Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/305

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Zonas, Bianor, Antigonus, Diodorus, Evenus, and some others whose names he does not mention. The earliest of these poets seems to be Philodemus, the contemporary of Cicero, and the latest Automedon, who probably flourished under Nerva. Hence it is inferred that Philip flourished in the time of Trajan. Various allusions in his own epigrams prove that he lived after the time of Augustus. (Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. xiii. pp. 934 — 936.) [P. S.]


PHILIPPUS (Φιλιππος), the name of several physicians.

1. A native of Acarnania, the friend and physician of Alexander the Great, of whom a wellknown story is told by several ancient authors. He was the means of saving the king's life, when he had been seized with a severe attack of fever, brought on by bathing in the cold waters of the river Cydnus in Cilicia, after being violently heated, b. c. 333. Parmenion sent to warn Alexander that Philippus had been bribed by Dareius to poison him ; the king, however, would not believe the information, nor doubt the fidelity of his physician, but, while he drank off the draught prepared for him, he put into his hands the letter he had just received, fixing his eyes at the same time steadily on his countenance. A well-known modern picture represents this incident ; and the king's speedy recovery fully justified his confidence in the skill and honesty of his physician. (Q. Curt. iii. 6 ; Valer. Max. iii. 8, in fine ; Plut. Vit. Alex. c. 19 ; Arrian, ii. 4 ; Justin, xi. 8 ; Diod. Sic. xvii. 31.)


2. A native of Epeirus at the court of Antigonus, king of Asia, b. c. 323 — 301. Celsus tells an anecdote (De Med. iii. 21, p. 56) that, when another physician said that one of the king's friends, who was suffering from dropsy caused by his intemperate habits, was incurable, Philippus undertook to restore him to health ; upon which the other replied that he had not been thinking so much of the nature of the disease, as of the character of the patient, when he denied the possibility of his recovery. The result justified his prognosis.


3. A contemporary of Juvenal at Rome, about the beginning of the second century after Christ. (Sat. xiii. 125.)


4. A contemporary of Galen, about the middle of the second century after Christ, who belonged to the sect of the Empirici, and held a disputation for two days with Pelops (probably at Smyrna), in defence of their doctrines (Galen. De Libris Propr. c. 2, vol. xix. p. 16). It does not seem possible to decide with certainty whether this is the same person who is frequently mentioned in different parts of Galen's writings ; who wrote on marasmus (De Differ. Febr. i. 10, vol. vii. p. 315, De Marc. cc. 5, 6, 7, 9, vol. vii. pp. 685, 689, 694, 701, De Caus. Pul. iv. 10, vol. ix. p. 176, De Meth. Med. vii. 6, x. 10, vol. x. pp. 495, 706), on materia medica (De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. vii. I, vol. xiii. p. 14, De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen. ii. 5, iii. 9, vol. xiii. pp. 502, 642), and on catalepsy (Cael. Aurel. De Morb. Acut. ii. 10, p. 96 ; conf. Gal. Comment. in Hippocr. " Prorrhet. I." ii. 90, vol. xvi. p. 684). Several of his medical formulae are preserved, from one of which it appears that he practised at Caesareia (Galen, de Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. iv. 8, vii. 4, 5, ix. 5, vol. xii. p. 735, vol. xiii. pp. 88, 105, 304 ; Paul. Aegin. vii. 12, p. 663 ; Aët. iii. 1. 48, p. 503 ; Nicol. Myr. De Compos. Medicam. xli. 14, 21, p. 785). He is also mentioned by Galen, De Febr. Differ. ii. 6, vol. vii. p. 347, De Plenit. c. 4, vol. vii. p. 530. It is uncertain whether the Philippus of Macedonia, one of whose antidotes is quoted by Galen (De Antid. ii. 8, vol. xiv. p. 149), is the same person.

A sophist of this name is said by Aetius (i, 4. 96, p. 186) to have promised immortality to those persons who would engage to follow his directions, but it is not specified that he was a physician; neither is it known whether the father of the celebrated physician, Archigenes, whose name was Philippus (Suid. s. v. Ἀρχιγένης), was himself a member of the medical profession. [W. A. G.]


PHILISCUS(Φιλίσκος), a citizen of Abydus, who in b. c. 368 was sent into Greece by Ariobarzanes, the Persian satrap of the Hellespont, to effect a reconciliation between the Thebans and Lacedaemonians. He came well supplied with money, and in the name of Artaxerxes II.; but in a congress which he caused to be held at Delphi, he failed to accomplish his object, as the Thebans refused to abandon their claim to the sovereignty of Boeotia, and Lacedaemon would not acknowledge the independence of Messenia. Upon this Philiscus, leaving behind him a body of 2000 mercenaries for the service of Sparta, and having been honoured, as well as Ariobarzanes, with the Athenian franchise, returned to Asia. Here, under cover of the satrap's protection, he made himself master of a number of Greek states, over which he exercised a tyrannical and insolent sway, till he was at last assassinated at Lampsacus by Thersagoras and Execestus (Xen. Hell. vii. 1. § 27 ; Diod. XV. 70 ; Dem. c. Aristocr. pp. 666, 667). Diodorus places the mission of Philiscus to Greece in b. c. 369, a year too soon. [E. E.]


PHILISCUS (Φιλίσκος), literary. 1. An Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, of whom little is known. Suidas simply mentions him as a comic poet, and gives the following titles of his plays : Ἄδωνις, Διὸς γοναί, Θημιστοκλῆς, Ὄλυμπος, Πανὸς γοναί, Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ἀφροδίτης γοναί, Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος. These mythological titles sufficiently prove that Philiscus belonged to the Middle Comedy. The nativities of the gods, to which most of them relate, formed a very favourite class of subjects with the poets of the Middle Comedy. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 278, &c.) Eudocia omits the title Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ἀφροδίτης γοναί, and Lobeck has pointed out the difficulty of seeing how the nativities of Hermes and Aphrodite could be connected in one drama (Aglaoph. p. 437); a difficulty which Meineke meets by supposing that we ought to read Ἑρμοῦ γοναί, Ἀφροδίτης γοναι, as two distinct titles (Hist. Crit. pp. 281, 282). The Themistocles is, almost without doubt, wrongly ascribed by Suidas to the comie poet Philiscus, instead of the tragic poet of the same name. Another play is cited by Stobaeus (Serm. 73.53), namely the Φιλάργυροι, or, as Meineke thinks it ought to be, Φιλάργυρος.

Philiscus must have flourished about b. c. 400, or a little later, as his portrait was painted by Parrhasius, in a picture which Pliny thus describes (H. N. xxxv. 10. s. 36. § 5) :--"et Philiscum, et Liberum patrem adstante Virtute," from which it seems that the picture was a group, representing the poet supported by the patron deity of his art, and by a personified representation of Arete, to intimate tile excellence he had attained in it.