Talk:Philitas of Cos

Bergk
The page currently cites T. Bergk; this was taken from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, I expect. I tried to track this down and guess that this was intended to refer to: But I couldn't find Philitas in there. Perhaps it's the wrong volume, or I'm looking in the wrong place in that volume?


 * Couldn't track it down, so to be safe I removed the claim. Eubulides (talk) 07:14, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

GA Pass
After inspecting the article, the only complaints I could find with it were a couple minor grammatical issues, which I fixed. You have done an excellent job addressing the issues brought up by the previous reviewer, and the page is now clear, readable, and informative to the layman. Congratulations, you pass. --erachima talk 02:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

An external link to http://calimaqueismoyhermeneuticamistica.wordpress.com/
I'd like to add an external link to this article, a text written by my wife, who teaches at Santiago of Compostela University and has been working on Philetas for some time. The link's been automatically rejected because it's a wordpress.com address. Would it be possible to ask for peer to peer review? The article is in Spanish. 81.39.252.203 (talk) 03:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)(fernando_santamaria)


 * I assume the wordpress.com URL violates some Wikipedia policy or guideline (which I don't know about). The URL points to what appears to be an interesting source, but I'm afraid it is a Spanish-language source and External links says such external links should be avoided here; there are some exceptions, but this doesn't appear to be one of them. Is an English translation available? (If not, perhaps es:Discusión:Filetas would be a better place to ask.) Also, is the source material available in a scholarly journal or book? Eubulides (talk) 04:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Most important?

 * ''the most important intellectual in the early years of Hellenistic civilization.

Really now? More important than, say, Theophrastus or Demetrius of Phalerum or Megasthenes? Who says so? Which one of the innumerable sources listed in the accompanying footnote?

This is, incidentally, a perfect example of why not to use named footnotes. They should only be used to represent multiple citations of the same exact page, so they should only be used for citations of pages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The accompanying footnote lists just one source, Bulloch's chapter about Hellenistic poetry in the Greek Literature volume of The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. The source is reprinted in a subset volume The Hellenistic Period and the Empire which is a less-expensive way to get the same material; I found this copy useful myself.
 * I'll take a look at reworking the citations to point to individual page numbers of Bulloch.
 * Bulloch is a reliable source in this area, surely; he's not a Philitas partisan, but is instead summarizing Hellenistic poetry in general. The other ancients you mention are all of course quite worthy, but it's not clear that they'd match Philitas for the early years of the Hellenistic period; do you have a reliable source that would dispute Bulloch's claim?
 * Eubulides (talk) 23:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I made this change to fix the Bulloch citations to use named footnotes only for the exact same page. This change also alters the body of the text so that the lead summarizes the body better. Eubulides (talk) 07:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It's well-supported
The article's text "was the most important intellectual figure in the early years of Hellenistic civilization" is directly supported by the cited source, which has a section "Philetas and others" that leads with "The most important intellectual figure in the early years of the new Hellenistic world was Philetas from the east Greek island of Cos." The source is The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, a conservatively-edited and reliable source on classical literature. The author of the source's section on Hellenistic poetry, Bulloch, is professor of classics at UC Berkeley, is a well-respected expert in the field, is writing in an overview of Hellenistic poetry (not merely in an article about Philitas), and is not a partisan of Philitas. Eubulides (talk) 01:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Hellenistic period etc.
This edit had some good ideas, but had some problems: I made this further edit to try to address the above points. Eubulides (talk) 05:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It replaced "flourished ... and was appointed" with "made his career ... when he was appointed". But we don't know that Philitas' career was actually "made" by that event; I don't know of any reliable sources saying that. The word "flourished" was meant in the sense of Flourished (for which we do have reliable sources). To fix this, we can restore the old wording and wikilink to Flourished.
 * It replaced "heir to the royal throne" with "heir of the royal throne". Another editor objected to the latter wording. I think "heir to the throne" is more common in English. Come to think of it, we can remove the "royal" here, as it's redundant in this context.
 * It introduced the phrase "most all of his work", which sounds too informal here; let's stick with "almost all his work".
 * It replaced "Hellenistic civilization" with "Hellenistic period", which is OK, but come to think of it, most readers won't know what the "Hellenistic period" is, so let's add "of ancient Greece" to give them context.

New edition not listed
A new edition of Philetas (and several other Hellenistic poets) has just been produced by Jane Lightfoot of New College, Oxford:

Lightfoot, Jane L. (ed., trans.). Hellenistic Collection: Philitas, Alexander of Aetolia, Hermesianax, Euphorion, Parthenius. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 2009 (Loeb Classical Library 508). xix, 662 pp.

This should probably be added to the bibliography. In addition, I am not terribly familiar with Philetas, and so could not judge, but I believe Lightfoot has re-examined the papyri for this edition, so it may mark a significant improvement in our knowledge of Philetas; however, someone actually expert in the subject should establish whether this is the case or not. Ajcee7 (talk) 23:14, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Well done!
I remember reviewing this article for GAC ages ago, and while I didn't feel it passed the criteria at the time, it's great seeing it so improved and on the main page today. Great job, main contributors, I enjoyed reading it. :) María ( habla con migo ) 13:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

POTD candidate?
This should be a POTD candidate - in my opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antikythera_philosopher.JPG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.77.171.160 (talk) 18:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Philitas of Cos. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080806084815/http://honeyl.public.iastate.edu/quintilian/10/chapter1.html to http://honeyl.public.iastate.edu/quintilian/10/chapter1.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:55, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Evidence for being a bronze of Philitas?
What evidence do we have that the bronze in the infobox depicts Philitas? The image seems to have been added in 2008 by the long-time retired User:Eubulides.

In fact, the evidence speaks against any identification between this bronze and Philitas: the portrait of Philitas is known thanks to a marble copy discovered in Crest (France) and now kept in a private collection in Lyon (see Prioux, Évelyne. “Le Portrait Perdu et Retrouvé Du Poète Philitas de Cos: Posidippe 63 A.-B. et ‘IG’ XIV, 2486.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 166 (2008): 66–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20476513.). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:861:8AC7:1F70:7044:C6B1:E7B2:E9 (talk) 19:02, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

There are several works thought to origin from the 200 BC period depicting older men.

--&#39;wɪnd (talk) 10:46, 13 May 2022 (UTC)