A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

PHILON. PHILON. 313
conformable to the particular purpose of the object cians, whom it is almost impossible to distinguish
in question, as of chaff to burn (Karca LX.v A)o- e'- with certainty.
eUvov ejrrr8eCL6Trva; Alex. Aphrod. Nat. Qual. 1. A native of Tarsus in Cilicia, of whose date
i. 14. Compare on the whole question J. Harris, it can only be certainly determined that he lived
in Upton's Arriani Dissertat. Epict. ii. 1 9, ap. in or before the first century after Christ, as Galen
Schweighliuser, vol. ii. p. 515, &c.) Diodorus had speaks of him as having lived sometime before his
allowed the validity of hypothetical propositions only own age. He was the author of a celebrated anwhen the antecedent clause could never lead to an tidote, called after his name Philonium, hoXW'VeLov.
untrue conclusion, whereas Philon regarded those He embodied his directions for the composition of
only as false which with a correct antecedent had this medicine in a short enigmatical Greek poem,
an incorrect conclusion (Sext. Empir. adv. Math. preserved by Galen, who has given an explanation
viii. 113, & c. tI?/potyp. i l I0, comp. Cic. Acad. ii. 47, of it (De Compos. Medicanz. see. Loc. ix. 4, vol. xiii.
de Fato, 6). Both accordingly had sought for cri- p. 267, &c.). This physician is supposed by
teria for correct sequence in the members of hypo- Sprengel (Hist. de la Mid. vol. ii.) and others
thetical propositions, and each of them in a manner to have been the same person as the grammarian,
corresponding to what he maintained respecting Herennius Philon, but probably without sufficient
the idea of the possible. Chrysippus attacked the reason. His antidote is frequently mentioned by
assumption of each of them. the ancient medical writers, e. g. Galen (Ad
The Philon who is spoken of as an Athenian Glauc. de Meth. Med. ii. 8, vol. xi. p. 114,
and a disciple of Pyrrhon, though ridiculed by Comment. in Hippocr. " 1Epid. VI." vi. 5, vol.
Timon as a sophist, can hardly be different from xvii. pt. ii. p. 331, De Compos. Medicam. sec.
Philon the dialectician (Diog. Lai'rt. ix. 67, 69). Loc. viii. 7, vol. xiii. p. 202, De Locis Affect. ii. 5,
1-lieronymus (Jov. 1) speaks of Philon the dia- vol. viii. p. 84, De Meth. Med. xii. 1, vol. x. p. 818),
lectician and the author of the Menexenus, as the Aretaeus (De Cur. Morb. C/hron. ii. 5, p. 335),
instructor of Carneades, in contradiction to chro- Paulus Aegineta (iii. 23, vii. 11, pp. 440, 657),
nology, perhaps in order to indicate the. sceptical Oribasius (Synops. iii. Eupor. iv. 136, pp. 54, 675),
direction of his doctrines. Aetius (ii. 4. 28, iii. 1. 32, iii. 2. 1, iv. 1. 107, pp.
3. The ACADEMIC, was a native of Larissa and 382, 478, 511, 660), Joannes Actuarius (De Meth.
a disciple of Clitomachus. After the conquest of AiMed. v. 6, p. 263), Marcellus (De Medicam, cc. 20,
Athens by Mithridates he removed thence to 22. pp. 329, 341), Alexander Trallianus (pp. 271,
Rome, where he settled as a teacher of philosophy 577, ed. Basil.), Nicolaus Myrepsus (De Comzpos.
and rhetoric. Here Cicero was among his hearers Medicam. i. 243, 383, pp. 412, 437), Avicenna
(Cic. ad Face. xiii. 1, Acad. i. 4. Brut. 89, Tusc. (Canon, v. 1. 1. vol. ii. p. 278, ed. Venet. 1595).
ii. 3). When Cicero composed his Quaestiones This Philon may perhaps be the physician whose
2Academicae, Philon was no longer alive (Acad. ii. collyrium is quoted by Celsus (De Medic. vi. 6,
6); he was already in Rome at the time when the p. 119.)
dialogue in the books de Oratore is supposed to 2. The physician who is mentioned among several
have been held (B. c. 92, de Orat. iii. 28). Through others by Galen (De Meth. Med. i. 7, vol. x. p..53)
Philon the scepsis of the Academy returned to its as belonging to the sect of the Methodici, is perhaps
original starting point, as a polemical antagonism a different person from the preceding, and must have
against the Stoics, and so entered upon a new lived some time in or after the first century B. C.
course, which some historians have spoken of as He may, perhaps, be the contemporary of Plutarch,
that of the fourth academy (Sext. Emp. IHypotyp. in the second century after Christ, who is introi. 220). He maintained that by means of con- duced by him in his Snmposiacon (ii. 6. 2, iv. 1. 1,
ceptive notions (caraA777rTrKt) cpavcaria) objects vi. 2. 1, viii. 9. 1). He was of opinion that tile
could not be comprehended (daKaTdxl7rra), but disease called Elephantiasis first appeared shortly
were comprehensible according to their nature before his own time; but in this he was probably
(Sext. Emp. Hypotyp. i. 235; Cic. Acad. Qucaest. mistaken. See Jul. Alb. Hofmann's treatise, Raii. 6). How he understood the latter, whether he biei Caninae ad Cielsum usque Historia Critica, p.
referred to the evidence and accordance of the 53. (Lips. 8vo. 1826.)
sensations which we receive from things (Aristo- A physician of this name is also mentioned by
cles, ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. xiv. 9), or whether St. Epiphanius (adv. Hlaeres. i. 1, 3); and a writer
he had returned to the Platonic assumption of all on metals, byAthenaeus (vii.p. 322). [W.A.G.]
immediate spiritual perception, is not clear. In PHILON (iAchwv), artists. 1. Son of Antipaopposition to his disciple Antiochus, he would not ter, a statuary who lived in the time of Alexander
admit of a separation of an Old and a New Aca- the Great, and made the statue of Hephaestion.
demy, but would rather find the doubts of scepti- (Tatian. Orat. adv. Graec. 55, p. 121, ed. Worth).
cism even in Socrates and Plato (Cic. Acad. He also made the statue of Zeus Ourios, which
Quaest. ii. 4, 5, 23), and not less perhaps in the stood on the shore of the Black Sea, at the enNew Academy the recognition of truth which trance of the Bosporus, near Chalcedon, and
burst through its scepticism. At least on the one formed an important landmark for sailors. It was
hand, even though he would not resist the evi- still perfect in the time of Cicero (in Vetr. iv. 58),
deuce of the sensations, he wished even here to and the base has been preserved to modern times,
meet with antagonists who would endeavour to bearing an inscription of eight elegiac verses,
refute his positions (Aristocles, i.c.), i.e. he felt the which is printed in the works of Wheeler, Spon,
need of subjecting afresh what he had provisionally and Chishull, and in the Greek Anthology (Brunck,
set down in his own mind as true to the examina- Anal. vol. iii. p. 192; Jacobs, Anth. Graec. vol. iv.
tion of scepticism; and on the other hand, he did p. 159; comp. Sillig, Catal.,rtif. s. v.). Philon
not doubt of arriving at a sure conviction respec- is mentioned by Pliny among the statuaries who
ting the ultimate end of life. [Ch. A. B.] made athletas et armatos et venatores sacrliicantesque.
PHILON (,liAXv), the name of several physi- I(. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. ~ 34).