Satyrus the Peripatetic
Satyrus of Kallatis was an ancient Greek biographer who lived approximately during the second half of the 3rd century BC.
Life and work
About the life of Satyrus little is known. As can be seen a fragment of papyrus, he came out of the city on the Black Sea port city Kallatis. He had the nickname " the Peripatetic " This is probably meant that he belonged to that direction by scholars who operated mainly literary and biographical studies ( Peripatetic ). Later, he probably lived mostly in Egypt. Although the discovery of a longer fragment of his main work was done in Oxyrhynchus, he should have found the material for his scholarly work rather in the libraries of the capital city of Alexandria.
Satyrus was in ancient times - as such as Plutarch and Suetonius - counted among the most famous authors of biographies of important personalities. His great work is probably bore the title Βίοι. Heraclides Lembos made of it to an Epitome. Since it is known that Heraclides Lembos during the reign of the Egyptian king Ptolemy VI. Philometor ( 180-145 BC) had, the life of the Satyrus a lot needs to be recognized earlier. He probably lived in the second half of the 3rd century BC, at most BC If he also wrote the work On the demes of Alexandria beginning of the 2nd century - but this is by no means certain - his creative period could be more accurately narrow, as this book is currently out of Ptolemy IV Philopator ( 221-204 BC) was born. In addition, it could also be the author of a book about characters.
For a major expansion of our knowledge of the literary activity of Satyrus made a aufgefundener in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, which was published in 1912. It contains about four reasonably readable Teubner pages from the Life of the Athenian playwright Euripides. This Vita was part of Book 6 of the Βίοι which marked the lives of Sophocles and Aeschylus, according to the epigram of the papyrus. In addition, there are from the otherwise lost Vitensammlung of Satyrus some surviving mainly by Athenaeus and Diogenes Laertius fragments. Thus comes about cited by Athenaeus catalog of the numerous wives of Philip II and the story of its final falling out with Olympias because of Philip's marriage to Cleopatra from Satyrus ' biography this Macedonian king. Fragments of Satyrus ' biography of King Dionysius II of Syracuse were also preserved, and also from the Lives of the Athenian politician Alcibiades, the Athenian orator Demosthenes and of several philosophers ( Bias of Priene and Chilo of Sparta, both of which are counted among the Seven Sages, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Zeno of Elea, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Diogenes of Sinope, Anaxarch, Stilpon ). Also three quotes from Satyrus ' presentation of Sophocles have survived.
From the discovered papyrus fragment can be seen that Satyrus designed the Life of Euripides in dialogue form. There occur three speakers, of whom Satyrus apparently even embodies the main speaker. The style is pleasing, but very sophisticated, such as reveals the frequent hiatus avoidance. Satyrus not wrote his anecdotal descriptions of life in the sense of the present-day historical-critical method, but used for harmless material, which can be regarded as not particularly reliable. So he interpreted verses from the works of Euripides to his biographical sketch and took to the same purpose, any information from the Greek comedy, especially Aristophanes, Euripides the heavily criticized and parodied had. This was Satyrus in the onset with Aristotle's dialogue about the poet tradition.
Apart from Euripides and Aristophanes are Satyrus in the papyrus fragment does not indicate the sources from which his information. Hence his other informants are unknown. After all, Aulus Gellius noted that brought by Satyrus story of the Cave of Euripides on Salamis came from Atthidographen Philochorus. It also seems Satyrus have seen and evaluated the work of others portrayed him Greek poet. Since it is for variants with respect to the causes of death of several famous men, including Sophocles, quoted, he had apparently been particularly interested in the deaths of the individuals it represents. It can be stated barely, which still preserved hypomnematischen Satyrus writings served as a source when it is not explicitly cited. Anyway, he should not have been used by the anonymous author of that Euripides biography that is handed down this great tragedian in several manuscripts, although both biographies show some textual agreements. These are likely due to the use of a common older source. Also, a dependence of Plutarch of the Βίοι of Satyrus can not prove.