientific achievement shows him to be a serious and respected grammarian." ( Johannes Christes ) The commentaries on the Homeric writings were considered to be the main work of Epaphroditos. They contain a wealth of information on place names in Homer and were therefore extensively quoted by Stephanos of Byzantium . In his commentary on a difficult passage in the Iliad (19.77) he shows himself to be a pupil of Archias of Alexandria.

Contact to Flavius ​​Josephus

Flavius ​​Josephus dedicated three of his four surviving works to an Epaphroditus. In the Jewish Antiquities he wrote at the beginning that he had been encouraged by him to do this extensive work. He characterized him as follows: “Epaphroditus, a man who has grown fond of every kind of education, but who most of all enjoys experiencing events as someone who was there himself at important events and in many strokes of fate, but who in all demonstrated an admirable strength of temperament and an unbreakable resolve to virtue. ”According to Hannah M. Cotton and Werner Eck, identification with the Epaphroditos of Chaeronea is relatively probable.

statue

The Latin name of Epaphroditos of Chaeronea was M. Mettius Epaphroditus after his release. A marble statue in the Palazzo Altieri al Gesù , Rome, bears the inscription: M (arcus) Mettius / Epaphroditus / grammaticus Graecus / M (arcus) Mettius Germanus l (ibertus) fec (it) . The correspondence with the data of the Suda makes it possible that the statue represents Epaphroditos of Chaeronea. It was in the Jacopo Paluzzi Albertoni collection until the end of the 18th century. The Museo della Civiltà Romana has a cast of the work. Epaphroditos is shown as a bearded man, dressed in a himation and sitting on a raised chair. He is holding a book in his left hand, his head slightly raised sideways in a meditative pose. Since the first publication in 1570 by Fulvio Orsini , the identity of the sitter with the Epaphroditos of the Suda has often been accepted. However, the statue itself dates from the time of the Antonines at the earliest ; Epaphroditus would not have had this monument erected until around 40 years after his death, perhaps because the school he founded was later headed by the freed Germanus. However, one must also reckon with the possibility that Epaphroditus was later chosen as the name for slaves or freedmen who worked as grammarians, precisely because of the fame of the grammarist and book collector.

literature

• Margarethe Billerbeck , Bruce Karl Braswell : The Grammarian Epaphroditus: testimonia and fragments . Peter Lang, Bern 2007.
• Johannes Christes : Slaves and Freedmen as Grammarians and Philologists in Ancient Rome. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1979, p. 103 f.
• Stephanos Matthaios: Greek Scholarship in in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity . In: Franco Montanari, Stefanos Matthaios, Antonios Rengakos (eds.): Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, Volume 1. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2015, pp. 184–296.
• Francis Cairns : Epaphroditus, Φαινιανοκορίοιϛ and 'Modestus' (Suda e 2004) . In: Zeitschrift für Papyriologie und Epigraphik 124 (1999), pp. 218–222.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Johannes Christes: Slaves and Freedmen as Grammarians and Philologists in Ancient Rome , Wiesbaden 1979, p. 103.
2. ↑ Suda , keyword Ἐπαφρόδιτος , Adler number: epsilon 2004 , Suda-Online
3. ↑ ἐν τοῖϲ καλουμένοιϲ Φαινιανοκορίοιϲ, probably corrupted transcription for: Faeniana horrea .
4. ^ Francis Cairns: Epaphroditus, Φαινιανοκορίοιϛ and 'Modestus' (Suda e 2004) , 1999, p. 221.
5. ^ Hannah M. Cotton, Werner Eck: Josephus' Roman Audience: Josephus and the Roman Elites . In: Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, James Rives (eds.): Flavius ​​Josephus and Flavian Rome , Oxford 2005, pp. 37–52, here pp. 51 f.
6. ^ Francis Cairns: Epaphroditus, Φαινιανοκορίοιϛ and 'Modestus' (Suda e 2004) , 1999, p. 218f.
7. ↑ Stephanos Matthaios: Greek Scholarship in in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity , Leiden / Boston 2015, p. 230f.
8. ↑ Johannes Christes: Slaves and Freedmen as Grammarians and Philologists in Ancient Rome , Wiesbaden 1979, p. 104.
9. ↑ Stephanos Matthaios: Greek Scholarship in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity , Leiden / Boston 2015, p. 231. While older research assumed that Stephanos had and evaluated the work of Epaphroditos, Hartmut Erbse judged more cautiously in 1960: the Byzantine Scholars draw only from a second source. See Margarethe Billerbeck, Arlette Neumann-Hartmann: Stephani Byzantii Ethnica , Volume 5. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2017, p. 159, with reference to: Hartmut Erbse: Contributions to the tradition of the Iliasscholien (= Zetemata . Volume 24). CH Beck, Munich 1960, pp. 251-269.
10. ↑ Margarethe Billerbeck, Bruce Karl Braswell: The Grammarian Epaphroditus: testimonia and fragments , Bern 2007, p. 25.
11. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Jewish antiquities 1.7. Translation after the pre-publication of the projected antiquities translation by the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum ( PDF ).
12. ^ Hannah M. Cotton, Werner Eck: Josephus' Roman Audience: Josephus and the Roman Elites . In: Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, James Rives (eds.): Flavius ​​Josephus and Flavian Rome , Oxford 2005, pp. 37–52, here p. 52.
13. ↑ Seated statue of M. Mettius Epaphroditus in the archaeological database Arachne .
14. ↑ CIL VI, 09454 .
15. ↑ Stephanos Matthaios: Greek Scholarship in in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity , Leiden / Boston 2015, p. 230; PIR ² 5.2 No. 563 considers the question open (sub iudice manet) .
16. ↑ Margarethe Billerbeck, Bruce Karl Braswell: The Grammarian Epaphroditus: testimonia and fragments , Bern 2007, p. 27. Cf. Museo della Civiltà Romana: Portrait statue of M. Mettius Epaphroditus (2nd Century AD)
17. ^ Gisela MA Richter : The Portraits of the Greeks. Volume 3. Phaidon Press, London 1965, p. 285, fig. 2033, considers the statue to be possibly Antonine (Severan?), But asks whether the sitter can be identified with Epaphroditus from Chaironeia; Hans Rupprecht also dated Goette : Studies on Roman toga representations (= contributions to the development of Hellenistic and imperial sculpture and architecture. Volume 10). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1990, p. 78, the statue in the Antonine period; Paul Zanker : The Mask of Socrates. The image of the intellectual in ancient art. CH Beck, Munich 1995, p. 220 f. Fig. 126, considers the statue to be Severan.
18. ^ Francis Cairns: Epaphroditus, Φαινιανοκορίοιϛ and 'Modestus' (Suda e 2004) , 1999, p. 219f.