Damis of Nineveh and Walter of Oxford: a Literary Parallel

Abstract

When reading through Professor Phillimore's admirable preface to his translation of the Apollonios of Tyana of Philostratos, the discussion of the authenticity of the memoirs of Damis suggested to me a parallel in which literary history appears to have repeated herself. Although it possesses no intrinsic importance the coincidence is perhaps sufficiently a curiosity of literature to be worth recording. Philostratos' statement about the alleged memoirs is as follows (1,3):—‘There was one Damis, a man not without accomplishments, who at one time inhabited Old Nineveh. His studies drew him into intimacy with Apollonius, and he has left a written account of the Sage's travels (in which he claims to have shared), his maxims, his discourses, and his prophetic sayings. A person who was related to this Damis brought the originals of these memoirs, hitherto undiscovered, to the knowledge of the Empress Julia. And since I had a place in her majesty's circle (she was a great admirer and patroness of all literary studies), she laid on me the task of transcribing and editing these papers. It was her wish also that I should be responsible for the form of expression; for the Ninevite's language, though clear, was anything but a model of literary art.’