PHILETAS OF COS

'Philetas of Cos' (also, 'Philitas of Cos') was an Alexandrian poet and critic who flourished in the second half of the 4th century BC. The Ancient Greek spelling of his name is uncertain; Φιλίτας is ancient and common but the Doric Greek color Φιλήτας is also ancient; the accentuation Φιλητᾶς did not exist before Imperial times.^[1]
He was preceptor to Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and also taught the poets Hermesianax and Theocritus and the grammarian Zenodotus. His thinness made him an object of ridicule; according to the comic poets, he carried lead in his shoes to keep himself from being blown away.^[2] Over-study of Megarian dialectic subtleties is said to have shortened his life. If we are to believe the story in Athenaeus of Naucratis's ''Deipnosophists'' IX.401e, Philetas worried so much over the Liar paradox that he wasted away and died of insomnia, as, according to Athenaeus, his epitaph recorded:

Ξεῖνε, Φιλητᾶς εἰμί
λόγων ὁ ψευδὁμενὁς με
ὥλεσε καὶ νυκτῶν φροντίδες ἑσπέριοι.


Philetas of Cos am I
’Twas The Liar who made me die,
And the bad nights caused thereby.^[3]

His elegies, chiefly of an amatory nature and singing the praises of his mistress Battis (or Bittis), were much admired by the Romans. He is frequently mentioned by Ovid and Propertius, the latter of whom imitated him and preferred him to his rival Callimachus, whose superior mythological lore was more to the taste of the Alexandrian critics. Propertius linked together the rival poets with the following well-known couplet:

''Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetae,''
''in vestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus.''^[4]


Callimachus's spirit, and shrine of Philetas of Cos,
let me enter your sacred grove, I beseech you.

Philetas also wrote ''Ataktoi glossai'' (Ἂτακτοι γλῶσσαι, or ''Disorderly Words''), a vocabulary explaining the meanings of rare and obscure poetic words, including words peculiar to certain dialects. The unruly tongue: Philitas of Cos as scholar and poet, Peter Bing, , , Classical Philology, He also wrote notes on Homer, severely criticized by Aristarchus of Samothrace. About 292 he returned to Cos, where he seems to have led a brotherhood of poets including Theocritus and Aratus. Cos had been captured from Antigonus I Monophthalmus by Ptolemy I Soter in 310, and Philadelphius had been born there in 308; it was a favorite retreat for men of letters weary of Alexandria.^[5]
At most fifty verses of Philetas survive. Here are two, showing the confluence of his interests in poetry and obscure words:

γηρύσαιτο δὲ νεβρὸς ἀπὸ ζωὴν ὀλέσασα
ὀξείης κάκτου τύμμα φυλαξαμένη


The deer can sing when it has lost its life
if it avoids the prick of the sharp ''kaktos''.

According to Antigonus of Carystus, the ''kaktos'' was a thorny plant from Sicily, and "When a deer steps on it and is pricked, its bones remain soundless and unusable for flutes. For that reason Philetas spoke of it."
Fragments edited by N. Bach,^[6] and Theodor Bergk, ''Poetae lyrici graeci''; see also Ernst Maass, ''De tribus Philetae carminibus''.^[7]

Contents

Notes

Notes

1. Philitas of Cos, Konstantinos Spanoudakis, , , Brill, 2002,
2. How thin was Philitas?, Alan Cameron, , , The Classical Quarterly, 1991
3. Athenaeus ix. 401 C, tr. St. George Stock

★ Stoicism, St. George Stock, , , Archibald Constable, 1908,

★ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Vincent Spade, , , , ,
4. Elegies III Propertius
5. A History of Classical Scholarship: from the Sixth Century B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages, John Edwin Sandys, , , Cambridge University Press, ,
6. Philetae Coi, Hermesianactis Colophonii atque Phanoclis reliquiae, Nicolaus Bachius (Bach), , , Libraria Gebaueria, ,
7. De tribus Philetae carminibus, Ernestus (Ernst) Maass, , , N. G. Elwertum, ,