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Headword:
Δάμις
Adler number: delta,46
Translated headword: Damis
Vetting Status: low
Translation: A man not without learning, an inhabitant of ancient Nineveh. This man was a philosophical associate of Apollonius and wrote up his travels, which he says he, too, shared. He wrote up his opinions and words and whatever he said by way of prophecy. Now Apollonius had come from
Antioch to Nineveh. Damis the Ninevite came to him and was with him, remembering whatever he learned. But the Assyrian had a moderately effective voice, for he did not have a command of the language, being educated among barbarians. He was very capable at writing up their activity and association together and whatever he heard or saw and at describing it and compiling memoirs of this sort. And he did not neglect these two qualities, the boldness which Apollonius employed when he traveled through barbarian and bandit-ridden races, nor those subject to the Romans, and he did not neglect the skill with which he came in the Arabic way to an understanding of the language of animals. He learned this as he traveled among these Arabs.
Greek Original:Δάμις, ἀνὴρ οὐκ ἄσοφος, τὴν ἀρχαίαν οἰκῶν Νῖνον. οὗτος τῷ Ἀπολλωνίῳ προσφιλοσοφήσας ἀποδημίας τε αὐτοῦ ἀναγέγραφεν, ὧν κοινωνῆσαι καὶ αὐτός φησι: καὶ γνώμας καὶ λόγους καὶ ὁπόσα ἐς πρόγνωσιν εἶπεν. ὁ γὰρ Ἀπολλώνιος ἀπὸ Ἀντιοχείας ἧκεν εἰς Νῖνον. προσεφοίτησε δὲ αὐτῷ Δάμις ὁ Νῖνος καὶ συνῆν αὐτῷ, ὅ τι μάθοι μνημονεύων. φωνὴ δὲ ἦν τῷ Ἀσσυρίῳ ξυμμέτρως πράττουσα. τὸ γὰρ λογοειδὲς οὐκ εἶχεν, ἅτε παιδευθεὶς ἐν βαρβάροις: διατριβὴν δὲ ἀναγράψαι καὶ ξυνουσίαν καὶ ὅ τι ἤκουσεν ἢ εἶδεν ἀνατυπῶσαι καὶ ὑπομνήματα τοιάδε ξυνθεῖναι σφόδρα ἱκανὸς ἦν. οὐ μὴν ὡς δυοῖν γε ἀμελῆσαι τούτοιν, τῆς τε ἀνδρίας, ᾗ χρώμενος Ἀπολλώνιος διεπορεύθη βάρβαρα ἔθνη καὶ λῃστρικά, οὐδ' ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίους πω ὄντα, τῆς τε σοφίας, ᾗ τὸν Ἀράβιον τρόπον ἐς ξύνεσιν τῆς τῶν ζῴων φωνῆς ἦλθεν. ἔμαθε δὲ τοῦτο διὰ τουτωνὶ τῶν Ἀραβίων πορευόμενος.
Notes:
Damis was a student and colleague of Apollonius of
Tyana, the first century CE Neo-Pythagorean who, after his death and in the era of the Severi (late second-early 3rd century CE) won the reputation of a wonder-worker, largely through
Philostratus' biography of the man; see generally
alpha 3420,
phi 421. A relative of Damis is supposed to have supplied Damis' notes to the empress Julia Domna, who commissioned
Philostratus to cast them in literary form. All this has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate, some of which may be found in the bibliography below.
This Suda entry consists of citations from
Philostratus'
Life of Apollonius 1.3, 1.19, and 1.20, not very adroitly joined together. The account of the presentation of Damis' notes to Julia Domna is found in 1.3.
References:
Eduard Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, 5. 131, note.
RE 4. 2056-57, s.v. "Damis von Nineve."
Alfred von Gutschmid, "Apollonius von Tyana und seine Biographen, in Kleine Schriften(1894), 5.543-47. Skeptical about Damis.
E. L. Bowie. "Apollonius of Tyana: tradition and reality," ANRW II.16.2, pp. 1652-99. Accepts Damis as historical and gives an extensive bibliography of the whole discussion.
Keywords: biography; history; philosophy; religion; rhetoric; zoology
Translated by: Oliver Phillips on 4 November 2001@06:23:23.
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