Phlegon of Tralles
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"In the 4th year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was a great eclipse of the Sun, greater than had ever been known before, for at the sixth hour the day was changed into night, and the stars were seen in the heavens. An earthquake occurred in Bythinia and overthrew a great part of the city of Nicæa."--Phlegon of Tralles "Phlegon of Tralles in Lydia. one of Hadrian's freedmen, may further be mentioned before dismissing the present subject. Under his name the Emperor, as is supposed, wrote his own biography (Spartiani Vita Hadriaui, c. 16). His work Trtpi Savfiaatwv (printed in Jac. Gronovii Thes. Grace. Anth-. viii. p. 2694) consists of a collection of marvellous tales and ghost stories, not altogether unlike those which have been so popular in the German literature of the present century. The first portion of the book is lost, and therewith the commencement of the story of Philinnion returned from the grave (borrowed by Phlegon from a letter of Hipparchus, Philipp's Commandant of Amphipolis, to Arrhidaeus, see liob.de, p. 391), which Goethe adapted in his Bride of Corinth. The tale of Phlegon is undoubtedly connected with the tales current in south-eastern Europe of vampyres, and dead who rise from their graves and suck the blood of the living, especially of their nearest relatives, and called in modern Greek Buthrolakkas, or Burkolassas [fiovpicoXaKKae] . "--History of Fiction (1814) by John Colin Dunlop "Phlegon, the freedman of Hadrian, relates that a young maiden, Philemium, the daughter of Philostratus and Charitas, became deeply enamoured of a young man, named Machates, a guest in the house of her father. This did not meet with the approbation of her parents, and they turned Machates away. The young maiden took this so much to heart that she pined away and died. Some time afterwards Machates returned to his old lodgings, when he was visited at night by his beloved, who came from the grave to see him again. The story may be read in Heywood's (Thos.) "Hierarchie of Blessed Angels," Book vii, p. 479 (London, 1637). Goethe has made this story the foundation of his beautiful poem Die Braut von Korinth, with which form of it Hoffmann was most likely familiar."--"The Sandman" (1816) by E. T. A. Hoffmann |
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Phlegon of Tralles (Flegon o Trallianos was a Greek writer and freedman of the emperor Hadrian, who lived in the 2nd century AD.
Works
His chief work was the Olympiads, an historical compendium in sixteen books, from the 1st down to the 229th Olympiad (776 BC to AD 137), of which several chapters are preserved in Eusebius' Chronicle, Photius and George Syncellus.
Two short works by him are extant. On Marvels consists of "anecdotes culled from sources as diverse as the Greek poet Hesiod and the Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder. Each... recounts a fantastical or paranormal event." On Long-Lived Persons contains a list of Italians who had passed the age of 100, taken from the censuses of the Roman Empire.
Other works ascribed to Phlegon in the Suda are a description of Sicily, a work on the Roman festivals in three books, and a topography of Rome:
- "Phlegon of Tralles, freedman of Augustus Caesar, but some say of Hadrian: historian. He wrote Olympiads in 16 books. Up to the 229th Olympiad they contain what was done everywhere. And these in 8 books: Description of Sicily; On long-lived and marvelous persons, On the feasts of the Romans 3 books, On the places in Rome and by what names they are called, Epitome of Olympic victors in 2 books, and other things.
- "Of this Phlegon, as Philostorgius says, to relate fully in detail what befell with the Jews, while Phlegon and Dio mentioned [these events] briefly and made them an appendix to their own narrative. Since this man does not exhibit at all prudently those who would lead to piety and other virtues, as those others do not either. Josephus, on the contrary, is like one who fears and takes care not to offend the [sc.pagan] Greeks."Template:Clarify
Reference to Jesus
Origen of Alexandria (182-254 AD), in Against Celsus (Book II, Chap. XIV), wrote that Phlegon, in his Chronicles, mentions Jesus: "Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles, not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events (although falling into confusion about some things which refer to Peter, as if they referred to Jesus), but also testified that the result corresponded to His predictions." He referred to a description by Phlegon of an eclipse accompanied by earthquakes during the reign of Tiberius: that there was "the greatest eclipse of the sun" and that "it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i. e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea." Template:Sfnp
