Listed 13 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "MARATHONAS Municipality ATTICA, EAST" .
MARATHON (Ancient demos) ATTICA, EAST
Satyrus. The son of Theognis, of Marathon, a distinguished comic actor at Athens,
and a contemporary of Demosthenes, is said to have given instructions to the young
orator in the art of giving full effect to his speeches by appropriate action
(Plut. Dem. 7). The same orator relates an honourable anecdote of him, that having
once been at a festival given by Philip king of Macedon, after the capture of
Olynthus (B. C. 347), when the king was making large presents to all the other
artists, Satyrus begged, as his reward, the liberation of two of the Olynthian
captives, daughters of an old friend of his, to whom he afterwards gave marriage
portions at his own cost (Dem. de fals. Leg.; Diod. xvi. 55). He is also mentioned
incidentally by Plutarch (De se ips. c. inv. laud.). Athenaeus (xiii.) quotes
a statement respecting Phryne from the Pamphila of " Satyrus, the actor, of Olynthus,"
from which it would seem that Satyrus not only acted comedies, but also wrote
some. Either Athenaeus may have called him an Olynthian carelessly, from the scene
of the anecdote in Demosthenes being at Olynthus, or he may have settled at Olynthus.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
an Athenian general killed at Marathon
Atticus Herodes, Tiberius Claudius. The most celebrated Greek rhetorician of the
second century of the Christian era, was born about A. D. 104, at Marathon in
Attica. He belonged to a very ancient family, which traced its origin to the fabulous
Aeacidae. His father, whose name was likewise Atticus, discovered on his estate
a hidden treasure, which at once made him one of the wealthiest men of his age.
His son Atticus Herodes afterwards increased this wealth by marrying the rich
Annia Regilla. Old Atticus left in his will a clause, according to which every
Athenian citizen was to receive yearly one mina out of his property; but his son
entered into a composition with the Athenians to pay them once for all five minas
each. As Atticus, however, in paving the Athenians, deducted the debts which some
citizens owed to his father, they were exasperated against him, and, notwithstanding
the great benefits he conferred upon Athens, bore him a grudge as long as he lived.
Atticus Herodes received a very careful education, and the most eminent
rhetoricians of tire time, such as Scopelianus, Favorinus, Secundus, and Polemon,
were among his teachers: he was instructed in the Platonic philosophy by Taurus
Tyrius, and in the critical study of eloquence by Theagenes of Cnidus and Munatius
of Tralles. After completing his studies, he opened a school of rhetoric at Athens,
and afterwards at Rome also, where Marcus Aurelius, who ever after entertained
a high esteem for him, was among his pupils. In A. D. 143 the emperor Antoninus
Pius raised him to the consulship, together with C. Bellicins Torquatus; but as
Atticus cared more for his fame as a rhetorician than for high offices, he afterwards
returned to Athens, whither he was followed by a great number of young men, and
whither L. Verus also was sent as his pupil by the emperor M. Aurelius. For a
time Atticus was entrusted with the administration of the free towns in Asia;
the exact period of his life when he held this office is not known, though it
is believed that it was A. D. 125 when he himself was little more than twenty
years of age. At a later time he performed the functions of high priest at the
festivals celebrated at Athens in honour of M. Aurelius and L. Verus. The wealth
and influence of Atticus Herodes did not fail to raise up enemies, among whom
Theodotus arid Demostratus made themselves most conspicuous. His public as well
as his private life was attacked in various ways, and numerous calumnies were
spread concerning him. Theodotus and Demostratus wrote speeches to irritate the
people against him, and to excite the emperor's suspicion respecting his conduct.
Atticus Herodes, therefore, found it necessary to travel to Sirmium, where M.
Aurelius was staying; he refuted the accusations of the Athenian deputies, and
only some of his freedmen were punished. These annoyances at last appear to have
induced him to retire from public life, and to spend his remaining years in his
villa Cephisia, near Marathon, surrounded by his pupils. The emperor M. Aurelius
sent him a letter, in which he assured him of his unaltered esteem. In the case
of Atticus Herodes the Athenians drew upon themselves the just charge of ingratitude,
for no man had ever done so much to assist his fellow-citizens and to embellish
Athens at his own expense. Among the great architectural works with which he adorned
the city, we may mention a race-course (stadium) of white Pentelic marble, of
which ruins are still extant; and the magnificent theatre of Regilla, with a roof
made of cedar-wood. His liberality, however, was not confined to Attica: at Corinth
he built a theatre, at Olympia an aqueduct, at Delphi a race-course, and at Thermopylae
a hospital. He further restored with his ample means several decayed towns in
Peloponnesus, Boeotia, Euboea, and Epeirus, provided the town of Canusium in Italy
with water, and built Triopium on the Appian road. It also deserves to be noticed,
that he intended to dig a canal across the isthmus of Corinth, but as the emperor
Nero had entertained the same plan without being able to execute it, Atticus gave
it up for fear of exciting jealousy and envy. His wealth, generosity, and still
more his skill as a rhetorician, spread his fame over the whole of the Roman world.
He is believed to have died at the age of 76, in A. D. 180.
If we look upon Atticus Herodes as a man, it must be owned that there
scarcely ever was a wealthy person who spent his property in a more generous,
noble, and disinterested manner. The Athenians appear to have felt at last their
own ingratitude; for, after his death, when his freedmen wanted to bury him, according
to his own request, at Marathon, the Athenians took away his body, and buried
it in the city, where the rhetorician Adrianus delivered the funeral oration over
it. Atticus's greatest ambition was to shine as a rhetorician; and this ambition
was indeed so strong, that on one occasion, in his early life, when he had delivered
an oration before the emperor Hadrian, who was then in Pannonia, he was on the
point of throwing himself into the Danube because his attempt at speaking had
been unsuccessful. This failure, however, appears to have proved a stimulus to
him, and he became the greatest rhetorician of his century. His success as a teacher
is sufficiently attested by the great number of his pupils, most of whom attained
some degree of eminence. His own orations, which were delivered extempore and
without preparation, are said to have excelled those of all his contemporaries
by the dignity, fullness, and elegance of the style. (Gell. i. 2, ix. 2, xix.
12.) Philostratus praises his oratory for its pleasing and harmonious flow, as
well as for its simplicity and power. The loss of the works of Atticus renders
it impossible for us to form an independent opinion, and even if they had come
down to us, it is doubtful whether we could judge of them as favourably as the
ancients did; for we know, that although he did not neglect the study of the best
Attic orators, yet he took Critias as his great model. Among his numerous works
the following only are specified by the ancients:
1. Dogoi autoschedioi, or speeches which he had delivered extempore.
2. Dialexeis, treatises or dialogues, one of which was probably the one mentioned
in the Etymologicum Magnum (s. v. arsen) peri gamou sumbioseos.
3. Ephemerides, or diaries.
4. Epistolai
All these works are now lost. There exists an oration peri politeias, in which
the Thebans are called upon to join the Peloponnesians in preparing for war against
Archelaus, king of Macedonia, and which has come down to us under the name of
Atticus Herodes. But the genuineness of this declamation is very doubtful; at
any rate it has very little of the character which the ancients attribute to the
oratory of Atticus. The " Defensio Palamedis," a declamation usually ascribed
to Gorgias the Sophist, has lately been attributed to Atticus Herodes by H. E.
Foss in his dissertation De Gorgia Leontino; but his arguments are not satisfactory.
The declamation peri politeias is printed in the collections of the Greek orators,
and also by R. Fiorillo in his Herodis Attici quae supersunt, admonitionibus illustr.,
Leipzig, 1801, 8vo., which work contains a good account of the life of Atticus
Herodes.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, 1607, two small columns
with inscriptions, and two others of Pentelic marble with Greek inscriptions,
were discovered on the site of the ancient Triopium, the country seat of Atticus,
about three miles from Rome. The two former are not of much importance, but the
two latter are of considerable interest. They are written in hexameter verse,
the one consisting of thirty-nine and the other of fifty-nine lines. Some have
thought, that Atticus himself was the author of these versified inscriptions;
but at the head of one of them there appears the name Markellou), and, as the
style and diction of the other closely resemble that of the former, it has been
inferred, that both are the productions of Marcellus of Sida, a poet and physician
who lived in the reign of M. Aurelius. These inscriptions, which are known by
the name of the Triopian inscriptions, have often been printed and discussed,
as by Visconti (Insscrioni grecche Triopee, con version ed osservazioni, Rome,
1794, fol.), Fiorillo (l. c.), in Brunck's Analecta (ii. 302), and in the Greek
Anthology. (Append. 50 and 51, ed. Tauchnitz.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Panteleus (Panteleos), the author of nine verses in the Greek Anthology, the first two of which stand in the Vatican MS. as an epigram on Callimachus and Cynageirus, the well-known leaders of the Athenians at the battle of Marathon. There can be no doubt that the lines are a fragment of an heroic poem on the battle of Marathon, or the Persian war in general; but we have no indication of the author's age.
Artaphernes, a son of the satrap of Sardeis Artaphernes. After the unsuccessful
enterprise of Mardonius against Greece in B. C. 492, king Dareius placed Datis
and his nephew Artaphernes at the head of the forces which were to chastise Athens
and Eretria. Artaphernes, though superior in rank, seems to have been inferior
in military skill to Datis, who was in reality the commander of the Persian army.
The troops assembled in Cilicia, and here they were taken on board 600 ships.
This fleet first sailed to Samos, and thence to the Cyclades. Naxos was taken
and laid in ashes, and all the islands submitted to the Persians. In Euboea, Carystus
and Eretria also fell into their hands. After this the Persian army landed at
Marathon. Here the Persians were defeated in the memorable battle of Marathon,
B. C. 490, whereupon Datis and Artaphernes sailed back to Asia. When Xerxes invaded
Greece, B. C. 480, Artaphernes commanded the Lydians and Mysians. (Herod. vi.
94, 116, vii. 10.2, 74; Aeschyl. Pers. 21).
Cynaegeirus (Kunaigeiros), son of Euphorion and brother of the poet Aeschylus, distinguished himself by his valour at the battle of Marathon, B. C. 490. According to Herodotus, when the Persians had fled and were endeavouring to escape by sea, Cynaegeirus seized one of their ships to keep it back, but fell with his right hand cut off. The story lost nothing by transmission. The next version related that Cynaegeirus, on the loss of his right hand, grasped the enemy's vessel with his left; and at length we arrive at the acme of the ludicrous in the account of Justin. here the hero, having successively lost both his hands, hangs (on by his teeth, and even in his mutilated state fights desperately with the last mentioned weapons, "like a rabid wild beast!" (Herod. vi. 114; Suid. s. v. Kunaigeiros; Just. ii. 9; Val. Max. iii. 2. § 22; comp. Sueton. Jul. 68.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Pheidippedes. Professional runner who is said to have run from Marathon to Athens
to inform the Athenians that they had won the battle against the Persians, thus
running the first Marathon race. He uttered the words “Chairete nikomen”
(“Greetings, we have won”) and then dropped down dead.
Pheidippedes is also said to have run from Athens
to Sparta to ask for help
when the Persians were approaching. When the Persians attacked Athens
in 480 BC the messenger met Pan in Arcadia.
Pan asked him why the Athenians did not worship him and said he would gladly help
them against their enemy. So, he appeared on the side of the Athenians at the
battle of Marathon, and a cult was founded to his honour in a cave on the northern
side of the Acropolis.
This text is cited Sept 2003 from the In2Greece URL below.
Pheidippides, a courier, was sent by the Athenians to Sparta in B. C. 490, to ask for aid against the Persians, and arrived there on the second day from his leaving Athens. The Spartans declared that they were willing to give the required help, but unable to do so immediately, as religious scruples prevented their marching from home before the full moon (see Dict. of Ant. s. v. Carneia). On the return of Pheidippides to Athens, he related that, on his way to Sparta, he had fallen in with Pan, on Mount Parthenium, near Tegea, and that the god had bid him ask the Athenians why they paid him no worship, though he had been hitherto their friend, and ever would be so. In consequence of this revelation, they dedicated a temple to Pan, after the battle of Marathon, and honoured him thenceforth with annual sacrifices and a torch-race (Herod. v. 105, 106 ; Paus. i. 28, viii. 54; Corn. Nep. Milt. 4; Dict. of Ant. s. v. Lampadephoria). In Pausanias and Cornelius Nepos the form of the name is Philippides, which we also find as a various reading in Herodotus.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Echetlus (Echetlos), a mysterious being, about whom the following tradition was current at Athens. During the battle of Marathon there appeared among the Greeks a man, who resembled a rustic, and slew many of the barbarians with his plough. After the battle, when he was searched for, he was not to be found anywhere, and when the Athenians consulted the oracle, they were commanded to worship the hero Echetlaeus, that is the hero with the echetle, or ploughshare. Echetlus was to be seen in the painting in the Poecile, which represented the battle of Marathon. (Paus. i. 15.4, 32,4)
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