Tandasis is a figure wholly unknown outside the mention in 01-06. The name Τανδάσις does not occur in any other source of antiquity — it is a hapax legomenon of prosopography. The manuscript tradition gives the reading "Τανδάσις"; a small minority of manuscripts reads "Θανδάσις" (with θ-).

The history of attempted identifications. Gataker and Casaubon in the seventeenth century proposed to emend the name to Andron (Ἄνδρωνος) — one of the teachers of geometry mentioned, on their reading, in SHA Marcus. This emendation: (a) changes the manuscript reading without palaeographic ground; (b) transfers Tandasis from the philosophical sequence at 01-06 to a geometrical one — which contradicts the context (οἰκειωθῆναι φιλοσοφίᾳ, διαλόγους ἐν παιδί). The modern editors (Farquharson, Hadot, Hard) keep the manuscript reading "Τανδάσις" and accept that the figure remains unidentified. More in 01-06, the correction to Rogovin's footnote ¹⁰.

On the character of the name. The root "Τανδ-" has no obvious Greek or Latin analogue and may indicate eastern Mediterranean or Anatolian origin for the bearer — which would be entirely consistent with the regular presence in second-century Rome of Hellenised teachers from the eastern provinces. This, however, remains an indirect hypothesis, without confirmatory testimony.

Educational role

In the enumeration at 01-06 Tandasis is named second (after Bacchius and before Marcianus). On the principle of the catalogue's composition this apparently means that the sequence of the three names reflects either chronology or the didactic order of tuition: Bacchius → Tandasis → Marcianus. The content of Tandasis's tuition is wholly lost — Marcus ascribes to him no specific virtues beyond the general role of "the second in the philosophical sequence."

• 01-06 — the sole mention.

• A. S. L. Farquharson, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, Oxford 1944, vol. II, ad 1.6 — recording the manuscript reading and the impossibility of identification.
• A. Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, rev. ed., Routledge, 2000, ch. 3.
• R. Hard, Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, OWC, Oxford 2011, notes ad 1.6.