PHANIAS

also spelled Phaenias, or Phainias flourished c. 300 BC Greek philosopher of Eresus on the island of Lesbos, a pupil of Aristotle and a friend of Theophrastus, whom he joined in the Peripatetic school. Phanias is mentioned as the author of works on logic, in which he probably followed Aristotle's doctrine. He also wrote, as Theophrastus did, on botany, and there are remains of works by him on poets, on the Socratic philosophers, and on history. His Prytaneis of Eresus was a history in which events in the Greek world in general were included, the chronology being determined by the series of the successive magistrates of his native place. In his Tyrants of Sicily he seems to have dealt with Western history against a pan-Hellenic background.