Editing Phocylides

{{Short description|Ancient Greek writer}}
{{For|the crater|Phocylides (crater)}}
{{For|the genus of weevils|Phocylides (beetle)}}
{{no footnotes|date=April 2013}}
'''Phocylides''' ({{langx|el|Φωκυλίδης ὁ Μιλήσιος}}), [[Greeks|Greek]] [[gnomic poet]] of [[Miletus]], contemporary of [[Theognis of Megara]], was born about 560 BC.

A few fragments of his "[[Maxim (philosophy)|maxims]]" have survived (chiefly in the ''Florilegium'' of [[Stobaeus]]), in which he expresses his contempt for the pomps and vanities of rank and wealth, and sets forth in simple language his ideas of [[honour]], [[justice]] and [[wisdom]]. An example is an [[epigram]] quoted by [[Dio Chrysostom]]:

{{poemquote|And this from Phocylides: a city in good order, though small
and built on a distant crag, is mightier than foolish [[Nineveh]].|Or.&nbsp;36.13, trans. Colburn <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/36*.html#13|title = LacusCurtius • Dio Chrysostom — Discourse 36}}</ref>}}

[[Aristotle]] also found cause to quote him:

{{quote|Many things are best in the mean; I desire to be of a middle condition in my city.|''The Politics''. Book Four. Ch. XI.}}

==Works==
Phocylides of Miletus was once credited with writing [[Pseudo-Phocylides]], a complete [[didactic]] poem (230 hexameters). However, that text is now considered to be the work of an [[Alexandria]]n [[Christians|Christian]] of [[Jew]]ish origin who lived between 170 BC and AD 50. The Jewish element is shown in verbal agreement with passages of the [[Old Testament]] (especially the [[Wisdom of Sirach]]); the Christian by the doctrine of the [[immortality]] of the [[Soul (spirit)|soul]] and the [[resurrection]] of the body. Some Jewish authorities, however, maintain that there are in reality no traces of Christian [[doctrine]] to be found in the poem, and that the author was a Jew. The poem was first printed at Venice in 1495, and was a favourite school textbook during the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]] period.<ref name="Jewish_Encyclopedia">{{cite web |last1=Toy |first1=Crawford Howell |last2=Krauss |first2=Samuel |title=PSEUDO-PHOCYLIDES |url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12417-pseudo-phocylides |website=Jewish Encyclopedia |accessdate=14 October 2018}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Pseudo-Phocylides]]
* [[Theognis of Megara]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Fragments and the spurious poem in [[Theodor Bergk|T. Bergk]], ''Poetae lyrici graeci'', II, [https://archive.org/stream/poetaelyricigrae02berguoft#page/74/mode/2up pp. 74–109] (4th ed., 1882).
*[[Jakob Bernays]] ''Über das Phokylideische Gedicht'' (1858)
*''Phocylides, Poem of Admonition'', with introduction and commentaries by [[J. B. Feuling]], and translation by [[H. D. Goodwin]] (Andover, Massachusetts, 1879)
*[[Franz Susemihl]], ''Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit'', (1892), ii. 642
*[[E. Schürer]], ''History of the Jewish People'', div. ii., vol. iii., 313—316 (English translation 1886), where full bibliographies are given.
*English translation by [[W. Hewett]] (Watford, 1840), ''The Perceptive Poem of Phocylides''.
*[[M. L. West]], 'Phocylides,' ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 98, 164–7.

'''Attribution'''
*{{EB1911|wstitle = Phocylides|volume=21}}

{{Authority control}}
[[Category:6th-century BC Greek poets]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:560s BC births]]