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Search results for Lambda,265 in Adler number:
Headword:
Leôn
Adler number: lambda,265
Translated headword: Leon
Vetting Status: high
Translation: Son of Leon; of
Byzantium, Peripatetic philosopher and sophist. A pupil of
Plato or, as some [say], of
Aristotle. He wrote about the reign of Philip and
Byzantium in 7 books;
Teuthranticus;[1]
On Besaeus;[2]
The Sacred War;[3]
On Issues;[4] a
History of Alexander.
This man was very fat. And on an embassy to
Athens he provoked laughter -- and achieved the embassy's aim -- when he was seen drinking, with an over-sized belly. He was not disturbed by the laughter, and said, 'Why are you laughing, Athenians? Because I am so fat? I have a wife who is much fatter, and when we are at one our bed is large enough for us, but when we argue our whole house is not.' The Athenian people came to an accord, brought to good order by Leon's clever and timely improvisation.[5]
This Leon, when he was trying to keep Philip away from
Byzantium, was slandered by Philip in a letter to the people of
Byzantium that went like this: 'if I had given Leon all the money he asked me for, I would have taken
Byzantium at the first attempt.' The people, on hearing this, gathered to attack Leon's house; fearing that he would be stoned by them, he strangled himself; the wretched man gained no advantage from his intelligence and eloquence.[6]
Leôn, Leontos, Buzantios, philosophos Peripatêtikos kai sophistês, mathêtês Platônos ê hôs tines Aristotelous. egrapse ta kata Philippon kai to Buzantion bibliois z#, Teuthrantikon, Peri Bêsaiou, Ton hieron polemon, Peri staseôn, Ta kat' Alexandron. houtos ên sphodra pachus. kai presbeusas pros Athênaious gelôta te ekinêse kai tês presbeias ekratêsen, epeidê piôn ephaineto kai perittos tên gastera. tarachtheis de ouden apo tou gelôtos, ti, ephê, ô Athênaioi gelate; ê hoti pachus egô kai tosoutos; esti moi kai gunê pollôi pachutera, kai homonoountas men hêmas chôrei hê klinê, diapheromenous de oude hê oikia. kai eis hen êlthen ho tôn Athênaiôn dêmos, harmostheis hupo tou Leontos, saphôs epischediasantos tôi kairôi. houtos ho Leôn apokrouomenos ton Philippon apo tou Buzantiou dieblêthê para Philippou pros tous Buzantious di' epistolês, echousês houtôs: ei tosauta chrêmata pareichon Leonti, hoposa me êiteito, ek prôtês an elabon to Buzantion. tauta akousantos tou dêmou kai episustantos têi oikiai tou Leontos, phobêtheis mê pôs litholeustos par' autôn genêtai, heauton ênxe, mêden apo tês sophias kai tôn logôn kerdanas ho deilaios.
Notes:
C4 BC. See generally RE 12.2 cols. 2008-2012 s.v. Leon 23, 24 (Bux); FGrH 132;
Philostratus,
Lives of the Sophists 1.2; OCD4 Leon(1) (C.J. Tuplin).
[1] Teuthrania was a city in
Mysia.
[2] Perhaps Berisades, king of the Odrysians, mentioned throughout
Demosthenes 23): so Bernhardy.
[3] See under
lambda 266.
[4]
Stasis, a rhetorical term for the basis on which one argues a case. Consult the index to G. Kennedy,
The art of persuasion in Greece, Princeton UP, 1963. The treatise
On Issues is more plausibly attributed to [
lambda 266] Leon of
Alabanda.
[5] In
Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists 12.550F (12.74 Kaibel) this anecdote is told of Leon's fellow-citizen
Python (
pi 3139), and merely attributed to Leon.
Python and Leon are also conflated in
Philostratus (see initial note above).
[6] The story of Philip's letter and Leon's suicide has been doubted, for Leon could not have written a history of Alexander if he died during the reign of Philip. See A. Woerle,
Die politische Taetigkeit der Schueler Platons (Darmstadt 1981) 126-127.
A.D. Schaefer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit, vol.2 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1886) p. 510 n.1
N.G.L. Hammond and G.T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia, vol.2 (Oxford 1979) pp. 574 n.1, 716 n.2
Keywords: biography; chronology; economics; ethics; gender and sexuality; geography; historiography; history; military affairs; philosophy; politics; religion; rhetoric; women
Translated by: Malcolm Heath on 25 February 2000@16:03:47.
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