Phlegon of Tralles
Who was Phlegon of Tralles?
2nd-century AD Greek writer
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Phlegon of Tralles (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Phlegon of Tralles was a Greek writer and former slave of the Roman emperor Hadrian, active during the 2nd century AD. He was born in Tralles, a lively city in the Lydian region of Asia Minor, and managed to move from being a slave to becoming a notable literary figure of his time. His connection to Hadrian, one of Rome’s more intellectually curious emperors, put him in the middle of a court that encouraged Greek scholarship. This closeness to power gave Phlegon access to libraries, resources, and scholars that would have been out of reach for someone of his background.
Phlegon's most famous work is the Book of Marvels, also known in Greek as the Peri Thaumasion or Mirabilia. This collection includes accounts of extraordinary and supernatural events like reports of hermaphrodites, giants, ghosts, and other unusual occurrences. The work is part of an ancient genre called paradoxography, focusing on strange or paradoxical phenomena. Phlegon wrote these stories as factual accounts rather than philosophical musings, giving the text an oddly direct feel.
In addition to the Book of Marvels, Phlegon wrote a chronicle called the Olympiads, organizing events by the Greek Olympic cycle. Although only fragments and excerpts of this text survive, it was used by later ancient writers and shows that Phlegon was involved in serious historical work along with his more sensational writings. He also wrote about long-lived people and is credited with other works on Roman geography and topography, though most of these haven't survived.
Being a freedman of Hadrian was important not just as a personal detail but also for showing the social mobility possible in the Roman imperial household. Freedmen of emperors could gain significant influence and cultural standing, and Phlegon seems to have used his position to continue his literary pursuits. His writings reflect the intellectual interests of Hadrian’s time, with a renewed focus on Greek culture, historical inquiry, and collecting information about the strange and unusual.
Phlegon's place in ancient literature is unique. He fits between serious historical writing and popular entertainment, creating texts that served as both reference works and collections of oddities. His choice to document supernatural accounts alongside ordinary historical data makes him a distinctive figure in the literature of the 2nd century AD. His works have drawn interest for what they reveal about ancient views on the marvellous, the monstrous, and the limits of the natural world.
Before Fame
Phlegon was born in Tralles, a city in the Maeander valley of western Asia Minor that had long been a hub for Greek culture under Roman rule. The city’s people kept strong Hellenistic traditions while adjusting to the Roman Empire's ways. We don’t have records about his birth into slavery or how he ended up with Hadrian or the imperial household.
Hadrian became emperor in 117 AD and was well-known for his love of Greek culture, his travels through the Greek-speaking eastern provinces, and his support of writers and thinkers. In this setting of imperial support for Greek culture, Phlegon gained both his freedom and his literary calling. The Hadrianic court allowed a Greek-speaking freedman with a scholarly bent to undertake detailed writing projects, and Phlegon's work shows the wide-ranging antiquarian and historical interests that Hadrian had himself.
Key Achievements
- Authored the Book of Marvels, one of the most extensive surviving examples of ancient paradoxography
- Compiled the Olympiads, a multi-volume historical chronicle organized according to the Greek Olympic cycle
- Achieved the status of freedman within the household of Emperor Hadrian, gaining access to imperial literary and scholarly resources
- Preserved accounts and historical records from earlier sources that would otherwise have been entirely lost
- Produced works on long-lived individuals and Roman topography, contributing to several distinct fields of ancient inquiry
Did You Know?
- 01.Phlegon's Book of Marvels contains one of the most detailed ancient accounts of what would now be classified as a ghost story, involving a young woman named Philinnion who returned from the dead to visit a living man.
- 02.He recorded accounts of hermaphrodite births as historical events, treating them as omens and cataloguing them with the same seriousness as military or political occurrences.
- 03.His Olympiads chronicle was extensive enough that the Byzantine scholar Photius read and summarized it in his Bibliotheca, though the original text has largely been lost.
- 04.Phlegon described a skull of enormous size discovered in Dalmatia, which he cited as evidence for the existence of giants in antiquity.
- 05.His name, Phlegon, derives from a Greek word meaning 'burning' or 'blazing,' and was also the name of one of the mythological horses of the sun god Helios.