u 



PHILOSTIIATUS, FLAV1US. 



PHOCAS. 



816 



miracles to those whom the Patriarch considered as heretics. The 

 epitome was translated iutu Latin, with comments, by J. (jothufredus, 

 4to, Geneva, 1642, and alto by H. de Valois, ' Compendium Hiatoruo 

 EoelwUtticm Philcstorgii, quod dictuvit 1'hotius Patriarcba,' l't'a, 

 1873, with notes. There is also a French version: ' AbrcgiS de 

 nii-ti-irc de I'Eglise de Philostorge,' Paris, 1676. 



PHILO'STKATUS, FLAVIUS, a native of the island of Lcmnos, 

 was born in the second half of the 2nd century of our era ; Clinton 

 conjectures about 182, but perhaps it was a little earlier. He taught 

 rhetoric first at Atheus, and afterwards at Rome, where he became 

 known and was patronised by the Empress Julia, the wife of Septimius 

 Severus, who was partial to the learned. She commissioned him to 

 compile the biography of Apollonius of Tyana from some memoirs 

 written by a certain Dam is of Nineveh, who had accompanied 1'hilo- 

 stratus in his peregrinations, and which had conic into her possession. 

 Philostratus professes also to hare used in his compilation a collection 

 of letters of Apollonius, which were at one time iu the possession of 

 Hadrian, and were placed by that emperor in his palace at Antium, 

 together with certain responses of the Oracle of Trophonius, which 

 Apollonius had also collected. The biographer availed himself also, 

 according to his own statement, of the narrative of a certain Mazimus 

 who had known Apollouius. [AroLLONics OF TYANA.] The book of 

 Philostratus displays great credulity in the compiler, and a great want 

 of critical discrimination ; it also contains many anachronisms and 

 geographical errors. Huet and others have imagined that the object 

 of Philostratus was to write a parody of the life of Christ, but this 

 seems doubtful : the parody, if intended as such, is too gro>s; besides 

 which, it appears from the testimony of Lampridius ('Life of Alex. 

 Sevvrus'), that Christ was really worshipped by some of the later 

 heathen emperors, together with Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius, 

 then being all looked upon as holy men and tutelary genii. That 

 Apollonius of Tyana was a real character, a philosopher, and a 

 traveller, appears from various passages of ancient authors ; but it is 

 remarkable that no one mentions him until nearly a century after the 

 time assigned for his death. The Empress Julia, a Syriau by birth, 

 was probably fond of the marvellous ; and Philostratus, intending to 

 entertain her, inserted in his book all the wonderful stories he could 

 collect relative to his hero. It seems however that in the time of the 

 great struggle between the heathen and Christian religions, under 

 Diocletian and his immediate successors, some of the heathen writers 

 thought of availing themselves of the Life of Apollonius as a kind of 

 counterpoise to the Oospcl narrative. Hicrocles, prefect of Alexan- 

 dria, and an enemy of the Christians, wrote a book with that object, 

 in the shape of a comparison between the life of Apollonius by 

 Philostratus and that of Christ, of which book Euscbius wrote a 

 refutation : ' Eusebii Pamphili Animadversiones in Philostrati de 

 Apollouio Tyanensi Commentaries ob institutam cum illo ab Hieroele 

 Christi comparationem, adornaUe.' Lactontius {' Divin. Instit.,' v. 3) 

 alto combat* the same notion aa absurd. St Augustine (' Epist,' 4) 

 alludes to Apollonius as a magician whom the heathens compared with 

 Christ. (See Tillemont, ' Hist, des Empereurs liomains,' vol. ii, and 

 Bayle's article ' Apollonius de Tyane.') 



The other works of Philottratns are : 1, ' The Lives of the Sophists,' 

 in two books ; 2, ' Heroica,' or comments on the lives of some of the 

 heroes of Homer, in the shape of a dialogue ; 3, ' Icones,' or descriptions 

 of 64 paintings which were in a portico near Neapolis by the sea-shore 

 (these descriptions contain valuable information concerning the state 

 of ancient art); 4, Epistles, mostly erotic, excepting a few on matters 

 of literature ; one, which is inscribed to Julia Augusta, is an apology 

 for the sophist*. Philostratus wrote other works, such as a 

 ' Lexicon Khctoricum,' orations, &c., which ore lost His nephew, 

 who is styled Philostratus the Younger, and who lived under 

 Macrinus and Elagabalus, wrote also a book of ' Icones,' which are 

 not descriptions of actual paintings, but are so many subjects proposed 

 to pointers. 



Editions of all the existing works of Philostratua have been pub- 

 lished by ilorcllius, Paris, 1008; Olearius, fol., Leipzig, 1709; and 

 by Kayter, 4to., Zurich, 1844, with a valuable body of notes on 

 each work. There are separate editions of the lives of the ' Sophists,' 

 by Kayter, Heidelberg, 1838 ; of the ' Heroica,' by Boissonade, Paris, 

 8vo. 180G; and of the 'Icones,' by f. Jacobs, and F. Q. Wclcker, 

 Leipzig. 8vo. 1825. 



I'lil LOT AS. [PABMESIO.] 



PHILO'XKNCS, a uative of Erctria, was the pupil of Nicomachus 

 of Thebes, whom he imitated, and even surpassed in rapidity of execu- 

 tion : ha is said by Pliny (' Hut. Nat.,' xxxv., 1 0, 36) to have discovered 

 some more expeditious methods of operation in painting. Philoxenus 

 was particularly distinguished for a ' Battle of Alexander and Darius,' 

 which, according to Pliny, was not inferior to any of the productions 

 of ancient painting. It was painted by order of Ca.-nnn.ior. king of 

 Macedon, and therefore probably not long after the 116th Olympiad, 

 or B.C. 316. 



It is not improbable that the large mosaic, apparently representing 

 the battle of Issus, which was discovered in the year 1831, in Pompeii, 

 in the so-called house, ' del Fauno,' and is still preserved there, is a 

 repetition of the celebrated picture by Philoxeuus of that subject ; 

 for, independent of Alexander and Darius being the two most con- 

 spicuous figure-, the design and composition of the work ore so supe- 



rior to the execution, that its original baa evidently been the production 

 of an age long anterior to the degenerate period of the mosaic iUelf. 

 With tho single exception of the execution, the mosaic exhibits, in 

 every respect, merits of the highest order, and it is certainly one of the 

 most valuable relics of ancient art. Pliny his mentioned only two 

 works by Philoxenus, the one alluded to, and a lascivious piece, in 

 which were three satyrs feasting, a style of art much iu vogue with 

 Grecian painters, oven of the best days. 



PHLEUON (***), a native of Trallea in Lydia (Suidas), a freed- 

 man of the Emperor Hadrian. Nothing is known of the events of his 

 life, and the date of his death is uncertain ; however, as one of his 

 chronological works, which is no longer extant, carried the history 

 down to OL 229.2 A.I). 141 (Suidas), ho probably lived to the middle 

 of the 2nd century A.D. Some fragments of his works ore all that 

 remain ; the longest belongs to a treatise *<pl tfav/uurfw, ' De Mira- 

 bilibus.' It is a curious work, divided into thirty-five chapter* (some 

 of which arc very short), and containing (as might be expected from 

 the title) a great many absurd fables. The same may be said of a 

 shorter fragment of four chapters, -xtpl naxpoftiuv, ' De Longacvin.' The 

 third fragment that remains is a chapter vrpl ray 'OXiyurfwr, 'De 

 Olympiis,' which is supposed by Salmasius (' Ad Sportian.' p. 43) to be 

 the preface to a lost work, ' De Olympionicis.' 



But what has made Phlcgou's name more familiar among the 

 moderns is his being cited, though a heathen, as bearing witness to 

 the accomplishment of Christian prophecies. (Origen, ' Cont L'. ! -.,' 

 lib. it, 14, p. 69, ed. Spencer., Cantab., 1G77); but see Lardner's 

 ' Credibility,' pt ii., ' Heathen Testimonies,' ch. 13, who concludes that 

 " upon the whole this citation is of no great moment." But there is 

 another passage of this author which may be reckoned more material, 

 as it has been supposed to relate to the miraculous darkness widen 

 prevailed at the time of our Lord's crucifixion. In St. Jerome's Latin 

 version of tho 'Chronicle* of Kusebius (p. 155, ed. Pout, Burclig., 

 1604), the passage occurs as follows: "And so writes 1'hlegon, an 

 excellent compiler of the Olympiads, in his thirteenth book, saying, 

 ' In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad there 

 was a great and extraordinary eclipse of the sun, distinguished among 

 all that had happened before. At the sixth hour the day was turned 

 into dark night, so that the stars in the heavens were seen, and there 

 was an earthquake in Kithyniu which overthrew many houses in tho 

 city of Nice.' " (Compare Origen, ' Cont. Cels.,' lib. ii., 3d, p. 80 ; 

 Ib., C9, p. 96; and other authorities quoted by Lnrduer.) Tliii 

 passage was the origin of a controversy in England in the eatly part 

 of the last century between Mr. Whiston, Dr. bykes, Mr. Chapman, 

 and others, a long and complete account of which may be found in 

 the English translation of liaj le's ' Dictionary,' and iu Chaut'rpie'n 

 ' Supplement ' to it. The immediate cause of the controversy was tho 

 omission of the passage in the eighth edition of Dr. 8. Clarke's ' lloylo 

 Lectures,' published soon after bis death in 1732, although it had been 

 inserted in the first edition, which came out in 1706. This was done 

 at tho persuasion of Dr. Sykes, who had suggested to Clarke that an 

 undue stress had boon laid upon the passage. 



The principal objections against the authority of the passage in 

 question are thus briefly summed up by Dr. Adam Clarke (' Comment 

 on Mattb.' xxvii. 45) : 1, All the authors who quote Phlcgon differ and 

 often very materially, in what they say was found in him; 2, He says 

 nothing of ' Judtca :' what he eays is, that in such an Olympiad (some 

 say the 102nd, others the 202nd) there was 'an eclipse in Bithynia,' 

 and ' an earthquake at Nice ;' 3, He does not say that the earthquake 

 happened at the time of the eclipse; 4, He does not intimate that 

 this ' darkness ' was ' extraordinary,' or that the eclipse happened at 

 the ' full of the moon,' or that it lasted 'three hours;' all of which 

 circumstances could not have been omitted by him if he bad known 

 them ; 5, He speaks merely of an ordinary though perhaps total 

 eclipse of the sun, and cannot mean the darkness mentioned by the 

 Evangelists ; and 6, He speaks of an eclipse that happened in some 

 year of the 102nd or 202nd Olympiad, and therefore upon the whole, 

 little stress can be laid on what he says as applying to this event. 



The three remaining fragments of Phlegon were first published in 

 1568, Basil, 8vo, Or. et Lat, by Xylauder, together with Antonini 

 Liberalis, ' Transform. Conger.'; Apollonii, 'Hist. Mirab. ;' Antigoni 

 Carystii, ' Hist. Mirab. ;' and M. Antoninus, ' Do Vita suu,' An im- 

 proved edition, with notes by Meursius, appeared in 1620, Lugd. liut, 

 4to, Or. et Lat, which is reprinted by Uronovius, in his ' Thesaur. 

 Autiquit Urtcc.,' vol. viii, p. 2690, sq. and p. 2727, and vol. ix., p. 

 1289, sq. ; and also inserted among tho works of Meursius, vol. vii., 

 p. 77, sq. The best edition is by Westermanu, in his ' Scriptures 

 Iterum Mirabiliuui Urtcci,' Brunt., 1839. 



PHOCAS, a native of Asia Minor, of an obscure family, entered tho 

 army under the reign of the Emperor Mauritius, and attained the rank 

 of a centurion. He happened to be with his company on the banks of 

 the Danube when one of those mutinies so frequent in the history of 

 the Eastern empire broke out among the troops on that station, and 

 having probably made himself conspicuous among tho disall'ccted, bo 

 was tumultuously proclaimed leader of the insurgents, and he marched 

 with them to Constantinople. At the approach of the rebels an insur- 

 ' rectiou broke out in tho capital, and the emperor and his family were 

 ! obliged to escape in a boat to Chalcedon. Phocos was proclaimed 

 emperor and crowned by the patriarch, A.B. 602. Mauritius, being 



