ABSTRACT
No ancient bios or Life of Phaenias of Eresus has been preserved, even though there are several interesting biographies on other early disciples of Aristotle, for instance, in Diogenes Laertius’ collection Lives of Eminent Philosophers, book 5. Moreover, because of the extreme scarcity of reliable testimony (see 1–10 below) it is unfortunately almost impossible to write a biographical sketch of Phaenias’ life. Ancient sources call this Peripatetic scholar either ‘Φαινίας’ or ‘Φανίας’ in the Attic spelling of this name (see LGPN v.1, p.452, for the Lesbian form of this name Phainias, and LGPN v.2, p.440–441, for the Attic form Phanias). In this collection the modern English translation Phaenias is preferred (as it is, e.g., in the OCD s.v. Phaenias). We also do not know the precise dates of his birth and death. The years ca. 376 to 373 B.C., which have been established by way of synchronisms with dates on Alexander the Great or calculations of Phaenias’ acme, perhaps in 336–332 B.C., and which have been accepted once again in G. Wöhrle and L. Zhmud’s recent revision of F. Wehrli on Phaenias in GGPh 2 2004.588–590, esp. 588, are far from certain, and, for instance, in the commentary on Phaenias’ biographical and historical fragments in FGrH IV A 1 1012, p. 290, J. Engels suggested a later date for his birth, in the 360s B.C. The same holds true for the date of Phaenias’ death. We now know for certain that he was still alive, when his teacher Aristotle died in Chalcis in 322 B.C. (see 8–9), and scholars often surmise that Phaenias himself passed away in the early years of Aristotle’s successors and that he was most probably dead when Theophrastus of Eresus, his friend and Aristotle’s successor as head of the Peripatos, died in 287/6 B.C. From 1 we merely learn that Phaenias was active as a scholar and writer in the 111th Olympiad (= 336–332 B.C.)—perhaps this was the accepted floruit in the sources of the Suda—and afterwards, during the reign of Alexander the Great (336–323 B.C.). It has been surmised that Phaenias’ fellow-citizen and friend Theophrastus (2) introduced him to Aristotle when the great philosopher visited Mytilene on Lesbos in 345/44 B.C. In the 340s, or more probably the late 330s, Phaenias and Theophrastus actively took part in fighting and in abolishing a tyranny in their hometown (see 6–7), and we also learn of a correspondence between Theophrastus and Phaenias (see 3–5). Whether the fragments from Phaenias’ On Plants (cf. 41–55) may be accepted as reliable 4evidence of the hypothesis that Phaenias himself regularly delivered lectures and taught at the Peripatos in Athens along with Aristotle, or later on with Theophrastus, remains an open question. 1
