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Elegy and Iambus. with an English Translation by. J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 2.

Scythinus: Poems

“—A city of Ionia … from this place came Protagoras the Teian and Scythinus the iambic poet.1”

Stephanus of Byzantium Lexicon:


Teos “ Hieronymus declares that Scythinus the writer of iambic poetry took upon himself to put the discourse of Heracleitus into verse.”

Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophers [on Heracleitus]


“They are mentioned by Scythinus of Teos in the book entitled History, in the following words: ‘Heracles took Eurytus and his son and slew them for exacting tribute from the Euboeans, and laid waste the country of the Cylicranes for plundering their neighbours, and built in their territory a city known as the Trachinian Heracleia.’ ”

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner [on the Cylicranes]


Iambi

On Nature

At a later time, however, the Megarians dedicated to Apollo a gold plectrum or quill for striking the lyre, because it would seem they gave heed to the words of Scythinus about that instrument,

which the beauteous Apollo attuneth unto Zeus comprising the beginning and end of every thing and hath for quill the bright light of the Sun.

Plutarch The Pythian Oracle:


“From the poem On Nature by Scythinus:

Time's first and last of all things unto men, Hath all things in 't, is one and not-one ever, Is here when past 'tis, past when it is here, Inside itself it is and thence to itself Runs counter,2 and what seems to-day, in sooth Is yesterday, and yesterday to-day.34

Stobaeus Physical Eclogues [on the nature of Time]


1 Anacreon's father bore the same name

2 lit. out of itself being inside itself it runs an opposite way to itself [ αὐτῷ = αὑτῷ and does double duty)

3 the Epigrams ascribed to S. in the Anthology (12.22 and 232) are certainly by a later hand

4 For the Iambic fragments of Chares, who, as possibly pre-Alexandrian, might be included in this book, see Powell Collectanea Alexandrina , p. 223.

text/scythinus_poems.txt · Last modified: 2014/01/15 12:00 by 127.0.0.1