TA TÔN PHILOSTRATÔN LEIPOMENA HAPANTA. Philostratorum quae supersunt omnia. Vita Apollonii libris VIII; Vitae Sophistarum libris II, Heroica, Imagines priores atque posteriores et Epistolae. Accessere Apollonii Tyanensis epistolae, Eusebii liber adversus Hieroclem, Callistrati descript. statuarum, omnia ex MSS. Codd. recensuit, notis perpetuis illustravit, versionem totam fere novam fecit Gottfridus Olearius.

Leipzig (Lipsiae), Apud Thomam Fritsch, 1709. (Colophon at the end: 'Typis Christophori Fleischeri, an. MDCCIX') Folio. (VIII),XLIII, (I);987 p. Vellum 37 cm (Ref: Hoffman 3,77/78; Ebert 16744a; Brunet 4,619; Graesse 5,273; not yet in VD18) (Details: Back with 6 raised bands. Boards with blindstamped borders. Blindstamped floral ornament in the center of the boards. Title in red and black. Woodcut printer's mark on the title: a pegasus flying among the clouds. Text in 2 columns, Greek with parallel Latin translation. The commentary is printed on the lower part of the pages. Occasional text engravings) (Condition: Vellum age-toned, spotted and scuffed. Front joint split, but strong. Rear joint starting to split. Endpapers worn and waterstained. Small blind stamp near the lower edge of the title. Paper browning, occasionally severe foxing) (Note: The Suda, a 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia, knows three Greek sophists called Philostratus, three generations living between 160 and 250 A.D. The first one is thought to have written most works, the 'Vita Apollonii' (Life of Apollonius), the 'Vitae Sophistarum' (Biographies of Sophists), the 'Gymnastikos', the 'Heroikos', the 'Eikones', and 'Dialexeis', and a collection of 73 letters, mostly love letters. (Neue Pauly 9, Philostratos 5-8) In the first years of the third century Philostratus moved to Rome, where he entered the court of the emperor Septimius Severius. There he wrote ca. 307 A.D. at the behest of the empress Julia Domna Augusta, whose favour he enjoyed, a biography of the neopythagorean ascetic and wandering philosopher, and also miracle-monger, Apollonius of Tyana. Few books have over a long period of time aroused so much upheaval among Christians as this biography. Apollonius was born in the year when Jesus Christ is supposed to be born. It is almost impossible to reveal Apollonius' true identity, or to decide whether this is a biography of a real or fictionalized hero, or just an Heliodoran romance or a romantic hagiography, or even a documentary romance. The question can be dealt from so many angles, that the Philostratean studies constitute a separate branch in the research of the culture of the Early Roman Empire. The problem is 'that Philostratus, as a man of letters and sophist full of passion for Greek romance and for the studies in rhetoric, was hardly interested in the historical Apollonius'. (Dzielska,M., 'Apollonius of Tyana in legend and history', Rome 1986, p. 14) A fact is that contemporary sources reveal next to nothing about Apollonius. 'To satisfy the empress's demand, who asked him (Philostratus) to narrate the life and achievements of Apollonius, he had to invent this figure as it were anew. Thus using his literary imagination, this moderately gifted writer turned a modest Cappadocian mystic into an impressive figure, full of life, politically outstanding, and yet also preposterous'. (Op. cit. p. 14) Nothing proves that the 'Vita Apollonii Tyanensis' was widely read in the 3rd century. It would probably not have survived, were it not for the gouvernor of Bithynia, Sossianus Hierocles, one of the inspirators of the persecution of the Christians at the beginning of the third century in his province under the emperor Diocletian. At the beginning of the 4th century he published his 'Philaletes', a treatise against Christianity, in which he ridiculed the divine attributes of Christ, and praised Apollonius' virtues and thaumaturgic abilities. In the 'Philaletes' Hierocles propagated his pagan Christ Apollonius. The Christians were furiously enraged, because Hierocles dared to contrast Apollonius with their Saviour. The Christians won under Constantine, and the 'Philaletes' vanished soon from the face of earth. It is only known through the 'Against Hierocles' a treatise of the Churchfather Eusebius. The 'Vita Apollonii Tyanensis', in which it was believed that Apollonius was presented as the equal, if not the superior of Christ, survived however the burning of pagan literature by Christian mobs in early christianity. The 'Vitae Sophistarum', is a collection of biographies of 59 Greek sophists of the so-called Second or New Sophistic. Philostratus consulted their works, but used also the oral tradition. This work is a valuable source for the history of philosophy from Nero to the beginning of the third century. The 'Gymnastikos' is a treatise on Greek athletics. In the 'Heroikos' the ghosts of Heroes, especially Protesilaos, tell remarkable particulars about themselves. The 'Imagines', the description of paintings, of Philostratus and the 'Descriptio statuarum' , the description of statues, written by Callistratus, belong to the rhetorical genre of 'ecphrasis', in which the relation of the verbal and visual was explored. Ancient Greek rhetoricians defined it as a 'speech that brings the thing shown vividly before the eyes', for instance the famous description of the Shield of Achilles by Homer in the 18th book of the Iliad, vs. 478/608. 'In modern criticism ecphrasis has come to be defined as the 'description of a work of art, a category that may be restricted to the visual arts (painting and sculpture) or expanded to include architecture and other arts'. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass., 2010, p. 291, s.v. Ecphrasis) § The German theologian and classical scholar Gottfried Olearius, 1672 - 1715, was appointed professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Leipzig in 1699. In 1693 he started a journey which brought him to Oxford and Cambridge, where he stayed for more than a year to study Greek manuscripts. (ADB 24, 277/78; he has also a lemma in Wikipedia) (Provenance: At the lower edge of the title a blind imprint of a small oval stamp, in the center of which an imperial eagle. The legend reads: 'empire francais zuiderzée, decret du .. vrier, 181?'. Napoleon annexed in 1810 the Netherlands into the French empire. The provinces North Holland and Utrecht were transformed into the 'Département Zuiderzée'. The legend probably refers to the 'decret du 5 février 1810' (decree of the 5th february 1810) in which Napoleon regulated the booktrade. On the front pastedown has been pasted a small paper label reading: 'Henry Bousquet') (Collation: pi4, a-e4, f2 (leaf f2 verso blank); A-6H4, 6I2 (leaf 6I2 verso blank)) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)