Damis

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Damis was an (alleged) student and lifelong companion of Apollonius of Tyana, the famous Pythagorean philosopher and teacher who lived in the late first and early second centuries AD.

All that we know about Damis comes from Apollonius' biographer Philostratus who wrote his Life of Apollonius of Tyana between 217 and 238. Philostratus is known for his lack of reliability; many of his stories are pure fiction. Many scholars think that Damis never existed at all.

According to Philostratus, Apollonius met Damis in a city which Philostratus calls "Old Ninos", which from its location cannot be Nineveh, but is in fact the "holy city" of Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij) in Syria.^[1] Damis admired Apollonius so much that he became his disciple, and kept a record of Apollonius' actions and sayings, the so-called Memoirs (or Diary) of Damis. These notes came into the possession of the empress Julia Domna, and it was she who commissioned Philostratus to write a biography of Apollonius, the extant Life of Apollonius of Tyana. That's what Philostratus asserts. As for historical truth, some scholars believe the notebooks of Damis are an invention of Philostratus, others think it was a real book forged by someone else and used by Philostratus. The latter possibility is more likely. In any case it is a literary fake.^[2]

Damis is also the name of the son of Orgon in Moliere's Tartuffe.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Christopher P. Jones: Apollonius of Tyana’s Passage to India, in: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 42 (2001) p. 185-199, especially p. 187-190.
2. ^ Maria Dzielska: Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History, Rome 1986, p. 12-13, 19-49, 141; Jaap-Jan Flinterman: Power, Paideia and Pythagoreanism, Amsterdam 1995, p. 79-88.