Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/307

Rh PHILISTION. of Augustus, about A. d. 7 (Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. 01. 196. 3). He was an actor, as well as a writer of mimes, and is said, in an epigram pre- served in the Greek Anthology, to have died of excessive laughter (Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iv. p. 230 ; Anth. Pal. vol. ii. p. 349). He is fre- quently mentioned by the Greek writers of the second century and downwards. Suidas, who, by some extraordinary error, has placed his death in the time of Socrates, makes him a native of Prusa, and says that he wrote KcofxcfSias ^LoKoyiKcis (that is, mimes), that he wrote a play called Micro- }pri(pL(TTai, and a work entitled ^Loyeoos. He is mentioned by Tzetzes (Proleg. ad Lycophr. p. 257), among the poets of the New Comedy, but the name is there, almost certainly, an error for Phi- LIPPIDES. We have no fragments of Philistion, but there is a work extant under the title of 'ZvyKpiais Mei'aj/Spou Kal iXf(rTia)j/os, which is a collection of lines, containing moral sentiments, from Menan- der and some other poet of the New Comedy, who of course could not be Philistion the mimo- grapher. All difficulty is however removed by the emendation of Meineke, who substitutes 4>tAr}- U.QVOS for ^iKiaritavos. (Comp. Philemon). The work was first edited by N. Rigaltius, Par. 1613, afterwards, in a much improved state, by J. Rut- gersius, in his Var. Lect. vol. iv. p. 355 — 367, with the notes of Heinsius. Boissonade has pub- lished the work, from a Paris MS., in his Anec- dota, vol. i. p. 146 — 150, whence Meineke has transferred it into his Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum^ vol. iv. pp. 335 — 339. (Fabric. Mbl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 480 ; Meineke, Menand. et Philem. Reliq. Praef. p. vii. &c. ; Clinton, F.H. sub ann. A. d. 7 ; Bernhardy, GescMchte der Griech. Litt vol ii. p. 924.) [P. S.] PHILFSTION, an engraver of medals, whose name occurs in two forms, *IAI2TIflN (eTrofei) and *IAI2TmN02 {epyov)., in very small cha- racters, but perfectly distinct, on the crest of the helmet of the head of Minerva, which forms the type of a great number of coins of Velia. (Raoul- liochette, Lettre a M. ScTiorn, p. 94, 2d ed.) [P. S.] PHILI'STION (^lAio-TiW), a physician, born either at one of the Greek towns in Sicily (Diog. Laert. Vit. Philos. viii. 8. §§ 86, 89), or among the Locri Epizephyrii in Italy (Galen, De Meth. Med. i. 1, vol. X. p. 6 ; Ruf. Ephes. De Corp. Hum. Part. Appell. p. 41 ; Plut. Sympos. vii. 1. § 3 ; Aul. Gell. Nod. Ait. xvii. 11. § 3 ; Athen. iii. 83, p. 115). He was tutor to the physician Chrysippus of Cnidos ( Diog. Laert. I. c. § 89) and the astronomer and physician Eudoxus (Callim. ap. Diog. LaerL § 86), and therefore must have lived in the fourth century B. c. He was one of those who defended the opinion that what is drunk goes into the lungs (Plut. /. c; Aul. Gell. I. c). Some ancient critics attributed to Philistion the treatise De SalvJbri Victus Ratione (Galen, Comment, in Hippocr. " De Rat. Vict, in Morh. Acuf i. 17, vol. XV. p, 455, Comment, in Hippocr. " Aphor.'' vi. 1, vol. xviii. pt. i. p. 9), and also that De Victus Ratione (Galen, De Aliment. Facult. i. 1, vol. vi. p. 473), both of which form part of the Hippocratic Collection ; and by some persons he was considered to be one of the founders of the sect of the Empirici {De Suhfg. Empir. c. 1, vol. ii. p. 340, ed. Chart.). He wrote a work on materia medica (Galen, De Succed. init. vol. xix. p. 721) and on Cookery PHILISTUS. 295 (Athen. xii. J 2, p. 516), and is several times quoted by Pliny (//. N. xx. 15, 34, 48) and Galen (De Nat. Facult. ii. 8, vol. ii. p. 110, De Usu Respir. c 1, vol. iv. p. 471, De Meth. Med. i. 3, ii. 5, vol. X. pp. 28, 1 1 1 ). Oribasius attributes to him the invention of a machine for reducing luxations of the humerus {De Machinam. c. 4, p. 164). He is perhaps the person mentioned by M. Aurelius Antoninus (vi. 47). A brother of Philistion, who was also a phy- sician, but whose name is not known, is quoted by Caelius Aurelianus. {De Morh. Chron. iii. 8, V. I, pp. 488, 555.) [W.A.G.] PHILISTIS (*i'At(rT«),a queen of Syracuse, known only from her coins, which are numerous, and of fine workmanship, and from the occurrence of her name (bearing the title of queen, as it does also on her coins) in an inscription in large letters on the great theatre of Syracuse. The circum- stance that it is here associated with that of Nereis, the wife of Gelon, as well as the style and fabric of the coins, which closely resemble those of Hie- ron II. and his son, leads to the conclusion that these were struck during the long reign of Hie- ron II. ; and the most probable conjecture is that Philistis was the wife of Hieron himself. (R. Ro- chette, Mimoires de Numismatique et d^Antiquitt^ pp. 63 — 78 ; Visconti, Iconogr. Grecque, vol. ii. pp. 21 — 25. The earlier disquisitions and hypo- theses on the subject are cited by these two au- thors.) [E. H. B.] PHILISTUS {^ii(TTos). 1. An Athenian, son of Pasicles, who accompanied Neleus, the son of Codrus, on his migration to Ionia, where he founded a temple on the promontory of Mycale, dedicated to the Eleusinian Demeter. (Herod, ix. 97.) 2. A Syracusan, son of Archonides or Archo- menides (Suid. y.^lKitnos ; Paus. v. 23. §6), one of the most celebrated historians of antiquity, though, unfortunately, none of his works have come down to us. The period of his birth is not men- tioned, but it can hardly be placed later than B. c. 435, as Plutarch expressly speaks of him as having been an eye-witness of the operations of Gylippus, during the siege of Syracuse by the Athenians, in B. c. 415, and also tells us that he was an old man at the time of his death in B. c. 356. (Plut. Nic. 19, Dion, 35.) It seems also probable that he was considerably older than Dionysius. The first oc- casion on which we hear of his appearance in public life was after the capture of Agrigentum by the Carthaginians in B. c. 406, when Dionysius, then a young man, came forward in the assembly of the people to inflame the popular indignation against their unsuccessful generals, and the magistrates having imposed on him a fine for turbulent and seditious language, Philistus not only discharged the fine, but expressed his willingness to do so as often as the magistrates should think fit to inflict it. (Diod. xiii. 91.) Having by this means paved the way for the young demagogxie to the attain- ment of the supreme power, he naturally enjoj'ed a high place in his favour during the period of his rule ; so great indeed was the confidence reposed in him by Dionysius, that the latter entrusted him with the charge of the citadel of Syracuse, upon the safe custody of which his power in great mea- sure depended. According to one account, also, it was Philistus who, by his energetic and spirited counsels, prevented Dionysius from abandoning u 4