Career
According to the Suda, he was the author of an historical drama named Sphinx, of an epic, Anthomeros, in 24 books (both lost) and a Strange History. The last is probably identical with the New History in six books ascribed by Photius to Ptolemy Hephaestion, of which a summary outline has been preserved in Photius" Biblioteca (cod 190), who observed sarcastically of its credulous author that he found it "a work really useful for those who undertake to attempt erudition in history," for "it abounds in extraordinary and badly imagined information." lieutenant was dedicated to the author"s lady, Tertulla, and contained a medley of all sorts of legends and fables belonging to both the mythological and historical periods. An identification with Ptolemy-el-Garib has been suggested, but this is no longer accepted.
See editions of Photius"s abridgment by Joseph-Emmanuel-Ghislain Roulez (Ptolemaei Hephaestionis Novarum historiarum ad variam eruditionem pertinentium excerpta e Photio, 1834).
And in A. Westermann, Mythographi graeci (1843). R. Hercher, Über die Glaubwürdigkeit der neuen Geschichte des Ptolemaus Chennus (Leipzig, 1856).
Journal of Economics Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (2nd ed, 1906).