Philistion

• A celebrated physician, Plin. 20, 5, 15, § 31; Gell. 17, 11, 16.—
• II A pantomime, Mart. 2, 41, 15.

(Φιλιστίων) of Nicaea or Magnesia, a mimnographer, who flourished in the time of Augustus, about A. D. 7 (Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. Ol. 196. 3). Works Mimes

He was an actor, as well as a writer of mimes, and is said, in an epigram preserved in the Greek Anthology, to have died of excessive laughter (Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iv. p. 230; Anth. Pal. vol. ii. p. 349). He is frequently mentioned by the Greek writers of the second century and downwards. Suidas, who, by some extraordinary error, has placed his death in the time of Socrates, makes him a native of Prusa, and says that he wrote κωμῳδίας βιολογικάς (that is, mimes), that he wrote a play called Μισοψηφισταί, and a work entitled Φιλογέλως. He is mentioned by Tzetzes (Proleg. ad Lycophr. p. 257), among the poets of the New Comedy, but the name is there, almost certainly, an error for Philippides. Σύγκρισις Μενάνδρου καὶ Φιλιστίωνος

We have no fragments of Philistion, hut there is a work extant under the title of Σύγκρισις Μενάνδρου καὶ Φιλιστίωνος, which is a collection of lines, containing moral sentiments, from Menander and some other poet of the New Comedy, who of course could not be Philistion the mimographer. All difficulty is however removed by the emendation of Meineke, who substitutes Φιλήμονος for Φιλιστίωνος. (Comp. Philemon). Editions

The work was first edited by N. Rigaltius, Par. 1613, afterwards, in a much improved state, by J. Rutgersius, in his Var. Lect. vol. iv. p. 355-367, with the notes of Heinsius. Boissonade has published the work, from a Paris MS., in his Anecdota, vol. i. p. 146-150, whence Meineke has transferred it into his Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, vol. iv. pp. 335-339. Further Information

Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 480; Meineke, Menand. et Philem. Reliq. Praef. p. vii. &c.; Clinton, F. H. sub ann. A. D. 7; Bernhardy, Geschichte der Griech. Litt. vol. ii. p. 924. [P.S]

an engraver of medals, whose name occurs in two forms, ΦΛΙΣΤΩΝ (ἐποίει) and ΦΙΛΙΣΤΙΩΝΟΣ (ἔργον), in very small characters, but perfectly distinct, on the crest of the helmet of the head of Minerva, which forms the type of a great number of coins of Velia. (Raoul-Rochette, Lettre à M. Schorn, p. 94, 2d ed.) [P.S]

(Φιλιστίων a physician, born either at one of the Greek towns in Sicily (Diog. Laert. Vit. Philos. 8.8. §§ 86, 89), or among the Locri Epizephyrii in Italy (Galen, De Meth. Med. 1.1, vol. x. p. 6; Ruf. Ephes. De Corp. Hum. Part. Appell. p. 41; Plut. Sysmpos. 7.1.3 ; Aul. Gell. Noct. Att. 17.11.3; Ath. 3.83, p. 115). He was tutor to the physician Chrysippus of Cnidos (Diog. Laert. l.c. § 89) and the astronomer and physician Eudoxus (Callim. ap. Diog. Laert. § 86), and therefore must have lived in the fourth century B. C. He was one of those who defended the opinion that what is drunk goes into the lungs (Plut. l.c. ; Aul. Gell. l.c.). Some ancient critics attributed to Philistion the treatise De Salubri Victus Ratione (Galen, Comment. in Hippocr. "De Rat. Vict. in Morb. Acut." 1.17, vol. xv. p. 455, Comment. in Hippocr. "Aphor." 6.1, vol. xviii. pt. i. p. 9), and also that De Victus Ratione (Galen, De Aliment. Facult. 1.1, vol. vi. p. 473), both of which form part of the Hippocratic Collection; and by some persons he was considered to be one of the founders of the sect of the Empirici (De Subfig. Empir. 100.1, vol. ii. p. 340, ed. Chart.). He wrote a work on materia medica (Galen, De Succed. init. vol. xix. p. 721 and on Cookery (Ath. 12.12, p. 516), and is several times quoted by Pliny (Plin. Nat. 20.15, 34, 48) and Galen (De Nat. Facult. 2.8, vol. ii. p. 110, De Usu Respir. 100.1, vol. iv. p. 471, De Meth. Med. 1.3, 2.5, vol. x. pp. 28, 111). Oribasius attributes to him the invention of a machine for reducingr luxations of the humerus (De Machinam 100.4, p. 164). He is perhaps the person mentioned by M. Aurelius Antoninus (6.47).

A brother of Philistion, who was also a physician, but whose name is not known, is quoted by Caelius Aurelianus. (De Morb. Chron. 3.8, 5.1, pp. 488, 555.) [W.A.G]

(Φιλιστίων). A physician of the fourth century B.C., who was tutor to the astronomer and physician Eudoxus (Gell.xvii. 11).