Thrasyllus of Mendes
Encyclopedia
Thrasyllus of Mendes, whose full name was Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus (flourished 1st century BCE & 1st century, died 36 CE, Greek
: Τιβέριος Κλαύδιος Θράσυλλος or Θράσυλλος Μενδήσιος), was an Egypt
ian Greek
grammarian and literary commentator from Mendes
, Egypt. Although he is often mentioned in secondary sources as coming from Alexandria
(Oxford Classical Dictionary
), no primary source confirms this origin. It is possible that Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus, the astrologer of Tiberius
who is famously mentioned in Tacitus
(Annals of Rome) and Suetonius
(Lives of the Caesars) was not the same individual as Thrasyllus of Mendes.
Although Thrasyllus of Mendes was an Alexandrian grammarian and editor of Plato
and Democritus
, Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus is most well known as the astrologer
of the Roman Emperor
Tiberius
. Thrasyllus encountered the future Emperor, putative heir to the first Roman Emperor Augustus
, on the Greek island of Rhodes
, where Tiberius had been exiled. Thrasyllus predicted that Tiberius would soon be recalled to Rome
and officially named Augustus' successor, and remained close to him during the intervening years and the years of his reign, receiving the valuable gift of Roman citizenship for himself and his wife Aka II of Commagene
, who might have been either a granddaughter or great-granddaughter of King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene
, and therefore a Princess.
Tiberius’ daughter-in-law Livilla
consulted him during her affair with Tiberius' chief minister Sejanus
, and Thrasyllus persuaded Tiberius to leave Rome for Capri
while clandestinely supporting Sejanus. Thrasyllus' son-in-law Naevius Sutorius Macro
carried out the orders that destroyed Sejanus, whether with Thrasyllus’ knowledge is unclear. Thrasyllus remained on Capri with Tiberius advising him on his relationship with the various claimants to the succession, and favoring Tiberius’ great-nephew Caligula
with whom his daughter Eunia
was having a tempestuous affair. By accurately predicting Tiberius' longevity, the astrologer saved the lives of a number of noble Romans suspected falsely of plotting against the Emperor; believing Thrasyllus implicitly, Tiberius was confident that he would outlive any plotters, and so failed to act against them. Thrasyllus predeceased the Emperor, and did not live to see the realization of his prediction that Caligula would succeed.
Thrasyllus was the author of a Pinax which is lost, but has been summarized in later sources (CCAG [Catalogue of the Codices of the Greek Astrologers] 8/3: 99-101) which borrows from astrological notions found in Nechepso/Petosiris (see article on Hellenistic astrology
) and Hermes Trismegistus
, early pseudepigraphical sources of astrology. He is cited by Vettius Valens
, Porphyry
and Hephaistio
.
With Aka II, Thrasyllus had two children: a son Tiberius Claudius Balbilus
and a daughter Eunia
, who married the Praetorian Prefect Naevius Sutorius Macro
. Through his son, he would become the paternal grandfather of Claudia Capitolina
, who would marry the Greek Prince from the Kingdom of Commagene
called Gaius Julius Archelaus Antiochus Epiphanes
. Through Capitolina, Thrasyllus would become great-grandfather to Prince Philopappos of Commagene
and Princess Julia Balbilla of Commagene
.
According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica
, Thrasyllus wrote that the Exodus
of the Israelites from Egypt
took place in 1690 BC. The sections include:
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Τιβέριος Κλαύδιος Θράσυλλος or Θράσυλλος Μενδήσιος), was an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
grammarian and literary commentator from Mendes
Mendes
Mendes , the Greek name of the Ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in Ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba ....
, Egypt. Although he is often mentioned in secondary sources as coming from Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
(Oxford Classical Dictionary
Oxford Classical Dictionary
-Overview:The Oxford Classical Dictionary is considered to be the standard one-volume encyclopaedia in English of topics relating to the Ancient World and its civilizations. It was first published in 1949, edited by Max Cary with the assistance of H. J. Rose, H. P. Harvey, and A. Souter. A...
), no primary source confirms this origin. It is possible that Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus, the astrologer of Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
who is famously mentioned in Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
(Annals of Rome) and Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
(Lives of the Caesars) was not the same individual as Thrasyllus of Mendes.
Although Thrasyllus of Mendes was an Alexandrian grammarian and editor of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and Democritus
Democritus
Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
, Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus is most well known as the astrologer
Astrologer
An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
of the Roman Emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
. Thrasyllus encountered the future Emperor, putative heir to the first Roman Emperor Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
, on the Greek island of Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, where Tiberius had been exiled. Thrasyllus predicted that Tiberius would soon be recalled to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and officially named Augustus' successor, and remained close to him during the intervening years and the years of his reign, receiving the valuable gift of Roman citizenship for himself and his wife Aka II of Commagene
Aka II of Commagene
Aka II of Commagene, also known as Aka II was a Princess from the Kingdom of Commagene, who lived between the 1st century BC and 1st century. She was of Armenian and Greek descent.There are two possibilities on the origins of Aka II...
, who might have been either a granddaughter or great-granddaughter of King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene
Antiochus I Theos of Commagene
Antiochus I Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Philorhomaios Philhellenos Antiochus I Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Philorhomaios Philhellenos Antiochus I Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Philorhomaios Philhellenos (Greek: о Αντίοχος Θεός Δίκαιος Επιφανής Φιλορωμαίος Φιλέλλην, meaning Antiochos, a just, eminent god, friend...
, and therefore a Princess.
Tiberius’ daughter-in-law Livilla
Livilla
Livia Julia was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor and sister of the Roman Emperor Claudius and Germanicus...
consulted him during her affair with Tiberius' chief minister Sejanus
Sejanus
Lucius Aelius Seianus , commonly known as Sejanus, was an ambitious soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius...
, and Thrasyllus persuaded Tiberius to leave Rome for Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
while clandestinely supporting Sejanus. Thrasyllus' son-in-law Naevius Sutorius Macro
Naevius Sutorius Macro
Quintus Naevius Cordus Sutorius Macro was a prefect of the Praetorian Guard, from 31 until 38, serving under the Roman Emperors Tiberius and Caligula...
carried out the orders that destroyed Sejanus, whether with Thrasyllus’ knowledge is unclear. Thrasyllus remained on Capri with Tiberius advising him on his relationship with the various claimants to the succession, and favoring Tiberius’ great-nephew Caligula
Caligula
Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...
with whom his daughter Eunia
Eunia
Eunia, sometimes known as Ennia, was a Greek woman who lived in the 1st century Roman Empire. According to Suetonius she is known as Ennia Naeva .Eunia was of Greek and Armenian descent...
was having a tempestuous affair. By accurately predicting Tiberius' longevity, the astrologer saved the lives of a number of noble Romans suspected falsely of plotting against the Emperor; believing Thrasyllus implicitly, Tiberius was confident that he would outlive any plotters, and so failed to act against them. Thrasyllus predeceased the Emperor, and did not live to see the realization of his prediction that Caligula would succeed.
Thrasyllus was the author of a Pinax which is lost, but has been summarized in later sources (CCAG [Catalogue of the Codices of the Greek Astrologers] 8/3: 99-101) which borrows from astrological notions found in Nechepso/Petosiris (see article on Hellenistic astrology
Hellenistic astrology
Hellenistic astrology is a tradition of horoscopic astrology that was developed and practiced in Hellenistic Egypt and the Mediterranean, whose texts were written in Greek , mainly around the late 2nd or early 1st century B.C.E...
) and Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus is the eponymous author of the Hermetic Corpus, a sacred text belonging to the genre of divine revelation.-Origin and identity:...
, early pseudepigraphical sources of astrology. He is cited by Vettius Valens
Vettius Valens
Vettius Valens was a 2nd-century Hellenistic astrologer, a somewhat younger contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy.Valens' major work is the Anthology, ten volumes in Greek written roughly within the period 150 to 175. The Anthology is the longest and most detailed treatise on astrology which has...
, Porphyry
Porphyry (philosopher)
Porphyry of Tyre , Porphyrios, AD 234–c. 305) was a Neoplatonic philosopher who was born in Tyre. He edited and published the Enneads, the only collection of the work of his teacher Plotinus. He also wrote many works himself on a wide variety of topics...
and Hephaistio
Hephaistio of Thebes
Hephaistio of Thebes was a Late Antique astrologer of Egyptian descent who wrote a work in Greek known as the Apotelesmatics in the early 5th century...
.
With Aka II, Thrasyllus had two children: a son Tiberius Claudius Balbilus
Tiberius Claudius Balbilus
Tiberius Claudius Balbillus or Balbilus, also known as ‘Balbillus the Wise‘, was an Egyptian Greek astrologer and a learned scholar. Balbillus was the son of astrologer Tiberius Claudius Thrasyllus, also known as Thrasyllus of Mendes and Princess Aka II of Commagene, who was either a granddaughter...
and a daughter Eunia
Eunia
Eunia, sometimes known as Ennia, was a Greek woman who lived in the 1st century Roman Empire. According to Suetonius she is known as Ennia Naeva .Eunia was of Greek and Armenian descent...
, who married the Praetorian Prefect Naevius Sutorius Macro
Naevius Sutorius Macro
Quintus Naevius Cordus Sutorius Macro was a prefect of the Praetorian Guard, from 31 until 38, serving under the Roman Emperors Tiberius and Caligula...
. Through his son, he would become the paternal grandfather of Claudia Capitolina
Claudia Capitolina
Claudia Capitolina was an Egyptian Greek woman who lived in the Roman Empire, in the 1st century and possibly in the 2nd century. Capitolina came from a distinguished family of Equestrian rank. She was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt. Capitolina was the daughter and only child of Tiberius...
, who would marry the Greek Prince from the Kingdom of Commagene
Kingdom of Commagene
The Kingdom of Commagene was an ancient kingdom of the Hellenistic Age.Little is known of the region of Commagene prior to the beginning of the 2nd century BC. However, it seems that, from what little evidence remains, Commagene formed part of a larger state that also included Sophene...
called Gaius Julius Archelaus Antiochus Epiphanes
Gaius Julius Archelaus Antiochus Epiphanes
Gaius Julius Archelaus Antiochus Epiphanes, also known as Julius Archelaus Epiphanes; Epiphanes; Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes or simply known as Gaius was an influential prince of the Kingdom of Commagene, who lived in the 1st century.Epiphanes was the first-born son and child to King...
. Through Capitolina, Thrasyllus would become great-grandfather to Prince Philopappos of Commagene
Philopappos
Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos or Philopappus, was a Prince of the Kingdom of Commagene who lived in the Roman Empire during the 1st century and 2nd century. He was one of the most prominent Greeks who lived in the Roman Empire....
and Princess Julia Balbilla of Commagene
Julia Balbilla
Julia Balbilla was a noble Roman woman and a poet who lived between the 1st century and 2nd century in the Roman Empire.-Family & Early Life:...
.
According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica
Encyclopaedia Judaica
The Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 26-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people and their faith, Judaism. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, holidays, language, scripture, and religious teachings...
, Thrasyllus wrote that the Exodus
The Exodus
The Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
of the Israelites from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
took place in 1690 BC. The sections include:
- DudimoseDudimoseDjedhetepre Dudimose I was an Egyptian king of the Second Intermediate Period. He is mentioned on stela found at Edfu belonging to a king's son and commander Khonsemwaset. It is not known whether the latter was the son of the king, as king's son was a title not only given to the actual children of...
- Ipuwer PapyrusIpuwer papyrusThe Ipuwer Papyrus is a single papyrus holding an ancient Egyptian poem, called The Admonitions of Ipuwer or The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All. Its official designation is Papyrus Leiden I 344 recto...
- ShiphrahShiphrahShiphrah was one of two midwives who helped prevent the genocide of Hebrew children by the Egyptians, according to Exodus 1:15-21.The name is found in a list of slaves in Egypt during the reign of Sobekhotep III. This list is on Brooklyn 35.1446, a papyrus scroll kept in the Brooklyn Museum. The...