Pamphile or Pamphila of Epidaurus, ''Pamphílē hē Epidauría'' ( 1st century AD) was a historian of Egyptian descent who lived in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
during the reign of the
Roman emperor Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
(ruled 54 – 68 AD) and wrote in the
Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...
. She was the first known female
Greco-Roman
The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...
historian and, along with
Ban Zhao
Ban Zhao (; 45 or 49 – c. 117/120 CE), courtesy name Huiban (), was a Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician. She was the first known female Chinese historian and, along with Pamphile of Epidaurus, one of the first known female hi ...
,
one of the first known female historians. She is best known for her
lost work
A lost work is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia produced some time in the past, of which no surviving copies are known to exist. It can only be known through reference. This term most commonly applies to works from the classical ...
''Historical Commentaries'', a collection of miscellaneous historical anecdotes in thirty-three books. Although this collection has been lost, it is frequently cited by the Roman writer
Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...
(c. 125 – after 180 AD) in his ''Attic Nights'' and by the Greek biographer
Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...
in his ''
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal sourc ...
''. She is also described in the tenth-century
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
encyclopedia, the ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
'', and by the Byzantine writer
Photios
Photios I ( el, Φώτιος, ''Phōtios''; c. 810/820 – 6 February 893), also spelled PhotiusFr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., & Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Materia ...
(c. 810/820 – 893). According to the ''Suda'', she also wrote a large number of
epitome
An epitome (; gr, ἐπιτομή, from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents "t ...
s of the works of other historians as well as treatises on disputes and sex. She may be the author of the anonymous surviving Greek treatise ''
Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello'', which gives brief biographical accounts of the lives of famous women.
Background
![Pamphile of Epidauros cropped](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Pamphile_of_Epidauros_cropped.jpg)
According to the ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
'', a
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
encyclopedia of the tenth century AD, Pamphile was an
Epidaurian.
[Suda π 139, ''Pamphile''] Photios
Photios I ( el, Φώτιος, ''Phōtios''; c. 810/820 – 6 February 893), also spelled PhotiusFr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., & Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Materia ...
describes her as an
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
by birth or descent, which may be reconciled by supposing that she was a native of Epidaurus, and that her family came from Egypt. Photios summarizes the preface to her work, which states that, during the thirteen years she had lived with her husband, from whom she was never absent for a single hour, she was constantly at work upon her book, and that she diligently wrote down whatever she heard from her husband and from the many other learned people who frequented their house, as well as whatever she herself read in books.
The ''Suda'' contradicts itself over whether the grammarian
Soteridas of Epidaurus was Pamphile's father or her husband. In one passage, the ''Suda'' speaks of Pamphile as the daughter of Soteridas and the wife of Socratidas,
but in another passage she is described as the wife of Soteridas. Gudeman concludes that it is more likely that the first passage is correct and that Soteridas was Pamphile's father. The ''Suda'' credits Soteridas as the true author of Pamphile's ''Historical Commentaries''. Modern scholars believe that he may have played a significant role in writing it. The ''Suda'' also credits Soteridas as the author of numerous treatises on philology and grammar, including a treatise on "
Homeric
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
problems", a commentary of
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
and
Menander
Menander (; grc-gre, Μένανδρος ''Menandros''; c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His rec ...
, a treatise on
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
, a treatise on
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
, and a treatise on
poetic meter
In poetry, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of ...
.
Writings
Pamphile's best-known work was the ''Historical Commentaries'', a collection of historical anecdotes comprising thirty-three books. The estimation in which it was held in antiquity is shown by the extensive references to it in the works of the Roman historian
Aulus Gellius
Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...
and the Greek biographer
Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...
, who appear to have availed themselves of it to a considerable extent. Photios gives a general idea of the nature of its contents. The work was not arranged according to subjects or according to any settled plan, but it was more like a commonplace book, in which each piece of information was set down as it fell under the notice of the writer, who stated that she believed this variety would give greater pleasure to the reader. Photios considers the work as one of great use, and supplying important information on many points in history and literature. Photios speaks only of eight books but the Suda says that it consisted of thirty-three. The latter must be correct, since we find Gellius quoting the eleventh and twenty-ninth, and
Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...
the twenty-fifth and thirty-second. Perhaps no more than eight books were extant in the time of Photios. The work is also referred to by Diogenes Laërtius in other passages.
[Diogenes Laërtius, i. 24, 68, 76, 90, 98, ii. 24]
Besides the history already mentioned, the Suda says she also wrote an ''Epitome of Ctesias'' in 3 books; a very large number of epitomes of histories and other books; ''On Disputes''; ''On Sex''; and many other works.
''Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello''
![La Regina Semiramide - Motelatici](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/La_Regina_Semiramide_-_Motelatici.png)
Classical scholar Deborah Levine Gera has made a case that Pamphile of Epidaurus may be the author of the anonymous surviving treatise ''
Tractatus de mulieribus claris in bello'' (''Treatise on Women Famous in War''), written in Greek, which gives accounts of the lives of fourteen famous women. Since Pamphile was a woman herself, Gera states that it is logical that she would take an interest in the stories of famous women of the past. Furthermore, the lives of the various women in the ''Tractatus de mulieribus'' are arranged in a seemingly random order, which is consistent with a statement from Photios that Pamphile organized her writings in the forms of miscellaneous collections rather than in a strict and orderly manner. Photios also states that Pamphile's style was very plain, which is consistent with the writing style of the ''Tractatus de mulieribus''.
Additionally, Pamphile is known to have written a three-volume epitome of the ''Persica'' by the fifth-century BC historian
Ctesias
Ctesias (; grc-gre, Κτησίας; fl. fifth century BC), also known as Ctesias of Cnidus, was a Greek physician and historian from the town of Cnidus in Caria, then part of the Achaemenid Empire.
Historical events
Ctesias, who lived in the fi ...
, which also happens to be the source for two of the fourteen lives in the ''Tractatus de mulieribus''. According to Gera, the "Life of Semiramis" from the ''Tractatus de mulieribus'' in particular is "a succinct and accurate summary of nearly two books of the ''Persica''." It is possible Pamphile's name may have been removed from the treatise at some point, since it is known that many of her works later became attributed to her husband. Nonetheless, Gera states that Pamphile is only one of several possible authors for the treatise.
See also
*
Ban Zhao
Ban Zhao (; 45 or 49 – c. 117/120 CE), courtesy name Huiban (), was a Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician. She was the first known female Chinese historian and, along with Pamphile of Epidaurus, one of the first known female hi ...
, a contemporary female historian in ancient China during its Eastern Han dynasty
Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{Authority control
1st-century Greek people
1st-century Egyptian women
1st-century women writers
1st-century writers
1st-century historians
Roman-era Greek historians
Ancient Greek women writers
Women historians
Epidaurus
1st-century Greek women