Philinus (in Greek Φιλινος; lived 4th century BC) was an Athenian orator, a contemporary of Demosthenes and Lycurgus. He is mentioned by Demosthenes in his oration against Meidias¹, who calls him the son of Nicostratus, and says that he was trierarch with him.

Harpocration mentions three orations of Philinus. These are Against the statues for Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, which was against a proposition of Lycurgus that statues should be erected to those poets;²; Against Dorotheus, which was ascribed likewise to Hyperides³; Judiciary litigation of the Croconidae against Coeronidas, which was ascribed by others to Lycurgus.⁴

An ancient grammarian, quoted by Clement of Alexandria⁵, says that Philinus borrowed from Demos­thenes.

References

Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, "Philinus (2)", Boston, (1867)

Notes

• 1 Demosthenes, Speeches, "Against Midias", 161
  
• 2 Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators, s.v. "theorika"
  
• 3 Ibid., s.v. "epi korres"
  
• 4 Harpocration, s.v. "koironidai"; Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, x. 25
  
• 5 Clement, Stromata, vi. 2
  

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This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).