Listed 15 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "JORDAN Country MIDDLE EAST" .
PETRA (Ancient city) JORDAN
Gessius, (Gessios), an eminent physician, called by Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v.
Gea) ho periphanestatos iatrosophistes, was a native of Gea, a place near Petra,
in Arabia, and lived in the reign of the emperor Zenon, A. D. 474-491. He was
a pupil of Domnus, whose reputation he eclipsed, and whose scholars he enticed
from him by his superior skill. He was an ambitious man, and acquired both riches
and honours; but his reputation as a philosopher, though he wished to be considered
such, was not very great. (Damascius ap. Suid s. v. Gesios, and Phot. Cod. 242.,
ed. Bekker.) He may perhaps be the physician mentioned by one of the scholiasts
on Hippocrates. (Dietz, Schol. in Hippocr. et Gal. vol. ii. ) The little medical
work that bears the name of Cassius Iatrosophista has been by some persons attributed
to (Gesius, but without sufficient reason. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xiii., ed.
Vet.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
GADARA (Ancient city) JORDAN
(Theodoros). An eminent rhetorician of the age of Augustus,
was a native of Gadara. He settled at Rhodes, where Tiberius, afterwards emperor,
during his retirement (B.C. 6- A.D. 2) to that island, was one of his hearers.
He also taught at Rome. Theodorus was the founder of a school of rhetoricians
called "Theodorei."
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Apsines. A Greek rhetorician of Gadara, who taught at Athens in the first half of the third century A.D., and wrote a valuable treatise on rhetoric, and also a work on the questions usually discussed in the schools of the rhetoricians. These two treatises are printed in the Rhetores Graeci, by Walz, ix.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Apsines of Gadara in Phoenicia, a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the reign of Maximinus, about
A. D. 235. He studied at Smyrna under Heracleides, the Lycian, and afterwards
at Nicomedia under Basilicus. He subsequently taught rhetoric at Athens, and distinguished
himself so much that he was honoured with the consular dignity (Suidas, s. v.;
Tzetzes. Chil. viii. 696). He was a friend of Philostratus (Vit. Soph. ii. 33.4),
who praises the strength and fidelity of his memory, but is afraid to say more
for fear of being suspected of flattery or partiality. We still possess two rhetorical
works of Apsincs:
1. Peri ton meron tou politikou logou techne, which was first printed by Aldus
in his Rhetores Graeci, under the incorrect title techne petorike peri prooimion,
as it is called by the Scholiast on Hermogenes. This work, however, is only a
part of a greater work, and is so much interpolated that it is scarcely possible
to form a correct notion of it. In some of the interpolated parts Apsines himself
is quoted. A considerable portion of it was discovered by Rhunken to belong to
a work of Longinus on rhetoric, which is now lost, and this portion has consequently
been omitted in the new edition of Walz in his Rhetores Graeci.
2. Peri ton eschematismenon problematon, is of little importance and very short.
It is printed in Aldus' Rhetor. Graec., and in Walz. Rhetor. Graeci.
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
PETRA (Ancient city) JORDAN
Epiphanius, of Petra, son of Ulpianus, was a sophist or rhetorician of considerable
reputation. He taught rhetoric at Petra and at Athens. He lived also at Laodiceia
in Syria, where he was very intimate with the two Apollinarii, father and son,
of whom the latter afterwards became the founder of the sect of the Apollinaristae.
The Apollinarii were excommunicated by the bishop of Laodiceia on account of their
intimacy with Epiphanius, who, it was feared would convert them to the religion
of the Greeks; from which it appears that Epiphanius was a heathen. While he was
at Athens, Libanius, then a young man, came thither, but did not apply for instruction
to Epiphanius, then in the height of his reputation, though they were both from
Syria ; neither is this Epiphanius the person to whom Libanius wrote. (Libanius,
Epist. 831.) Epiphanius did not live to be very old; and both he and his wife,
who was eminent for her beauty, died of the same disease, an affection of the
blood. He wrote many works, which are enumerated by Suidas. They are as follows:
1. Peri koinonias kai diaphoras ton staseon. 2. Progumnasmata. 3. Meletai. 4.
Demarchoi. 5. Polemarchikos. 6. Logoi Epideiktikoi : and, 7. Miscellanies. Socrates
mentions a hymn to Bacchus, recited by him, attendance on which recitation was
the immediate occasion of the excommunication of the Apollinarii. (Socrates, Hist.
Eccl. ii. 46; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. v. 25; Eunapius, Sophist. Vitae (Epiphanius
and Libanius); Eudocia, Ionia, in the Anecdote Graeca of Villoison, vol. i.; Suidas,
s. v. Epiphanios; the passages in Suidas and Eudocia are the same.)
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
AVILA (Ancient city) JORDAN
Diogenes. A Phoenician, a Peripatetic philosopher, who lived in the time of Simplicius. (Suid. s. v. presbeis.) Whether he is the same as Diogenes of Abila in Phoenicia, whom Suidas and Stephanus Byzantius (s. v. Abila) call a distinguished sophist, cannot be ascertained.
GADARA (Ancient city) JORDAN
(Philodemos). A native of Gadara, in Palestine, an Epicurean
philosopher and epigrammatic poet, contemporary with Cicero. The Greek Anthology
contains thirty-four of his Epigrams, which are chiefly of a light and amatory
character, and which quite bear out Cicero's statements concerning the licentiousness
of his matter and the elegance of his manner. Considerable remains of Philodemus
have come to light at Herculaneum, and are edited by Sudhaus.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
(Menippos). A Greek philosopher of Gadara in Syria, who flourished about B.C. 250. He was originally a slave, and afterwards an adherent of the Cynic School of philosophy. His writings (now completely lost) treated of the follies of mankind, especially of philosophers, in a sarcastic tone. They were a medley of prose and verse, and became models for the satirical works of Varro (hence called Saturae Menippeae), and afterwards for those of Lucian.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Menippus : Various WebPages
GERASA (Ancient city) JORDAN
60 - 120
(Nikomachos). Of Gerasa, in Arabia, a follower of the Pythagorean
philosophy, about A.D. 150. He composed an introduction to mathematics in two
books and a hand-book on harmony, of which only the first book is preserved entire,
the second consisting of two fragments, which cannot be said, with certainty,
to come from Nicomachus. The first-mentioned work gives valuable information as
regards the arithmetic of the Greeks in earlier times. It was translated into
Latin by Boetius, and has been edited by Hoche (1863). The musical work was edited
by Meibomius (Amst. 1652).
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Nicomachus : Various WebPages
PHILADELPHIA (Ancient city) JORDAN
Malchus of Philadelphia. Among the writers from whom the Eklogal peri presbeon, Excerpta de Legationibus,
compiled by order of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, are taken, was Malchus the sophist
(Malchos sophistes). According to Suidas and Eudocia (s. v. Malchos) Malchus was
a Byzantine; but the statement of Photius that he was a native of Philadelphia,
is preferable; and his Syriac name makes it probable that Philadelphia was the
city so called (the ancient Rabbah) in the country of Ammonitis, east of the Jordan.
Malchus probably followed his profession of rhetorician or sophist at Constantinople,
and the statement that lie was a native of that city may have arisen from that
circumstance. According to Suidas and Eudocia, he wrote a history extending from
the reign of Constantine to that of Anastasius; but the work in seven books, of
which Photius has given an account (Bibl. cod. 78), and to which he gives the
title Buzantaika, comprehended only the period from the final sickness of the
Eastern emperor Leo I. (A. D. 473 or 474), to the death of Nepos, emperor of the
West (A. D. 480). It has been supposed that this was an extract from the work
mentioned by Suidas, or a mutilated copy: that it was incomplete is attested by
Photitis himself, who says that the commencement of the first of the seven books
showed that the author had already written some previous portions, and that the
close of the seventh book showed his intention of carrying it further, if his
life was spared. Some eminent critics, among whom is Valesius (Not. in Excerpt.
de Legat.), have thought that the history of Malchus began with Leo's sickness,
and that he was the continuator of Priscus, whose history is supposed to have
left off at that point. Niebuhr (De Historicis, &c., prefixed to the Bonn edition
of the Excerpta) supposed that this coincidence arose from Photius having met
with a portion only of the work of Malchus, which had been inserted in some historical
Catena after the work of Priscus; or that the history of the antecedent period
had been given by Malchus in another work. As, however, Suidas and Eudocia speak
of the history in its whole extent, as one work, we are rather disposed to think
it was published in successive parts, as the author was able to finish it (a supposition
which best coincides with the notice in Photius of the continuation being contingent
on the longer duration of the author's life); and that Photius had met with only
one part. Photius praises the style of Malchus as a perfect model of historical
composition; pure, free from redundancy and consisting of well-selected words
and phrases. He notices also his eminence as a rhetorician, and says that he was
favourable to Christianity; a statement which has been thought, but we do not
see why, inconsistent with the praises he has bestowed on the heathen philosopher
and diviner, Panmprepius. The works of Malchus are lost, except the portions contained
in the Excerpta of Constantine, and some extracts in Suidas, which are collected
and subjoined to the Bonn edition of the Excerpta. (Photius, Suidas, Eudocia,
ll. cc. ; Vossius, De Hist. Graecis, ii. 21; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 496; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. p. 540; Niebuhr, l. c.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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