Phocylides

Who is Phocylides?

Phocylides, Greek gnomic poet of Miletus, contemporary of Theognis of Megara, was born about 560 BC.

A few fragments of his "maxims" have survived, 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:

And this from Phocylides: a city in good order, though small

and built on a distant crag, is mightier than foolish Nineveh.

Aristotle also found cause to quote him:

Many things are best in the mean; I desire to be of a middle condition in my city.

A complete didactic poem called Ποίημα νουθετικόν or γνῶμαι, bearing the name of Phocylides, is now considered to be the work of an Alexandrian Christian of Jewish origin who lived between 170 BC and AD 50. The Jewish element is shown in verbal agreement with passages of the Old Testament; the Christian by the doctrine of the immortality of the 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.