Editing Anaximenes of Lampsacus

{{Short description|4th-century BC Greek rhetorician and historian}}
'''Anaximenes of Lampsacus''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|æ|n|æ|k|ˈ|s|ɪ|m|ə|ˌ|n|iː|z}}; {{langx|grc|Ἀναξιμένης ὁ Λαμψακηνός}}; {{circa|380}}{{snd}}320 BC) was a [[Classical Greece|Greek]] [[rhetoric]]ian and historian. He was one of the teachers of [[Alexander the Great]] and accompanied him on his campaigns.<ref name="Suda"/>

==Family==
His father was named Aristocles ({{langx|grc|Ἀριστοκλῆς}}).<ref name="Suda"/> His nephew (son of his sister), was also named Anaximenes and was a historian.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0004.tlg001.perseus-grc1:2.2| title = Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, § 2.3}}</ref>

==Rhetorical works==
Anaximenes was a pupil of [[Diogenes the Cynic]]<ref name="Suda">{{cite web| url = https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/alpha/1989| title = Suda, § al.1989}}</ref> and [[Zoilus]]<ref name=OCD>D.A. Russell, "Anaximenes (2)," ''[[Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'', 3rd ed., rev., 2003.</ref> and, like his teacher, wrote a work on [[Homer]]. As a rhetorician, he was a determined opponent of [[Isocrates]] and his school.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Anaximenes of Lampsacus|display=Anaximenes|volume=1|page=944}}</ref> He is generally regarded as the author of the ''[[Rhetoric to Alexander]]'', an ''Art of Rhetoric'' included in the traditional [[Corpus Aristotelicum|corpus]] of [[Aristotle]]'s works.  [[Quintilian]] seems to refer to this work under Anaximenes' name in ''Institutio Oratoria'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20110721082137/http://honeyl.public.iastate.edu/quintilian/3/chapter4.html#9 3.4.9], as the Italian Renaissance philologist [[Piero Vettori]] first recognized.  This attribution has, however, been disputed by some scholars.

The [https://books.google.com/books?id=UdyFQ4a9HOMC&pg=PR58 hypothesis] to Isocrates' ''Helen'' mentions that Anaximenes, too, had written a ''Helen'', "though it is more a defense speech (''apologia'') than an [[encomium]]," and concludes that he was "the man who has written about Helen" to whom Isocrates refers (Isoc. ''Helen'' 14).  [[Richard Claverhouse Jebb|Jebb]] entertained the possibility that this work survives in the form of the ''[[Encomium of Helen]]'' ascribed to [[Gorgias]]: "It appears not improbable that Anaximenes may have been the real author of the work ascribed to Gorgias."<ref>R.C. Jebb, ''The Attic Orators'', London, 1893, vol. II, p. 98.</ref>

According to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] ([https://books.google.com/books?id=hsLNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA310 6.18.6]), Anaximenes was "the first who practised the art of speaking [[Extemporaneous speaking|extemporaneously]]."  He also worked as a [[Logographer (legal)|logographer]], having written the speech prosecuting [[Phryne]] according to Diodorus Periegetes (quoted by [[Athenaeus]] [http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus13c.html#591 XIII.591e]).  The "ethical" fragments preserved in [[Stobaeus]]' ''Florilegium'' may represent "some philosophical book."<ref name=Mahaffy/>

According to [[Suda]], no rhetor before Anaximenes had invented improvised speeches.<ref name="Suda"/>

==Historical works==
Anaximenes wrote a history of Greece in twelve books, stretching from the gods' origins to the death of [[Epaminondas]] at the [[Battle of Mantinea (362 BC)|Battle of Mantinea]] (''Hellenica'', {{langx|grc|Πρῶται ἱστορίαι}}), and a history of [[Philip II of Macedon|Philip of Macedon]] (''Philippica'').  He was a favorite of [[Alexander the Great]], whom he accompanied in his Persian campaigns,<ref name="EB1911"/> and wrote a third historical work on Alexander (however, Pausanias [https://books.google.com/books?id=hsLNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA310 6.18.6] expresses doubt about his authorship of an [[epic poetry|epic poem]] on Alexander).  He was one of the eight exemplary historiographers included in the [[Library of Alexandria|Alexandrian]] canon.

[[Didymus Chalcenterus|Didymus]] reports that the work transmitted as speech 11 of [[Demosthenes]] (''Against the Letter of Philip'') could be found in almost identical form in Book 7 of Anaximenes' ''Philippica'', and many scholars regard the work as a historiographic composition by Anaximenes.<ref name=Sealey>[[Raphael Sealey]], ''Demosthenes in His Time'', [[Oxford University Press]], 1993, pp. 239f.</ref>  The ''Letter of Philip'' (speech 12) to which speech 11 seems to respond may also be by Anaximenes, or it may be an authentic letter by Philip, perhaps written with the aid of his advisers.<ref name="Sealey"/> The more ambitious theory of Wilhelm Nitsche, which assigned to Anaximenes a larger part of the Demosthenic corpus (speeches 10-13 and 25, letters 1–4, proems), can be rejected.<ref name=Jacoby>Jacoby, commentary on Anaximenes in ''FGrHist''.</ref>

Anaximenes was hostile to [[Theopompus]], whom he sought to discredit with a libelous parody, ''Trikaranos'', published in Theopompus' style and under his name, attacking Athens, Sparta, and Thebes.<ref name=Mahaffy>[[John Pentland Mahaffy|J.P. Mahaffy]], ''The Prose Writers from Isocrates to Aristotle'', London, 1904, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=iArl6eYqCNsC&pg=PA38 38]-41.</ref>
Pausanias wrote: "''He imitated the style of Theopompus with perfect accuracy, inscribed his name upon the book and sent it round to the cities. Though Anaximenes was the author of the treatise, hatred of Theopompus grew throughout the length of Greece.''"<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-grc1:6.18.5| title = Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.18.5}}</ref>

[[Plutarch]] criticizes Anaximenes, together with Theopompus and [[Ephorus]], for the "rhetorical effects and grand [[Periodic sentence|periods]]" these historians implausibly gave to men in the midst of urgent battlefield circumstances (''Praecepta gerendae reipublicae'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Praecepta_gerendae_reipublicae*.html#T803b 803b]).

==Saving Lampsacus==

The people of [[Lampsacus]] were pro-Persian, or were suspected of doing so and Alexander was furiously angry, and threatened to do them massive harm. They sent Anaximenes to intercede for them. Alexander knew why he had come, and swore by the gods that he would do the opposite of what he would ask, so Anaximenes said, 'Please do this for me, your majesty: enslave the women and children of Lampsacus, burn their temples, and raze the city to the ground.' Alexander had no way round this clever trick, and since he was bound by his oath he reluctantly pardoned the people of Lampsacus.<ref name="Suda"/><ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0159%3Abook%3D6%3Achapter%3D18%3Asection%3D3| title = Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.18.3}}</ref>

==Statue at Olympia==
The people of Lampsacus dedicated a statue of him at [[Olympia, Greece]].<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-grc1:6.18.2| title = Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.18.2}}</ref>

==Editions and translations==
* ''Art of Rhetoric''
** edited by [[Immanuel Bekker]], Oxford 1837 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=gtM9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA169 online])
** ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5ugDAAAAQAAJ Anaximenis ars rhetorica]'', L. Spengel (ed.), Leipzig, Vergsbureau, 1847.
** ''Rhetores Graeci'', L. Spengel (ed.), Lipsiae, sumptibus et typis B. G. Teubneri, 1853, [https://archive.org/details/rhetoresgraeci00spen vol. 1 pp. 169-242].
** edited by [[Manfred Fuhrmann]], [[Bibliotheca Teubneriana]], Leipzig, 1966, 2nd ed. 2000, {{ISBN|3-598-71983-3}}
** edited by Pierre Chiron, [[Collection Budé]], with French translation, Paris, 2002, {{ISBN|2-251-00498-X}}
** anonymous translation, London, 1686 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=r_6bkR_WpdQC&pg=PA213 online])
** translated by E.S. Forster, Oxford, 1924 ([https://archive.org/details/worksofaristotle11arisuoft online], beginning on [https://archive.org/stream/worksofaristotle11arisuoft#page/n229/mode/2up p.&nbsp;231])
*Fragments
** Karl Müller, appendix to 1846 [[Firmin Didot|Didot]] edition of [[Arrian]], ''[[Anabasis Alexandri|Anabasis]] et [[Indica (Arrian)|Indica]]'' ([https://books.google.com/books?id=LeYGAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA33 online])
** [[Felix Jacoby]], ''Die [[Fragmente der griechischen Historiker]]'', no. 72, with commentary in German
** [[Ludwig Radermacher]], ''Artium Scriptores'', Vienna, 1951, pp.&nbsp;200–202 (rhetorical fragments only, adding [[Philodemus]]' ''Rhetorica'', which accounts for three of the nine fragments printed)

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*{{SmithDGRBM|title= Anaximenes}}

{{Cynics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anaximenes of Lampsacus}}
[[Category:Ancient Greek rhetoricians]]
[[Category:People from Lampsacus]]
[[Category:380s BC births]]
[[Category:320 BC deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Year of death uncertain]]
[[Category:4th-century BC Greek historians]]
[[Category:4th-century BC Greek poets]]
[[Category:Historians who accompanied Alexander the Great]]
[[Category:Historians from Hellenistic Anatolia]]
[[Category:Philosophers and tutors of Alexander the Great]]
[[Category:4th-century BC Greek philosophers]]