Ptolemy Chennus or Chennos ("quail") ( ''Ptolemaios Chennos''), was an Alexandrine grammarian during the reigns of

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

and

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

. According to the ''

Suda The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...

'', he was the author of an historical drama named ''Sphinx'', of an epic, ''Anthomeros'', in 24 books (both lost) and a ''Strange History''. The last is probably identical with the ''New History'' in six books ascribed by Photius to Ptolemy Hephaestion, of which a summary outline has been preserved in Photius' ''Biblioteca'' (cod. 190), who observed sarcastically of its credulous author that he found it "a work really useful for those who undertake to attempt erudition in history," for "it abounds in extraordinary and badly imagined information." Photius goes on to say, "In any case, the majority of his stories which are free of things impossible to believe, offer a knowledge above the ordinary, but which is not unpleasing." It was dedicated to the author's lady, Tertulla, and contained a medley of all sorts of legends and fables belonging to both the mythological and historical periods. An identification with Ptolemy-el-Garib has been suggested, but this is no longer accepted.Albin Lesky, ''A History of Greek Literature'' (trans. Willis and de Heer, 1966), p. 548. Hans Gottschalk, "The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators," in ''Aristotle Transformed'' (ed. Richard Sorabji, 1990), pp. 56f. n. 5. See editions of Photius's abridgment by Joseph-Emmanuel-Ghislain Roulez (''Ptolemaei Hephaestionis Novarum historiarum ad variam eruditionem pertinentium excerpta e Photio'', 1834); and in Anton Westermann, ''Mythographi graeci'' (1843); Rudolf Hercher, ''Über die Glaubwürdigkeit der neuen Geschichte des Ptolemaus Chennus'' (Leipzig, 1856); John Edwin Sandys, ''History of Classical Scholarship'' (2nd ed., 1906).

Notes

{{Authority control Ancient Greek grammarians Roman-era Alexandrians Ancient Greek dramatists and playwrights 2nd-century Greek poets Ancient Greek epic poets Ancient Greek historians known only from secondary sources Greek-language historians from the Roman Empire