Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/278

Rh 266 PHILETAERUS. and, after the death of Seleucus (b c. 280), took advantage of the disorders in Asia to establish himself in virtual independence. By redeeming from Ptolemy Ceraunus the body of Seleucus, which he caused to be interred with due honours, he earned the favour of his son, Antiochus I,, and by a prudent, but temporizing course of policy, con- trived to maintain his position unshaken for nearly twenty years ; and at his death *to transmit the government of Pergamus, as an independent state, to his nephew Eumenes. He lived to the ad vanced age of eight}'-, and died apparently in B. c. 2G3 (Lucian, Macrob. 12 ; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p. 401). His two brothers, Eumenes and Attains, had both died before him ; but their respective sons successively followed him in the sovereign power (Strab. xiiL p. 623 ; Paus. i. 8. § 1, 10. § 4 ; Van Cappelle, de Regihus Pergamenis^ pp. 1 — 7). Numerous coins are extant bearing the name of Philetaerus (of which one is given below), but it is generally considered by numismatic writers, that these, or at least many of them, were struck by the later kings of Pergamus, and that the name and portrait of Philetaerus were continued in honour of their founder. Other authors, however, regard the slight differences observable in the portraits which they bear, as indicating that they belong to the successive princes of the dynasty, whom they suppose to have all borne the surname or title of Philetaerus., But it may be doubted whether this view can be maintained. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 473 ; Visconti, Iconogr. Grecque^ vol. ii. p. 200 — 210 ; Van Cappelle, pp. 141—146.) COIN OP PHILETAERUS. 2. A son of Attains I., and brother of Eumenes II., king of Pergamus. In B.C. 171, he was left by Eumenes in charge of the affairs of Pergamus, while the king and Attains repaired to Greece to assist the Romans in the war against Perseus. With this exception he plays no part in history. (Liv. xlii. 55 ; Strab. xiii. p. 625 ; Polyb. xl. 1.) 3. A brother of Dorylaus, the general of Mithri- dates, and ancestor of the geographer Strabo. (Strab. x. p. 478, xiii. p. 557.) [E. H. B.] PHILETAERUS {iiKhatpos), an Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, is said by Athe- naeus to have been contemporary with Hyperides and Diopeithes, the latter perhaps the same person as the father of the poet Menander (Ath. vii. p. 342, a., xiii. p. 587). According to Dicaearchus Philetaerus was the th^rd son of Aristophanes, but others maintained that it was Nicostratus (see the Greek lives of Aristophanes, and Suid. s. vv. 'Apia- ro(pduris^ ^iXiraipos). He wrote twenty-one ])lay8, according to Suidas, from whom and from Athenaeus the following titles are obtained: — 'Ajr/cATjTrioj, AraAoi'TTj, 'Ax'AAeus, Ke^aAos, Kopipdiaarrvs, Kvi'7}'yisy AaixTra5-n<p6poi, Trjpevs, ^iavos ; to which must be added the Mrjues, quoted in a MS. grammatical work. There are also a few doubtful PHI LET AS. titles, namely : 'AScou id^ovaai^ which is the title of a play by Philippides ; "AvtvAAos and OtVo- TTtajf, which are also ascribed to Nicostratus ; and M6A6a7pos, which is perhaps the same as the 'ATaXduTT). The fragments of Philetaerus show that many of his plays referred to courtezans. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Grace, vol. i. pp. 349, 350, vol. iii. pp. 292— 300.) [P.S.] PHILETAS (^iwds). 1. Of Cos, the son of Telephus, was a distinguished poet and gram- marian (iroirtTtjs d/xa Koi KpiriKos, Strab. xiv. p. 657), who flourished during the earlier years of the Alexandrian school, at the period when the earnest study of the classical literature of Greece was combined, in many scholars, with considerable power of original composition. According to Sui- das, he flourished under Philip and Alexander ; but this statement is loose and inaccurate. His youth may have fallen in the times of those kings, but the chief period of his literary activity was during the reign of the first Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, who appointed him as the tutor of his son, Ptolemy II. Philadelphus. Clinton calculates that his death may be placed about B. c. 290 {Fast. Hell. vol. iii. app. 12, No. 16) ; but he may pos- sibly have lived some years longer, as he is said to have been contemporary with Aratus, whom Eu- sebius places at B. c. 272. It is, however, certain that he was contemporary with Hermesianax, who was his intimate friend, and with Alexander Aeto- lus. He was the instructor, if not formally, at least by his example and influence, of Theocritus and Zenodotus of Ephesus. Theocritus expressly mentions him as the model which he strove to imitate. (Id. vii. 39 ; see the Scholia ad lac.) Philetas seems to have been naturally of a very weak constitution, which at last broke down under excessive study. He was so remarkably thin as to become an object for the ridicule of the comic poets, who represented him as wearing leaden soles to his shoes, to prevent his being blown away by a strong wind ; a joke which Aelian takes literall}'-, sagely questioning, however, if he was too weak to stand against the wind, how conld he be strong enough to carry his leaden shoes ? (Plut. An Seni sit ger. Respub. 15, p. 791, e.; Ath. xii. p. 552, b.; Aelian, V. H. ix. 14, x. 6). The cause of his death is referred to in the following epigram (ap, Ath. ix. p. 401, e.): — EeTre, ^jATjras ejju^' AJ7WI' o ^iev56yLCv6s fie toAecre Kal vvktwv ^poPTiSes iaweptoi. We learn from Hermesianax (ap. Ath. xiii. p. 598, f.) that a bronze statue was erected to the memory of Philetas by the inhabitants of his native island, his attachment to which during his life-time he had expressed in his poems. {Schol. ad Theoe. I. c.) The poetry of Philetas was cliiefly elegiac (Suid. eypa^f/ev kTVLypdjxijiara kcH ^Keyeias Kal dWa). Of all the writers in that department he was es- teemed the best after Callimachus ; to whom a taste less pedantic than that of the Alexandrian critics would probably have preferred him ; for, to judge by his fragments, he escaped the snare of cumbrous learned affectation (Quintil. x. 1. § 58 ; Procl. Chrest. 6. p. 379, Gaisf.). These two poets formed the chief models for the Roman elegy : nay. Pro- pertius expressly states, in one passage, that he imitated Philetas in preference to Callimachus (Propert. ii. 34. 31, iii. 1. 1, 3. 51, 9. 43, iv. 6. 2 ; Ovid, Art. Amat, iii. 329, Remcd. Amor. 759 ;