Phlegon of Tralleis

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Phlegon von Tralleis († after 137) was an ancient Greek colored writer from Tralleis (Tralles) in Asia Minor . He was a freedman ( Phlegon Aelius ) and court official of the Roman emperor Hadrian .

Works

The Byzantine Lexicon Suda lists the titles of some books by Phlegon. He then wrote a two-volume work on Olympians , a three-volume description of Sicily, a three-volume description of Roman festivals and a two-volume description of the topography of Rome. All of these writings are completely lost. On the other hand, two other works by Phlegon have survived, albeit not completely: A selection of people who were very old ( Peri makrobion ), based on the census lists of Emperor Vespasian , and the Book of Miracles . In the latter, reports from older paradoxographers about miscarriages, gender changes, hermaphrodites and resurrection were reproduced.

Phlegon used material from these writings in his 16-book Olympiades , a world chronicle of peculiarities ( mirabilia ) that ranged from the 1st to the 229th Olympiad (776 BC to 137 AD). Phlegon had chosen Hadrian's death as the end of this chronicle. Only fragments of this extensive work, from which an eight-volume epitome was produced, are now available. It dealt with the Olympians, prodigies and oracles .

The claim made in the Late Antique Historia Augusta that Phlegon also wrote a biography of his patron Hadrian is likely to be wrong.

reception

Phlegon's Solar Eclipse and the Passion

In the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke it is reported that at the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth there was a great darkness. Already in early Christianity there was a lively discussion (e.g. with Sextus Iulius Africanus and Origen ) how this darkness should be interpreted. In particular, the passage in Luke's Gospel enables a solar eclipse to be interpreted , although the Passover festival and thus the proximity to the full moon excludes this possibility: “And it was already around the sixth hour when an eclipse came over the whole country up to the ninth hour because the sun lost its light ”( Lk 23,44-45  LUTH ).

In the discussions of the early Christians, reference is also made to a solar eclipse that Phlegon is said to have passed down in his Olympiad for the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad (according to today's calendar 32/33 AD). Eusebius of Caesarea quotes Phlegon in his chronicle as follows: “In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, a great solar eclipse occurred that surmounted all that had occurred so far: at the sixth hour the day turned into dark night, so that the stars became visible in the sky. In Bithynia , moreover, the earth shook and the city of Nicaea largely collapsed. "

If one uses today's astronomical recalculations, one finds that although on November 24, 29, i.e. in the 1st year of the 202nd Olympiad, a solar eclipse was clearly visible in Palestine and even total in Nicaea, but not in the 4th year . Alexander Demandt According therefore the time would be over rewrote the date of this eclipse from the 1st to the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad or "deformed" was to be able to relate to this eclipse better on the date of the crucifixion.

Primarily evangelical Christians see the tradition of the Phlegon solar eclipse as a pagan and therefore independent of the biblical tradition, evidence of the eclipse at the death of Jesus.

Modern times

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe worked on a story from the Book of Miracles in his 1797 ballad The Bride of Corinth . The same episode was the basis for the poem Les Noces Corinthiennes (1876) by Anatole France and for Emmanuel Chabrier's unfinished opera Briséïs (1888-1891).

Editions, translations, comments

  • Kai Brodersen (ed.): Phlegon von Tralleis, the book of miracles and testimonies to its history of impact . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2002, ISBN 3-534-15985-3 (Greek text and German translation)
  • William Hansen: Phlegon of Tralles' Book of Marvels. University of Exeter Press, Exeter 1996, ISBN 0-85989-425-8 (English translation with introduction and commentary)
  • Felix Jacoby (Ed.): The Fragments of the Greek Historians (FGrHist), No. 257 and 257a
  • Antonio Stramaglia (ed.): Phlegon Trallianus: Opuscula de rebus mirabilibus et de longaevis. De Gruyter, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-024597-4 (critical edition)

literature

  • Alexander Demandt: Deformation tendencies in the tradition of ancient solar and lunar eclipses. Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz 1970 ( online ).
  • Peter Leberecht Schmidt: Phlegon. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 , Sp. 906.
  • Martin Hose : Renewing the past. Historians in the Roman Empire from Florus to Cassius Dio. Teubner, Stuttgart / Leipzig 1994, ISBN 3-519-07494-X , p. 470 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Phlegon of Tralleis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Phlegon of Tralles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek historian and writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century or 2nd century
DATE OF DEATH 2nd century