Sminthe ̄s (500 – 250 BCE?)
Nothing is known about this author of an astronomical poem entitled Phainomena, which
A (Ph. 582–584) alluded to on the Pleiades. Sminthe ̄s is also known thanks to The
Second Life of Aratos and to a list of astronomical authors contained in MSS Vatic. gr. 191 and
- He perhaps lived before A and seems to have been known by E.
The name is rare, and usually spelled “Sminthis”: cf. LGPN 1.409 (Rhodes and Thasos, ca
400 BCE) and 3A.398 (Megalopolis, ca 365 BCE).
RE 3A.1 (1927) 725–726, L. Wickert; SH 729 – 730.
Christophe Cusset
So ̄krate ̄s ( junior) (400 – 360 BCE)
Student of So ̄krate ̄s, T’ coeval and close companion (P, Soph. 218b; Thaeat.
147d). Plato includes him as an interlocutor in the Politikos (257c). A, who met
So ̄krate ̄s at the Academy (pseudo-A A, CAG 1 [1891] 514;
A T CAG 6 [1888] 2, p. 420), opposes the younger So ̄krate ̄s’ analogy
reducing sensate animals to mathematical properties (Met. 1036b24–32). Aristotle, merely
hinting at So ̄krate ̄s’ correlation, claims that it “makes one assume that a man can exist
without his parts, like circle without bronze.”
RE 3A.1 (1927) 890–891 (#6), E. Kapp; NP 11.686–687 (#4), K.-H. Stanzel.
GLIM
So ̄krate ̄s (Lithika) (70 – 200 CE)
Lapidary author, whose lost paradoxographical On boundaries [?], places, fire and stones
Athe ̄naios, Deipn. 9 (388a) = FGrHist 310 F17, cites regarding attagas (“francolin”). The MS
reading horo ̄n “boundaries” is probably wrong; Casaubon suggests the emendation horo ̄n
“seasons” or aëro ̄n “climates,” while Müller posits oro ̄n “mountains.” Fragments of a prose
On stones attributed to So ̄krate ̄s and a certain D appear together in manuscripts,
unattributed except in the 14th c. Vaticanus Graecus 578, transmitting the so-called Orphei
lithika ke ̄rugmata (occupying §§ 26 – 53). Since it is difficult to distinguish how much of this
compilation derives from So ̄krate ̄s and how much from Dionusios (the former is considered
the author of the descriptions, the latter the illustrator), it is impossible to ascertain which
surviving fragments are to be attributed to which author. According to Wirbelauer, So ̄krate ̄s
might be a corruption of Xenokrate ̄s and this treatise, therefore, should be attributed to
X E.
The treatise describes about 30 stones (the hyacinth, the “rare” stone, the Babylonian
stone, the chrysolite, etc.), all endowed with magical properties and some accompanied
by engravings representing figures which were originally astrological ( planetary, zodiac or
decans) as well as magical figures (alphabets, secret formulas). Such characteristics (typical
of Egyptian-Greek lapidaries), together with some historical references, scattered in the text
( particularly in §26 the definition of “Neronian,” given to a kind of emerald), suggest an
eastern composition, probably in Egypt, during the imperial age.
Ed.: Halleux and Schamp (1985) 139–144, 166–167 (text).
RE 3A.1 (1927) 810–811 (#4), R. Laqueur; K.W. Wirbelauer, Antike Lapidarien (1937) 31–42.
Eugenio Amato
SO ̄KRATE ̄S (LITHIKA)