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PHILOXENUS——PHLEGYAS.
Tyana. Besides this we have by him (6) a work entitled Herolcus, 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, in two books, the first dealing with twenty-six philosophers, the second with thirty-three 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 (/), the Imagines in two books, being descriptions of sixty-six 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, Kiinstlergeschichte, ii 178; Jahrb. f. Philol, Supplementband 4, 179 pp., and 1871]; or whether their subjects were invented by himse^j^as maintained by Friederichs, Die Philostratischen Bilder, 1860; and Matz, De Philostratorum in Describendis Imagini-bus Fide, 1867], 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.).
(2) Philostratus the younger, son of the daughter of (1), of Lemn6s. He lived chiefly at Athens, and died at Lemnos, 264 A.D. 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.
PhlloxiSnus. A famous Greek dithyrambic poet, of Cythera. He came as a prisoner of war into the possession of the Athenian musician Melanippides, by whom he was educated and set free. He lived long at Syracuse, at the court of the tyrant Dionysius I, who threw him into the stone-quarries for outspoken criticism on his bad poems. On his escape from Sicily he revenged himself on the tyrant, who was short-sighted or perhaps blind of one eye, by witty raillery in the most famous of his twenty-four dithyrambs, the Cyclops, which describes the love of the one-eyed Polvphemus for the beautiful Nymph Galatea. He died 380 B.C. at !
I Ephesus, after visiting various places in
i Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor for the public
performance of his compositions. These
were celebrated among the ancients for
originality of expression and rich variety of
melody. We have only some considerable
fragments of a lyric poem entitled The
Banquet, in which the burlesque subject
‘ affords a comic contrast to the dignified
Doric rhythm.
Phlneus. (1) Son of Belua, and brother of Cepheus. He contested against Perseus the possession of Andromeda (q.v.), who had previously been his betrothed. He was turned into stone by Perseus by means of the head of Medusa.
(2) Son of Agenor, reigning at Salmy-dessus in Thrace; he possessed the gift of prophecy. He put away his first wife Cle6-patra, daughter of Boreas and Orithyia, who had borne him two sons, and married Idsea, daughter of Dardanus. She induced him by slanders to destroy the sight of the sons whom he had by his first wife. For this Zeus punished him, giving him the choice of death or blindness. He chose never more to see the sun, whereat HeliSs, enraged by the slight, sent the Harpies, who stole or defiled his food, so that he suffered perpetual hunger. From this plague he was not delivered till the landing of the Argonauts, when Calais and Zetes, the brothers of his first wife, drove off the Harpies from him for ever. In gratitude, Phlneus, by virtue of his prophetic powers, instructed the Argonauts as to the rest of their route. His brothers-in-law sent the wicked step-mother back to her home, freed their sister and her sons from the dungeon in which they were pining, and set the sons, who recovered their sight, on their father’s throne.
Phlgg&thdn. See pyriphlegethon.
Phl&gon. A Greek writer, of Tralles in Caria, freedman of the emperor Hadrian. He wrote in the first half of the 2nd century A.D. a work entitled Perl Thaumaswn ("On Wonderful Events"). It is a tasteless composition, but instructive as to the superstitions of antiquity. Also a dry catalogue of persons who attained a great age (De Macrobils). Of his great chronological work, a catalogue of victors at the Olympian games in 229 Olympiads (b.c. 776 to A.D. 137) only fragments remain.
Phlggra (Phlegrsean fields). The scene of the fight between the gods and the giants. (See gigantes.)
Phlfigyas. Son of Ares and Chryse, father
