Phaenias of Eresus

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Phaenias of Eresus (

Lesbos, important as an immediate follower of and commentator on Aristotle. He came to Athens about 332 BCE, and joined his compatriot, Theophrastus, in the Peripatetic school. His writings on logic
and science appear to have been commentaries or supplements to the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. He also wrote extensively on history. His works have only survived in fragments quoted by other authors.

Life

Phaenias was born in

Diogenes Laërtius.[1] He came to Athens around 332 BCE,[2] and joined Theophrastus in the Peripatetic school. He was the most distinguished disciple of Aristotle, after Theophrastus. He wrote upon every department of philosophy, as it was studied by the Peripatetics, especially logic, botany
, history, and literature.

Philosophy

Logic

We have little information concerning his works on logic. He seems to have written commentaries and supplements to the works of Aristotle, which eventually became eclipsed by the writings of the master himself. In a passage of Ammonius[3] we are told that Eudemus, Phaenias, and Theophrastus wrote, in emulation of their master, Categories and De Interpretatione and Analytics. There is also an important passage respecting ideas, preserved by Alexander of Aphrodisias, from a work of Phaenias, Against Diodorus,[4] which may possibly be the same as the work Against the Sophists, from which Athenaeus cites a criticism on certain musicians.[5]

Natural history

A work On Plants is repeatedly quoted by Athenaeus, and frequently in connection with the work of Theophrastus on the same subject, to which, therefore, it may have been a supplement.

humans; and, in his style, we trace the exactness and the care about definitions which characterize the Peripatetic school
.

History

Phaenias is spoken of by

tyrants, upon which he wrote several works. One of these was called On the Tyrants in Sicily.[9] Another was entitled On Killing Tyrants for Revenge, in which he appears to have discussed further the question touched upon by Aristotle in his Politics.[10] We have several quotations from this work, and among them the story of Antileon and Hipparinus who killed the tyrant of Herakleia.[11]

Literature

Concerning literary history two works of Phaenias are mentioned. In On Poets, which is quoted by Athenaeus,

Diogenes Laërtius.[13]

Phaenias of Eresus was also among the first to make systematic collections towards a Greek musical history. His treatise and others, now lost, were key sources for compilers in Imperial times, such as Athenaeus and pseudo-Plutarch, and ultimately supplied much material for the late

Hellenistic age."[14]

Notes

  1. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, v. 37; Schol. in Apollon. i. 972; Strabo, xiii.
  2. ^ Suda s.v. Phanias, comp. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, i.
  3. ^ Ammonius Hermiae, ad Categ. p. 13; Schol. Arist. p. 28, a. 40, ed. Brandis
  4. ^ Schol. Arist. p. 566, a. ed. Brandis
  5. ^ Athenaeus, xiv.
  6. ^ Athenaeus, ii., ix.
  7. ^ Plutarch, Themistocles, 13
  8. ^ Athenaeus, viii.; comp. Eustathius, p. 35, 18; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, i.; Plutarch, Solon, 14, 32, Themistocles, 1, 7, 73; Suda, Phaenias; Athenaeus, ii.
  9. ^ Athenaeus, i., vi.
  10. ^ Aristotle, Politics, v. 8, 9, etc.
  11. ^ Athenaeus, iii., x.; Parthenius, Erotica Pathemata, 7.
  12. ^ Athenaeus, viii.
  13. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 65, vi. 8
  14. ^ Franklin 2001

References

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Phanias".
  • Hellmann, Oliver & Mirhady, David (eds.). Phaenias of Eresus. Text, Translation and Discussion, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2015. (RUSCH XIX).
  • John Curtis Franklin, Dictionaries of music 2001
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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