Dio Chrysostom

Dio Chrysostom (* after 40; † before 120), Dion of Prusa, was a Greek orator, writer and philosopher of the 1st century. Eighty of his speeches have survived. His surname Chrysostom in Greek means " golden mouth ".

Life

Dion was born between 40 and 45 in Prusa in the Roman province of Bithynia (now Bursa in northwestern Turkey). As a philosopher, he was Cynics and Stoics, the second school of the Sophists is expected him to. Under Emperor Titus Dion apparently lived in Rome and wrote about a scandalous connection between the Emperor and the boxer Melankomas. Dion also criticized the Titus following the Emperor Domitian, the 82 banished him from Rome, Italy and Bithynia because Dion did consult a conspiratorial relatives of the emperor. Dion to have traveled during his exile throughout the Roman Empire, often allegedly living in poor clothing and handmade.

After the assassination of the popular with the soldiers Domitian in 96 Dion is finished speaking a mutiny in a military camp Roman troops and they have persuaded to accept the will of the Roman people. Under Emperor Marcus Cocceius Nerva his banishment has been lifted, whereupon Dion took the nickname Cocceianus. After Nerva 's death, he became a close friend of the Emperor Trajan. His last years were spent Dion returned to his hometown of Prusa, where he seems to have enjoyed some reputation, and there are reports that he was involved in a lawsuit by 111 for the renewal of the city. Today it is assumed that he was soon after 112, probably 115-120, died.

Dion Chrysostom should not with his alleged grandson Cassius Dio be confused, who was a Roman historian (?); and not. church with Father John of Antioch, who lived around the year 400, and because of his oratory was also given the nickname Chrysostom

Work

Dion's speeches treat a wide range of topics. Some of them might have been drafted to be presented in front of Trajan. In them it is about the kingdom to the lifestyle of Diogenes, to virtue, freedom, slavery, wealth, greed, vice, war, enmity and peace, good office management and to other moral issues. Dion argued forcefully against the permission to prostitution.

Dion was a contemporary of Plutarch, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. Although it lacks the Christians wrote as such, these seem to have but based on his Cynic and Stoic philosophy as a moral parallel to the teaching of the Apostle Paul. He would thus be an example of the influence of pagan philosophy on the development of early Christianity.