Flavius Philostratus

Flavius Philostratos (* around 165/170; † between 244 and 249) is the best known of four Greek sophists known as Philostratos of Lemnos , who lived in the 2nd and 3rd centuries . In the Suda , a Byzantine encyclopedia, three of the four are listed, with Flavius Philostratos being referred to as "the second".

Life

Flavius Philostratos was born around 165/170. His family came from the island of Lemnos , where they owned properties. He seems to have spent at least part of his youth there. His father's name was Philostratos Veros and - like all Lemnians at that time - he had Athenian citizenship. Flavius Philostratos received his education in Athens. His teacher was Proclus of Naukratis ; He probably also studied with Damianos of Ephesus , Hippodromos of Larissa (Hippodromos of Thessaly) and Antipater of Hierapolis (Publius Aelius Antipater). According to the Suda, he made a career as a speaker and teacher in Athens and Rome. He may be identical to Lucius Flavius Philostratus, who appears in three inscriptions as a prominent Athenian personality, but this may also refer to the historian Philostratus of Athens . In one of the inscriptions dating from the first decade of the 3rd century, Lucius Flavius Philostratus is referred to as the commander of the hoplites ; this office was no longer military at the time, but was a high-ranking official responsible for the public food supply. Philostratus "the second" is probably to be equated with the sophist Flavius Philostratos, whom the city of Athens honored with a statue in Olympia .

Around 205/207, Philostratus found access to the court of Emperor Septimius Severus in Rome , where he gained the favor of Empress Julia Domna . Apparently he used the Empress to accompany them on their travels: 212 or 213 he is attested in Gaul in their environment, he probably was 214-217 in her yard as she during Partherkriegs her son, the Emperor Caracalla of, to the east Reichs stopped. She resided in the Syrian city of Antiochia . After Juliet's death in 217, he probably retired to Athens; there he apparently spent the last years of his life as a rhetoric teacher. According to the Suda, he died in the reign of Emperor Philip Arabs (244–249).

Flavius Philostratos was married to a woman named Aurelia Melitine and had two sons with her, one of whom - as well as other relatives - was of senatorial rank.

Works

Philostratos wrote the following works in Greek:

a biography of the New Pythagorean Apollonios of Tyana ( Ta es ton Tyanéa Apollṓnion , Latin Vita Apollonii ) in eight books, which Philostratos completed in the period 217-238. In doing so, he fulfilled an assignment from the then deceased Empress Julia Domna . His representation has shaped the image of Apollonios to the present day. Although it contains information from older, lost writings, it is designed like a novel and its credibility is in many ways contested by modern scholars. Their chronological information is very different from reality, and an important source to which Philostratos refers, Damis ' diary , is a literary fiction. A central concern of Philostratos is to make Apollonios appear not as a magician, but as a wise philosopher who travels the world from Spain to Ethiopia and India and who fearlessly confronts the tyrannical emperor Domitian .

Flavius Philostratos, Vitae sophistarum in the manuscript Rome written in 1269/1270, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana , Vaticanus graecus 64, fol. 284r

Biographies of the Sophists ( Bíoi sophistōn , Latin Vitae sophistarum ) in two books, 242/243 to the emperor Gordian III. dedicated. The work contains 59 biographies, most of which deal with important Greek sophists of the Roman Empire who lived from Emperor Nero to the present day of the author - an epoch for which Philostratos used the term “new” or “second” sophistry coined. In addition, ten “classical” sophists of the 5th and 4th centuries BC are also mentioned. BC and eight philosophers whom Philostratus counted among the sophists. The work is of great value as a cultural and socio-historical source.
About gymnastics ( Gymnastikós , Latin Gymnasticus ), a historical and protreptic representation of Greek athletics and in particular the Olympic Games . Philostratus probably completed this work after 219. His authorship is not certain, but very likely. It is considered one of the basic works of movement therapy .
About heroes ( Hērōikós , Latin Heroicus ), a dialogue that emerged after 213 between a Phoenician sailor and a wine merchant. The attribution to Philostratus is plausible, but not certain. The wine merchant tells of his encounter with the ghosts of heroes of the Trojan War . This framework allows the author to offer a representation of the mythical events that deviates from Homer's Iliad ; at one point (“Song of Achilles ”) he even inserts his own verses.

Works by Philostratus in the Latin translation made by Antonio Bonfini. The manuscript was written and illuminated for King Matthias Corvinus in Florence between 1487 and 1490 . Font: Humanistic Rotunda . Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 417, fol. 2r

Image descriptions ( Eikónes , Latin imagines ), a collection of descriptions of paintings, mostly mythical in content, which were in a gallery in a suburb of Naples . It is uncertain whether Philostratus "the second" is actually the author. In addition to the collection of picture descriptions ascribed to him, there is another one, the author of which was another, younger Philostratus, who describes himself as the grandson of the author of the first collection.
a short treatise (Diálexis) on the relationship between nature and culture, called Dialexis II . Another treatise (Dialexis I) deals with the letter style and probably comes from a nephew of the same name of Philostratus. According to the Suda, Philostratus "the Second" wrote other treatises; apparently he put his treatises (Dialéxeis) together in a collection.
a collection of 73 letters including 58 love letters. The names of the young recipients of the love letters remain unnamed except for three. Of the non-erotic letters, the authenticity of which is partly uncertain, one (Letter 73) is addressed to the Empress Julia Domna. The authenticity of the letter to the Empress, previously doubted, is now considered to be certain. In the letter Philostratus defends the Sophists: Plato did not envy them, but learned from them and emulated them; Plutarch's criticism of the Sophists was to be rejected.
Nero (Nérōn) , a dialogue in which the stoic philosopher Gaius Musonius Rufus talks to a conversation partner named Menekrates about the failed plan of Emperor Nero to pierce the isthmus of Corinth . There is also talk of Nero's trip to Greece, his artistic ambition and his matricide. The Suda ascribes the work to another Philostratus, but it probably comes from Philostratus "the second".
The Suda also ascribes epigrams to Philostratus "the second" . Only one of these can be identified with any probability. It was intended for a statue or pictorial representation of Telephos and has come down to us in the Anthologia Planudea des Maximus Planudes .

Editions and translations

Letters

Allen Rogers Benner, Francis H. Fobes (Eds.): The Letters of Alciphron, Aelian and Philostratus . Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1979, ISBN 0-434-99383-2 (reprint of 1949 edition; contains the Greek text with English translation on pp. 385-545)
Kai Brodersen (ed.): Philostratos: Erotic letters . Marix, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-7374-1071-7 (bilingual edition with introduction)

Dialexis II

Philostratos: Dialexis 2 . In: Ewen Bowie , Jaś Elsner (ed.): Philostratus . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-82720-1 , pp. 356–357 (Greek text), 42–43 (English translation)

Gymnasticus

Julius Jüthner (ed.): Philostratos on gymnastics . Grüner, Amsterdam 1969 (reprint of the Leipzig 1909 edition; critical edition with translation and commentary)
Kai Brodersen (Ed.): Philostratos: Sport in antiquity (Peri Gymnastikes / About training). Marix, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-7374-0961-2 (bilingual edition with introduction)

Heroicus

Ludo de Lannoy (Ed.): Flavii Philostrati Heroicus . Teubner, Leipzig 1977 (critical edition)
Andreas Beschorner (Ed.): Heroes and Heroes, Homer and Caracalla . Levante editori, Bari 1999 (contains the Greek text of Lannoy's critical edition with German translation and commentary)
Peter Grossardt : Introduction, translation and commentary on the Heroikos by Flavius Philostrat . 1st volume: Introduction and translation . 2nd volume: Commentary . Schwabe, Basel 2006, ISBN 978-3-7965-2203-1
Simone Follet (Ed.): Philostrate: Sur les héros. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2017, ISBN 978-2-251-00617-8 (critical edition with French translation)

Adults (eikones)

Otto Schönberger (Ed.): Philostratos: The pictures . 2nd edition, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-8260-2359-5 (Greek text with German translation)

Vita Apollonii

Vroni Mumprecht (ed.): Philostratos: The life of Apollonios of Tyana . De Gruyter, Berlin 2014 (first published in 1983), ISBN 978-3-11-036115-5 (Greek text with German translation)

Vitae sophistarum

Rudolf S. Stefec (Ed.): Flavii Philostrati vitas sophistarum, ad quas accedunt Polemonis Laodicensis declamationes quae exstant duae, recognovit [...] Rudolf S. Stefec. Clarendon Press, Oxford 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-872370-7 (critical edition)
Kai Brodersen (ed.): Philostratos: Life of the Sophists. Marix, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-86539-368-5 (Greek text with German translation)

literature

Overview representations

Simone Follet: Philostratos de Steiria (L. Flavius). In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Vol. 5, part 1, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-271-07335-8 , pp. 563-574
Christopher P. Jones : Philostratus. In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 27, Delivery 213, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7772-1524-2 , Sp. 627-639
Krystyna Stebnicka: L. Flavios Philostratos called the Elder. 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. 293 f.

Overall representations

Graham Anderson: Philostratus. Biography and Belles Lettres in the Third Century AD Croom Helm, London 1986, ISBN 0-7099-0575-0 .
Ewen Bowie, Jaś Elsner (ed.): Philostratus. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-82720-1 .