Chaeremon of Alexandria (; , ''gen.:'' ; fl. 1st century AD) was a

Stoic Stoic may refer to: * An adherent of Stoicism Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed i ...

philosopher and historian who wrote on Egyptian mythology from a "typically Stoic" perspective.

Life

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 head of the

Alexandrian school The Alexandrian school is a collective designation for certain tendencies in literature, philosophy, medicine, and the sciences that developed in the Hellenistic cultural center of Alexandria, Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Alex ...

of grammarians, and he may also have been head of the Museion. He was probably one of the ambassadors to

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...

from

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

in 40 AD. He also taught

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...

, probably before 49 AD when

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca ...

became Nero's tutor. He may have been the grandson of the Chaeremon who accompanied the Roman prefect Aelius Gallus on his tour of Egypt in 26 AD. His father – about whom nothing is known – was called Leonidas, and he was probably born no later than 10 AD. One of the poems from

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', pu ...

's eleventh book of

Epigrams An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia. ...

mocks Chaeremon; as Martial did not usually attack living figures Chaeremon presumably died before 96 AD when ''Epigrams'' XI was published.

Works

All of Chaeremon's works are lost, though a number of fragments are quoted by later authors. Three titles are preserved: the ''History of Egypt'', ''Hieroglyphika'', and ''On Comets'', with another fragment quoted from an unknown grammatical treatise of his.

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

quotes an extensive fragment from Chaeremon's Egyptian history, in which he scornfully recounts and ridicules, in a manner similar to that of

Manetho Manetho (; ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος, ''fl''. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his ...

, the departure of the Jews from Egypt. Josephus boasts of having refuted Chaeremon as well as Manetho and others. Chaeremon's history is also mentioned by Porphyry. Chaeremon's description of Egypt recalls the ideas which Philo, Clement, Origen, and others introduced into the Old and the New Testament. The asceticism especially, which he ascribes to the ancient Egyptian priests, is analogous to the description in

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; ; ; ), also called , was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. The only event in Philo's life that can be decisively dated is his representation of the Alexandrian J ...

's work, "De Vita Contemplativa"; still there is no literary connection between the two authors. Fragments of the "History of Egypt" may still exist in a treatise of

Psellus Michael Psellos or Psellus (, ) was a Byzantine Greek monk, savant, writer, philosopher, imperial courtier, historian and music theorist. He was born in 1017 or 1018, and is believed to have died in 1078, although it has also been maintained tha ...

published in 1877. According to the ''

'', another work of Chaeremon was entitled "Hieroglyphica," and probably contained interpretations of the hieroglyphics while a third work may be the book "On the Comets" mentioned by Origen. Origen also made use of other writings of Chaeremon that are now lost.(''Suda'', s.v. 'Ωριγένης).

Notes

Editions and Translations

*P. Charvet, S. Aufrère, J-M. Kowalski, A. Zucker, Le Quartette d'Alexandrie - Hérodote, Diodore, Strabon, Chérémon, Collection Bouquins, Paris, 2021, (1563 p). Aufrère provides a translation of a fictional text, Chaeremon's Book of Phtomyris or Critics des Aigyptiaka, a literary exercise imagined as a response to classical authors Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo. *. Pieter van der Horst includes 14 certain and 14 doubtful fragments in his edition of Chaeramon's works.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chaeremon Of Alexandria 1st-century Greek philosophers 1st-century Egyptian people Roman-era librarians of Alexandria Roman-era Stoic philosophers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Philosophers in ancient Alexandria Ancient Egyptian writers