Phanias of Eresus
Encyclopedia
Phaenias of Eresus was a Greek
philosopher from 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
. None of his works have survived.
in Lesbos. He was the friend and fellow-citizen of Theophrastus
, a letter of whose to Phaenias is mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius
. He came to Athens
around 332 BCE, 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
.
. 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
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
, which may possibly be the same as the work Against the Sophists, from which Athenaeus
cites a criticism on certain musicians.
, who quotes him as an authority, as "a philosopher well read in history." He wrote a sort of chronicle
called Prytaneis Eresioi, the second book of which is quoted by Athenaeus. It was either a history of his native place or a general history of Greece arranged according to the period of the Eresian magistracy. He also concerned himself with the history of the tyrants, upon which he wrote several works. One of these was called On the Tyrants in Sicily
. 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. We have several quotations from this work, and among them the story of Antileon and Hipparinus
who killed the tyrant of Herakleia
.
s and comedian
s. On the Socratic philosophers, is twice referred to by Diogenes Laërtius
.
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 lexicon
s. "Such compilations reflect the Greek cosmopolitanism, with its more generalized forms of language, literature, art and music, which was the hallmark of the Hellenistic age."
Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...
philosopher from Lesbos
Lesbos Island
Lesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island. It is separated from Turkey by the narrow Mytilini Strait....
, important as an immediate follower of and commentator on Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
. He came to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
about 332 BCE, and joined his compatriot, Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
, in the Peripatetic school. His writings on logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
appear to have been commentaries or supplements to the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. He also wrote extensively on history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
. None of his works have survived.
Life
Phaenias was born in EresosEresos
Eresos and its twin beach village Skala Eresou are located in the southwest part of the Greek island of Lesbos. They are villages visited by considerable number of tourists...
in Lesbos. He was the friend and fellow-citizen of Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
, a letter of whose to Phaenias is mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...
. He came to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
around 332 BCE, and joined Theophrastus in the Peripatetic school. He was the most distinguished disciple of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, after Theophrastus. He wrote upon every department of philosophy, as it was studied by the Peripatetics, especially logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, and literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
.
Logic
We have little information concerning his works on LogicLogic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
. He seems to have written commentaries and supplements to the works of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, which eventually became eclipsed by the writings of the master himself. In a passage of Ammonius
Ammonius Hermiae
Ammonius Hermiae was a Greek philosopher, and the son of the Neoplatonist philosophers Hermias and Aedesia. He was a pupil of Proclus in Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, writing commentaries on Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers....
we are told that Eudemus, Phaenias, and Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
wrote, in emulation of their master, Categories and De Interpretatione and Analytics. There is also an important passage respecting ideas
Theory of Forms
Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas asserts that non-material abstract forms , and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. When used in this sense, the word form is often capitalized...
, preserved by Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias was a Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria, and lived and taught in Athens at the beginning of the 3rd century, where he held a position as head of the...
, from a work of Phaenias, Against Diodorus
Diodorus Cronus
Diodorus Cronus was a Greek philosopher and dialectician connected to the Megarian school. He was most notable for logic innovations, including his master argument fomulated in response to Aristotle's discussion of future contingents.-Life:...
, which may possibly be the same as the work Against the Sophists, from which Athenaeus
Athenaeus
Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...
cites a criticism on certain musicians.
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. The fragments quoted by Athenaeus are sufficient to give us some notion of the contents of the work and the style of the writer. He seems to have paid special attention to plants used in gardens and otherwise closely connected with 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 PlutarchPlutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, who quotes him as an authority, as "a philosopher well read in history." He wrote a sort of chronicle
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
called Prytaneis Eresioi, the second book of which is quoted by Athenaeus. It was either a history of his native place or a general history of Greece arranged according to the period of the Eresian magistracy. He also concerned himself with the history of the tyrants, upon which he wrote several works. One of these was called On the Tyrants in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. 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. We have several quotations from this work, and among them the story of Antileon and Hipparinus
Hipparinus
Hipparinus can refer to:* Hipparinus, the father of Dion and father-in-law and advisor of Dionysius the Elder.* Hipparinus, tyrant of Syracuse from 352-351 BCE and a son of Dionysius the Elder.* Hipparinus, the son of Dion....
who killed the tyrant of Herakleia
Herakleia
The Herakleia were ancient festivals honoring the divine hero Heracles. The ancient Athenians celebrated the festival, which commemorated the death of Heracles, on the second day of the month of Metageitnion , at the Κυνοσαργες gymnasium at the demos Diomeia outside the walls of Athens, in a...
.
Literature
Concerning literary history two works of Phaenias are mentioned. In On Poets, which is quoted by Athenaeus, he seems to have paid particular attention to the Athenian musicianMusician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s and comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
s. On the Socratic philosophers, is twice referred to by Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is definitively known about his life...
.
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 lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
s. "Such compilations reflect the Greek cosmopolitanism, with its more generalized forms of language, literature, art and music, which was the hallmark of the Hellenistic age."