Strabo and Demetrios of Skepsis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10965705 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Walter Leaf (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1918 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Pages | 23-47 |
| Publication date | 1918-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Annual of the British School at Athens (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0068-2454 • E-ISSN: 2045-2403 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0068245400009837 |
| OpenAlex | W2314941055 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
Though the name of Demetrios of Skepsis is hardly known to us except through Strabo, he was in his way a remarkable man. The only independent account of him is a mention by Diogenes Laertius as one in a list of well-known namesakes; ἑνδέκατος Σκήψιος, πλούσιος καὶ εὐγενὴς ἄνθρωπος καὶ φιλόλογος ἄκρως οὖτος καὶ Μητρόδωρον προεβιβασε τὸν πολίτην (V. v. 11). The date of his birth is fairly closely fixed by his own statement in Strabo (XIII. i. 27) that he visited Ilium as a boy (μειράκιον) when the Romans landed in Asia to attack Antiochus, i.e. in 190 B.C. The word μειράκιον may be taken to mean anything from about 14 to 20 years of age. Demetrios therefore cannot have been born much before or after 205 B.C. Some surprise may be felt at the statement that he gave Metrodoros his start in life; Metrodoros, the friend of Mithridates, died, as we know from Strabo (XIII. i. 55) and Plutarch Lucullus 22) in or immediately after 70 B.C. The lives of the two men therefore cover some 135 years; if both lived to be 75, Metrodoros can only have been 15 at Demetrios' death. The description of Demetrios as ‘a man of wealth and birth, and a scholar to his finger-tips’ is quite borne out by what we know of his works. He plainly inherited the tradition of the little nest of Platonists and Aristotelians who were established at Skepsis and the neighbouring Assos; he was an enthusiast for Homer and geography, and devoted his life to a geographical commentary on Homer, and more particularly to the Trojan Catalogue, which so nearly concerned his native Troad: He found place, however, for excursuses of very wide range; for instance the long one on the Kuretes in Strabo X. iii. 19–22. Another on the changes in the face of the earth produced by volcanic action is quoted in l. iii. 17
Ancient history · Genealogy · Linguistics · Sociology · Statement (logic · Surprise · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Medicine · Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |