person
Philoctetes
Mythological hero of the Trojan cycle, abandoned on Lemnos with a festering wound; subject of Sophocles's surviving tragedy and of two lost Roman tragedies, Accius's and Pacuvius's. A figure for the wronged man who watches the spectacles that grieve him.
Reading notes
- Ad Quintum Fratrem 2.8 §4 Philoctetes
Sophocles's hero, abandoned on Lemnos with a festering wound; here a figure for the wronged citizen who watches the spectacles that grieve him.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.94 Philoctetes, hush — the pain is brief
Philoctetes, the Greek archer bitten by a snake and left in agony on Lemnos for ten years, is Cicero's foil for Epicurus's slogan that pain is short or mild. The mismatch between the maxim and the hero's decade of suffering exposes its hollowness.
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §5.32 Philoctetes bearing in the plays
Philoctetes, the Greek archer abandoned on Lemnos with a festering wound, was the subject of tragedies by Sophocles, Aeschylus, and (in Latin) Accius. His clinging to life despite agony illustrates nature's tenacity.
- Tusculan Disputations §2.18 Look at Philoctetes
Philoctetes, the Greek archer abandoned on Lemnos with an agonizing, festering snakebite wound; the subject of plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides (and a Latin Philoctetes by Accius). His groans of pain are Cicero's recurring example throughout Book 2.