“There was no telling of tales nor yet did anyone sing things that had not happened before Priam and Troy. The art of poetry concerned prophecy and Alkmene’s son Herakles and had just been established, not yet in its bloom since Homer had not yet sung, some say until right after the sack of Troy or within a few years, but others say that he made it a poem as many as eight generations later.”
… καίτοι, ξένε, πρὸ Πριάμου καὶ Τροίας οὐδὲ ῥαψωδία τις ἦν, οὐδὲ ᾔδετο τὰ μήπω πραχθέντα, ποιητικὴ μὲν γὰρ ἦν περί τε τὰ μαντεῖα περί τε τὸν ᾿Αλκμήνης ῾Ηρακλέα, καθισταμένη τε ἄρτι καὶ οὔπω ἡβάσκουσα, ῞Ομηρος δὲ οὔπω ᾖδεν, ἀλλ’ οἱ μὲν Τροίας ἁλούσης, οἱ δὲ ὀλίγαις, οἱ δ’ ὀκτὼ γενεαῖς ὕστερον ἐπιθέσθαι αὐτὸν τῇ ποιήσει λέγουσιν.
Yeah, we’re getting Second Sophistic with it today. There were a few Philostratoi, but this Lucius Flavius Philostratus was a sophist who lived in the second and third centuries CE.
