Chaniotis, Angelos

Propylaeum-DOK

Originalveroffentlichung in: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 47, 2004, S. 79-81 
EPIGRAPHIC EVIDENCE FOR THE PHILOSOPHER 
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS 
ANGELOS CHANIOTIS 
Inscriptions often provide information about great figures of ancient literature. This applies 
to Arrian, Plutarch and Tacitus no less than to the poet Nikandros of Colophon or Aristotle. 
A new find from the city of Aphrodisias in Asia Minor in 2001 now adds some important 
biographical information on the city's most known author and one of the greatest 
philosophers of the Imperial period. This new inscription will be published together with 
other recent epigraphic finds from Aphrodisias in a forthcoming issue of the American 
Journal of Archaeology; as the news about this text has already spread among scholars 
interested in the history of ancient philosophy, it seemed appropriate to present this text as 
soon as possible in a journal more likely to be read by scholars interested in classical 
literature. 
The new inscription is written on the marble rectangular base of a statue dedicated by 
Alexander to his father. The stone was re-used as a trough, but luckily the side which has 
been destroyed is not the inscribed one. The base (height 1.14 m, width 48.5cm, depth 
52.5cm) was found in the town of Karacasu in 2001, but it had originally stood in 
Aphrodisias. The text reads: 
Yr|(pio-auevrj<; Aoaocpoc., TUV ' Afrr|-
Tfjc pouA.f|g Kou vnoiv 8ia56xwv, 
Tofi 6fjuou 8 T. AvipiiAiov ' AXe-
4 TITO? AiipfjXioc. £av5pov, qnXooo-
' AA.ef;av6poc., <pv- (pov, xov uaTepa 
In accordance with a psephisma of the council and the people, Titus Aurelius Alexandras, 
philosopher, one of the heads of the philosophical schools in Athens, (erected the statue 
of) his father, the philosopher T. Aurelius Alexandras. 
There can be no doubt that the philosopher Titus Aurelius Alexandras, who honours his 
homonymous father, also a philosopher, is the famous Alexander of Aphrodisias, the greatest 
Peripatetic philosopher of the Imperial period. He has the title of a diadochos, that is, the 
director of one of the philosophical schools in Athens.1 Unfortunately, the new text does not 
provide any information on the date, and so it cannot answer the question of when exactly 
1 For this title see J. H. Oliver, "The Solonian Constitution and a Consul of AD 149', GRBS 13, 1977, 99-107; 
J. Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Gflttingen 1978), 344; J. Hahn, Der Philosoph und die Gesellschaft. 
Selbstverstandnis, offentliches Auftreten undpopulate Erwartungen in der hohen Kaiserzeit (Stuttgart 1989), 122-26. 
B/CS-47 - 2004 
79 
80 B I C S - 4 7 - 2 0 0 4 
Alexander became head of the Peripatetic school (c. A D 198-209).2 The name Titus Aurelius, 
borne both by the father and the son (L. 4 and 8), implies that the family was awarded Roman 
citizenship by the later emperor Antoninus Pius (Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus), probably 
when he was holding the office of the governor of Asia in A D 135/136 (as was pointed out 
to me by M. Frede), and this safely dates the inscription to the late 2nd or early 3rd century. 
The most important biographical information provided by the new inscription is the fact 
that Alexander was the son of a philosopher. We already knew several of his teachers 
(Aristokles of Messene or Aristoteles of Mytilene, Herminos and Sosigenes), but his first 
educator in philosophy must have been his father; such family traditions in philosophy are 
not uncommon in the Imperial period.3 The inscription does not refer to Alexander's school, 
i.e. the Peripatetics, but describes his position in general as 'one of the diadochoi in Athens'.4 
The new honorary inscription throws some new light on the vivid intellectual life at 
Aphrodisias in the Imperial period, the only surviving product of which are (apart from 
Alexander's works) the novel of Chariton of Aphrodisias and a few fragments of the histor-
iographical works of Apollonios (FrGrHist 740 F 1-16). From an honorary inscription5 we 
know of a library in the city, and more texts inform us about Aphrodisian scholars, such as 
the tragic poet C. Iulius Longianus who was honoured in Halikarnassos for the public lectures 
he gave in that city (AD 127),6 the sophists Chaireas, Marcus Flavius Antonius Lysimachos, 
Claudius Aurelius Zelos, his son Iulius Aurelius Charidemos Ioulianos, Marcus Antonius 
Popillius Agelaos, and Pereitianos Dometeinos, and the orator Tib. Claudius Aurelius 
Ktesias.7 Other philosophers, in addition to the two Alexandroi and the Peripatetic Adrastos,8 
are the prominent citizen Marcus Aurelius Diodoros Kallimedes, who is called in a post-
humous honorary inscription 'a true philosopher',9 and in Late Antiquity Asklepiodotos, 
leaders of the late pagans (late 5th century AD).10 From random references to benefactors 
who are called sophists or orators and sophists in their honorary inscriptions we may infer 
that philosophy and rhetoric played a very important part in the life of the elite. 
2R. W. Sharpies, 'Alexander of Aphrodisias. Scholasticism and innovation', ANRWH36.2, (Berlin 1987), 1177f. 
3 See e.g., A. W. Parsons, 'A Family of Philosophers at Athens and Alexandria', in Commemorative Studies in Honor 
ofT. L. Shear (Baltimore 1949), 268-72. 
4 For similar expression see e.g. IG IP 1099 L. 6: diadochus Athenis; Porph., Vit. Plot. 20: oi T' ' A0T|VT|OI 5iS6oxoi. 
References to 6id6oxoi of particular schools are limited to those of the Epicureans and the Stoics (Hahn, op.cit., 125). 
5 Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, VIII, 498. 
6 C. Roueche, Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias (London 1993), no. 88. 
7 The evidence has been collected by L. Robert, 'Inscriptions d'Aphrodisias', L'Antiquite Classique 35 (1966), 395-98 
and B. Puech, Orateurs et sophistes grecs dans les inscriptions d'epoque imperiale (Paris 2002), 165f. no. 59 
(Chaireas), 166-69 nos. 61-63 (Charidemos), 187-89 nos. 76-77 (Ktesias), 338-41 nos. 167-68 (Lysimachos) and 471f. 
no. 260 (Zelos). Agelaos and Pereitianos Dometeinos are mentioned in unpublished texts. 
8 H. B. Gottschalk, 'Aristotelian Philosophy in the Roman world from the time of Cicero to the end of the Second 
Century AD', ANRWU 36.2 (Berlin 1987), 1155f. 
9 Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, VHI499 b 15f. 
10 For the activity of Asklepiodotos and his homonymous son-in-law, see P. Athanassiadi, Damascius, the philo-
sophical history. Text with translation and notes (Athens 1999), 202-33, 248f„ 284f., 348f.; A. Chaniotis, 'Zwischen 
Konfrontation und Interaktion: Christen, Juden und Heiden im spatantiken Aphrodisias', in Patchwork: Dimensionen 
multikultureller Gesellschaften, ed. C. Ackermann and K. E. Milller (Bielefeld 2002), 102f. For a house decorated with 
portraits of philosophers (the seat of the philosophical school of Asklepiodotos?) see R. R. R. Smith, 'Late Roman 
philosopher portraits from Aphrodisias', Journal of Roman Studies 80, 1990, 127-55. 
A N G E L O S CHANIOTIS: N E W EVIDENCE FOR A L E X A N D E R OF APHRODISIAS 81 
It is beyond my area of expertise to comment on the significance of the new text for the 
history of philosophy in the Imperial period, but I hope that the publication of Alexander's 
inscription will attract as much interest as the rumours about its existence. 
Heidelberg 


Epigraphic evidence for the philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias

http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/704/1/Chaniotis_Epigraphic_Evidence_2004.pdf

Epigraphic evidence for the philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias

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