Philostratus of Athens

This article deals with the historian Philostratus. On the sophist see Flavius ​​Philostratos .

Philostratus of Athens was an ancient Greek historian . He lived in the Roman Empire at the time of the imperial crisis of the 3rd century .

Philostratos is only mentioned by the late antique chronicler Johannes Malalas and by the Byzantine chronicler Georgios Synkellos . According to Synkellos, he was a historian who lived at the time of Emperor Aurelian (270–275). Malalas, on the other hand, quotes in his chronicle the now lost report of a Philostratus who dealt with the Persian War at the time of Valerian and described the defeat of the Sassanid king Shapur I against the troops of Odainathos , the ruler of Palmyra , in the early 1960s. It is very likely that both statements refer to the same person.

Malalas claims that, according to Philostratus, Odainathos killed the Persian king, which does not correspond to historical reality, but this misrepresentation can probably be traced back to Malalas or to an unknown source used by him. In research it is controversial whether Malalas himself is the originator of the false news or it was taken from an intermediate source in which Philostratos was misunderstood. Perhaps Malalas misinterpreted its intermediate source. Since Philostratus was a contemporary of the events he described, the error can hardly be blamed on him. In the report of Philostratus, which Malalas reports, there are otherwise very valuable information that coincide with the inscribed report of Schapur's deeds ( res gestae divi Saporis ). Philostratus will therefore have offered a reliable representation of the Persian War of this time, similar to Nikostratus of Trebizond .

It has been suggested that Philostratus was at court in Palmyra, but this is speculative. Obvious, but ultimately not provable, is the assumption that he was a relative of the well-known Sophist family of the Philostratoi. It may even be the archon Lucius Flavius ​​Philostratos , who is documented for the 250 / 60s. Krystyna Stebnicka identifies the historian with this same Philostratos and equates both with Philostratos the Younger, who was also the author of a collection of picture descriptions. However, the name Philostratos is quite common.

A Philostratus from Athens, who is called a sophist and who was involved in the defense of the Heruli in Greece in 267 , is mentioned in a newly discovered fragment from the history of Dexippus . He is described there as a man of special talents and spiritual gifts; it is therefore quite possible that it is the historian who is treated here. Research also suggests that Philostratus (whether directly or indirectly) served as a source for the histories of Petros Patrikios that have only survived in fragments .

In 2011, Christopher Jones suggested that a passage in the church history of Euagrios Scholastikos , where the latter reports of a serious plague in the time of a Philostratus, be related to the historian Philostratos. Kyle Harper followed suit with further arguments.

Philostratus was one of a number of Greek historians active in the 3rd century, such as Cassius Dio , Herodian , Ephorus the Younger , Nikostratos of Trebizond, Dexippus and a certain Eusebius .

Text output

• The Fragments of the Greek Historians , No. 99 and Brill's New Jacoby , No. 99 (with English translation and new commentary by Robert Frakes).
• Bruno Bleckmann , Jonathan Gross: Historians of the Imperial Crisis of the 3rd Century I ( Small and fragmentary historians of late antiquity ). Paderborn 2016, ISBN 978-3-506-78490-2 , pp. 75-97. (with German translation)

literature

• Pawel Janiszewski: The missing link: Greek pagan historiography in the second half of the third century and in the fourth century AD. Warszawa 2006, pp. 97ff.
• Christopher P. Jones : The historian Philostratus of Athens. In: The Classical Quarterly 61, 2011, pp. 320-322
• Krystyna Stebnicka: L. Flavios Philostratos called the Younger. 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. 295 f.

Remarks

1. ^ Pawel Janiszewski: The missing link: Greek pagan historiography in the second half of the third century and in the fourth century AD. Warszawa 2006, p. 102f.
2. ^ Pawel Janiszewski: The missing link: Greek pagan historiography in the second half of the third century and in the fourth century AD. Warszawa 2006, pp. 107-109.
3. ^ Krystyna Stebnicka: L. Flavios Philostratos called the Younger. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat: Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire. Oxford 2015, p. 295 f.
4. ^ Text with commentary by Gunther Martin, Jana Grusková: "Dexippus Vindobonensis" (?). A new manuscript fragment for the so-called Herul invasion of the years 267/268. In: Wiener Studien 127, 2014, pp. 101–120.
5. ^ Thomas M. Banchich: The Lost History of Peter the Patrician. New York 2015, p. 115f.
6. ↑ Euagrios, Church History 4:29.
7. ↑ Christopher P. Jones: The historian Philostratus of Athens. In: The Classical Quarterly 61, 2011, pp. 320–322, here: 321f.
8. ↑ Kyle Harper: Pandemics and passages to late antiquity: Rethinking the plague of c. 249-70 described by Cyprian. In: Journal of Roman Archeology 28, 2015, pp. 223–260, especially pp. 231ff.