en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(mythology)
1 correction found
quoted Photius
This reverses the chronology: Photius lived about 750 years after Pliny the Elder, so Pliny could not have quoted him. The surviving tradition is the other way around—later writers such as Photius quote Pliny.
Full reasoning
The phrase "quoted Photius" is chronologically impossible.
- Pliny the Elder lived in the 1st century CE.
- Photios/Photius lived in the 9th century CE.
A 1st-century Roman author cannot quote a Byzantine patriarch who was born roughly seven and a half centuries later. For this topic, the standard relationship is the reverse: Photius quotes Pliny, not Pliny quoting Photius.
This is also how the related Mount Chimaera article summarizes the transmission of the tradition: it says "Pliny was quoted by Photius". So the wording here has the direction backwards.
3 sources
- Pliny The Elder | Encyclopedia.com
PLINY THE ELDER (GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS) ( b . Como, Italy, 23/24 CE; d . near Pompeii, Italy, 79 CE)
- Photios | Encyclopedia.com
PHOTIOS (c. 820 - 891), patriarch of Constantinople, saint of the Orthodox church...
- Mount Chimaera - Wikipedia
Pliny was quoted by Photius and Agricola.