Stesimbrotos of Thasos
Stesimbrotos (also: Stesimbrotos of Thasos ) (* on Thasos ) was an ancient Greek writer and sophist of the 5th century BC and is also expected to historians due to the (mainly biographical ) information in his works. According to Plutarch, he shall simultaneously with the Greek statesman Kimon (* 510 BC; † 449 BC) lived.
Origin
Stesimbrotos came from the island of Thasos, the northernmost island of the Greek archipelago, located in front of the Macedonian- Thracian coast. Plutarch reports that Kimon was going on as part of its military actions against the remaining Persian positions of power in Thrace against the island of Thasos, which was ( 465 BC) of Athens dropped. After defeating the Thasians in a naval battle, he forced the city itself to surrender. In the wake of repressive measures against Cimon's opposition groups to Thasos also Stesimbrotos was driven into exile and came to Athens.
Work and impact
Stesimbrotos wrote, among other things, a work on Homer and a treatise on the Athenian statesmen ( FGrHist 107 F 1-11), with partly negative characterizations of the Athenian politician Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles. He also wrote a work "On the Mysteries ", which is said to have distinguished by its polemical tone of comparable works.
Socrates mentions him in the " feast " described by Xenophon in a positive way and valued him as a Homer - exegetes who could discover by ingenious, mostly allegorical explanations, the deeper meaning of these works.
The literary historian Karl Rosenkranz sees the poet and scholar Antimachus of Colophon, who published one of the first criticisms concerning the Homeric poetry, a student of Stesimbrotos.
Plutarch relates to the formulation of its preserved " Vitae ", in which he represents the CVs of Greek and Roman statesmen and orators and compares eleven times on Stesimbrotos, which he repeatedly thereafter accuses inaccuracies.
The philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz- Möllensdorf criticized Stesimbrotos sharp and describes him as a "journalist " of antiquity, the biased and defamatory texts unpopular Athenian politician in the way of modern " revolver press," wrote against him.
Comments
Swell
- Plutarch: Themistocles and Kimon
- Xenophon: The Banquet.