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Anacharsis in a Letter of Apollonius of Tyana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Robert J. Penella
Robert J. Penella
Affiliation:
Fordham University, New York
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Extract

Philostratus remarks on the terseness of the letters of Apollonius of Tyana (Vita Apoll. 7.35, cf. 4.27), and letter 61 is a good example of that stylistic feature. Addressed to a Lesbonax, it says: ᾽Agr;νἀχαπσις ó Σκὑθης ῆν σπφóς εí δὲ Σκὐθης, ὃτι καì ϳκὐθης (‘Anacharsis the Scythian was a sage.. And if he was a Scythian, then it was because he was a Scythian that he was a sage’). In my commentary to the letters, I observed that Apollonius is drawing here on the tradition of the Scythians as an idealized race, unspoiled by the cultivations of Greek city life, and is implicitly criticizing his contemporaries in the Greek world for not living up to the high ideals of Hellenism. I compared a critical remark in letter 34 that alludes to Euripides, Orestes 485: “ἐβαπβαπὡθ” οὐ “χπóνιος ὢν ἀφ’ ‘Ελλἁδι. More can now be said.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , December 1988 , pp. 570 - 572
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 The Letters of Apollonius of Tyana: a Critical Text with Prolegomena, Translation and Commentary (1979), 70–1, 121.

2 In the Loeb, Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, The Epistles of Apollonius, and The Treatise of Eusebius (1912) ii. 463Google Scholar. Against Conybeare and in agreement with my translation: Hercher, R., Epistolographi graeci (1873), 122Google Scholar; Kindstrand, J. F., Anacharsis: The Legend and the Apophthegmata (1981), 26nGoogle Scholar; Lo Cascio, F., Apollonio Tianeo, Epistole e frammenti (1984), 67Google Scholar.

3 Apollonius is not being a good historian in assuming that the current condition of Hellenism is what it was at the time of Anacharsis. The criticism of the Greeks here and in letter 34 is: obviously hyperbolically stated. In his comments on letter 61 Kindstrand, , Anacharsis, 26nGoogle Scholar, needlessly worries about this criticism as ‘surprising, as Apollonius is well known for his pro’ Hellenic attitude’. But criticism of contemporary Greek degeneracy is not inconsistent with the championing of Hellenic ideals; see Bowie, E. L., ‘Apollonius of Tyana: Tradition and Reality’, ANRW II 16.2, 1680–1682Google Scholar.

4 For Byzantine echoes of this line, see Mullett, M., “The Classical Tradition in the Byzantine Letter’, in Mullett, M. and Scott, R. (edd.), Byzantium and the Classical Tradition (1981), 91–2Google Scholar; note also , Jul.Epp. 8.441c BidezGoogle Scholar.