Satyros of Kallatis

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Satyros from Kallatis was an ancient Greek biographer who lived around the second half of the 3rd century BC. Lived.

life and work

Little is known about the life of the satyr. As can be seen from a papyrus fragment , it came from the port city of Kallatis on the Black Sea . He was nicknamed "the Peripatetic". This probably means that he belonged to that school of scholars who mainly pursued literary and biographical studies ( Peripatetic ). Later he lived mostly in Egypt . Although the discovery of a longer fragment of his main work was made in Oxyrhynchos , he is more likely to have found the material for his scholarly work in the libraries of the capital Alexandria .

Satyrus was in ancient times - so like Plutarch and Suetonius - at the most famous authors of Lives of important people. His extensive work was probably entitled Βίοι . Herakleides Lembos made an epitome of it. Since it is known that Herakleides lembos during the reign of the Egyptian king Ptolemy VI. Philometor (180–145 BC) worked, the life of the satyr must be set a lot earlier. He probably lived in the second half of the 3rd century BC. BC, at most at the beginning of the 2nd century BC If he also wrote the work Über die Demen Alexandrias - which is by no means certain -, his creative period could be narrowed down more precisely, since this book was written at the time of Ptolemy IV Philopator (221–204 BC). He could also be the author of a book About Characters .

A papyrus found in Oxyrhynchos, which was published in 1912, ensured a significant expansion of our knowledge of the literary activity of Satyros. It contains about four fairly legible Teubner pages from the life of the Attic playwright Euripides . This vita was part of the 6th book of the Βίοι , which, according to the subscriptio of the papyrus, also described the lives of Sophocles and Aeschylus . In addition, there are some fragments of the otherwise lost collection of vitamins by Satyrus, mainly from Athenaeus and Diogenes Laertios . For example, the catalog of the numerous wives of Philip II cited by Athenaios and the story of his final falling out with Olympias over Philip's marriage to Cleopatra come from Satyros' biography of this Macedonian king. Fragments from Satyros' biography of King Dionysius II of Syracuse have also been preserved, furthermore from the lives of the Athenian politician Alkibiades , the Athenian orator Demosthenes and a number of philosophers ( Bias of Priene and Chilon of Sparta , both of which are counted among the Seven Wise Men , Pythagoras , Empedocles , Zeno of Elea , Anaxagoras , Socrates , Diogenes of Sinope , Anaxarch , Stilpon ). Three quotations from Satyros' depiction of Sophocles have also survived.

From the papyrus fragment that was found, it can be seen that Satyros designed the Vita of Euripides in dialogue form. There are three sub-speakers, of which Satyros himself apparently plays the main speaker. The style is pleasing, but very sophisticated, as the frequent avoidance of hiat shows. Satyros did not write his anecdotal life descriptions in the sense of today's historical-critical method, but used harmless material that cannot be considered particularly reliable. So he interpreted verses from the works of Euripides for his biographical sketch and for the same purpose took any information from the Greek comedy , in particular from Aristophanes , who had heavily criticized and parodied Euripides. Satyros was thus in the tradition that began with Aristotle 's Dialogue on the Poets .

Apart from Euripides and Aristophanes, Satyros does not state in the papyrus fragment from which sources his information comes. Therefore his other sources are unknown. After all, Aulus Gellius mentions that the story brought by Satyros of the cave of Euripides on Salamis came from the atthidographer Philochorus . Furthermore, Satyros may have viewed and evaluated the works of other Greek poets he portrayed. Since he is quoted for variations regarding the causes of death of several famous men, including Sophocles, he was apparently particularly interested in the death circumstances of the personalities he portrayed. It can hardly be determined which hypomnematic writings still preserved Satyros served as a source if he is not expressly cited. In any case, it is unlikely to have been used by the anonymous author of the biography of Euripides which has come down to us in several manuscripts of this great tragedian, although both vitae show some literal similarities. These are more likely due to the use of a common older source. A dependence of Plutarch on the οι of Satyros cannot be shown either.

Fragment collections

  • Satiro, Vita di Euripide. A cura di Graziano Arrighetti . Goliardica, Pisa 1964. - Review by André Tuilier , in: Revue des Études Grecques 78, 1965, pp. 410-412, (online).
  • Stefan Schorn: Satyros from Kallatis. Collection of the fragments with commentary. Schwabe, Basel 2004. ISBN 3-7965-2005-7 .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Papyrus Herculanensis No. 558.
  2. ↑ Athenaios 6, 248d and 12, 541c.
  3. ^ Hermann Bengtson : Philip and Alexander the Great . Munich 1997, p. 13.
  4. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 8:40 and 8:53.
  5. ^ AS Hunt: Oxyrhynchi Papyri , Vol. 9 (1912), pp. 124-182 No. 1176.
  6. ^ Athenaios 13, 557.
  7. ↑ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 15, 20.
  8. ^ Alfred Gudeman: Satyros 16. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen antiquity science (RE). Volume II A, 1, Stuttgart 1921, Col. 231-233.
personal data
SURNAME Satyros of Kallatis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Satyros
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient Greek biographer
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Kallatis on the Black Sea
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century BC BC or 2nd century BC Chr.