Opuscula de rebus mirabilibus et de longaevis

Phlegon of Tralles, a learned freedman of Hadrian’s, was a prolific writer, but only two of his works have – though not entirely – survived: Peri thaumasion (‘On marvellous things’) and Peri makrobion (‘On long-lived persons’). The former is probably the main extant paradoxographic collection from classical antiquity, mostly famous for some memorable ghost stories (one of which inspired Goethe); the latter reviews long-lived individuals from both archival and literary sources. Both are extensive