, so called from Laerta, or Laertes, a town of Cilicia, where he is supposed to have been born, is an ancient Greek author, who wrote ten books of the Lives of the
, so called from Laerta, or
Laertes, a town of Cilicia, where he is supposed to have
been born, is an ancient Greek author, who wrote ten books
of the Lives of the Philosophers, still extant. In what age
he flourished, is not easy to determine. The oldest writers
who mention him are Sopater Alexandrinus, who lived
in the time of Constantine the Great, and Hesychius Milesius, who lived under Justinian. Diogenes often speaks in
terms of approbation of Plutarch and Phavorinus; and therefore, as Plutarch lived under Trajan, and Phavorinus under
Hadrian, it is certain that he could not flourish before the
reigns of those emperors. Menage has fixed him to the time
of Severus; that is, about the year of Christ 200; and
from certain expressions in his works, some have fancied
him to have been a Christian; however, as Menage observes, the immoderate praises he bestows upon Epicurus
will not suffer us to believe this, but incline us rather to
suppose that he was an Epicurean. He divided his Lives
into books, and inscribed them to a learned lady of the
Platonic school, as he himself intimates in his life of Plato.
Montaigne was so fond of this author, that, instead of one
Laertius, he wishes we had a dozen; and Vossius says, that
his work is as precious as old gold. Without doubt we are
greatly obliged to him for what we know of the ancient
philosophers; and if he had been as exact in the execution, as he was judicious in the choice of his subject, we
had been more obliged to him still. Bishop Burnet, in the
preface to his Life of sir Matthew Hale, justly speaks of
him in the following manner: “There is no hook the ancients have left us,
” says he, “which might have informed
us more than Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers,
if he had had the art of writing equal to that great subject
which he undertook: for if he had given the world such an
account of them, as Gassendus has done of Peiresc, how
great a stock of knowledge might we have had, which by
his unskilfulness is in a great measure lost! since we must
now depend only on him, because we have no other and
better author who has written on that argument.
” He is
no where observed to be a rigid affecter or favourer of any
sect; which makes it somewhat probable, that he was a
follower of Potomon of Alexandria, who, after all the rest,
and a little before his time, established a sect which were
called Eclectics, from their choosing out of every sect what
they thought the best. His books shew him to have been
a man of universal reading; but as a writer he is very exceptionable, both as to the disposal and the defect of his
materials. Brucker, whose opinion must be of sterling
value, in estimating the merits of Diogenes Laertius, says,
that “he has collected from the ancients with little judgment, patched together contradictory accounts, relied
upon doubtful authorities, admitted as facts many tales
which were produced in the schools of the sophists, and
has been inattentive to methodical arrangement.
” Diogenes also composed a book of epigrams, to which he refers. The best edition is that of Meibomius, Amst. 1692,
2 vols. 4to; yet Rossius, in his “Commentationes Laertianae,
” has convicted Meibomius of innumerable errors.
was an ancient Greek author, probably of the fifth century, who seems
was an ancient Greek author, probably of
the fifth century, who seems to have written after Heliodorus, and, in some places, to have imitated him. He is
called a sophist; but we have no remains of his except
four books of “Pastorals upon the Loves of Daphnis and
Cloe.
” Huet speaks advantageously of this work, and had
proposed, when he was young, to have made a translation
of it; but he also takes notice of several defects in it, and,
doubtless, its obscenities made him lay aside his purpose
of translating it. None of the ancient writers mention
Longus. There is a good edition of the original by Petrus
Moll, a professor of the Greek language at Franeker, 1660,
in 4to, but Villoison’s, Gr. and Lat. Paris, 1778, '2 vols. 8va,
is the best. It was translated into English by George
Thorney, and printed at London in 1657. The last edition
of the English version, of which there have been four, is
inscribed to James Craggs, esq. secretary of state. The
French, with whom this work has always been a favourite,
have many translations of it. That by Amyot has passed
through many editions; the most elegant of which is that
of 1718, 12mo, with 29 plates, drawn by the regent, Philip duke of Orleans, and engraved by Benoft Audran; the
29th is not his engraving, and is seldom found in the edition of 1718, the reason of which, some say, was, that only
250 copies were taken, which the prince disposed of as
presents; but Brunei thinks it is too common for so small
an impression. Next to this edition, that of 1745, 8vo, is
preferred, with the same plates retouched.
, an ancient Greek author, who wrote the life of Apollonius Tyanensis,
, an ancient Greek author,
who wrote the life of Apollonius Tyanensis, and some
other works still extant, was either of Athens, or Lemnos,
and educated in the schools of the Sophists. He lived in
the reign of the emperor Severus, from the years 193 to
212, and becoming known afterwards to Julia Augusta,
the consort of Severus, he was one of those learned men
whom this philosophic empress had continually about her,
and it was by her command, that he wrote the “Life of
Apoilonius Tyanensis.
” Suidas and Hesychius say, that he
taught rhetoric, first at Athens, and then at Rome, from
the reign of Severus to that of Philippus, who obtained the
empire in the year 244. This “Life of Apollonius
” is
his most celebrated work, as far as celebrity can depend
oh imposture, of which it contains abundant proofs. We
have already, in our account of Apollonius, noticed its
being refuted by Dupin, as a collection of fables, either
invented or embellished by himself; but some of the most
judicious strictures on Philostratus with which we are acquainted, may be found in bishop Douglas’s Criterion from
p. 50, edit. 1807.
The works of Philostratus, however, originally published
separately, have been thought not unworthy the attention
of critics of the first class. Graevius had a design of giving
a correct edition of them, as appears from the preface of
Meric Casaubon, to a dissertation upon an intended edition
of Homer, printed at London in 1658, 8vo. So had
Bentley, who designed to add a new Latin version of his
notes: and Fabricius says, that he saw the first sheet of
Bentley’s edition printed at Leipsic in 1691. Both these
designs being given up, a correct and beautiful edition,
was published at Leipsic, in 1709, in folio, by Olearius.
At the end of Apollonius’s “Life,
” are ninety-five “Letters,
” which go under his name, but bear all the marks of
forgery. The “Lives of the Sophists,
” which make part
of Philostratus’ s works, contain many things, which are to
be met with no where else; and his “Icones,
” or images, are
elegant descriptions and illustrations of some ancient paintings, and other particulars relating to the fine arts: to
which Olearius has subjoined the description of some statues by Callistratus. The volume concludes with a collection of Philostratus’s “Letters:
” but some of these,
though it is not easy to determine which, were written by
a nephew to the principal Philostratus, of the same name;
as were also the last eighteen, in the book of images.
This is the reason, why the title of Olearius’s edition runs,
not “Philostrati,
” but “Philostratorum qua? supersunt
omnia.
”
, an ancient Greek author, and most acute defender of the Pyrrhonian
, an ancient Greek author, and
most acute defender of the Pyrrhonian or sceptical philosophy, was a physician, and seems to have flourished under
the reign of Cornmodus, or perhaps a little later. He was,
against what has usually been imagined, a different person
from Sextus, a Stoic philosopher of Cseronea, and nephew
of Plutarch: but no particular circumstances of his life are
recorded. Of a great many, that have perished, two
works of his are still extant: three books of “Institutes of
Pyrrhonism,
” and ten books against the “Mathematics,
”
by whom he means all kinds of dogmatists. His works
discover great erudition, and an extensive acquaintance
with the ancient systems of philosophy; and, on this account chiefly, Brucker says, merit an attentive perusal.
Henry Stephens first made, and then printed in 1592, 8vo,
a Latin version from the Greek of the former of these
works; and a version of the latter, by Hervetus, had been
printed by Plantin in 1569. Both these versions were
printed again with the Greek; which first appeared at
Geneva in 1621, folio, but the best edition of Sextus Empiricus is that of John Albert Fabricius, in Greek and
Latin, Leipsic, 1718, folio.