only in an Armenian version, consists of two books, the first of which appears to be in a Christian recension, but there is no reason for denying its Philonic origin.
Editions.—Till recent days the best edition was that of Mangey (2 vols., London, 1742); the handiest the Holtze duodecimo (Leipzig, 1851) Both are still very useful, but for scholars they will be superseded by the enlarged and critical edition of Leopold Cohn and Paul Wendland (Berlin, 1896–1902). See also papers by Cohn in Hermes, xxxviii. (1903) and xliii. (1908). There is an English translation of the old text by C. D. Yonge (4 vols., London, 1854).
Literature.—The best special studies of Philo will be found in Siegfried, Phito von Alex. (Jena, 1875); Drummond, Philo-Judaeus (London, 1888). For his place in philosophy, see Zeller, Phil. der Griechen (1881). For his relation to Palestinian speculation, B. Ritter, Philo und die Hatacha (Leipzig, 1879). An excellent general account will be found in Schürer, The Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ (Eng. trans., 1891), or in Dr Edersheim’s article on Philo in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. For the question of the genuineness and historical value of the De vita contemplativa, see L. Massebieau, in Revue de l’histoire des religions, vol. xvi. (Paris, 1887), F. C. Conybeare, Philo: About the Contemplative Life (Oxford, 1895); G. Fayot, Études sur les thérapeutes (Genève, 1880); P. E. Lucius, Die Therapeuten (Strassburg, 1880); P. Wendland, Die Therapeuten (Leipzig, 1896). Also F. Cumont, Philo, de aet. mundi (1891); J. Bernays in the Abhand. der k. Akad. der Wiss. (1876). (E. S.*; C. Bi.)
PHILO OF BYZANTIUM, Greek writer on mechanics, flourished during the latter half of the 2nd century B.C. (according to some, a century earlier). He was the author of a large work Μηχανικὴ σύνταξις), of which the fourth and (in epitome) fifth books are extant, treating of missiles, the construction of fortresses, provisioning, attack and defence (ed. R. Schone, 1893, with German translation in H. Köchly’s Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller, vol. i. 1853; E. A. Rochas d’Aiglun, Poliorcétique des Grecs, 1872). Another portion of the work, on pneumatic engines, has been preserved in the form of a Latin translation (De ingeniis spiritualibus) made from an Arabic version (ed. W Schmidt, with German translation, in the works of Heron of Alexandria, vol. i, in “Teubner Series,” 1899; with French translation by Rochas, La Science des philosophers . . . dans l’antiquité, 1882).
A little treatise On the Seven Wonders of the World, wrongly attributed to Philo, probably belongs to the 6th century A.D. It is printed in R. Hercher’s Aelian (1858).
PHILO OF LARISSA, Greek philosopher of the first half of the 1st century B.C. During the Mithradatic wars he left Athens and took up his residence in Rome. He was a pupil of Clitomachus, whom he succeeded as head of the Third or New Academy. According to Sextus Empiricus, he was the founder of the Fourth Academy, but other writers refuse to admit the separate existence of more than three academies (see Academy, Greek). In Rome he lectured on rhetoric and philosophy, and collected around him many eminent pupils, amongst whom Cicero was the most famous and the most enthusiastic. None of his works is extant; our knowledge of his views is derived from Numenius, Sextus Empiricus and Cicero. In general, his philosophy was a reaction against the sceptic or agnostic position of the Middle and New Academy in favour of the dogmatism of Plato
See Grysar, Die Akademiker Philo und Antiochus (1849); Hermann, De Philone Larissaeo (Göttingen, 1851 and 1855).
PHILO, HERENNIUS, of Byblus, Greek grammarian, was born, according to Suidas, in A.D. 42. He lived into the reign of Hadrian, of which he wrote a history, now lost. He was the author of various works: On the Acquisition and Choice of Books; On Cities and their Famous Men, epitomized by the grammarian Aelius Serenus, and one of the chief authorities used by Hesychius and Stephanus of Byzantium; On Synonyms, of which there is extant an epitome by Ammonius Grammaticus. But he is chiefly known for his translation of the Phoenician history of Sanchuniathon, who was said to have lived before the Trojan war Of this work considerable fragments have been preserved, chiefly by Eusebius in the Praeparatio evangelica (i. 9, 10; iv. 16). They present a euhemeristic réchauffé of Phoenician theology and mythology, which is represented as translated from the original Phoenician. Sanchuniathon is probably an imaginary personage, whose name is formed from that of the Phoenician god Sanchon.
Editions of the fragments by J. C. Orelli (1826) and C. Muller, Frag. hist. graec. vol. iii. In 1836 F. Wagenfeld brought out what claimed to be a complete translation by Philo (from a MS. discovered in a convent in Portugal, now considered spurious). There are English translations by I. P. Cory (1828) and Bishop R. Cumberland (1720).
PHILOCHORUS, of Athens, Greek historian during the 3rd century B.C., was a member of a priestly family. He was a seer and interpreter of signs, and a man of considerable influence. He was strongly anti-Macedonian in politics, and a bitter opponent of Demetrius Poliorcetes. When Antigonus Gonatas, the son of the latter, besieged and captured Athens (261), Philochorus was put to death for having supported Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had encouraged the Athenians in their resistance to Macedonia. His investigations into the usages and customs of his native Attica were embodied in an Atthis, in seventeen books, a history of Athens from the earliest times to 262 B.C. Considerable fragments are preserved in the lexicographers, scholiasts, Athenaeus, and elsewhere. The work was epitomized by the author himself, and later by Asinius Pollio of Tralles (perhaps a freedman of the famous Gaius Asinius Pollio). Philochorus also wrote on oracles, divination and sacrifices; the mythology and religious observances of the tetrapolis of Attica; the myths of Sophocles; the lives of Euripides and Pythagoras; the foundation of Salamis. He compiled chronological lists of the archons and Olympiads, and made a collection of Attic inscriptions, the first of its kind in Greece.
Fragments and life in C. W. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, vol. i (1841); A. Böckh, Gesammelte kleine Schriften, vol. v. (1871), on the plan of the work; J. Strenge, Quaestiones phitochoreae (Göttingen, 1868); C. Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte (1895).
PHILOCTETES, in Greek legend, son of Poeas king of the Malians of Mt Oeta, one of the suitors of Helen and a celebrated hero of the Trojan War. Homer merely states that he was distinguished for his prowess with the bow; that he was bitten by a snake on the journey to Troy and left behind in the island of Lemnos; and that he subsequently returned home in safety. These brief allusions were elaborated by the “cyclic” poets, and the adventures of Philoctetes formed the subject of tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. In the later form of the story Philoctetes was the friend and armour-bearer of Heracles, who presented him with his bow and poisoned arrows as a reward for kindling the fire on Mt Oeta, on which the hero immolated himself. Philoctetes remained at Lemnos till the tenth year of the war. An oracle having declared that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Heracles, Odysseus and Diomedes (or Neoptolemus) were sent to fetch Philoctetes. On his arrival before Troy he was healed of his wound by Machaon, and slew Paris; shortly afterwards the City was taken. On his return to his own country, finding that a revolt had broken out against him, he again took ship and sailed for Italy, where he founded Petilia and Cremissa. He fell fighting on the side of a band of Rhodian colonists against some later immigrants from Pallene in Achaea. His tomb and sanctuary were shown at Macalla, on the coast of Bruttium.
Of the Aeschylean and Euripidean tragedies only a few fragments remain; of the two by Sophocles, one is extant, the other, dealing with the fortunes of Philoctetes before Troy, is lost. Some light is thrown upon the lost plays by Dio Chrysostom, who in one of his discourses (52) describes his reading of the three tragedies, and in another (59) gives a prose version of the opening of the Philoctetes of Euripides. Philoctetes was also the subject of tragedies by Achaeus of Eretria, Euphorion of Chalcis and the Roman tragedian Accius. According to F. Marx (Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, 1904, p. 673–685), Philoctetes did not appear in the original legend of Troy. He is a form of the Lemnian Hephaestus, who alighted on the island when flung out of Olympus by Zeus. Like him, he is lame and an outcast for nine years; like him, he is brought back in time of need. His connexion with the fall of Troy indicates that the fire-god himself set fire to the city; in like manner no other than the fire-god was thought worthy to kindle the pyre of Heracles.
See Homer, Iliad, ii. 718, Odyssey, iii. 190, viii. 219; Sophocles, Philoctetes, and Jebb’s Introduction; Diod. Sic. iv. 38; Philostratus, Heroica, 6; Strabo vi. 254; Hyginus, Fab. 36, 102.
PHILODEMUS, Epicurean philosopher and poet, was born at Gadara in Coele-Syria early in the 1st century B.C., and
