Philostrătus
（
Φιλόστρατος).
1.
Flavius Philostrătus the elder, a Greek Sophist of
Lemnos, son of a celebrated Sophist of the same name. He taught first in Athens, then at Rome
till the middle of the third century A.D. By order of his great patroness Iulia Domna, the
learned wife of the emperor Septimius Severus, he wrote (
a) the romantic
Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Besides this we have by him (
b) a work entitled
Heroicus (
Ἡρωικός), 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 (
Βίοι
Σοφιστῶν), in two books, the first dealing with twenty-six philosophers, the
second with thirtythree 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 (
f), the
Imagines (
Εἰκόνες), in two books, being descriptions of sixtysix 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, or whether their subjects were invented by
himself, as maintained by Friederichs and Matz. 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.). The works of
Philostratus are collected and edited by Kayser
(Leipzig, 1870-71), and
translated into English by
Berwick (London, 1809). See
Brunn,
Die Philostratischen Gemälde (1861); and
Bertrand,
Philostrate et son École (1882). A new edition of the
Imagines was published by the members of the Vienna Classical Seminary in
1893.
2.
Philostrătus the younger, grandson of the preceding,
of Lemnos. He lived chiefly at Athens, and died at Lemnos, A.D. 264. 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. Printed in
Kayser's edition of the preceding.
