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Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Biographies for destination: "PROKONISSOS Ancient city TURKEY".


Biographies (4)

Poets

Aristaeus (Aristeas)

Aristeas. An epic poet of Proconnesus, of whose life we have only fabulous accounts. His date is quite uncertain. He is represented as a magician, whose soul could leave and re-enter its body according to its pleasure. He was connected with the worship of Apollo, which he was said to have introduced at Metapontum. He wrote an epic poem on the Arimaspi, in three books, from which the pseudoLonginus quotes. See Herod. iv. 13.

Aristeas, of Proconnesus, a son of Caystrobius or Demochares, was an epic poet, who flourished, according to Suidas, about the time of Croesus and Cyrus. The accounts of his life are as fabulous as those about Abaris the Hyperborean. According to a tradition, which Herodotus (iv. 15) heard at Metapontum, in southern Italy, he re-appeared there among the living 340 years after his death, and according to this tradition Aristeas would belong to the eighth or ninth century before the Christian era; and there are other traditions which place him before the time of Homer, or describe him as a contemporary and teacher of Homer (Strab. xiv.). In the account of Herodotus (iv. 13-16), Tzetzes (Chil. ii. 724, &c.) and Suidas (s. v.), Aristeas was a magician, who rose after his death, and whose soul could leave and re-enter its body according to its pleasure. He was, like Abaris, connected with the worship of Apollo, which he was said to have introduced at Metapontum. Herodotus calls him the favourite and inspired bard of Apollo (phoibolamptos). He is said to have travelled through the countries north and east of the Euxine, and to have visited the countries of the Issedones, Arimaspae, Cimmerii, Hyperborei, and other mythical nations, and after his return to have written an epic poem, in three books, called ta Arimaspeia, in which he seems to have described all that he had seen or pretended to have seen. This work, which was unquestionably full of marvellous stories, was nevertheless looked upon as a source of historical and geographical information, and some writers reckoned Aristeas among the logographers. But it was nevertheless a poetical production, and Strabo seems to judge too harshly of him, when he calls him an aner goes ei tis allos. The poem " Arimaspeia" is frequently mentioned by the ancients (Paus. i. 24.6, v. 7. 9; Pollux, ix. 5; Gellius, ix. 4; Plin. H. N. vii. 2), and thirteen hexameter verses of it are preserved in Longinus (De Sublim. x. 4) and Tzetzes (Chil. vii. 686, &c.). The existence of the poem is thus attested beyond all doubt; but the ancients themselves denied to Aristeas the authorship of it (Dionys. Hal. Jud. de Thuc. 23). It seems to have fallen into oblivion at an early period. Suidas also mentions a theogony of Aristeas, in prose, of which, however, nothing is known.

This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks


Writers

Bion

Of Proconnesus, a contemporary of Pherecydes of Syros, who consequently lived about B. C. 560. He is mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (iv. 58) as the author of two works which he does not specify; but we must infer from Clemens of Alexandria (Strom. vi.), that one of these was an abridgement of the work of the ancient historian, Cadmus of Miletus.

Historians

Deiochus

Deiochus, (Deiochos), of Proconnesus, is mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Jud. de Thuc. 2, 5) as one of the earliest Greek historians, who lived previous to the time of Herodotus. He is probably the same person as the Deiochas whom Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v. Lampsakos) calls a native of Cyzicus, and who wrote a work on Cyzicus (peri Kuzikou), which is frequently referred to by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, who, however, calls him by his proper name only once (on i. 139), and in all the other passages refers to him under the name of Deilochos, or Diiochos. (Schol. ad Apollon. i., ii.)

This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks


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