Philostratus
(Φιλόστρατος). (1) Flavius Philostrătus the elder, a Greek Sophist of Lemnos, son of a celebrated Sophist of the same name. He taught first in Athens, then at Rome till the middle of the third century A.D. By order of his great patroness Iulia Domna, the learned wife of the emperor Septimius Severus, he wrote (a) the romantic Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Besides this we have by him (b) a work entitled Heroicus (Ἡρωικός), consisting of mythical histories of the heroes of the Trojan War in the form of a dialogue, designed to call back to life the expiring popular religion; (c) lives of the Sophists (Βίοι Σοφιστῶν), in two books, the first dealing with twenty-six philosophers, the second with thirtythree rhetoricians of earlier as well as later times, a work important for the history of Greek culture, especially during the imperial age; (d) seventy-three letters, partly amatory in subject; (e) a fragment of a work intended to revive interest in the old Gymnastic; lastly (f), the Imagines (Εἰκόνες), in two books, being descriptions of sixtysix paintings on all possible subjects. Of these it is doubtful whether, as he pretends, they really belonged to a gallery at Naples, a statement accepted by Brunn, or whether their subjects were invented by himself, as maintained by Friederichs and Matz. Like all his writings, this work is skilful and pleasing in its manner, and the interest of its topic makes it particularly attractive. It is not so much designed to incite to the study of works of art as to exhibit the art of painting in a totally new field; and herein he is followed both by his grandson and namesake and by Callistratus (q.v.). The works of Philostratus are collected and edited by Kayser (Leipzig, 1870-71), and translated into English by Berwick (London, 1809). See Brunn, Die Philostratischen Gemälde (1861); and Bertrand, Philostrate et son École (1882). A new edition of the Imagines was published by the members of the Vienna Classical Seminary in 1893.
(2) Philostrătus the younger, grandson of the preceding, of Lemnos. He lived chiefly at Athens, and died at Lemnos, A.D. 264. Following his grandfather's lead, he devoted himself to the rhetorical description of paintings; but fell considerably behind his model both in invention and descriptive power, as is proved by the sixteen extant Imagines, the first book of a larger collection. Printed in Kayser's edition of the preceding.
- Paus. 5.21.9