Philostratus

Philostratus is the name attributed to two Greek writers of the Roman imperial period, commonly identified as Philostratus the Elder (fl. roughly late 2nd to mid-3rd century CE) and Philostratus the Younger (fl. 3rd–4th century CE). They are associated with the Second Sophistic, a revival of classical literary and rhetorical culture in late antiquity.

Philostratus the Elder is the better preserved and more influential figure. He is best known for four surviving or widely attested works. Life of Apollonius of Tyana portrays the 1st‑century philosopher and miracle worker Apollonius in a richly Hellenistic biographical setting, combining moral exhortation with travel narrative and miraculous accounts. The text is a major source for late antique religious and philosophical life, but modern scholars emphasize its literary character and its blending of biography, miracle, and philosophy rather than strict historical reportage. Vitae Sophistarum, or Lives of the Sophists, offers portraits of contemporary and earlier orators and teachers of rhetoric, illustrating the rhetorical culture of his era. Gymnasticus, a treatise on athletic training, rounds out his program of practical and cultured knowledge. The elder’s works influenced later biographical and rhetorical writing and provide valuable evidence for the intellectual milieu of the period.

Philostratus the Younger is a later writer about whom less is certain. In some traditions he is considered the son of the elder or a compiler who revised or continued his father’s work. Details of his surviving pieces are fragmentary, and his exact relationship to the elder’s corpus remains a subject of scholarly discussion.

The name Philostratus, therefore, marks a pair of late antique authors whose biographies, moral instruction, and rhetorical portraits illuminate the culture of the Second Sophistic and the cross-currents between pagan and early Christian thought.