FAVORINUS (2nd century A.D.)

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 214 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FAT-FLA

FAVORINUS (2nd century A.D.) , Greek sophist and philosopher, flourished during the reign of Hadrian. A Gaul by

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

, he was a native of Arelate (Arles), but at an early age began his lifelong travels through Greece, Italy and the East. His extensive knowledge, combined with great oratorical powers, raised him to eminence both in Athens and in Rome. With Plutarch, who dedicated to him his treatise Hepi rob rpi rov vxpofi, with Herodes Atticus, to whom he bequeathed his library at Rome, with Demetrius the Cynic, Cornelius Fronto, Aulus Gellius, and with Hadrian himself, he lived on intimate terms; his great rival, whom he violently attacked in his later years, was Polemon of Smyrna. It was Favorinus who, on being silenced by Hadrian in an argument in which the sophist might easily have refuted his adversary, subsequently explained that it was foolish to criticize the logic of the master of thirty legions. When the servile 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. Of the very numerous works of Favorinus, we possess only a few fragments (unless the Kopiv9LaKOS Xeyos attributed to his tutor Dio Chrysostom is by him), preserved by Aulus Gellius,

Diogenes

DIOGENES

Laertius, Philostratus, and Suidas, the second of whom borrows from his Havro&aait iaropia (miscellaneous history) and his'Airovnoveenara (memoirs). As a philosopher, Favorinus belonged to the sceptical school; his most important

work

WORK

in this connexion appears to have been Happwvewl rpinrot (the Pyrrhonean Tropes) in ten books, in which he endeavours to show that the methods of Pyrrho were useful to those who intended to practise in the law courts.
See Philostratus, Vitae sophistarum, i. 8; Suidas, s.v.; frags. in C. NV. Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. 4; monographs by L. Legre (1900), T. Colardeau (1903),
a tomb said to be his. He was buried at the abbey he founded FAVRAS, THOMAS DE MAHY, MARQUIS DE (1744-1790), French royalist, was born on the 26th of March 1744, at Blois. He belonged to a poor family whose

nobility

NOBILITY

dated from the 12th century. At seventeen he was a captain of dragoons, and saw some service in the closing campaign of the Seven Years' War. In 1772 he became first lieutenant of the Swiss guards of the count of Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII.). Unable to meet the expenses of his rank, which was equivalent to the grade of colonel in the army, he retired in 1775. He married in 1776 Victoria Hedwig Caroline, princess of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg, whose mother, deserted by her husband Prince Carl Ludwig in 1749, had found

refuge

REFUGE

with her daughter in the

house

of Marshal Soubise. After his

marriage

MARRIAGE

he went to Vienna to press the restitution of his wife's rights, and spent some time in Warsaw. In 1787 he was authorized to raise a patriotic legion to help the Dutch against the stadtholder William IV. and his Prussian allies. Returning to Paris at the outbreak of the Revolution, he became implicated in schemes for the escape of Louis XVI. from Paris and the dominance of the National Assembly. He was commissioned by the count of Provence through one of his gentlemen, the comte de la Chatre, to negotiate a

loan

LOAN (adapted from the Scandinavian form of a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Swed. Mn, Icel. lan, Dut. leen; the O.E. laen appears in " lend," the ultimate source is seen in the root of Gr. Xeiaecv and Lat. linquere, to leave)

of two million francs from the bankers Schaumel and Sartorius. Favras took into his confidence certain officers by whom he was betrayed; and, with his wife, he was arrested on Christmas Eve 1789 and imprisoned in the Abbaye. A fortnight later they were separated, Favras being removed to the Chatelet. It was stated in a leaflet circulated throughout Paris that Favras had organized a plot of which the count of Provence was the moving spirit. A force of 30,000 was to be raised, La Fayette and Bailly, the mayor of Paris, were to be assassinated, and Paris was to be starved into sub-mission by cutting off supplies. The count hastened publicly to disavow Favras in a speech delivered before the commune of Paris and in a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to the National Assembly, although there is no reasonable doubt of his complicity in the plot that did exist. In the course of a trial of nearly two months' duration the witnesses disagreed, and even the editor of the Revolutions de Paris (No. 30) admitted that the evidence was insufficient but an armed attempt of the Royalists on the Chatelet on the 26th of January, which was defeated by La Fayette, roused the suspicious temper of the Parisians to fury, and on the 18th of February 1790, in spite of the courageous defence of his counsel, Favras was condemned to be hanged. He refused to give any information of the alleged plot, and the sentence was carried out on the Place de Greve the next day, to the delight of the populace, since it was the first instance when no distinction in the mode of execution was allowed between noble and commoner. Favras was generally regarded as a

martyr

MARTYR (Gr. pimp or ľaprvs)

to his refusal to implicate the count of Provence, and Madame de Favras was pensioned by Louis XVI. She left France, and her son Charles de Favras served in the Austrian and the Russian armies. He received an allowance from Louis XVIII. Her daughter Caroline married Rudiger, Freiherr von Stillfried Ratenic, in 1805.
The official dossier of Favras's trial for high treason against the nation disappeared from the Chatelet, but its substance is preserved in the papers of a clerk.

End of Article: FAVORINUS (2nd century A.D.)

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/FAT_FLA/FAVORINUS_2nd_century_AD_.html">
FAVORINUS (2nd century A.D.)
</a>

(Previous)
FAVERSHAM

(Next)
FAVRE, JEAN ALPHONSE (1815-1890)

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email