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HELMUT G. LOEFFLER

City University of New York–Queensborough

Bias of PRIENE, son of Teutames, core member (with THALES, PITTACUS, SOLON) of the SEVEN SAGES (Pl. Prt. 343a; Diog. Laert. 1.40–42, 82–88). It is likely that legal decisions of Bias were passed down, leading to him being regarded as an example of a just and sagacious judge equipped with great rhetorical skills (Hipponax F123 West, IEG ² ; Heraclitus DK 22 B39). As such he certainly had political influence in Priene in the sixth century BCE.

Herodotus mentions Bias twice. In 1.27 he reports that “some say” Bias was CROESUS’ guest in SARDIS, where he gave the Lydian king advice not to attack the Greeks living on the ISLANDS. This passage is the earliest written account of Greek sages visiting the courts of dynasts. The authenticity of these visits is doubtful. Later Herodotus writes (1.170) that Bias counseled the IONIANS, threatened with CONQUEST by CYRUS (II), to emigrate to SARDINIA and establish a city there for all Ionians. Although there has been discussion, this meeting and counsel are usually considered authentic (in Theognis (ll. 757–68) we might have a fragment of Bias’ poem urging MIGRATION: see Mahaffy 1880, 178). The many pointed sayings, however, that have been attributed to Bias (and the Seven Sages in general) are probably not original but evolved out of novelistic narratives or situations with anecdotal character. A poem of 2,000 lines that Bias supposedly wrote about Ionia (DK 10; Diog. Laert. 1.85) also seems not to be authentic.

SEE ALSO: Advisers; Panionion