Xenophilus

4th-century BC Greek philosopher

Xenophilus (Greek: Ξενόφιλος; 4th century BC), of Chalcidice,^[2] was a Pythagorean philosopher and musician who lived in the first half of the 4th century BC.^[3] Aulus Gellius relates that Xenophilus was the intimate friend and teacher of Aristoxenus and implies that Xenophilus taught him Pythagorean doctrine.^[4] He was said to have belonged to the last generation of Pythagoreans, and he is the only Pythagorean known to have lived in Athens in the 4th century BC.^[5]

According to Diogenes Laërtius, Aristoxenus wrote that when Xenophilus was once asked by someone how he could best educate his son, Xenophilus replied, "By making him the citizen of a well-governed state."^[6] In the Macrobii of Pseudo-Lucian, Aristoxenus is supposed to have said that Xenophilus lived 105 years.^[7] Xenophilus enjoyed considerable fame in the Renaissance, apparently because of Pliny's claim that he lived 105 years without ever being sick.^[8]

References

^ Die Schedelsche Weltchronik, 079.
^ Huffman, Carl. "Pythagoreanism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
^ Freeman 1983, p. 81.
^ Aulus Gellius. Noctes Atticae. IV, 11.
^ Hahm 1977, p. 225.
^ Diogenes Laërtius. Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. VIII, 15–16.
^ Pseudo-Lucian. Macrobii, 18; cf. Valerius Maximus. Facta et dicta memorabilia. VIII, c. 13; Pliny. Naturalis Historia. VII, 50.
^ Hayton 2005, p. 95 (including footnote 50).

Sources

Freeman, Kathleen (1983) [1948]. Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674035011.
Hahm, David E. (1977). The Origins of Stoic Cosmology. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. hdl:1811/24807. ISBN 0814202535.
Hayton, Darin (2005). "Joseph Grünpeck's Astrological Explanation of the French Disease". In Siena, Kevin Patrick (ed.). Sins of the Flesh: Responding to Sexual Disease in Early Modern Europe. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. pp. 81–108. ISBN 0772720290.