Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/325

PHILON. conformable to the particular purpose of the object in question, as of chaff to burn (/cara ^piXrjv ey6- fjLei^ov eTTiTTjSeioTTjTa ; Alex. Aphrod. Nat. Qzial. i. 14. Compare on the whole question J. Harris, in Upton's Arriani Disseriat. Epict. ii. 19, ap. Schweighauser, vol. ii. p. 515, &c.) Diodorus had allowed the validity of hypothetical propositions only when the antecedent clause could never lead to an untrue conclusion, whereas Philon regarded those only as false which with a correct antecedent had an incorrect conclusion (Sext. Empir. adv. Math. viii. 1 1 3, &.c.Hyj)otyp. ii. 1 I0,comp. CicAcad. ii. 47, rfe Fato, 6). Both accordingly had sought for cri- teria for correct sequence in the members of hypo- thetical propositions, and each of them in a manner corresponding to what he maintained respecting the idea of the possible. Chrysippus attacked the assumption of each of them. The Philon who is spoken of as an Athenian and a disciple of Pyrrhon, though ridiculed by Timon as a sophist, can hardly be different from Philon the dialectician (Diog. Laert. ix. 67, ^9). Hieronyraus {Jov. 1) speaks of Philon the dia- lectician and the author of the Menexenus, as the instructor of Carneades, in contradiction to chro- nology, perhaps in order to indicate the sceptical direction of his doctrines. 3. The Academic, was a native of Larissa and a disciple of Clitomachus. After the conquest of Athens by Mithridates he removed thence to Rome, where he settled as a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric. Here Cicero was among his hearers (Cic. ad Fum. xiii. 1, Acad. i. 4. Brut. 89, Tusc. ii. 3). When Cicero composed his Quaestiones Academicae, Philon was no longer alive {Acad. ii. 6) ; he was already in Rome at the time when the dialogue in the books de Oratore is supposed to have been held (b. c. 92, de Orat. iii. 28). Through Philon the scepsis of the Academy returned to its original starting point, as a polemical antagonism against the Stoics, and so entered upon a new course, which some historians have spoken of as that of the fourth academy (Sext. Emp. Hypotyp. i. 220). He maintained that by means of con- ceptive notions (/caTaAr/TrTtK?) tpavraaia) objects could not be comprehended (a/caTaAijTrTo), but were comprehensible according to their nature (Sext. Emp. Hypotyp. i. 235 ; Cic. Acad. Quaest. ii. 6). How he understood the latter, whether he referred to the evidence and accordance of the sensations which we receive from things (Aristo- cles, ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. xiv. 9), or whether he had returned to the Platonic assumption of an immediate spiritual perception, is not clear. In opposition to his disciple Antiochus, he would not admit of a separation of an Old and a New Aca- demy, but would rather find the doubts of scepti- cism even in Socrates and Plato (Cic. Acad. Quaest. ii. 4, 5, 23), and not less perhaps in the New Academy the recognition of truth which burst through its scepticism. At least on the one hand, even though he would not resist the evi- dence of the sensations, he wished even here to meet with antagonists who would endeavour to refute his positions (Aristocles,/.c.),i.e. he felt the need of subjecting afresh what he had provisionally set down in his own mind as true to the examina- tion of scepticism ; and on the other hand, he did not doubt of arriving at a sure conviction respec- ting the ultimate end of life. [Ch. A. B.J PHILON (*tA«j'), the name of several physi- PHILON. 313 cians, whom it is almost impossible to distinguish with certainty. 1. A native of Tarsus in Cilicia, of whose date it can only be certainly determined that he lived in or before the first century after Christ, as Galen speaks of him as having lived sometime before his own age. He was the author of a celebrated an- tidote, called after his name Philonium^ ^iXwveiov. He embodied his directions for the composition of this medicine in a short enigmatical Greek poem, preserved by Galen, who has given an explanation of it {De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. ix. 4, vol. xiii. p. 267, &c.). This physician is supposed by Sprengel {Hist, de la Med. vol. ii.) and others to have been the same person as the grammarian, Herennius Philon, but probably without suiBcient reason. His antidote is frequently mentioned by the ancient medical writers, e. g. Galen {Ad Glauc. de Meth. Med. ii. 8, vol. xi. p. 114, Commevt. in Hippocr, " Epid. F/." vi. 5, vol. xvii. pt. ii. p. 331, De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. viii. 7, vol. xiii. p. 202, De Locis Affect, ii. 5, vol. viii. p. 84, De Meth. Med. xii. l,vol. x. p. 818), Aretaeus {De Cur. Morh. Chron. ii. 5, p. 335), Paulus Aegineta (iii. 23, vii. 11, pp. 440, 657), Oribasius {Synops. iii. Eupor. iv. 1 36, pp. 54, 675), A e tins (ii. 4. 28, iii. 1. 32, iii. 2. 1, iv. 1. 107, pp. 382, 478, 511, 660), Joannes Actuarius {De Meth. Med. v. 6, p. 263), Marcellus {De Medicam^ cc. 20, 22. pp. 329, 341), Alexander Trallianus (pp. 271, 577, ed. Basil.), Nicolaus Myrepsus {De Compos. Medicam. i. 243, 383, pp. 412, 437), Avicenna {Canon, y. 1. 1. vol. ii. p. 278, ed. Venet. 1595). This Philon may perhaps be the physician whose collyrium is quoted by Celsus {De Medic, vi. 6, p. 119.) 2. The physician who is mentioned among several others by Galen {De Meth. Med. i. 7, vol. x. p. 53) as belonging to the sect of the Methodici, is perhaps a different person from the preceding, and must have lived some time in or after the first century b. c. He may, perhaps, be the contemporary of Plutarch, in the second century after Christ, who is intro- duced by him in his Symposlacon (ii. 6. 2, iv. 1. 1, vi. 2. 1, viii. 9. 1). He was of opinion that the disease called Elephantiasis first appeared shortly before his own time ; but in this he was probably mistaken. See Jul. Alb. Hofmann's treatise, Ra- biei Caninae ad Celsum usque Historia Critical p. 53. (Lips. 8vo. 1826.) A physician of this name is also mentioned by St. Epiphanius {adv. Haeres. i. 1, 3) ; and a writer on metals, by Athenaeus (vii. p. 322). [ W. A. G.] PHILON {^'iKov), artists. 1. Son of Antipa- ter, a statuary who lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and made the statue of Hephaestion. (Tatian. Orat. adv. Graec. 55, p. 121, ed. Worth). He also made the statue of Zeus Ourios, which stood on the shore of the Black Sea, at the en- trance of the Bosporus, near Chalcedon, and formed an important landmark for sailors. It was still perfect in the time of Cicero {in Verr. iv. 58), and the base has been preserved to modem times, bearing an inscription of eight elegiac verses, which is printed in the works of Wheeler, Spon, and Chishull, and in the Greek Anthology (Brunck, Anal. vol. iii. p. 1 92 ; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iv. p. 159; comp. Sillig, Caial. Artif. s. ??.). Philon is mentioned by Pliny among the statuaries who made alJdetas et armatos et venatores sacrificaniesque, {H. N. xxxiy. 8. b. 19. § 34).