Damis ( el, Δάμις) was a student and lifelong companion of
Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς; c. 3 BC – c. 97 AD) was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Anatolia. He is the subject of ''L ...
, the famous
Neopythagorean
Neopythagoreanism (or neo-Pythagoreanism) was a school of Hellenistic philosophy which revived Pythagorean doctrines. Neopythagoreanism was influenced by middle Platonism and in turn influenced Neoplatonism. It originated in the 1st century BC a ...
philosopher and teacher who lived in the early 1st up to the early 2nd century AD.
Life
All that we know about Damis comes from Apollonius' biographer
Philostratus
Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (; grc-gre, Φιλόστρατος ; c. 170 – 247/250 AD), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probab ...
who wrote his ''
Life of Apollonius of Tyana
''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'' ( grc-gre, Τὰ ἐς τὸν Τυανέα Ἀπολλώνιον), also known by its Latin title , is a text in eight books written in Ancient Greece by Philostratus (c. 170 – c. 245 AD). It tells the story of A ...
'' between 217 and 238. Some scholars believe the notebooks of Damis are an invention of Philostratus, others think it was a real book forged by someone else and used by Philostratus. And some scholars think that Damis never existed at all. F.C. Conybeare, however, points out the extreme and unnecessary sceptism of this theory.
E. Rabinovitch even advocates a high probability of the real existence of Damis' notebooks. It is possible that Philostratus did use a biography of Apollonius by Damis, who was however, not trustworthy (that is, he was like the so-called ''aretalogi'', sought to embellish the life of his master).
According to Philostratus, Apollonius met Damis in a city which Philostratus calls "Old Ninos", which from its location cannot be Nineveh, but is in fact the "holy city" of Hierapolis Bambyce (
Manbij
Manbij ( ar, مَنْبِج, Manbiǧ, ku, مەنبج, Minbic, tr, Münbiç, Menbic, or Menbiç) is a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, 30 kilometers (19 mi) west of the Euphrates. In the 2004 census by the Cent ...
) in Syria.
[Christopher P. Jones: ''Apollonius of Tyana's Passage to India'', in: ''Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies'' 42 (2001) p. 185-199, especially p. 187-190.] Damis admired Apollonius so much that he became his disciple, and kept a record of Apollonius' actions and sayings, the so-called Memoirs (or Diary) of Damis. These notes came into the possession of the empress
Julia Domna
Julia Domna (; – 217 AD) was Roman empress from 193 to 211 as the wife of Emperor Septimius Severus. She was the first empress of the Severan dynasty. Domna was born in Emesa (present-day Homs) in Roman Syria to an Arab family of priests of ...
, and it was she who commissioned Philostratus to write a biography of Apollonius, the extant ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana''. That's what Philostratus asserts.
Damis is also a common name in
Arcadian pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
s, and that of
Orgon
Orgon (; ancient: ''Urgonum'', ''Castrum de Urgone'') is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.
Geography
Neighbouring villages and small towns include Les Baux-de-Provence, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and Cavaillon. Or ...
's son in
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
's ''
Tartuffe
''Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite'' (; french: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, ), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical thea ...
''. It is also the name of the keeper of the Shadow Diamond in the popular MMORPG
Runescape
''RuneScape'' is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. ''RuneScape'' was originally a browser game built with the Java programming language; it was large ...
.
Notes
Neo-Pythagoreans
Roman-era philosophers
1st-century philosophers
1st-century births
2nd-century deaths
{{AncientRome-bio-stub