Telephus of Pergamum

Telephus of Pergamum was a Greek Stoic grammarian and historian who flourished in the second century CE. He was a tutor of the future Roman emperor Lucius Verus.

According to his fellow Pergamene, Galen, Telephus lived to nearly one hundred years of age.

Telephus appears to have maintained that Homer represented the purest form of Greek, opposing stricter Atticist scholars who regarded Classical Athenian Greek as the only proper linguistic model.

A grammatical work (its title is lost). On the Rhetorical Figures in Homer (2 books). On the Syntax of Attic Discourse (5 books). On Rhetoric in Homer. On the Agreement of Homer and Plato. Love of Varied Learning (2 books). Lives of Tragic and Comic Dramatists. Expertise concerning Books (3 books). That Homer Alone among the Ancients Writes Correct Greek. Description of Pergamum. On the Temple of Augustus in Pergamum (2 books). On the Courts in Athens. On the Laws and Customs of Athens. On the Kings of Pergamum (5 books). On the Names and Usage of Clothing and Other Everyday Objects. On the Wanderings of Odysseus. Easy Birth (10 books), a collection of epithets and expressions intended to assist writers and orators in achieving fluent expression.

All of his works are lost, although a number of fragments and testimonia attributed to Telephus survive.