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Philiscus
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Proper name
- PHILISCUS（Φιλίσκος), a citizen of Abydus, who in b. c. 368 was sent into Greece by Ariobarzanes, the Persian satrap of the Hellespont, to effect a reconciliation between the Thebans and Lacedaemonians. He came well supplied with money, and in the name of Artaxerxes II.; but in a congress which he caused to be held at Delphi, he failed to accomplish his object, as the Thebans refused to abandon their claim to the sovereignty of Boeotia, and Lacedaemon would not acknowledge the independence of Messenia. Upon this Philiscus, leaving behind him a body of 2000 mercenaries for the service of Sparta, and having been honoured, as well as Ariobarzanes, with the Athenian franchise, returned to Asia. Here, under cover of the satrap's protection, he made himself master of a number of Greek states, over which he exercised a tyrannical and insolent sway, till he was at last assassinated at Lampsacus by Thersagoras and Execestus (Xen. Hell. vii. 1. § 27 ; Diod. XV. 70 ; Dem. c. Aristocr. pp. 666, 667). Diodorus places the mission of Philiscus to Greece in b. c. 369, a year too soon. (Wikisource | public domain)
- PHILISCUS （Φιλίσκος), literary. 1. An Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, of whom little is known. Suidas simply mentions him as a comic poet, and gives the following titles of his plays : Ἄδωνις, Διὸς γοναί, Θημιστοκλῆς, Ὄλυμπος, Πανὸς γοναί, Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ἀφροδίτης γοναί, Ἀρτέμιδος καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος. These mythological titles sufficiently prove that Philiscus belonged to the Middle Comedy. The nativities of the gods, to which most of them relate, formed a very favourite class of subjects with the poets of the Middle Comedy. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 278, &c.) Eudocia omits the title Ἑρμοῦ καὶ Ἀφροδίτης γοναί, and Lobeck has pointed out the difficulty of seeing how the nativities of Hermes and Aphrodite could be connected in one drama (Aglaoph. p. 437); a difficulty which Meineke meets by supposing that we ought to read Ἑρμοῦ γοναί, Ἀφροδίτης γοναι, as two distinct titles (Hist. Crit. pp. 281, 282). The Themistocles is, almost without doubt, wrongly ascribed by Suidas to the comie poet Philiscus, instead of the tragic poet of the same name. Another play is cited by Stobaeus (Serm. 73.53), namely the Φιλάργυροι, or, as Meineke thinks it ought to be, Φιλάργυρος. Philiscus must have flourished about b. c. 400, or a little later, as his portrait was painted by Parrhasius, in a picture which Pliny thus describes (H. N. xxxv. 10. s. 36. § 5) :--'et Philiscum, et Liberum patrem adstante Virtute,' from which it seems that the picture was a group, representing the poet supported by the patron deity of his art, and by a personified representation of Arete, to intimate tile excellence he had attained in it. Naeke has clearly shown that this statement can only refer to Philiscus the comic poet, and not to any other of the known persons of the same name. (Sched. Crit. p. 26 ; Opusc. vol. i. p. 42). There are very few fragments of Philiscus preserved. Stobaeus (l. c.) quotes two verses from the Φιλάργυροι, and elsewhere (xxix. 40), two from an unknown play. Another verse from an unknown play is quoted by Dicaearchus (Vit. Graec. p. 30, Buttmann); and another is preserved in the Palatine Anthology (xi. 441, vol. i. p. 445, ed. Jacobs), which Jacobs wrongly ascribes to the rhetorician of Miletus. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 423, 424, vol. iii. pp. 579, 580 ; Naeke, l. c.） (Wikisource | public domain)
- PHILISCUS, artists. 1. A painter, of whom we have no information, except the mention, by Pliny, of his picture of a painter's studio, with a boy blowing the fire. (H. N. xxxv. 11. s. 40. § 38.) (Wikisource | public domain)
- PHILISCUS, P. ATI'LIUS, killed his own daughter, because she had been guilty of fornication. (Val. Max. vi. 1. § 6.) (Wikisource | public domain)
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (ed. William Smith 1870), Wikisource | public domain
PIR
Male Personal name
Confirmed occurences in the Roman Empire:
Confirmed occurences in the Roman Empire:
- C. Cassius Philiscus (Masc), ref: PIR C 0515 | PIR ID3748
- Philiscus (Masc), ref: PIR P 0367 | PIR ID10375
- Philiscus (Masc), ref: PIR P 0366 | PIR ID10376
Prosopographia Imperii Romani
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