Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/249

PHANIAS. 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 especial attention to plants xised in gardens and otherwise closely connected -ft'ith man ; and in his style we trace the exactness and the care about definitions which characterize the school of Aristotle. III. On History. Phanias wrote much in this de- partment. He is spoken of by Plutarch, who quotes him as an authority {Tltemistocles, 13), as dvrjp ^i<To(p05 Kal ypafj.fj.drwv ovk direipos IcrropiKoiv. He wrote a sort of chronicle of his native city, under the title of DpuToi/eis 'Epetrtoi, the second book of which is quoted by Athenaeus (viii. p. 333, e. ; comp. Eustath. p. 35, 18 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, i. pp. 144, 145, Sylb. ; Plut. Sol. 14, 32, Tlieviist. 1, 7, 73 ; Suid. and Etj-m. Mag. s. v. KvpSeis ; Ath. ii. p. 48, d.). It is doubtful, however, whether all these citations refer to one work or to more. From the references to Solon and Themis- tocles, some suppose that Phanias wrote a distinct work on Athenian history ; but, on the other hand, as the Upvrdveis 'Epecrioi is the only chronological work of his of which we have the title, it may be supposed that this work was a chronicle of the history of Greece, arranged under the several years, which were distinguished by the name of the Prytanes Eponymi of Eresos. Most of the quotations refer to some point of chronology. He also busied himself with a department of history, which the philosophers of his time particularly cul- tivated, the history of the tyrants, upon which he wrote several works. One of these was about the tyrants of Sicily (irepi twv ev StKeAfoi rvpduvav, Ath. i. p. 6, e., vi. p. 232, c). Another was en- titled Tvpduvwu dvaipecns l/c rip-capias., in which he appears to have discussed further the question touched upon by Aristotle in his Politic (v. 8, 9, &c.). We have several quotations from this work, and among them the story of Antileon and Hip- parinus. (Ath. iii. p. 90, e., x. p. 438, c. ; Parthen. Erot. 7.) It is not clear to which of the works of Phanias the passages cited by Athenaeus (i. p. 1 6, e.) and Plutarch {de Defect. Orac. c. 23) ought to be re- ferred. They evidently belong to the historical class. IV. On Literature. In the department of literary history two works of Phanias are mentioned, li^pl TroirjTuv and riepl rwv 'S.wKpariKZv. The second book of the former is quoted by Athenaeus (viii. p. 352), and the latter is twice referred to by Diogenes (ii. 65, vi. 8). In the former work he seems to have paid particular attention to the Athenian musicians and comedians. ( Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 84, ed. Westermann ; Fabric. Bihl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 502 ; Voss. Diatr. de Phania Eresio, Gandav. 1 824 ; Plehn, Lesbiaea^ pp. 215, &c.; Ebert, Diss. Sic. pp. 76, &c. ; Bockh, Corp. Inscr. vol. ii. p. 304, &c. ; Preller, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklop'ddie, s. V.) 2. A disciple of Poseidonius, whom Vossius has confounded with the above, but Menagius and Jonsius rightly regard him as a different person. Diogenes cites him, ev t<jj 7rpwT<j; tcw/ Hoaeiduviwu (TxoKwv (vh. 41). 3. A poet of the Greek Anthology, who had a place in the Garland of Meleager, and lived, as is evident from his 6th epigram, between the times of Epicurus and of Meleager, that is, between the early part of the third and the early part of the first PHANODEMUS. 237 centuries B. c. We have eight of his epigrams, (Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 52 ; Jacobs, Anth. Graec vol. ii. p. 53, vol. xiii. p. 933.) [P. S.] PHA'NOCLES {4favoKi]s one of the best of the later Greek elegiac poets. We have no exact information respecting his time, but he seems, from the style of his poetry, to have lived in the same period as Hermesianax, Philetas, and Callimachus, that is, in the time of Philip and Alexander the Great. The elegiac poetry of that period was occupied for the most part in describing the man- ners and spirit of old Greek life, under the form of narrations, chiefly of an amatory character, the per- sonages of which were taken from the old mytho- logy. Phanocles is called by Plutarch epwTiKos dvrp, a phrase which very well describes the nature of his poetry (Quaest. Conviv. iv. 5. 3, p. 671, b.). He seems only to have written one poem, which was entitled "Epures ^ Kaol (Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 750, Protrept. p. 32), or, in Latin, Cupidines (Lactant. Argum. iv. in Ovid. Metam. ii,). The second title, KaAof, describes the nature of its con- tents ; it was entirely upon paederasteia ; but the subject was so treated as to exhibit the retri- bution which fell upon those who addicted them- selves to the practice. We still possess a consider- able fragment from the opening of the poem (Sto- baeus, Flor. Ixiv. 14), which describes the love of Orpheus for Calais, and the vengeance taken upon him by the Thracian women. From other references to the poem we learn that it celebrated the loves of Cycnus for Phaethon (Lactant. I. c. ; comp. Ovid, Metam. ii. 367—380), of Dionysus for Adonis (Plut. I. c), of Tantalus for Ganymede (Euseb. ap. Syncell. p. 161, d. ; Ores. Hist. i. 12), and of Agamemnon for Argynnus (Clem. Alex. Protrep. p. 32 ; comp. Steph. Byz. s. v. "Apyvvvos ; Ath. xiii. p. 603, d. ; Plut. Gryll. 7 ; Propert. iii. 7. 21 — 24) ; but in every case the vengeance, above referred to, falls upon the lover, either in hia own death or in that of the beloved. It would seem, in fact, that the poem was a sort of tragic history of the practice, tracing it downwards from its origin among the barbarians of Thrace. The passage of the poem which still remains is esteemed by Ruhnken and other critics as one of the most perfect and beautiful specimens of elegiac poetry which have come down to us, and as superior even to Hermesianax in the simple beauty of the language and the smoothness of the verse. The fragments of Phanocles have been edited by Ruhnken, Epid. Grit. ii. Opusc. vol. ii. p. 615 i* Bach, Philetue, Hermesianadis, atque Phanodis Reliquiae ; and Schneidewin, Delectus Poes. Graec. p. 158 ; the large fragment and another distich are contained in the Greek Anthology. (Bninck, Anal. vol. i. p. 414 ; Jacobs, Anth. Grace, vol. i. p. 204.) The chief fragment has been translated by Jacobs, Vermischte Schrijien, vol. ii. p. 121, by Weber, die Eleg. Didder der Hellenen, p. 289, and by Herzberg, in the Zeitschrift fur Alter- ihumswissenschaft, 1847, pp. 28, 29. (Bergk, Zeitscliriji f. Alterthumswissenschq/l, 1841, p. 94 ; Welcker, Sappho, p. 31 ; Preller, in Ersch and G ruber's Encyklop'ddie, s.v.) [P- S.] PHANO'CRITUS {^av6Kpiros), the author of a work on the philosopher Eudoxus (jrepl Ev5o|oi;, Athen. vii. p. 276, f.). PHANODE'MUS {^wSS-nfios), the author of one of those works on the legends and antiquities of Attica, known under the name of Atthides. The