The Authors Named Pherecydes

Fifty years ago Felix Jacoby published The First Athenian Prose Writer1)^ in which he decisively refuted Wilamowitz' thesis2) that works of Ionic mythography were ascribed generally to 'Pherecydes' in the same manner as medical treatises were ascribed to Hippocrates or laws to Solon. The only historical person behind the tradition was Pherecydes of Syrus; the work assigned to Pherecydes the Athenian by Eratosthenes, though indeed a separate book, was merely a miscellany of tales from various hands. The Athenian was invented by Eratosthenes on the basis of the predominance of Attic material in the book. Wilamowitz5 view, to be sure, has never found favour, but his authority was mighty, and Jacoby was justified in devoting one of his typically thorough discussions to the matter. It seemed conclusively settled that the Syrian and the Athenian were two different authors3). Recently, however, D.L. Toye has challenged this consensus, not indeed by reviving Wilamowitz' thesis, but by arguing that the fragments Jacoby edited as FGrHist 3 and the fragments normally assigned to the philosopher come from one and the same book, and one and the same author4). A brief examination of Toye's arguments will lead to the conclusion that Jacoby was right

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• The Early Greek Prose-writing Tradition

  Open Access•Gastón Javier Basile•Dialogues d histoire ancienne•2020

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• Vagantibus Graeciae fabulis

  Ory Amitay•Mediterranean Historical Review•2014

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• Pherekydes of Athens

  Open Access•William S Morison•The Encyclopedia of Ancient History•2012

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• An Ambiguous Literary Genre

  Ilaria Andolfi•Mnemosyne•2016

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