Everything about Favorinus totally explained
Favorinus of Arelata (ca.
80–
160) was a
Hellenistic sophist and
philosopher who flourished during the reign of
Hadrian.
He was of
Gaulish ancestry, born in Arelate (
Arles). He is described as a
hermaphrodite (ανδροθηλυς) by birth. He received an exquisite education, first in
Gallia Narbonensis and then in
Rome, and at an early age began his lifelong travels through Greece, Italy and the East. His extensive knowledge, combined with great
oratorical powers, raised him to eminence both in Athens and in Rome. With
Plutarch, with
Herodes Atticus, to whom he bequeathed his library at Rome, with
Demetrius the Cynic,
Cornelius Fronto,
Aulus Gellius, and with Hadrian himself, he lived on intimate terms; his great rival, whom he violently attacked in his later years, was
Polemon of Smyrna.
It was Favorinus who, on being silenced by Hadrian in an argument in which the sophist might easily have refuted his adversary, subsequently explained that it was foolish to criticize the logic of the master of thirty legions. When the servile Athenians, feigning to share the emperor's displeasure with the sophist, pulled down a statue which they'd erected to him, Favorinus remarked that if only
Socrates also had had a statue at Athens, he might have been spared the
hemlock.
Hadrian banished Favorinus at some point in the
130s, to the island of
Chios. Rehabilitated with the ascension of
Antoninus Pius in
138, Favorinus returned to Rome, where he resumed his activities as an author and teacher of upper class pupils. His year of death is unknown, but it appears that he reached a remarkable age for his time, dying around 160 in his eighties.
Of the very numerous works of Favorinus, we possess only a few fragments, preserved by Aulus Gellius,
Diogenes Laertius,
Philostratus, and in the
Suda,
Laropia (miscellaneous history) and his memoirs. As a philosopher, Favorinus belonged to the sceptical school; his most important work in this connection appears to have been the
Pyrrhonean Tropes in ten books, in which he endeavours to show that the methods of
Pyrrho were useful to those who intended to practise in the law courts.
Hofeneder (2006) suggests that Favorinus is identical with the "Celtic philosopher" explaining the image of
Ogmios in
Lucianus.
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