Philostratus Sophista

c. 170 CE–c. 245 CE · Athens

Philostratus (Flavius Philostratus, c. 170-c. 245 CE) was a Greek writer of the Second Sophistic, best known for the Life of Apollonius of Tyana and the Lives of the Sophists, which portray the great orators and teachers of his era. Several members of his family shared the name Philostratus and were also writers, which has led to long-standing uncertainty about which works belong to which man.

See Philostratus Sophista’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→

Stop 1 of 1

AthensAttica (Greece)

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Athens

Athens, the capital of Greece since 1834, was the leading intellectual centre of the classical Greek world. Socrates taught there, and four major philosophical schools took root in the city: Plato's Academy, founded around 387 BCE, Aristotle's Lyceum, the Stoa of Zeno, and Epicurus' Garden. Under Hellenistic and Roman rule Athens remained a place of study that drew students from across the empire; in the 4th century CE the Christian writers Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus studied there together, while Neoplatonist teachers kept lecturing. Emperor Justinian's ban on pagan teaching of philosophy in 529 is generally taken to mark the end of the city's ancient history.

In Athens at the same time

Alcinous, Lucian of Samosata, Julius Pollux, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Philostratus the Athenian, Dexippus

Across the traditions, in Athens at the same time

See other sages who lived in Athens→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Philostratus Sophista’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

In the same tradition

Alcinous, Lucian of Samosata, Julius Pollux, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Philostratus the Athenian, Dexippus, Porphyrius

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Philostratus Sophista’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.