Hagnon ofTarsus (Ancient Greek:Ἅγνων, 2nd century BC) was anancient Greekrhetorician, anAcademic Skepticphilosopher, and a pupil ofCarneades.[1]Quintilian chides him for writing a book calledRhetorices accusatio (Prosecution of Rhetoric) in which he denied thatrhetoric was an art.[2]
Athenaeus cites him for a curious piece of information that "among theSpartans it is custom for girls before their marriage to be treated like favorite boys (paidikois)" (i.e. sexually).[3]Plutarch quotes him as the source of a story concerning anelephant which was being cheated of its food by its keeper:[4]
Hagnon tells a story of an elephant in Syria, that was bred up in a certain house, who observed that his keeper took away and defrauded him every day of half the measure of his barley; only that once, the master being present and looking on, the keeper poured out the whole measure; which was no sooner done, but the elephant, extending his proboscis, separated the barley and divided it into two equal parts, thereby ingeniously discovering, as much as in him lay, the injustice of his keeper.
Hagnon is also mentioned byCicero.[5]
Some modern scholars have considered this Hagnon to be the same man as thedemagogueAgnonides,[6] the contemporary ofPhocion, as the latter is in some manuscripts ofCornelius Nepos called "Agnon."[7] But the manner in which Agnon is mentioned by Quintilian shows that he is a rhetorician, who lived at a much later period than the 4th century BC suggested by an identification withAgnonides. Whether he is the same as the Academic philosopher mentioned byAthenaeus is still a matter of some debate.[8]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
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