Phrynichus Arabius

Phrynichus Arabius or Phrynichus of Bithynia (Greek

Greek language

Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...

: ) was a Greek grammarian who flourished in second century Bithynia

Bithynia

Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...

, writing works on Attic usage

Atticism

Atticism was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the first century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with spoken Greek, which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greek.Atticism was...

. Also Latinized Phrynichos or Phrynikhos.

The Suda states:

"Phrynichus of Bithynia, sophist. He wrote

• Atticist, or On Attic Words in two books;
• Collection of Usages
• Sophistic Preparations ( (47 books, but some say 74)"

As models of Attic style Phrynichus assigns the highest place to Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...

, Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...

, and Aeschines the Socratic

Aeschines Socraticus

Aeschines Socraticus or Aeschines of Sphettos , son of Lysanias, of the deme Sphettus of Athens was in his youth a follower of Socrates...

.

Phrynichus Arabius or Phrynichus of Bithynia (Greek

Greek language

Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...

: ) was a Greek grammarian who flourished in second century Bithynia

Bithynia

Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...

, writing works on Attic usage

Atticism

Atticism was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the first century BC; it may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with spoken Greek, which continued to evolve in directions guided by the common usages of Hellenistic Greek.Atticism was...

. Also Latinized Phrynichos or Phrynikhos.

The Suda states:

"Phrynichus of Bithynia, sophist. He wrote

• Atticist, or On Attic Words in two books;
• Collection of Usages
• Sophistic Preparations ( (47 books, but some say 74)"

As models of Attic style Phrynichus assigns the highest place to Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...

, Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...

, and Aeschines the Socratic

Aeschines Socraticus

Aeschines Socraticus or Aeschines of Sphettos , son of Lysanias, of the deme Sphettus of Athens was in his youth a follower of Socrates...

. The work was learned, but prolix and garrulous. A fragment contained in a Paris MS. was published by B. de Montfaucon, and by I. Bekker. Another work of Phrynichus, not mentioned by Photius

Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople

Photios I also spelled Photius or Fotios and known by the Eastern Orthodox churches as St. Photios the Great, was Patriarch of Constantinople from 858 to 867 and from 877 to 886...

, but perhaps identical with the Atticist mentioned by Suidas, the Selection of Attic Words and Phrases, is extant. It is dedicated to Cornelianus, a man of literary tastes, and one of the imperial secretaries, who had invited the author to undertake the work; it is a collection of current words and forms which deviated from the Old Attic standard, the true Attic equivalents being given side by side. The work is thus a lexicon antibarbarum, and is interesting as illustrating the changes through which the Greek language had passed between the 4th century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D.

Editions of the Eklogê, with valuable notes, have been published by C. A. Lobeck (1820) and W. G. Rutherford (1881); Lobeck devotes his attention chiefly to the later, Rutherford to the earlier usages noticed by Phrynichus. See also J. Brenous, De Phrynicho Atticista (1895).