A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

4. Of PHILADELPHIA. Among the writers from whom the Ἐκλογαὶ περὶ πρέσβεων, Excerpta de Legationibus, compiled by order of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, are taken, was Malchus the sophist (Μάλχος σοφιστής). According to Suidas and Eudocia (s. v. Μάλχος) Malchus was a Byzantine; but the statement of Photius that he was a native of Philadelphia, is preferable; and his Syriac name makes it probable that Philadelphia was the city so called (the ancient Rabbah) in the country of Ammonitis, east of the Jordan. Malchus probably followed his profession of rhetorician or sophist at Constantinople, and the statement that he was a native of that city may have arisen from that circumstance.