Philitas or
Philetas of Cos ( – ) was a scholar and poet during the early
Hellenistic periodThe Hellenistic period describes the era which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia. It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decline or decadence, between the brilliance of...
of
ancient GreeceAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
. A Greek associated with
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
, he flourished in the second half of the 4th century BC and was appointed tutor to the heir to the throne of
Ptolemaic EgyptPtolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to Cyrene to the west, and...
. He was thin and frail;
AthenaeusAthenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century A.D. The Suda only tells us that he lived in the times of Marcus Athenaeus (Ancient Greek - Athếnaios Naukratios, Latin Athenaeus Naucratita), of Naucratis in...
later caricatured him as an academic so consumed by his studies that he wasted away and died.
Philitas was the first major writer who was both a scholar and a poet. His reputation continued for centuries, based on both his pioneering study of words and his verse in
elegiacElegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter...
meter. His vocabulary
Disorderly Words described the meanings of rare literary words, including those used by
HomerHomer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
. His poetry, notably his elegiac poem
Demeter, was highly respected by later ancient poets. However, almost all his work has since been lost.
Life
Little is known of Philitas' life. Ancient sources refer to him as a Coan, a native or long-time inhabitant of
CosKos or Cos is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures by , and is from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. The island has both fertile plains and mountainous highlands with a population of 30,947...
, one of the
DodecaneseThe Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, off the southwest coast of Turkey, southward of the island of Samos and northeastward of the island of Crete...
islands in the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
just off the coast of Asia. His student
TheocritusTheocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of him beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
wrote that Philetas' father was Telephos (Τήλεφος,
) and his mother, assuming the manuscript is supplemented correctly, Euctione (Εὐκτιόνη,
). From a comment about Philitas in the
SudaThe Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly wrongfully attributed to an author called Suidas. The text belongs to the Byzantine Empire and was written in Greek...
, a 10th century AD historical encyclopedia, it is estimated he was born , and that he might have established a reputation in Cos by . During the wars of the Diadochi that followed the death of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
and divided Alexander's empire,
PtolemyPtolemy I Soter I was a Macedonian Greek general under Alexander the Great who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
had captured Cos from his rival successor,
AntigonusAntigonus I Monophthalmus son of Philip from Elimeia, was a Macedonian nobleman, general, and satrap under Alexander the Great...
, in 310 BC; his son,
Ptolemy II PhiladelphusPtolemy II Philadelphus , was the king of Ptolemaic Egypt from 283 BC to 246 BC. He was the son of the founder of the Ptolemaic kingdom Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice, and was educated by Philitas of Cos...
, was born there in 308 BC. It was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of Alexandria.
Philetas was appointed Philadelphus'
preceptorA Preceptor is a teacher responsible to uphold a certain law or tradition, a precept.-Christian Military Orders:A Preceptor was historically in charge of a Preceptory, the headquarters of certain orders of monastic Knights, such as the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar, within a given...
, or tutor, which suggests he moved to
AlexandriaAlexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports...
and moved back to Cos in the later 290s BC. He may also have tutored
Arsinoe IIArsinoe II , was queen of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedonia as wife of King Lysimachus , and later co-ruler of Egypt with her brother and husband Ptolemy II Philadelphus...
, Philadelphus' older sister and eventual wife. Later tutors of royal offspring in Ptolemaic Egypt generally headed the
Library of AlexandriaThe Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was probably the largest, and certainly the most famous, of the libraries of the ancient world...
, but it is unknown whether Philitas held that position. Philitas also taught the poets
HermesianaxHermesianax, of Colophon, elegiac Ancient Greek poet of the Alexandrian school and pupil of Philitas of Cos, flourished about 330 BC.His chief work was a poem in three books, dedicated to his mistress Leontion. Of this poem a fragment of about one hundred lines has been preserved by Athenaeus...
and Theocritus and the grammarian
ZenodotusZenodotus , was a Greek grammarian, literary critic, and Homeric scholar. A native of Ephesus and a pupil of Philitas of Cos, he was the first librarian of the Library of Alexandria...
, and after he returned to Cos he seems to have spent at least ten years leading a brotherhood of intellectuals and poets that included
AratusAratus was a Greek didactic poet, known for his technical poetry.- Biography :He was born in Soli in Cilicia and was a contemporary of Callimachus and Theocritus. He is known to have studied with Menecrates in Ephesus and Philitas in Cos...
, Hermesianax, and Theocritus.
Hermesianax wrote of "Philitas, singing of nimble Bittis", and
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
twice calls her "Battis". It is commonly thought that Bittis or Battis was Philitas' mistress, and that Hermesianax referred to love poetry; another possibility is that her name connoted "chatterbox", and that she was a humorous personification of Philitas' passion for words.
Philitas was thin and frail, and may have suffered and died from a wasting disease. He seems to have died in Cos sometime in the 280s BC. His pupil Hermesianax wrote that a statue of him was erected under a plane tree by the people of Cos, depicting him as "frail with all the glosses". His contemporary
PosidippusPoseidippus of Pella or Posidippus was an Ancient Greek epigrammatic poet who adhered to Orphism. He was born in the city of Pella capital of the kingdom of Macedon. He lived for some time in Samos before moving permanently to the court of Ptolemy I Soter and later Ptolemy II Philadelphus in...
wrote that Philadelphus commissioned a bronze of Philitas in old age from the sculptor Hecataeus, which "included nothing from the physique of heroes. No, ... he cast the old man full of cares." The 3rd century AD Roman author
AelianClaudius Aelianus , often seen as just Aelian, born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222...
skeptically passed along a story that Philitas was so thin that he put lead weights in the soles of his shoes to avoid being blown away by a stiff wind.
A 2nd century AD Greek author, Athenaeus of Naucratis, wrote that Philitas studied false arguments and erroneous word-usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death, and that his
epitaphAn epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
read:
St. George Stock analyzed the story as saying Philitas studied the
Megarian school of philosophyThe Megarian school of philosophy, which flourished in the 4th century BC, was founded by Euclid of Megara, one of the pupils of Socrates. Its ethical teachings were derived from Socrates, recognizing a single good, which was apparently combined with the Eleatic doctrine of Unity...
, which cultivated and studied
paradoxA paradox is a statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition. The term is also used for an apparent contradiction that actually expresses a non-dual truth...
es such as the
liar paradoxIn philosophy and logic, the liar paradox, known to the ancients as the pseudomenon, encompasses paradoxical statements such as "This sentence is false." or "The next sentence is false. The previous sentence is true." These statements are paradoxical because there is no way to assign them a...
: if someone says "I am lying", is what he says true or false? Stock wrote that Philitas worried so much over the liar paradox that he died of
insomniaInsomnia is a symptom of any of several sleep disorders, characterized by persistent difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep despite the opportunity. Insomnia is a symptom, not a stand-alone diagnosis or a disease. By definition, insomnia is "difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, or both"...
, and translated the epitaph as follows:
A more literal translation suggests that the invented epitaph pokes fun at Philitas' focus on using the right words:
Stranger, I am Philitas. The lying word and nights' evening cares destroyed me.
Works
Philitas wrote a vocabulary explaining the meanings of rare literary words, words from local dialects, and technical terms; it probably took the form of a lexicon. The vocabulary, called
Disorderly Words (Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι,
), has been lost, with only a few fragments quoted by later authors. One example, quoted in Athenaeus, is that the word πέλλα (
) meant "wine cup" in the ancient Greek region of
BoeotiaBoeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the...
; this was evidently contrasted to the same word meaning "milk pail" in Homer's
IliadThe Iliad is an epic poem recounting significant events during a portion of the final year of the Trojan War — the Greek siege of the city of Ilion — hence the title...
.
Hermeneia, another scholarly work, probably contained Philitas' versions and
critical interpretationsExegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text.Biblical exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of the Bible. The goal of Biblical exegesis is to find the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance.Traditionally the term exegesis...
of
HomerHomer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
and other authors.
About thirty fragments of Philitas' poetry are known, along with four definite titles:
- Demeter, Philitas' most famous work, consisted of elegiac couplet
Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry. The ancient Romans frequently used elegiac couplets in love poetry, as in Ovid's Amores...
s, or couplets in the elegiacElegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter...
meter. Its few surviving fragments suggest that it narrated the grain goddess DemeterDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of grain and fertility, the pure...
's hunt for her daughter PersephoneIn Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld, the korē , and the parthenogenic daughter of Demeter and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus...
. The fragments describe Demeter's arrival on Cos and warm welcome by its royal family of Meropids, or humans twice normal size, thus presenting the founding mythA national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as an important national symbol and affirm a set of national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic...
of a local cult of Demeter on Cos.
- Hermes was an epyllion, or brief mythological narrative, written in hexameter
Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, a line consisting of six metrical feet, as in the Iliad. It was the standard epic metre in Greek and became standard for Latin too. It was also used in other types of composition -- in Horace's satires, for instance, and Ovid's Metamorphoses...
. It had the structure of a hymnA hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word hymn derives from Greek , "a song of praise"...
, with a central narrative telling of OdysseusOdysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey...
' visit to the island of the king Aeolus, keeper of the winds, and of Odysseus' secret affair with the king's daughter Polymele.
- Playthings (Παίγνια, ) had two shorter collections. These poems had the structure of epigram
An Epigram is a brief, clever, and usually memorable statement. Derived from the "to write on - inscribe", the literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s and their themes may have included eroticaErotica or "curiosa," are works of art, including literature, photography, film, sculpture and painting, that deal substantively with erotically stimulating or sexually arousing descriptions...
. The only surviving poem contains two elegiac couplets and has a puzzle or riddle structure characteristic of some ancient Greek drinking-party songsNot to be confused with scholionSkolion , also scolion , were songs sung by invited guests at banquets in ancient Greece. Often extolling the virtues of the gods or heroic men, skolia were improvised to suit the occasion and accompanied by a lyre, which was handed about from singer to singer as the...
.
- Only one of the Epigrams has been fully reconstructed.
Another possible poem is
Telephus, which may have been a companion to
Demeter.
At most fifty verses of Philitas survive. Below is an example fragment of two verses, which was quoted in the
Collection of Paradoxical Stories, whose putative author Antigonus (often identified with
Antigonus of CarystusAntigonus of Carystus , Greek writer on various subjects, flourished in the 3rd century BC. After some time spent at Athens and in travelling, he was summoned to the court of Attalus I of Pergamum...
, a near-contemporary) does not specify which work they came from; indirect evidence suggests
Demeter. These two verses show the confluence of Philitas' interests in poetry and obscure words:
According to Antigonus, the "cactus" (κάκτος,
) was a thorny plant from Sicily, and "When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philitas spoke of it." Antigonus quotes one more passage, and the 5th century AD anthologist
StobaeusJoannes Stobaeus , so called from his native place Stobi in North Macedonia , was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors.-Biography and works:...
quotes eleven passages from Philitas; the remaining fragments are derived from ancient commentators who quoted Philitas when discussing rare words or names used by other authors.
Influence
Philitas was the most important intellectual figure in the early years of
Hellenistic civilizationHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC ; note, however that Koine Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy and religion are also indisputably elements of the Roman era till Late Antiquity...
. He gained instant recognition in both poetry and literary scholarship, and, as far as is known, was the first person called "poet as well as scholar" (ποιητὴς ἅμα καὶ κριτικός,
poiētḕs áma kaì kritikós). As tutor to Philadelphus he is assumed to have had great influence on the development of the
Mouseion at Alexandria, a scholarly institution that included the famous
Library of AlexandriaThe Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was probably the largest, and certainly the most famous, of the libraries of the ancient world...
. A statue was erected of him, possibly at a
Mouseion at Cos, and his work was explicitly acknowledged as a classic by both Theocritus and Callimachus.
His reputation for scholarship endured for at least a century. In Athens, the comic playwright Strato made jokes that assumed audiences knew about Philitas' vocabulary, and the vocabulary was criticized more than a century later by the influential Homeric scholar
Aristarchus of SamothraceAristarchus or Aristarch of Samothrace was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry...
in his
Against Philitas (Πρὸς Φιλίταν,
). The geographer
StraboStrabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in Pontus , which had recently become part of the Roman Empire.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in Nysa, later in Rome...
described him three centuries later as "simultaneously a poet and a critic".
Philitas was the first writer whose works represent the combination of qualities now regarded as Hellenistic: variety, scholarship, and use of Homeric sources in non-
epicAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
works. He directly influenced the major Hellenistic poets
CallimachusCallimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar of the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of ancient Egyptian Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
and
Apollonius of RhodesApollonius Rhodius, also known as Apollonius of Rhodes , early 3rd century BCE - after 246 BCE, was a librarian at the Library of Alexandria...
. His poetry was mentioned or briefly quoted by his rival Callimachus and by other ancient authors, and his poetic reputation endured for at least three centuries, as Augustan poets identified his name with great elegiac writing. Propertius linked him to his rival with the following well-known couplet:
The 1st century AD rhetorician
QuintilianMarcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...
ranked Philitas second only to Callimachus among the elegiac poets. Philitas' influence has been found or suspected in a wide range of ancient writing;
LongusLongus, sometimes Longos , was a Greek novelist and romancer, and author of Daphnis and Chloe. Very little is known of his life, and it is assumed that he lived on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD...
' 2nd century AD novel
Daphnis and ChloeDaphnis and Chloe is the only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist and romancer Longus.-Setting and style:It is set on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD, which is also assumed to be the author's home...
contains a character likely named after him. Almost all that he wrote seems to have disappeared within two centuries, though, so it is unlikely that any writer later than the 2nd century BC read any but a few of his lines.