PHILOSTRATUS (Φιλόστρατος). - Name of four sophists of the imperial age, natives of Lemnos.
I. Son of Verus, Philostratus of LEMNOS is said to have taught rhetoric (mid-2nd century AD) in Athens, under the Flavians, according to the Suda. The brief dialogue Nero (Νέρων) included among the writings of Lucian, in which the extravagances and cruelties of Nero are discussed, is attributed to him.
II. FLAVIUS PHILOSTRATUS, called the ATHENIAN, b. in Lemnos ca. 170, d. under Philip the Arab (244-49 AD). A professor in Athens, he then came to Rome under the reign of Septimius Severus (before 211) and on the advice of Julia Domna wrote the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, where the figure of Apollonius, wrapped in a Neo-Pythagorean mysticism, was taken up by Hierocles of the 3rd century as a counterpart to Jesus. Philostratus is also the author of the Lives of the Sophists (Βίοι σοφιστῶν), a cento of biographies, without deep insight, of the principal sophists, such as Eudoxus of Cnidus, Leon of Byzantium, Gorgias, Isocrates, Aspasius, etc. The treatise On Gymnastics (Περὶ γυμναστικῆς), written around 219, with which ancient athletics is brought back to life, is also attributed to him, with some uncertainty.
III. PHILOSTRATUS OF LEMNOS, son of Nervianus, b. ca. 191. He taught in Athens, and is said to be the author of two works attributed to him in preference to Philostratus the Athenian: the Heroicus (Ἡρωικός) or Dialogue on Heroes, an evocation of a supernatural world, set within a rustic frame (a vine-dresser, not far from the tomb of Protesilaus, narrates to a Phoenician merchant the revelations that Protesilaus makes to him about the heroes of Troy); the Imagines (Εἰκόνες), a collection in two books with 64 descriptions of paintings, of rather mythical subject, executed with skill of style.
IV. PHILOSTRATUS, nephew of the preceding, who lived in the second half of the 3rd century and author of a second series of Imagines (17 paintings in the manuscripts), where artifice prevails over naturalness and confidence of style.
Bibliography3 works
Giuliano Gennaro