Damis

Damis (formerly erroneously stated Damis of Nineveh ) was supposed to be a companion of the Neo-Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the late 1st and early 2nd century. He is said to have accompanied Apollonius on his travels and also made ​​recordings ( Hypomnemata ), which have not survived. As an eyewitness, he sure is a fictional character, but there is the possibility that there is indeed a lost work from the second century, gave its author masquerading as a philosopher narrow track Damis.

Damis is said to have originated in Hierapolis Bambyke. Thus, the acts of Apollonius would not forget, he is said to have made ​​his records that should have then served in the 3rd century as a source for Apolloniosbiographie of Flavius ​​Philostratus.

Of the existence of Damis we know only by Philostratus, who repeatedly mentions him in his Apolloniosbiographie. The work of Philostratus has been proven by modern research as largely implausible. Already in the 19th century was therefore doubts that it ever is a real person with Damis, especially Philostratus, who wrote in the early 3rd century, claiming the work of Damis had not been previously published, but only then resurfaced and approached a relative of the Empress Julia Domna Damis. These have then Philostratus given the task to edit it again.

Eduard Meyer published in 1917 in the journal Hermes an essay in which he represented the very influential thesis that this constitutes a pure fiction. Many modern scholars believe that Damis is a self- invented by Philostratus shape. It has been speculated that the fictitious Damis could have been a literary tool, much like the most likely fictional Aelius Cordus has served the anonymous author of the Historia Augusta late antiquity as a scapegoat for all unbelievable figure of episodes. But even if it should be at Damis by the pseudonym of a real author of the second century, who actually anfertigte a work on Apollonius, this author was at any rate for the life of Apollonius not an eyewitness, but has - as well as later Philostratus - a largely fictional narrative written.