Tag: Porphyry

The Power of Longinus; Or, How Porphyry Got His Name

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 2 Comments

Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers 455-456

Porphyry

“Porphyry’s birthplace was Tyre—the first city of the ancient Phoenicians—and his forebears were not men of low status. He received a fitting education and  advanced so far and gained so much that when he became a student of Longinus, he was even an adornment to his teacher in a short time.  At that time, Longinus was a kind of living library or a mobile museum. He was tasked with editing ancient authors, as many others before him had been, like Dionysius the Karian who was the most famous of them all. In his Syrian town, Porphyry was at first called Malkhos, a word that can mean king. It was Longinus who named him Porphyry, changing his name to the emblem of royal raiment.”

Alongside Longinus, Porphyry achieved the summit of education—the pinnacle of grammar and even rhetoric, the skill Longinus had achieved. He did not prefer that subject the most, but he learned every type of philosophy thoroughly.  For Longinus was by far the best man at that time at everything—the majority of his books are still circulated and people wonder at them. And if anyone criticized an ancient author, his opinion had no strength before Longinus’ judgment completely supported it.”

<ΠΟΡΦΥΡΙΟΣ>. Πορφυρίῳ Τύρος μὲν ἦν πατρίς, ἡ πρώτη τῶν ἀρχαίων Φοινίκων πόλις, καὶ πατέρες δὲ οὐκ ἄσημοι. τυχὼν δὲ τῆς προσηκούσης παιδείας, ἀνά τε ἔδραμε τοσοῦτον καὶ ἐπέδωκεν, ὡς—Λογγίνου μὲν ἦν ἀκροατής—καὶ ἐκόσμει τὸν διδάσκαλον ἐντὸς ὀλίγου χρόνου. Λογγῖνος δὲ κατὰ τὸν χρόνον ἐκεῖνον βιβλιοθήκη τις ἦν ἔμψυχος καὶ περιπατοῦν μουσεῖον, καὶ κρίνειν γε τοὺς παλαιοὺς ἐπετέτακτο, καθάπερ πρὸ ἐκείνου πολλοί τινες ἕτεροι, καὶ ὁ ἐκ Καρίας Διονύσιος πάντων ἀριδηλότερος. Μάλχος δὲ κατὰ τὴν Σύρων πόλιν ὁ Πορφύριος ἐκαλεῖτο τὰ πρῶτα (τοῦτο δὲ δύναται βασιλέα λέγειν)· Πορφύριον δὲ αὐτὸν ὠνόμασε Λογγῖνος, ἐς τὸ βασιλικὸν τῆς ἐσθῆτος παράσημον τὴν προσηγορίαν ἀποτρέψας. παρ’ ἐκείνῳ δὴ τὴν ἄκραν ἐπαιδεύετο παιδείαν, γραμματικῆς τε εἰς ἄκρον ἁπάσης, ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος, ἀφικόμενος καὶ ῥητορικῆς· πλὴν ὅσον οὐκ ἐπ’ ἐκείνην ἔνευσε, φιλοσοφίας γε πᾶν εἶδος ἐκματτόμενος. ἦν γὰρ ὁ Λογγῖνος μακρῷ τῶν τότε ἀνδρῶν τὰ πάντα ἄριστος, καὶ τῶν βιβλίων τε αὐτοῦ πολὺ πλῆθος φέρεται, καὶ τὸ φερόμενον θαυμάζεται. καὶ εἴ τις κατέγνω τινὸς τῶν παλαιῶν,  οὐ τὸ δοξασθὲν ἐκράτει πρότερον ἀλλ’ ἡ Λογγίνου πάντως ἐκράτει κρίσις.

“Clarifying Homer Through Homer”: Porphyry Channels Aristarchus

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

How does one ‘read’ Homer? The debate has been going on for some time.  In his Homeric Questions, Porphyry presents a classic answer:

“Because I think to best to make sense of Homer through Homer, I usually show by example how he may interpret himself, sometimes in juxtaposition, sometimes in other ways. Such an interpretation is possible contained within the line for the epithet Eirokomôs*:

“Appearing like an old women, a wool-carder, who was born long ago, she addressed her” (Il. 3.386)

Who is the eirokomos? She, they say, is one who makes wool pretty. So, someone who adorned wool would be a “wool-carder” [imagining that the komos part is related to komeo, which means “to tend”]. And to “adorn” is to “make beautiful”, as when one “adorns the horns by pouring gold on them so that the goddess might delight when she sees the decoration” (Od. 3.437)

᾿Αξιῶν δὲ ἐγὼ ῞Ομηρον ἐξ ῾Ομήρου σαφηνίζειν αὐτὸν ἐξηγούμενον ἑαυτὸν ὑπεδείκνυον, ποτὲ μὲν παρακειμένως, ἄλλοτε δ’ ἐν ἄλλοις. τῇ τε γὰρ εἰροκόμῳ παράκειται συνεζευγμένη ἡ ἐξήγησις·

γρηῒ δέ μιν εἰκυῖα παλαιγενέι προσέειπεν
εἰροκόμῳ (Γ 386).

τίς οὖν ἡ εἰροκόμος; ἥ οἱ, φησὶν, ἤσκειν εἴρια καλά· ἡ γὰρ ἀσκοῦσα τὰ ἔρια
εἴη ἂν εἰροκόμος· ἀσκεῖν δὲ τὸ καλλωπίζειν, ὡς τὸ χρυσὸν κέρασι
περιχεύει ἀσκήσας, ἵν’ ἄγαλμα θεὰ κεχάροιτο ἰδοῦσα (γ 437).

*This epithet is a Homeric hapax legomenon (it only occurs once!) that means “wool-carder”. In this scene, Aphrodite at first takes the disguise of an elderly servant as she addresses Helen.

Although I am not much convinced that Porphyry displays well here what he set out to do, this is the earliest example of a method tried and true in Homeric scholarship—to figure out what is conventional in Homer or assumed by the texts in order to explain problematic passages.

The older I get, the more sure I am that too many errors of communication and understanding are committed because we fail to understand elements of a system by the assumptions of that system first and foremost…

Although this is our earliest extant reference to what is attributed now to the principles of the Alexandrian librarian and editor Aristarchus, the D Scholia to the Iliad (5.385) provide an important testimonium:

“Aristarchus believed it best to make sense of those things that were presented more fantastically by Homer according to the poet’s authority, that we not be overwhelmed by anything outside of the things presented by Homer.”

᾿Αρίσταρχος ἀξιοῖ τὰ φραζόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ Ποιητοῦ μυθικώτερον ἐκδέχεσθαι, κατὰ τὴν Ποιητικὴν ἐξουσίαν, μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν φραζομένων ὑπὸ τοῦ Ποιητοῦ περιεργαζομένους.