Alexander Philalethes ( Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος Φιλαλήθης) was an ancient Greek physician, [1] whom Priscian called Alexander Amator Veri (Alexander Truth-Lover), [2] and who was probably the same person quoted by Caelius Aurelianus under the name of Alexander Laodicensis. [3] He lived probably towards the end of the 1st century BC, as Strabo speaks of him as a contemporary. [4] He was a pupil of Asclepiades of Bithynia, [2] succeeded an otherwise unknown Zeuxis as head of a celebrated Herophilean school of medicine, established in Phrygia between Laodicea and Carura, [4] and was tutor to Aristoxenus and Demosthenes Philalethes. [5] He is several times mentioned by Galen and also by Soranus, [6] and appears to have written some medical works, which are no longer extant. The view, once current, that Alexander's Areskonta served as a doxographical basis for such authors as Anonymus Londinensis, Aetius the doxographer, Soranus of Ephesus, and Anonymus Bruxellensis is an inference on the basis of flimsy evidence. [7]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain: Greenhill, William Alexander (1870).
"Alexánder Philalethes". In
Smith, William (ed.).
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 125.