Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/336

Rh 324 PHILOSTRATUS. and style. In all of them, except the lives of the sophists, Pliilostratus 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 his- torical truth, but solely as a species of gymnastics, which trained the mental athlete to be ready 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. ii. 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 {dyuvia-TiKooTe- pov) than was becoming, and others were deficient in perspicuity. Both these characteristics were un- befitting 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 (^IvQvirqjxaTwv ovS' iirix^ipriffeav), and on the other perspicuity is absolutely necessary ; for he pro- nounces the law, and perspicuity is the law's inter- preter." And in the introduction to his Et/coVes, he makes an express distinction between the man fiouk6/xevos (ro(pl^eadai^ and him who inquires se- riously 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, TrAet'w cro^ifeTaj, that in his view the pro- fession of a sophist extended to all kinds of em- bellishment 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 semi- poetical 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 under- stood. 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 in- corporates with his own, especially Homer, He- rodotus, Xenophon, Euripides, Pindar, and De- mosthenes. The following is a list of the works of Philo- stratus : — I. ITie Life of ApoUonius of Tyana. A full account of this work, which has principally ren- dered Philostratus distinguished, is given under Apollonius. [Voh I. p. 242, &c.] It is divided into eight books, and bears the title la Is t6v PHILOSTRATUS. Tuavea 'AttoWwuiov. In composing it, he seems at first to have followed Herodotus as his model, whom however he forsakes as he gets into those parts where he finds an opportunity to be more rheto- rical, as in the appearance of Philostratus before Domitian (viii. 7). Kayser {ibid. p. viii.) thinks that in the latter part he had Thucydides in his eye, but Xenophon seems rather to have been his model. It would be endless to enumerate all the works that have been written in whole or hi part regard- ing this life of ApoUonius. An examination or notice of them will be found in the prefaces of Olearius and of Kayser. The work itself was first published by Aldus, 1502, Venice, fol., with a Latin translation by Alemannus Rhinuccinus, and along with it, as an antidote, Eusebius, contra Hieroclc.m. The other editions having this work contain the whole works of Philostratus, as will be mentioned afterwards. The life of ApoUonius (with a commentary by Artus Thomas) was trans- lated into French by Blaise de Vigenere, 1596, 2 vols. 4to., and repeatedly republished, the trans- lation being revised and corrected by Fed. Morel, one of the editors of Philostratus (Bayle, art. Apol- lonius Tyanaeus). A translation of the two first books, with notes professedly philological, but only partly so, and partly containing a commentary of bitter infidelity, was published in London, 1680, fol. The translation, and probably the philological notes, both of which evince much reading but not accurate scholarship, are by Charles Blount, whose tragical end is told by Bayle {I. c). The other notes were partly derived, it is said, from a manu- script of Lord Herbert. This translation was pro- hibited with severe penalties, in 1693, but was twice reprinted on the Continent. II. The Lives of the Sophists (Bioz 'S,o(pi(rr6v). This work bears the following title in its dedica- tion in the best MSS. : — T(^ AaiJ-npoTaTcp vTrdrcp 'AvTcovLcp ropSiav^ ^Kdv'ios ^iXoarparos. Of An- tonius Gordianus mention has been already made. The author states the object of his book to be two- fold — to write the history of philosophers who had the character of being sophists, and of those who were par ejccellence (/ffpicos) sophists. This dis- tinction, which is well marked by Synesius {in Vita Dionis), was first pointed out in more recent times by the acute Perizonius (in his preface to Aelian, V. H. ed. Gronov. 1731, p. 48, &c.), and is essential to elucidate the chronology of the Lives. In his Frooemion Philostratus makes an instructive distinction between the philosophers and the so- phists. Philosophy doubts and investigates. The sophist's art takes its grounds for granted, and em- bellishes without investigation. The former he compares to the knowledge of futurity, carefully formed from the observation of the stars, the latter to the divine afflatus of the oracular tripos. Again, in the history of this art, he has two periods, cha- racterized by their subjects. The sophists of the first period discussed such subjects as courage, jus- tice, divine and human, and cosmogony ; the second presented lively representations of the rich and the poor, and in general individualized more the subjects presented by history. In this respect the sophists seem to have borne to philosophers much the same relation that, in modern times, historical fiction does to history. He also states that the main distinction of a sophist was the power which he had over language, and discusses, in connec-