Favorinus

Career

Favorinus had extensive knowledge, combined with great oratorical powers, that raised him to eminence both in Athens and in Rome. He lived on close terms with Plutarch, with Herodes Atticus, to whom he bequeathed his library in Rome, with Demetrius the Cynic, Cornelius Fronto, Aulus Gellius, and with the emperor Hadrian. His great rival was Polemon of Smyrna, whom he vigorously attacked in his later years. He knew Greek very well.

After being silenced by Hadrian in an argument in which the sophist might easily have refuted his adversary, Favorinus subsequently explained that it was foolish to criticize the logic of the master of thirty legions. When the Athenians, feigning to share the emperor's displeasure with the sophist, pulled down a statue which they had erected to him, Favorinus remarked that if only Socrates also had had a statue at Athens, he might have been spared the hemlock.

Hadrian banished Favorinus at some point in the 130s, to the island of Chios. Rehabilitated at the ascension of Antoninus Pius in 138, Favorinus returned to Rome, where he resumed his activities as an author and teacher of upper-class pupils. Among his students were Alexander Peloplaton, who would later teach and serve under Marcus Aurelius, and Herodes Atticus, who also taught Marcus Aurelius and to whom Favorinus bequeathed his library. His year of death is unknown, but he appears to have survived into his eighties, and died perhaps around 160 AD.

Favorinus was a friend and mentor of Aulus Gellius, who greatly admired him. He appears multiple times in Gellius' Noctes Atticae, to the point of having been described as the "star" of the work.

Lucian's the Eunuch was probably modeled on Favorinus. Hofeneder and Amato also suggest that Favorinus is identical with the "Celtic philosopher" who explains the image of Ogmios in Lucian's Hercules. Favorinus and Lucian have been grouped together by modern scholars as part of a "group of intellectuals who were of ethnically disparate origins but were endowed with a Hellenistic education and outlook."

Personal life

Favorinus is described as a eunuch (εὐνοῦχος) by birth. Polemon of Laodicea, writer of a treatise on physiognomy, described Favorinus as "a eunuch born without testicles", beardless and with a high-pitched, thin voice, while Philostratos described him as a hermaphrodite. Mason and others thus describe Favorinus as having an intersex trait. Retief and Cilliers suggest that the descriptions available are consistent with Reifenstein's syndrome (androgen insensitivity syndrome).

Favorinus owned an Indian slave named Autolekythos.