A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Φιλόστρατος), literary. Suidas (s. v.) mentions three of this name.

1. According to him the first was the son of Verus, and lived in the time of Nero. He practised rhetoric at Athens.

2. The most celebrated of the Philostrati is the biographer of Apollonius. The distribution of the various works that bear the name has occupied the attention and divided the opinions of the ablest critics, as may be seen by consulting Vossius (de Hist. Graec. p. 279, ed. Westermann), Meursius (Dissert. de Philostrat. apud Philostrat. ed. Olearius, p. xv. &c.), Jonsius (de Script. Hist. Phil. 3.14. 3), Tillemont (Histoire des Empereurs, vol. iii. pp. 86, &c.), Fabricius (Bibl. Graec. vol. v. pp. 540, &c.), and the prefaces of Olearius and Kayser to their editions of the works of the Philostrati. At the very outset there is a difference regarding the name. The βίος Σοφιστῶν bears the praenomen of Flavius, which we find nowhere else except in Tzetzes. In the title to his letters he is called an Athenian. Eunapius (Vit. Soph. prooem.) calls him a Lemnian, so does Synesius (Vit. Dion.). Photius (Bibl. Cod. 44) calls him a Tyrian. Tzetzes (Chil. vi. Hist. 45), has these words:--

Φιλόστρατος ὁ Φλάβιος, ὁ Τύριος, οἶμαι, ῥήτωρ, Ἄλλος δʼ ἐστὶν ὁ Ἀττικός,

where by reading Ἄλλως, we might lessen the difficulty. The best means of settling the point is by consulting the author himself; and here we find no difficulty. He spent his youth, and was probably born in Lemnos (Vit. Ap. 6.27), hence the surname of Lemnius. He studied rhetoric under Proclus, whose school was at Athens (V. S. 2.21), and had opportunities of hearing, if he was not actually the pupil of some of the foremost rhetoricians and sophists of his time (V. S. 2.23. §§ 2, 3, 27. §. 3.) If we may believe Suidas (s. v. Φρόντων), Fronton was his rival at Athens, and probably Apsines, who also was opposed to Fronton, and of whom Philostratus speaks (V. S. 2.33.4) as his intimate friend, was his colleague. It is true that Suidas speaks of this Philostratus as τῷ πρώτῳ, but the time, that of Severus, fixes it to be Philostratus the biographer. As he was called Lemnius from his birth-place, so on his arrival at Rome from Athens, or while teaching there, he was called Atheniensis, to distinguish him from his younger namesake. The account given by Suidas of his having been alive in the time of the emperor Philip (A. D. 244-249), tallies precisely with what we find written in his own works. Clinton conjectures the time of his birth to be A. D. 182 (Fast. Rom. p. 257), but this seems too late a period, and we may fix on A. D. 172 as not improbable. We have no notice of the time of his removal from Athens to Rome, but we find him a member of the circle (κύκλον) of literary men, rhetoricians especially, whom the philosophic Julia Domna, the wife of Severus, had drawn around her. (V. Ap. 1.3.) It was at her desire that he wrote the life of Apollonius. From the manner in which he speaks of her, τοὺς ῥητορικοὺς πάντας λόγους ἐπήνει, καὶ ἠσπάζετο, and the fact that he does not dedicate the work to his patroness, it may safely be inferred that she was dead when he finished the life; she died A. D. 217. That the work was written in Rome is rendered probable, from his contrasting the sudden descent of night in the south of Spain, with its gradual approach in Gaul, and in the place where he is writing, ἐνταῦθα. (V. Ap. 5.3.) That the same person wrote the life of Apollonius and the lives of the sophists, a fact which we have hitherto assumed, appears from the following facts. He distinctive affirms (V. Ap. 5.2) that he had been in Gaul. The writer of the lives of the sophists had also been in Gaul; for he mentions the mirth which the language of the sophist Heliodorus to the emperor Caracalla, while in Gaul (A. D. 213), had occasioned him. (V. S. 2.32.) This is confirmed when (V. S. 2.5) he refers his reader to his work on Apollonius, as well known. (V. S. 2.5.) He states that he wrote these lives while Aspasius was still teaching in Rome, being far advanced in years. (V. S. 2.33.4.) Besides, he dedicates them to a consul named Antonius Gordianus, a descendant of Herodes Atticus, with whom he had conversed at Antiocl concerning the sophists. This Gordianus, Fabricius supposes to have been Gordianus III. who was consul A. D. 239 and 241. (Bibl. Graec. vol. v. p. 552.) But to this Clinton justly objects, that not only would the dedication in that case have borne the title αὐτοκράτωρ instead of ὕπατος, but Gordian, who in A. D. 239 was only in his 14th year, was too young to have had any such conversation as that referred to. (Fast. Rom. p. 255.) It may have been one of the other Gordiani, who were conspicuous for their consulships. (Jul. Capitol. Gordian. 100.4.) As they were slain A. D. 238, the lives must have been written prior to this event. And as Aspasius did not settle in Rome till A. D. 235 (Clinton, F. R. p. 245) the lives of the sophists were probably written about A. D. 237.

Before proceeding to particularize those of his works which have come down to us, it may be more convenient to speak of their general object

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and style. In all of them, except the lives of the sophists, Philostratus seems to have intended to illustrate the peculiar manner in which the teachers of rhetoric were in the habit of treating the various subjects that came before them. They amplified, ornamented, and imitated without regard to historical truth, but solely as a species of gymnastics, which trained the mental athlete to be reads for any exertion in disputation or speaking, to which he might be called. In the time of Philostratus, the sphere was circumscribed enough in which sophists and rhetoricians (and it is to be observed that he makes no distinction between them) could dispute with safety; and hence arises his choice of themes which have no reference to public events or the principles of political action. That he was intimately acquainted with the requirements of style as suited to different subjects, is proved by his critical remarks on the writings of his brother sophists. One illustration will suffice. While writing of the younger Philostratus, he says (V.S. 2.33.3), "The letter written by Philostratus on the art of epistolary correspondence is aimed at Aspasius; for having been appointed secretary to the emperor (Maximin), some of his letters were more declamatory and controversial (ἀγωνιστικώτερον) than was becoming, and others were deficient in perspicuity. Both these characteristics were unbefitting a prince; for whenever an emperor writes, on the one hand the mere expression of his will is all that is required, and not elaborate reasoning (ἐνθυμημάτων οὐδʼ ἐπιχειρήσεων), and on the other perspicuity is absolutely necessary; for he pronounces the law, and perspicuity is the law's interpreter." And in the introduction to his Εἰκόνες, he makes an express distinction between the man βουλόμενος σοφίζεσθαι, and him who inquires seriously regarding the origin of the art of painting. We may infer besides, from an expression in this introduction, where, speaking of painting, he says of it, πλείω σοφίζεται, that in his view the profession of a sophist extended to all kinds of embellishment that required and exhibited invention and the power of pleasing by mere manner. The idea ingeniously stated by Kayser (Praef. ad Oper. Phil. p. vi.), that it was also his aim to restore to Greece her ancient vigour, by holding up bright examples of her past glories, does not seem to be borne out by his works. As to his style, it is characterized by exuberance and great variety of expression. It is sufficiently clear except when he has recourse to irregularities of construction, to which he is somewhat prone, in addition to semipoetical phrases and archaisms, which he employs without scruple. And as he undoubtedly intended to exemplify various modes of writing, we have in him specimens of every species of anomaly, which are apt to perplex, till this peculiarity be understood. He is at the same time well versed in the works of the orators, philosophers, historians, and poets of Greece, many of whose expressions he incorporates with his own, especially Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon, Euripides, Pindar, and Demosthenes.

3. The LEMNIAN. The account of the Philostrati given by Suidas, to which it is here necessary to return, is that the son of Verus, the first Philostratus, lived in the time of Nero. His son, the second Philostratus, lived till the time of Philip. The third was the grand-nephew of the second, by his brother's son, Nervianus, and was also his son-in-law and pupil. He, too, practised rhetoric at Athens; and he died and was buried at Lemnos.