Philitas of Cos

The ancient Greek spelling of his name is uncertain; Φιλίτας (Philitas) is ancient and was common in Cos but the Doric Greek color Φιλήτας (Philetas) is also ancient; the accentuation Φιλητᾶς (Philetâs) did not exist before Imperial times.

Philitas of Cos
The Philosopher (c. 250–200 BC) from the Antikythera wreck illustrates the style used by Hecataeus in his bronze of Philitas.
Occupation	scholar and poet
Nationality	Ptolemaic Kingdom
Genre	Elegiac, Epigram, Epyllion
Subject	Glossary, Homer
Literary movement	Alexandrian school of poetry
Notable works	Demeter Disorderly Words
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Philitas or Philetas of Cos (c. 340–285 BC), the most important intellectual in the early years of Hellenistic civilization, was the first major writer who was both a poet and a scholar. A Greek associated with Alexandria, he flourished in the second half of the 4th century BC, and was appointed as tutor to the heir of the royal throne of Ptolemaic Egypt. He was caricatured as a frail old academic so consumed by his studies that he forgot to eat and drink.

Philitas' reputation continued for centuries, based on both his pioneering study of words and his verse in elegiac meter. His vocabulary Disorderly Words explained meanings of rare and obscure poetic words, such as those used by Homer. His poetry, notably his elegiac poem Demeter, was highly respected by later ancient poets. Almost all of his work has since vanished.

Life

The Ptolemaic Kingdom, c. 300 BC, was centered on Alexandria in ancient Egypt; Cos was on its northwest frontier.

Little is known of Philitas' life. Ancient sources always refer to him as a Coan, that is, a native or long-time inhabitant of Cos, a Dodecanese island in the Aegean Sea just off the coast of Asia. His student Theocritus wrote that Philetas' father was Telephos (Τήλεφος) and his mother, assuming the manuscript is supplemented correctly, Euctione (Εὐκτιόνη). From a comment about Philitas in the Suda, a 10th century AD historical encyclopedia, it is estimated he was born c. 340 BC, and that he might have established a reputation in Cos by c. 309/8 BC. During the wars of the Diadochi that followed the death of Alexander the Great and divided Alexander's empire, Ptolemy I Soter had captured Cos from his rival successor Antigonus I Monophthalmus in 310 BC, and Soter's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus was born there in 308 BC; it was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of Alexandria.

Philetas was appointed Philadelphus' preceptor, or tutor, which suggests he moved to Alexandria c. 297/6 BC and moved back to Cos in the later 290s BC, where he seems to have died sometime in the 280s BC. Later tutors of royal offspring in Ptolemaic Egypt generally headed the Library of Alexandria, but it is unknown whether Philitas held that position. Philitas also taught the poets Hermesianax and Theocritus and the grammarian Zenodotus, and after he returned to Cos he seems to have led a brotherhood of poets including Theocritus and Aratus.

Philitas' thinness made him an object of ridicule; according to the comic poets, he carried lead in his shoes to keep himself from being blown away. His pupil Hermesianax wrote that a statue of him was erected by the people of Cos, depicting him as "frail with all the glosses". His contemporary Posidippus wrote that Philadelphus commissioned a bronze of Philitas in old age from the sculptor Hecataeus of Lesbos, which "included nothing from the physique of heroes. No,… he cast the old man full of cares."

Philitas' life was said to be shortened by over-study of subtleties of the Megarian school of philosophy, which cultivated and studied paradoxes such as the liar paradox: if someone says "I am lying", is what he says true or false? Athenaeus of Naucratis wrote that Philitas studied false arguments and erroneous word-usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death, and that his tomb's epitaph read:

ξεῖνε, Φιλίτας εἰμί· λόγων ὁ ψευδόμενός με
  ὥλεσε καὶ νυκτῶν φροντίδες ἑσπέριοι.

St. George Stock analyzed the story as saying Philitas worried so much over the liar paradox that he died of insomnia, and translated the epitaph as follows:

Philetas of Cos am I,
'Twas the Liar who made me die,
And the bad nights caused thereby.

A more literal translation suggests that the invented epitaph just pokes fun at Philitas' focus on using the right words:

Stranger, I am Philitas. The word wrongly used and nights' evening-thoughts destroyed me.

Works

Philitas wrote a vocabulary explaining the meanings of rare and obscure poetic words, including words peculiar to certain dialects. The vocabulary, called Disorderly Words (Ἂτακτοι γλῶσσαι, Ataktoi glôssai), has been lost, with only a few fragments quoted by later authors. One example, quoted in Athenaeus 9.495e (that is, Athenaeus' book 9, line 495, manuscript variant "e"), is that the word πέλλα (pella) meant "wine cup" in the ancient Greek region of Boeotia; this was evidently contrasted to the same word meaning "milk pail" in Homer's Iliad 16.642.

Five poetical works by Philitas are known to have existed. His most famous was Demeter (written in the elegiac meter); its few surviving fragments suggest that it narrated the grain goddess Demeter's hunt for her daughter Persephone. The other known poetical works were Hermes (an epyllion, or brief mythological narrative, written in hexameter), Telephus, Paegnia (elegiacs), and Epigrams. These works were mentioned or briefly quoted by his rival Callimachus and by other ancient authors. Philitas' elegies, chiefly of an amatory nature and singing the praises of his mistress Battis (or Bittis), were much admired by the Romans. He was frequently mentioned by Ovid and Propertius. Although Callimachus' superior mythological lore was more to the taste of the Alexandrian critics, Propertius preferred and imitated Philitas, and linked the rival poets with the following well-known couplet:

Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetae,
  in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus.

Callimachus' spirit, and shrine of Philitas of Cos,
  let me enter your sacred grove, I beseech you.

At most fifty verses of Philitas survive. Here are two that are known because they were quoted in the Collection of Paradoxical Stories, whose putative author Antigonus (often identified with Antigonus of Carystus) does not say which work they came from; indirect evidence suggests the elegiac Demeter. These two verses show the confluence of Philitas' interests in poetry and obscure words:

γηρύσαιτο δὲ νεβρὸς ἀπὸ ζωὴν ὀλέσασα
  ὀξείης κάκτου τύμμα φυλαξαμένη

The deer can sing when it has lost its life
  if it avoids the prick of the sharp kaktos.

According to Antigonus, the kaktos was a thorny plant from Sicily, and "When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philitas spoke of it."

Influence

3rd century BC coin depicting Ptolemy II Philadelphus (left), patron and ex-pupil of Philitas.

Philetas gained instant recognition in both poetry and literary scholarship. As tutor to Philadelphus he is assumed to have had great influence on the development of the Musaeum at Alexandria, a scholarly institution that included the famous Library of Alexandria. A statue was erected of him, and his work was explicitly acknowledged as a classic by both Theocritus and Callimachus.

His reputation for scholarship endured for at least a century. In Athens, the comic playwright Strato made jokes that assumed audiences knew about Philitas' vocabulary, and the vocabulary was severely criticized more than a century later by the influential Homeric scholar Aristarchus of Samothrace in his Against Philitas (Πρὸς Φιλίταν).

He is the first writer whose works represent the combination of qualities now regarded as Hellenistic, and he directly influenced the major Hellenistic poets Callimachus and Apollonius of Rhodes. His poetic reputation endured for at least three centuries, as Augustan poets identified his name with great elegiac writing. His influence has been found or suspected in a wide range of ancient writing; Longus' 2nd century AD novel Daphnis and Chloe contains a character likely named after him. Almost all that he wrote seems to have disappeared within two centuries, though, so it is unlikely that any writer later than the 2nd century BC read any but a few of his lines.

Bibliography

Philitas' fragments were edited by Spanoudakis with commentary in English:

• Konstantinos Spanoudakis (2002). Philitas of Cos. Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum 229. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-12428-4. Reviewed by Hopkinson and by Sens.

and also by Dettori (for vocabulary) and by Sbardella (for poetry) with commentary in Italian:

• Emanuele Dettori (2000). Filita grammatico: Testimonianze e frammenti: introduzione, edizione e commento (in Italian). Rome: Quasar. ISBN 978-8871401850.
• Livio Sbardella (2000). Filita: Testimonianze e frammenti poetici: introduzione, edizione e commento (in Italian). Rome: Quasar. ISBN 978-8871401829.

Earlier editions of the fragments include Kayser, Bach, and Kuchenmü̈ller; see also Maass.

References

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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)