Listed 100 (total found 137) sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "AYDIN Province TURKEY" .
ALAVANDA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Hermogenes. An architect of Alabanda, in Caria, who invented what was called the
pseudodipterus, that is, a form of a temple, with apparently two rows of columns,
whereby he effected a great saving both of money and labour in the construction
of temples. (Vitruv. iii. 2.6, 3.8.) His great object as an architect was to increase
the taste for the Ionic form of temples, in preference to Doric temples. (Vitruv.
iv. 3.1.) He was further the author of two works which are now lost; the one was
a description of the temple of Diana which he had built at Magnesia, a pseudodipterus,
and the other a description of a temple of Bacchus, in Teos, a monopterus. (Vitruv.
vii. Praef. § 12.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Paeonius (Paionios). An architert of Ephesus who, with Demetrius, completed the great temple of Artemis in that city. With Daphnis, a Milesian, he began the so-called Didymaeum or temple of Apollo Didymus at Miletus--a structure, however, which was never finished ( Herod.vi. 19; Pausan. vii. 5, 4).
Demetrius, an architect, who, in conjunction with Paeonius, finished the great
temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which Chersiphron had begun about 220 years before.
He probably lived about B. C. 340, but his date cannot be fixed with certainty.
Vitruvius calls him servus Dianae, that is, a hierodoulos. (Vitruv. vii. Praef.
§ 16.)
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
A Greek architect, born at Miletus in the second half of the
fifth century B.C. He was the first inventor of a system of laying out towns on
geometrical principles, carried out, under his direction, in the laying out of
the Piraeus, the harbour-town of Athens, and also at the building of Thurii (B.C.
443) and of Rhodes (408); it was also used in subsequent times in the foundation
of new towns.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hippodamus, (Hippodamos: the etymological origin of the name is no doubt the same as that of the Homeric word hippodamos, which so frequently occurs as an epithet, and once as a proper name, Il. xi. 335; Aristophanes, however, Equit. 327, uses it with the a, as if it were a Doric form from lppos and demos; but this must be by way of some joke, for we cannot suppose such an absurd compound to have existed as a proper name.) Hippodamus was a most distinguished Greek architect. a native of Miletus, and the son of Euryphon or Eurycoon. His fame rests on his construction, not of single buildings, but of whole cities. His first great work was the town of Peiraeeus, which Themistocles had made a tolerably secure port for Athens, but which was first formed into a regularly-planned town by Hippodamus, under the auspices of Pericles. It has been clearly shown by Miiller (Attika, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopadie, vol. vi., and Dorier, vol. ii., 2nd edit.) that this work must be referred to the age of Pericles, not to that of Themistocles. The change which Hippodamus introduced was the substitution of broad straight streets, crossing each other at right angles, for the crooked narrow streets, with angular crossings, which had before prevailed throughout the greater part, if not the whole, of Greece. When the Athenians founded their colony of Thurii, on the site of the ancient Sybaris (B. C. 443), Hippodamus went out with the colonists, and was the architect of the new city. Hence he is often called a Thuother rian. He afterwards built Rhodes (B. C. 408-7). How he came to be connected with a Dorian state, and one so hostile to Athens, we do not know ; but much light would be thrown on this subject, and on the whole of the life of Hippodamus, if we could determine whether the scholiast on Aristophanes (Equit. 327) is right or wrong in identifying him with the father of the Athenian politician and opponent of Cleon, Archeptolemus. This question is admirably discussed by Hermann, but no certain conclusion can be attained. We learn from Aristotle that Hippodamus devoted great attention to the political, as well as the architectural ordering of cities, and that he wished to have the character of knowing all physical science. This circumstance, with a considerable degree of personal affectation, caused him to be ranked among the sophists, and it is very probable that much of the wit of Aristophanes, in his Birds, is aimed at Hippodamus. (Aristot. Polit. ii. 5,and Schneider's note; Hesych. s. v. Hippodamou nemesis; Phot. s. v. Hippodamou nemesis; Harpocr. s. v. Ippodameia ; Diod. xii. 10; Strab. xiv.; C. F. Hermann, Disputatio de Hippodamo Milesio, Marburg. 1841, 4to.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Isidorus of Miletus, the elder and younger, were eminent architects in the reign of Justinian. The elder of them was associated with Anthemius of Tralles, in the rebuilding of the great church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, before A. D. 537. The younger Isidorus rebuilt the dome of St. Sophia, after it had been destroyed by an earthquake, A. D. 554, and made some additions to the interior of the church. (Procop. i. 1; Agathias, v. 9; Malalas, p. 81; Muller, Archeool. d. Kunst, Β§ 194, n. 4 ; Kugler, Kunstgeschichte, p. 360, &c.)
PRIINI (Ancient city) TURKEY
4th c. B.C. architect of Mausolleion at Halikarnassos; sculptor and author of technical treatise on proportions.
TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Anthemius (Anthemios), an eminent mathematician and architect, born at Tralles, in Lydia,
in the sixth century after Christ. His father's name was Stephanus, who was a
physician (Alex. Trall. iv. 1); one of his brothers was the celebrated Alexander
Trallianus; and Agathias mentions (Hist.), that his three other brothers, Dioscorus,
Metrodorus, and Olympius, were each eminent in their several professions. He was
one of. the architects employed by the emperor Justinian in the building of the
church of St. Sophia, A. D. 532, and to him Eutocius dedicated his Commentary
on the Conica of Apollonius. A fragment of one of his mathematical works was published
at Paris, by M. Dupuy, 1777, with the title "Fragment d'un Ouvrage Grec d'Anthemius
sur des 'Paradoxes de Mecanique'; revu et corrige sur quatre Manuscrits, avec
une Traduction Francoise et des Notes". It is also to be found in the forty-second
volume of the Hist. de l'Acad. des Inscr. 1786, pp. 72, 392-451.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Aspasia. A celebrated woman, a native of Miletus. She came as an adventuress to
Athens, in the time of Pericles, and, by the combined charms of her person, manners,
and conversation, completely won the affection and esteem of that distinguished
statesman. Her station had freed her from the restraints which custom laid on
the education of the Athenian matron, and she had enriched her mind with accomplishments
which were rare even among men. Her acquaintance with Pericles seems to have begun
while he was still united to a lady of high birth, and we can hardly doubt that
it was Aspasia who first disturbed this union, although it is said to have been
dissolved by mutual consent. But after parting from his wife, who had borne him
two sons, Pericles attached himself to Aspasia by the most intimate relation which
the laws permitted him to contract with a foreign woman; and she acquired an ascendency
over him which soon became notorious, and furnished the comic poets with an inexhaustible
fund of ridicule and his enemies with a ground for serious charges. The Samian
War was ascribed to her interposition on behalf of her birthplace, and rumours
were set afloat which represented her as ministering to the vices of Pericles
by the most odious and degrading of offices. There was, perhaps, as little foundation
for this report as for a similar one in which Phidias was implicated ; though
among all the imputations brought against Pericles, this is that which it is the
most difficult clearly to refute. But we are inclined to believe that it may have
arisen from the peculiar nature of Aspasia's private circles, which, with a bold
neglect of established usage, were composed not only of the most intelligent and
accomplished men to be found at Athens, but also of matrons, who, it is said,
were brought by their husbands to listen to her conversation. This must have been
highly instructive as well as brilliant, since Plato did not hesitate to describe
her as the preceptress of Socrates, and to assert in the Menexenus that she both
formed the rhetoric of Pericles and composed one of his most admired harangues,
the celebrated funeral oration. The innovation, which drew women of free birth
and good standing into her company for such a purpose, must, even where the truth
was understood, have surprised and offended many, and it was liable to the grossest
misconstruction. And if her female friends were sometimes seen watching the progress
of the works of Phidias, it was easy, through his intimacy with Pericles, to connect
this fact with a calumny of the same kind.
There was another rumour still more dangerous, which grew out of the
character of the persons who were admitted to the society of Pericles and Aspasia.
No persons were more welcome at the house of Pericles than such as were distinguished
by philosophical studies, and especially by the profession of new philosophical
tenets. The mere presence of Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, and other celebrated
men, who were known to hold doctrines very remote from the religious conceptions
of the vulgar, was sufficient to make a circle in which they were familiar pass
for a school of impiety. Such were the materials out of which the comic poet Hermippus
formed a criminal prosecution against Aspasia. His indictment included two heads:
an offence against religion, and that of corrupting Athenian women to gratify
the passions of Pericles. The danger was averted; but it seems that Pericles,
who pleaded her cause, found need of his most strenuous exertions to save Aspasia,
and that he even descended, in her behalf, to tears and entreaties, which no similar
emergency of his own could ever draw from him.
After the death of Pericles, Aspasia attached herself to a young man
of obscure birth, named Lysicles, who rose through her influence in moulding his
character to some of the highest employments in the Republic. (See Plut. Pericl.;
Xen. Mem.ii. 6.)
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Aspasia. The celebrated Milesian, daughter of Axiochus, came to reside at Athens, and there gained and fixed the affections of Pericles, not more by her beauty than by her high mental accomplishments. With his wife. who was a lady of rank, and by whom he had two sons, he seems to have lived unhappily; and, having parted from her by mutual consent, he attached himself to Aspasia during the rest of his life as closely as was allowed by the law, which forbade marriage with a foreign woman under severe penalties (Plut. Peric. 24; Demosth. c. Neaer.). Nor can there be any doubt that she acquired over him a great ascendancy; though this perhaps comes before us in an exaggerated shape in the statements which ascribe to her influence the war with Samos on behalf of Miletus in B. C. 440, as well as the Peloponnesian war itself (Plut. Peric. l. c.; Aristoph. Acharn. 497; Schol. ad loc.; comp. Aristoph. Pax, 587; Thuc. i. 115). The connexion, indeed, of Pericles with Aspasia appears to have been a favourite subject of attack in Athenian comedy (Aristoph. Acharn. l. c.; Plut. Peric. 24; Schol. ad Plat. Menex.), as also with certain writers of philosophical dialogues, between whom and the comic poets, in respect of their abusive propensities, Athenaeus remarks a strong family likeness (Athen. v. p. 220; Casaub. ad loc.). Nor was their bitterness satisfied with the vent of satire; for it was Hermippus, the comic poet, who brought against Aspasia the double charge of impiety and of infamously pandering to the vices of Pericles; and it required all the personal influence of the latter with the people, and his most earnest entreaties and tears, to procure her acquittal (Plut. Peric. 32; Athen. xiii). The house of Aspasia was the great centre of the highest literary and philosophical society of Athens, nor was the seclusion of the Athenian matrons so strictly preserved, but that many even of them resorted thither with their husbands for the pleasure and improvement of her conversation (Plut. Peric. 24); so that the intellectual influence which she ex ercised was undoubtedly considerable, even though we reject the story of her being the preceptress of Socrates, on the probable ground of the irony of those passages in which such statement is made (Plat. Menex.; Xen. Occon. iii. 14, Memor. ii. 6.36); for Plato certainly was no approver of the administration of Pericles (Gorg), and thought perhaps that the refinement introduced by Aspasia had only added a new temptation to the licentiousness from which it was not disconnected (Athen. xiii). On the death of Pericles, Aspasia is said to have attached herself to one Lysicles, a dealer in cattle, and to have made him by her instructions a first-rate orator (Aesch. ap. Plut. Peric. 24). For an amusing account of a sophistical argument ascribed to her by Aeschines the philosopher, see Cic. de Inxent. i. 31; Quintil. Inst. Orat. v. 11. The son of Pericles by Aspasia was legitimated by a special decree of the people, and took his father's name (Plut. Peric. 37). He was one of the six generals who were put to death after the victory at Arginusae.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Aspasia
Summary
Aspasia was the mistress of Pericles, the leader of Athens during
the Classical Age. She was a hetaira, a trained and paid companion who accompanied
upper-class men to the symposiums. According to some ancient sources she was skilled
in rhetoric and took part in the intellectual discussions of the leading men in
Athens, including Socrates. As the mistress of Pericles, she suffered attacks
from his political enemies. Aspasia and Pericles had one son, who was later legitimized.
After the death of Pericles she married Lysicles a man of humble birth who became
a successful politician in Athens through her assistance. Factual information
about Aspasia is difficult to locate in the ancient sources. Playwrights, biographers
and other ancient authors use Aspasia to illustrate their views on philosophy,
rhetoric and Pericles.
Family
Modern scholars agree that the basic facts of Aspasia's life as recorded
by Diodoros the Athenian (FGrHist 372 F 40 ), Plutarch (Plut. Per. 24.3 ) and
the lexicographers are correct. She was born in the city of Miletus between 460-455
B.C., the daughter of Axiochus. Miletus, part of the Athenian empire, was one
of the leading cities in Ionia, an area of Greek settlement located along the
coast of Asia Minor.
It was probably in Ionia, before she left for Athens, that Aspasia
was educated. Women in that part of the Greek world were generally given more
of an education than women in Athens. As a hetaira she would have been trained
in the art of conversation and of musical entertainment including singing, dancing
and playing instruments.
Biography
Arriving in Athens as a free immigrant around 445 B.C., Aspasia worked
as a hetaira. In fact Aspasia, which meant "Gladly Welcomed", was probably
her professional name. Hetairai were much more than just high-class prostitutes.
According to ancient literary sources and scenes from vase paintings, many hetairai
were intelligent, beautiful, well-dressed and had fewer restrictions on their
lives than the respectable, married women in Athens (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae
583f. ). This description would also apply to Aspasia. As a hetaira, however,
she would not have had financial security or any legal or family protection.
As the paid companion of aristocratic men Aspasia attended symposiums,
drinking parties combined with political and philosophical discourse. At the symposiums
she met the most influential and powerful men in Athens, including Pericles. Sometime
around 445 B.C. Aspasia began to live with Pericles, who at that time was the
leader of Athens. He had been divorced from his wife for five years, with whom
he had two sons. According to Plutarch, it was an amiable divorce because the
marriage was not a happy one (Plut. Per. 24.5).
Plutarch relates more information about Aspasia than any other ancient
author. Unfortunately, Plutarch's Lives are full of distortions and historical
inaccuracies. His purpose in the Lives was to exemplify the virtues and vices
of great men, not to write history. In respect to Aspasia and Pericles he states
that Pericles valued Aspasia's intelligence and political insight, but he emphasizes
that Pericles' feelings for her were primarily erotic. This may be an attempt
on Plutarch's part to remove the stigma from Pericles of having been overly influenced
by a woman.
Plutarch describes the relationship between Aspasia and Pericles as
a very happy one. He states that she was so loved by Pericles that he kissed her
everyday when he left the house and again when he returned (Plut. Per. 24). Plutarch
portrays Aspasia as the influential courtesan. He writes that Aspasia was trying
to emulate Thargelia, a famous Milesian courtesan whose lovers were the most powerful
men in Greece. Using her influence over these men Thargelia helped win Thessaly
over to the Persians at the time of Xerxes' invasion.
Plutarch blames Aspasia for Pericles' decision to start the war against
Samos, a wealthy and powerful member of the empire. The Milesians and the Samians
were involved in a border dispute. The Samians refused to submit the conflict
to Athenian arbitration. Supposedly, Aspasia pressured Pericles to take military
action against Samos (Plut. Per. 25.1). Although it would have been natural for
Aspasia to take the side of her native city, she and Pericles both must have realized
that the loss of Samos to the empire would have meant the rapid end of Athenian
domination of the Aegean.
The exact status of Aspasia's relationship with Pericles and her position
in Pericles' household is disputed. While some say that she was his a pallake
(concubine ), Plutarch (Plut. Per. 24) seems to imply, and Diodorus the Athenian
(FGrHist 372 F 40) says, that she was his akoitis. She and Pericles had one son
also named Pericles. As the mistress of Pericles' household and hostess to his
friends and supporters, Aspasia participated in discussions revolving around politics
and philosophy with the leading men of the Athenian empire. According to several
ancient authors, Socrates respected her opinions (Plut. Per. 24.3; Xen. Ec. 3.15;
Cicero, De Inventione 31.51). As a pallake she would have been outside of the
legal, traditional role of an Athenian wife. Freed from the social restraints
that tied married women to their homes and restricted their behavior, Aspasia
was able to participate more freely in public life.
Strong evidence that Aspasia's role in Athens went beyond that of
mistress to Pericles is given by Plato in the Menexenus. In this dialogue Plato
has Socrates recite a funeral oration composed by Aspasia that glorifies the Athenians
and their history. The Menexenus is a humorous vehicle for Plato to make a serious,
but negative comment on rhetoric and popular opinion in Athens. Everything in
Aspasia's speech is selected, arranged and stated by Plato in order to produce
the greatest possible irony. By satirizing a speech "written" by Aspasia,
Plato acknowledges her role as a leader of rhetoric in the Greek Classical Age.
In Cicero's book on rhetoric he uses as an example of the Socratic
method a dialogue attributed to Aspasia by Aeschines a student of Socrates. In
this dialogue Aspasia skillfully proves to a husband and wife that neither one
of them will ever be truly happy with the other because they each desire the ideal
spouse. Aeschines and another student of Socrates, Antisthenes, both wrote dialogues
titled Aspasia. Unfortunately, only fragments of these works survive (Diogenes
Laertius, Antisthenes 6.16).
Several ancient authors state that Aspasia herself operated a house
of courtesans and trained young women in the necessary skills (Plut. Per. 24.3).
Aristophanes and others refer to "Aspasia's whores" (Aristoph. Ach.
527). Although as Pericles' pallake she was taken care of financially, Aspasia
may have been preparing for her future after the death of Pericles. According
to Plutarch, she was known in Athens as a teacher of rhetoric. Perhaps these women
were her pupils (Plut. Per. 34). Aspasia's hetairai would have had as patrons
the elite men of Athens, especially the supporters of Pericles.
Around 438 B.C. Pericles' political enemies began attacking those
close to him in court and eventually brought charges against Pericles himself.
Soon Aspasia became a target. She was brought to trial on charges of impiety and
of procuring free women. She was acquitted thanks to a passionate and tearful
defense by Pericles (Plut. Per. 32.1-3). Although her political wisdom was valuable
to Pericles, not having an Athenian citizen as a legal wife, but rather living
with a foreign hetaira in an unofficial marriage may have been a political liability
for him.
In the contemporary comedy The Acharnians, Aristophanes parodies the
imputations that Aspasia had undue influence on Pericles' political decisions.
One of his characters blames the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. on
the abduction of two of Aspasia's hetairai (Aristoph. Ach. 527-530). The joke
worked because the audience knew that Aspasia had some influence on Pericles,
but not enough to start a war.
The plague in Athens in 430 B.C. killed both of Pericles' sons by his first wife. This led him to ask for an exemption from the citizenship law, which he himself had enacted, for his illegimate son by Aspasia. The citizenship law decreed that only persons whose father and mother were both Athenians could be legal citizens. The people of Athens agreed to Pericles' request. His son was legitimized and made a citizen of Athens. He later became a general, but was executed in 406 B.C.
In 429 B.C. Pericles died from the plague. A year later Aspasia became
involved with a sheep seller named Lysicles in another unofficial marriage. He
was an uneducated man of humble birth who rose to prominence thanks to her guidance.
She taught him how to speak in public and gave him the benefit of her valuable
insights and personal contacts in Athenian politics (Plut. Per. 24.6; Scholia
to Plato, Menexenus 235E). He was one of the new type of political leaders who
came to prominence after the death of Pericles. This was probably the same group
who had led the earlier attacks against Pericles and his friends, including Aspasia
herself. Questions remain regarding Aspasia's decision to marry so quickly after
Pericles' death. She might have been in need of a protector from Pericles' enemies.
The selection of another politician as her husband might also suggest a desire
to remain involved in the politics of Athens.
There is no information about Aspasia's life after this point. Although
the actual extent of her influence on Athenian politics and society during Athens'
most glorious period will never be certain, she did become one of the few women
in the ancient Greek world to be noted and remembered. She became so famous that
Cyrus, a prince of Persia, Athens' most hated enemy, gave the name Aspasia to
his favorite concubine. Through the succeeding centuries ancient authors, including
playwrights and biographers, used Aspasia as a well-known historical figure to
illustrate their views on philosophy, politics, rhetoric, Pericles and Socrates.
The primary sources give little information about Aspasia. Plutarch
relates more than the other ancient authors, but he seems almost wholly dependent
on Athenian comedy and stories from the Socratic circle for his information, all
of which is difficult to verify. The secondary sources tend to discuss Aspasia
in relation to Pericles or Athenian politics and society.
Elizabeth Lynne Beavers, ed.
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TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
525 - 605
Alexander, Trallianus (Alexandros ho Trallianos), one of the most eminent of the
ancient physicians, was born at Tralles, a city of Lydia, from whence he derives
his name. His date may safely be put in the sixth century after Christ, for he
mentions Aetius (xii. 8), who probably did not write till the end of the fifth
or the beginning of the sixth century, and he is himself quoted by Paulus Aegineta
(iii. 28, 78, vii. 5, 11, 19), who is supposed to have lived in the seventh; besides
which, he is mentioned as a contemporaryby Agathias (Hist. v.), who set about
writing his History in the beginning of the reign of Justin the younger, about
A. D. 565. He had the advantage of being brought up under his father, Stephanus,
who was himself a physician (iv. 1), and also under another person, whose name
he does not mention, but to whose son Cosmas he dedicates his chief work (xii.
i.), which he wrote out of gratitude at his request. He was a man of an extensive
practice, of a very long experience, and of great reputation, not only at Rome,
but wherever he travelled in Spain, Gaul, and Italy (i. 15), whence he was called
by way of eminence "Alexander the Physician". Agathias speaks also with great
praise of his four brothers, Anthemius, Dioscorus, Metrodorus, and Olympius, who
were all eminent in their several professions. Alexander is not a mere compiler,
like Aetius, Oribasius, and others, but is an author of quite a different stamp,
and has more the air of an original writer. He wrote his great work in an extreme
old age, from the results of his own experience, when he could no longer bear
the fatigue of practice. His style in the main, says Freind, is very good, short,
clear, and (to use his own term, xii. 1) consisting of common expressions; and
though (through a mixture of some foreign words occasioned perhaps by his travels)
not always perfectly elegant, yet very expressive and intelligible. Fabricius
considers Alexander to have belonged to the sect of the Methodici, but in the
opinion of Freind this is not proved sufficiently by the passages adduced. The
weakest and most curious part of his practice appears to be his belief in charms
and amulets, some of which may be quoted as specimens. For a quotidian ague, "Gather
an olive leaf before sun-rise, write on it with common ink ka, roi, a, and hang
it round the neck" (xii. 7); for the gout, "Write on a thin plate of gold, during
the waning of the moon, mei, Dreu, mor, phor, teux, za, zon, De, lou, chri, ge,
ze, on, and wear it round the ankles; pronouncing also iaz, azuph, zuon, Dreux,
bain, chook" (xi. 1), or else this verse of Homer (Il. b. 95), Tetrechei d' agore,
hupo d' estonachizeto gaia, while the moon is in Libra; but it is much better
if she should be in Leo". In exorcising the gout, he says, "I adjure thee by the
great name Iao Sabaoth", that is, and a little further on, "I adjure thee by the
holy names Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Elo+hi", that is; from which he would appear
to have been either a Jew or a Christian, and, from his frequently prescribing
swine's flesh, it is most probable that he was a Christian. His chief work, entitled
Biblia Iatrika Duokaideka, Libri Duodecim de Re Medica, first appeared in an old,
barbarous, and imperfect Latin translation, with the title Alexandri Yatros Practica,
&c., Lugd. 1504, 4to., which was several times reprinted, and corrected and amended
by Albanus Torinus, Basil. 1533, fol. It was first edited in Greek by Jac. Goupylus,
Par. 1548, fol., a beautiful and scarce edition, containing also Rhazae de Pestilentia
Libellus ex Syrorum Lingua in Graecam translatus...
This extract is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Xenophon of Ephesus, a writer of prose fiction, as to whose date and personality nothing is known. His remaining work is entitled Ephesiaca, or the Loves of Anthia and Abrocomas (Ephesiaka, ta kata Anthian kai Abrokomen). The style of the work is simple, and the story is conducted without confusion, notwithstanding the number of personages introduced; but the adventures are of a very improbable kind. Xenophon was possibly the oldest of the Greek romance writers. Editions of his work are those by Peerlkamp (Haarlem, 1818); and by Passow (Leipzig, 1833). See Novels and Romances.
Andron, of Ephesus, who wrote a work on the Seven Sages of Greece, which seems to have been entitled Tripous. (Diog. Laert. i. 30, 119; Schol. ad Pind. Isth. ii. 17; Clem. Alex. Strom. i.; Suid. and Phot. s. v. Samion ho demos; Euseb. Pracp. Ev. x. 3.)
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Aristides. The author of a licentious romance, in prose, entitled Milesiaca,
having Miletus for its scene. It was translated into Latin by L. Cornelius Sisenna,
a contemporary of Sulla, and became popular with the Romans. The title of his
work gave rise to the term "Milesian" as applied to works of fiction.
Aristeides, the author of a work entitled Milesiaca (Milesiaka or Milesiakoi logoi), which was probably a romance, having Miletus for its scene. It was written in prose, and was of a licentious character. It extended to six books at the least (Harpocrat. s.. v. dermestes). It was translated into Latin by L. Cornelius Sisenna, a contemporary of Sulla, and it seems to have become popular with the Romans (Plut. Crass. 32; Ovid. Trist. ii. 413, 414, 443, 444; Lucian, Amor. 1). Aristeides is reckoned as the inventor of the Greek romance, and the title of his work is supposed to have given rise to the term Milesian, as applied to works of fiction. Some writers think that his work was imitated by Appuleius in his Metamorphoses, and by Lucian in his Lucius. The age and country of Aristeides are unknown, but the title of his work is thought to favour the conjecture that he was a native of Miletus. Vossius supposes, that he was the same person as the Aristeides of Miletus, whose works on Sicilian, Italian, and Persian history (Sikelika, Italika, Persika) are several times quoted by Plutarch (Parall.), and that the author of the historical work peri Knidou was also the same person (Schol. Pind. Pyth. iii. 14).
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Novels and Romances. Fiction in its origin is with difficulty separated from myth--myth, however, being unconscious and due to a desire to give concrete form to various beliefs that spring up in the primitive mind; while fiction, as a literary motive, originates in a desire to amuse and occasionally to instruct. Hence, the earliest form of fiction is the Beast Fable, which is found in every quarter of the earth and at every period of history. A papyrus dating from B.C. 1200 gives an Egyptian version of the Aesopic fable of the Lion and Mouse; the inscribed Babylonian bricks afford examples of the same thing, and the Hindus probably originated most of the fables which Aesop, Babrius, and Phaedrus made popular in Europe. Akin to conscious fiction and at the same time allied to myth are the folk-tales of nymphs, satyrs, ghosts, fairies, demons, and vampires which Greeks and Romans alike propagated, but which have nearly all been lost to us because they seemed to the ancients unworthy of preservation in formal literature; so that we have now only here and there tantalizing half-glimpses and vanishing suggestions of the curious and fascinating legends told by the common people. Such bits as remain, however, are quite sufficient to prove the existence of a great unwritten literature, and examples of these may still be found, though no longer preserved in their original simplicity, in the stories of the love of Echo for Narcissus, the legend of Hylas and the Naiads, of Cupid and Psyche, and in the various allusions to the monsters known as the Lamiae, Mormolyce, Incubus, and Empusa, the spectre with the brazen leg and the ass's hoof. Ghosts figure in Greek literature as early as Homer, and are introduced with striking effect in the Odyssey, as also by the Romans Attius and Vergil, and in the famous story preserved by Pliny the Younger. To this informal fiction belong also the tales of the Lares and the Larvae.
The earliest form of literary prose fiction, however, is to be found
in the short stories collected by Herodotus, most of which have their origin in
the East, the home of storytelling. Such are the famous anecdotes of Candaules
(i. 8-12), of Arion and the Dolphin (i. 24), of Rhampsinitus and the Robber (ii.
121), and of Polycrates and the Ring (iii. 39), all being admirable instances
of the short story in its earliest form--brief, simple, and embodying a single
incident.
Of a <b>more formal type are the so-called Milesian Tales (Milesiaka),
a generic term for the short anecdotes which were produced in great numbers in
the luxurious cities of Asia Minor prior to the second century B.C., and first
ascribed to one Aristides,</b> who is said to have written six books of
them. No actual examples are known to exist, though their nature may be judged
of by the short stories found in later writers, especially Petronius, from which
it would appear that they were very much like the stories told in the Decameron
of Boccaccio and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles of Louis XI. of France--brief, witty,
and indecent. The choice of subjects in these early novelettes is seen in the
existing collection of Parthenius of Nicaea, who taught Vergil Greek. From him
have come down thirty-six skeleton stories, or rather hints for stories gathered
by Parthenius for the use of Cornelius Gallus, and intended to be treated by him
poetically. They can be found in both Greek and Latin versions in the Didot Collection
(Paris, 1856). Other stories of this sort, written in other cities than Miletus,
were produced by a host of storywriters who gave to their collections the titles
Ephesian, Babylonian, Cyprian, Egyptian, Sybaritic, Naxian, Lydian, Trojan, and
Bithynian Tales, though these do not seem to have differed, except in name, from
those of Miletus. Some of them are preserved in epitome by Photius (q.v.). One
of the most important writers of them after Aristides was Conon , from whom Cervantes
borrowed an episode in his Don Quixote. While the short story was reaching its
full development, it was used philosophically by Plato in the story of Er, and
by Prodicus in his epilogue on the Choice of Heracles.
At about this time fiction underwent a further development as a result
of the contact of the Greeks with the East at the time of the Persian Wars and
of the spirit of adventure resulting from the conquests of Alexander. We now have
instances of the historical romance in the Atlantis of Plato and the Cyropaedia
of Xenophon, which find their echo in modern times in the Utopia of Sir Thomas
More and the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon. The Cyropaedia contains the first
romantic love-story in Greek fiction. These works, however, are partly political,
and are of less literary consequence than the romance of adventure which was afterwards
introduced, and which finds an illustration in the novel entitled Ta Huper Thoulen
Apista (Marvels Beyond Thule), by one Antonius Diogenes, the Munchausen of antiquity.
It relates to the love-adventures of an Arcadian youth, Dinias, [p. 1107] with
a Tyrian girl, Dercyllis, and abounds with most extraordinary incidents. It is,
in reality, nothing more than a collection of short stories or episodes strung
together by a very slender plot. More homogeneous and artistic are the later romances
of Lucius of Patrae of uncertain date called Metamorphoses, drawn upon by Lucian
and Apuleius; of Iamblichus of Syria, who wrote Babulonika, the adventures of
a married pair, Sinonis and Rhodanes, with a double plot; of Xenophon of Ephesus,
author of Ephesiaka, the loves of Abrocomas and Anthia, the ultimate source of
Romeo and Juliet; and especially of Heliodorus of Emesa, in the fourth century
A.D., whose Aithiopika is still in existence, and is regarded as the best of the
novels of adventure produced by the Greeks. It is in ten books, and relates the
adventures of two lovers, Theagenes and Chariclea. It has some quite interesting
episodes, is regularly developed, and contains one curious passage on the influence
of pre-natal conditions upon the unborn child. It was much read in its day, and
again in the seventeenth century, when it was the favourite novel of the French
poet, Racine. See Heliodorus.
Other instances of the romantic novel are those of Achilles Tatius
of Alexandria, entitled Ta kata Leukippen kai Kleitophonta (The Loves of Leucippe
and Clitophon) in eight books; the Chaereas and Callirrhoe of Chariton of Aphrodisias;
and the novelette called Apollonius Tyrius, of unknown authorship, preserved only
in a Latin version, in which it was much read in the Middle Ages, and suggested
a part of Gower's Confessio Amantis (iii. 284 foll.), and probably Shakespeare's
Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Of very late origin are the trashy Greek novels by Theodorus
Prodromus of Constantinople, and the imitation of this by Nicetas Eugenianus (both
in doggerel verse), and last of all the eleven books on the adventures of Hysmine
and Hysminias, perhaps the original source of the story of Don Juan.
Early in the Christian era, fiction was written in the form of letters
by Alciphron, a Greek sophist, of whose imaginary epistles 118 are still preserved
and give valuable pictures of low life in Athens during the second century A.D.
They are very lively and entertaining, and are the best character sketches that
Greek fiction can show us. Other writers of the same class are Aristaenetus of
Nicaea (?), the author of two books of erotic letters written in a cynical spirit;
and Theophilus of Simocatta (A.D. 610), from whom we have 85 letters, rhetorical
and epigrammatic, but of no literary merit.
The prose pastoral was created by Longus (perhaps not the author's
name), whose romance Poimenika ta kata Daphnin kai Chloen, usually called Daphnis
and Chloe, is one of the most original and pleasing things in ancient literature.
Its theme is the growth of the sexual instinct in two children, a boy and a girl,
who have been brought up together in a state of perfect innocence. Its physico-psychological
motive makes it unique in the history of early fiction, and the warmth and beauty
of its descriptions of nature are also very striking. It has been many times translated
into all the modern languages, and is the original of Bernardin de St. Pierre's
Paul et Virginie, of Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, and of many other less important
works.
The Romans have left us only two specimens of true prose fiction--the
Satiricon of Petronius Arbiter and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius; but these are
in many ways superior to anything of their kind in Greek. The Satiricon, in fact,
though incomplete, is one of the first great novels of our time, and is remarkable
for its modern tone, its subtle touches of character, its wit, its vivid pictures
of life in the Roman provincial towns, and for the grace and elegance of its style.
It also gives us some of the best existing specimens of the sermo plebeius, the
colloquial Latinity of uneducated men. (See Petronius; Sermo Plebeius.) The Metamorphoses
of Apuleius is based upon the Metamorphoses of Lucius of Patrae, and possibly
upon the Loukios e Onos of Lucian, the contemporary of Apuleius; but it is more
likely that both Apuleius and Lucian drew independently from the earlier writer.
The novel of Apuleius, which is in eleven books, tells the story of one Lucius,
who, by a mistake, swallowed a magic potion which turned him into an ass, in which
form he passed through a maze of curious and amusing adventures, until at last
he regained his natural shape. The novel is highly diverting and is told with
much cleverness, though often with a disregard for even an elemental sense of
propriety. Among its episodes is the very famous one giving the story of Cupid
and Psyche, one of the most exquisite things in literature and one that has inspired
innumerable works of art. See Apuleius; Psyche.
In the Middle Ages, when the knowledge of ancient literature and history
became lost to Western Europe, confused recollections of them still existed in
the minds of men, and, together with many Teutonic folk-tales, became blended
into a curious collection of stories known as the Gesta Romanorum, which were
told and retold in many forms by the medi?vals. They mingle together the characters
of antiquity in a most remarkable way, having no chronological or historical accuracy,
but reproducing the legends of the past in a sort of literary mirage. Vergil,
Homer, Alexander the Great, the Roman emperors, and Hercules, Romulus, and Remus,
appear and reappear side by side with knights and wizards and dragons; but the
tales have a certain value in literary history as forming the connecting link
between the fiction of Greece and Rome and the fiction of modern times, which
took its early themes largely from those monkish legends.
The ancient novel is far inferior to the modern, because
(1) it was developed only after literature had entered upon its decline;
(2) because of the difference in the social spirit of antiquity which made impossible
the modern romantic treatment of the relations of men and women; and
(3) because the true fiction of the Greeks was to be found, not in prose, but
in the great epics which more perfectly represented the highest manifestation
of the Hellenic imagination.
Bibliography.--For the general subject of the origin of pure fiction, see Clauston's
Popular Tales and Fictions (London, 1887); Rutherford's introduction to his edition
of Babrius (1883); Rhys-Davids, Buddhist Birth-Stories (1880); Benfey's introduction
to the Panchatantra (1859); Bedier, Les Fabliaux (1893); and Lang, Custom and
Myth (1885). On the Greek and Roman novels, see Dunlop, History of the Novel (last
ed. London, 1887); Salverte, Le Roman dans la Grece Ancienne (Paris, 1893); Chauvin,
Les Romanciers Grecs et Latins (Paris, 1862); Chassang, Histoire du Roman dans
l'Antiquite Grecque et Latine (Paris, 1862); Rohde, Der Griechische Roman (Leipzig,
1876); Warren, History of the Novel (N. Y. 1895). The principal Greek romances
are printed in the Erotici Graeci of the Didot Collection (Paris, 1856); and the
epistolographers in the Epistolographi Graeci of the same collection. For special
texts, translations, etc., see the separate articles in this Dictionary on the
writers named above. The Gesta Romanorum will be found edited by Oesterley (Berlin,
1872); and translated into English by Swan, revised by Hooper (London, 1877).
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EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Artemidorus, the Geographer, a native of Ephesus, who travelled about B.C. 100 through the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and part of the Atlantic coast, and wrote a long work on his researches, the Geographoumena, in eleven books, as well as an abstract of the same. Of both works, which were much consulted by later geographers, we have only fragments.
Artemidorus, of Ephesus, a Greek geographer, who lived about B. C. 100. He made voyages round the coasts of the Mediterranean, in the Red Sea, and apparently even in the southern ocean. He also visited Iberia and Gaul, and corrected the accounts of Eratosthenes respecting those countries. We know that in his description of Asia he stated the distances of places from one another, and that the countries beyond the river Tanais were unknown to him. The work in which he gave the results of his investigations, is called by Marcianus of Heracleia, a periplous, and seems to be the same as the one more commonly called called ta geographoumena, or ta tes geographias Biblia. It consisted of eleven books, of which Marcianus afterwards made an abridgement. The original work, which was highly valued by the ancients, and is quoted in innumerable passages by Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium, Pliny, Isidorus, and others, is lost ; but we possess many small fragments and some larger ones of Marcianus' abridgement, which contain the periplus of the Pontus Euxeinus, and accounts of Bithynia and Paphlagonia. The loss of this important work is to be regretted, not only on account of the geographical information which it contained, but also because the author entered into the description of the manners and costumes of the nations he spoke of. The fragments of Artemidorus were first collected and published by D. Hoschel in his Geographica, Aug. Vindel. 1600.
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ALAVANDA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Leo of Alabanda, in Caria, a rhetorical and historical writer of uncertain date. He wrote the following
works, now lost:
1. Karikon Biblia d, De rebus Cariae Libri quatuor;
2. Lukiaka en Bibliois b', De rebus Lyciae, Libri duo;
3. Ho hieros polemos Phokeon kai Boioton, Bellum Sacrum inter Phocenses et Boeotos;
4. Techne, Ars (sc. Rhetorica); and
5. Peri staseon, De Statibus, or De Seditionibus.
In Villoison's edition of Eudocia the last two works are mentioned as one, the
title of which is Techne peri staseon, Ars de Statibus. If the above list of the
works of Leo be correct, we may conjecture that he lived not far from the time
of Alexander the Great, that is, after the close of the Sacred War, of which he
wrote the history and before the local history of Caria and Lycia had lost its
interest by the absorption of those provinces in the Syrian and Pergamenian kingdoms,
and subsequently in the Roman empire. It is to be observed, however, that the
authority of the Sacred War and of the work De Statibus is doubtful, as Suidas
and Eudocia enumerate works under those titles among those of Leo of Byzantium.
Vossius supposes that either Leo of Alabanda or Leo of Byzantium is the writer
referred to by Hyginus (Astron. Poetic. c. 20), as having written a work on the
history of Egypt.
(Suidas, s. v. Deon Alabandeus; Eudocia, Violetum, s. v. Deon Halabandeus; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. vi. p. 132, vol. vii. p. 713; Voss. de Hist. Graec. Lib. iii.
p. 179).
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EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Alexander Cornelius (Alexandros Kornelios), surnamed Polyhistor (Poluistor), a
Greek writer and contemporary of Sulla. According to Suidas he was a native of
Ephesus and a pupil of Crates, and during the war of Sulla in Greece was made
prisoner and sold as a slave to Cornelius Lentulus, who took him to Rome and made
him the paedagogus of his children. Afterwards Lentulus restored him to freedom.
From Suidas it would seem as if he had received the gentile name Cornelius from
Lentulus, while Servius (ad Aen. x. 388) says, that he received the Roman franchise
from L. Cornelius Sulla. He died at Laurentumin a fire which consumed his house,
and as soon as his wife heard of the calanity, she hung herself. The statement
of Suidas that he was a native of Ephesus is contradicted by Stephanus Byzantius
(s. v. Kotiaeon), who says that he was a native of Cotiaeum in Lesser Phrygia,
and a son of Asclepiades, and who is borne out by the Etymologicum Magnum (s.
vv. dedoika and terirredes), where Alexander is called Kotiaeus. The surname of
Polyhistor was given to him on account of his prodigious learning. He is said
to have written innumerable works, but the greatest and most important among them
was one consisting of 42 books, which Stephanus Byzantius calls Pantodapes Hules
Dogoi. This work appears to have contained historical and geographical accounts
of nearly all countries of the ancient world. Each of the forty books treated
of a separate country, and bore a corresponding title, such as Phrygiaca, Carica,
Lyciaca, &c. But such titles are not always sure indications of a book forming
only a part of the great work; and in some cases it is manifest that particular
countries were treated of in separate works. Thus we find mention of the first
book of a separate work on Crete (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1492), and of another
on the " Tractus Illyricus" (Val. Max. viii. 13, ext. 7). These geographico-historical
works are referred to in innumerable passages of Stephanus Byzantius and Pliny.
A separate work on the Phrygians musicians is mentioned by Plutarch (De Mus. 5),
and there is every probability that Alexander Polyhistor is also the author of
the work Diadochai Philosophon which seems to be the groundwork of Diogenes Laertius.
A work on the symbols of the Pythagoreans is mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus
(Strom. i.) and Cyrillus (adv. Julian. ix.). He also wrote a history of Judaea,
of which a considerable fragment is preserved in Eusebius. A history of Rome in
five books is mentioned by Suidas, and a few fragments of it are preserved in
Servius. A complete list of all the known titles of the works of Alexander Polyhistor
is given in Vossius, De Hist. Graec.
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Logographi (logographoi) is a name applied by the Greeks to two distinct classes
of persons.
1. To the earlier Greek historians previous to Herodotus, though Thucydides (i.
21) applies the name logographer to all historians previous to himself, and thus
includes Herodotus among the number. The Ionians were the first of the Greeks
who cultivated history; and the first logographer, who lived about Olympiad
60, was Cadmus, a native of Miletus, who wrote a history of the foundation
of his native city. The characteristic feature of all the logographers previous
to Herodotus is, that they seem to have aimed more at amusing their hearers or
readers than at imparting accurate historical knowledge. They wrote in the unperiodic
style called lexis eiromene. They described in prose the mythological subjects
and traditions which had previously been treated of by the epic and especially
by the cyclic poets. The omissions in the narratives of their predecessors were
probably filled up by traditions derived from other quarters, in order to produce,
at least in form, a connected history. In many cases they were mere collections
of local and genealogical traditions.
2. To persons who wrote judicial speeches or pleadings and sold them to those
who were in want of them. These persons were called logopoioi as well as logographoi.
Antiphon, the orator, was the first who practised this ... (see ancient Ramnous)
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Logographi (logographoi, i. e. writers in prose). The name given to the oldest Greek historians, who by their first attempts at disquisitions in prose marked the transition from narrative poetry to prose history ( Thuc.i. 21). As in the case of epic poetry, so these earliest historical writings emanated from Ionia, where the first attempts at an exposition of philosophic reflections in prose were made at about the same time by Pherecydes, Anaximander, and Anaximenes; and, in both cases alike, it was the Ionic dialect that was used. This class of writing long preserved in its language the poetic character which it inherited from its origin in the epic narrative. It was only by degrees that it approached the tone of true prose. It confined itself absolutely to the simple telling of its story, which was largely made up of family and local traditions. It never classified its materials from a more elevated point of view, or scrutinized them with critical acumen. The logographers flourished from about B.C. 550 down to the Persian Wars. Their latest representatives extend, however, down to the time of the Peloponnesian War. When true history arose with Herodotus, they soon lapsed into oblivion, whence they were rescued in Alexandrian days. Many of the works ascribed to them were, however, believed to be spurious, or at least interpolated. There remain fragments only of a few. The larger number of the historic writers who are described as logographers were Asiatic Greeks, e. g. Cadmus of Miletus, author of a history of the founding of Miletus and the colonization of Ionia (he lived about B.C. 540, and was considered the first writer of historic prose); further, Dionysus of Miletus, a writer of Persian history; Hecataeus of Miletus (550-476); Xanthus of Sardis (about 496), a writer of Lydian history; Hellanicus of Lesbos (about 480-400); Charon of Lampsacus (about 456), a compiler of Persian history and annals of his native town; Pherecydes of the Carian island Leros (died about B.C. 400), who lived at Athens, and in his great collection of myths in ten books treated chiefly of the early days of Attica. Some belonged to the colonies in the West--e. g. Hippys of Rhegium, at the time of the Persian War the oldest writer on Sicily and Italy. The only representative from Greece itself is Acusilaus of Argos in Boeotia, the author of a genealogical work.
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Hecataeus. A Greek chronicler, born of a noble family at Miletus, about B.C. 550. In his youth he travelled widely in Europe and Asia, as well as in Egypt. At the time of the Ionian revolt he was in his native city, and gave his countrymen the wisest counsels, but in vain. After the suppression of the rising, he succeeded by his tact and management in obtaining some alleviation of the hard measures adopted by the Persians. He died about 476. The ancient critics assigned him a high place among the Greek historians who preceded Herodotus, though pronouncing him inferior to the latter. His two works, of which only fragments remain, were: (a) A description of the earth (Periodos Ges or Periegesis), which was much consulted by Herodotus, and was apparently used to correct the chart of Anaximander. It was in two parts, one relating to Europe and the other to Asia, Egypt, and Libya. (b) A treatise on Greek fables, entitled Genealogiai, or Genealogies, and also Historiai, in four books, on the poetical traditions of the Greeks. The fragments of Hecataeus have been edited by Klausen (Berlin, 1831) and C. and Th. Muller (Paris, 1841).
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Hecataeus, (Hekataios). Of Miletus, one of the earliest and most distinguished
Greek historians (logographers) and geographers. He was the son of Hegesander,
and belonged to a very ancient and illustrious family (Herod. ii. 143). According
to Suidas, he was a contemporary of Dionysius of Miletus, and lived about the
65th olympiad, i. e. B. C. 520. Hence Larcher and others conclude that he was
born about 550, so that in B. C. 500, the time at which he acted a prominent part
among the Ionians, he would have been about fifty years old. As Hecataeus further
(Suidas, s. v. Hellanikos) survived the Persian war for a short time, he seems
to have died about B. C. 476, shortly after the battles of Plataeae and Mycale.
Suidas tells us that Hecataeus was a pupil of Protagoras, which is utterly impossible
for chronological reasons, just as it is impossible that Hecataeus should have
been a friend of Xenocrates, as Strabo says (xii.) Hecataeus must have been possessed
of considerable wealth, for, like many other eminent men of that age, he satisfied
his desire for knowledge by travelling into distant countries, and seeing with
his own eyes that which others learnt from books. We know from Herodotus that
Hecataeus visited Egypt, and from the manner in which later writers speak of his
geographical knowledge, there can be no doubt that he visited many other countries
also. (Agathem. i. 1; Agatharch. De Rubr. Mari) The fragments of his geographical
work, which have come down to us, lead us to suppose that, besides the provinces
of the Persian empire, he visited the coasts of the Euxine, Thrace, the whole
of Greece, Oenotria, and even Liguria, Spain, and Libya, though of the last-mentioned
countries he may have seen little more than the coasts. The time during which
he was engaged in these travels cannot be accurately determined, though it must
have been previous to the revolt of the lonians, that is, previous to B. C. 500,
for after that event the war between the Greeks and Persians, as well as the advanced
age of Hecataeus, would have thrown too many difficulties in his way; and it further
appears that he was well acquainted with the extent and resources of the Persian
empire at the time when his countrymen contemplated the revolt from Persia. (Herod.
v. 36.) His geographical work, moreover, must have been written after the year
B. C. 524, since in one of the extant fragments 140,ed. Muller) lie speaks of
Boryza in Thrace asa Persian town, which it did not become till that year.
The only events in the life of Hecataeus of which we have any definite
knowledge, are the part he took in the insurrection of the Ionians against the
Persians. When Aristagoras was planning the revolt of the Ionians, and all those
whom he consulted agreed with him, Hecataeus was the only one who dissuaded his
countrymen from such a rash undertaking, explaining to them the extent of the
enemy's empire and his power. When this advice was disregarded, he exhorted them
at least to provide themselves with a naval force, and for this purpose to make
use of the treasures amassed in the temple at Branchidae. But this opinion also
was overruled by the sanguine Ionians (Herod. v. 36), and the Ionians revolted
without being prepared to meet the enemy or to protect themselves. Subsequently,
when Artaphernes and Otanes had invaded Ionia and Aeolis, and taken the towns
of Clazomenae and Cuma, Aristagoras, who had brought about the misfortunes without
the courage to endure them, meditated upon flight either to Sardinia or to Myrcinus.
Hecataeus advised him to do neither, but to take up a fortified position in the
neighboring island of Leros, and there to watch the issue of the events. (Herod.
v. 124, 125.) This advice was rejected again, but the conduct of H ecataeus had
been throughout that of a wise and experienced man. Even after the fall of Ionia
under the strokes of the Persians, he did not desert his countrymen ; for we are
told that he was sent as ambassador to Artaphernes, and prevailed upon the satrap
to win the confidence of the lonians by a mild treatment. (Diod. Fragm. Vat.,
ed. Dindorf.) After this we hear no more of Hecataeus, but the little we know
of him is enough to justify the high praise which some of the ancients bestow
upon him in mentioning him along with the greatest men. (Eratosth. ap. Strab.
i., xiv. ; Aelian, V. H. xiii. 20; Hermog. De Gen. dicend. ii. 12.)
Hecataeus deposited the results of his travels and studies in two
great works; one geographical, entitled Periodos ges, or Peregesis, and the other
historical, entitled Genealogiai, or Historiai. (Suid. s. v. Hellanikos, where
the heading of the article is a mistake for Hekataios). The passage of Suidas
compared with one of Strabo (i.) clearly shows that Hecataeus wrote only two works,
and that the other names or titles we meet with refer to subdivisions of the geographical
work. The latter consisted of two parts, one of which contained a description
of Europe, and the other of Asia, Egypt, and Libya. Both parts appear to have
been subdivided into smaller sections; thus we find one section belonging to the
first part referred to under the name of Hellespontus (Steph. Byz. s. v. Tenedos),
and others belonging to the second part, under the titles of Aiolika, Periegeris
Aiguptou, and Periegesis Libues. (Steph. Byz. s. vv. Amazoneion, Diebris, Eleneios).
It is not easy to determine the order in which Hecataeus described the different
countries, and consequently also the order in which the fragments still extant
should be arranged. The mode in which he treated his subjects may still be seen
from some of the longer fragments : he first mentioned the name of the people,
then the towns they inhabited, and sometimes he gave an account of their foundation
and of any thing that was remarkable in them. The distances of the places from
one another seem to have been carefully marked. Hecataeus was the first historical
writer who exercised his own judgment on the matters which he had to record, and
used historical criticism in rejecting what appeared to him fabulous, or endeavouring
to find out the historical truth which formed the groundwork of a mythical tradition
(Paus. iii. 25.5; Arrian, Anab. ii. 16); still he is nevertheless very dependent
on Homer and other early poets, whereby he is led to mix up fables with truth;
but wherever he gives the results of his own observations, he is a correct and
trustworthy guide. Eratosthenes (ap. Strab. i.) seems to deny that Hecataeus made
geographical maps; but if we compare the statement of Agathemerus (i. 1) with
Herodotus (v. 49), it is clear, on the one hand, that Hecataeus corrected and
improved the map of the earth drawn up by Anaximander, and it is probable, on
the other, that the map which Aristagoras carried to Sparta for the purpose of
persuading Cleomenes to engage in a war against Persia was either the work of
Hecataeus, or had been drawn up according to his views of the physical structure
of the earth. Callimachus (ap. Athen. ii., comp. ix.), whose opinion seems to
be followed by Arrian (Anab. v. 6), regarded the Periegesis tes asias, ascribed
to Hecataeus, and belonging to the second part of his geographical work, as spurious,
and assigned it to a nesiotes (an islander). It is not impossible that he may
have found in the library of Alexandria a periegesis of Asia ascribed to the celebrated
Hecataeus, but which was in reality a forgery, and had nothing in common with
the genuine work but the name of the author; for such forged title-pages were
not uncommon in the time of the Ptolemies, and literary impostors made a lucrative
traffic of them. (Hippocrat. vol. xv., ed. Kuhn.) At any rate, even if we admit
that Callimachus really found a spurious periegesis, it does not follow that the
genuine work did not exist.
The second work of Hecataeus, the Histories or Genealogies, was a
prose account, in the form of genealogies, of the poetical foibles and traditions
of the Greeks. From the fragments which are quoted from it, we see that it must
have consisted of at least four sections. The first contained the traditions about
Deucalion and his descendants; the second, the stories of Heracles and the Heracleidae
; the third, apparently the Peloponnesian traditions ; and the fourth, those of
Asia Minor. The value of this, as well as his other, work cannot be diminished
in our eyes by the fact of Herodotus controverting several of his opinions (vi.
137, comp. i. 146, 202, ii. 3, 15, 21, 23, 143, iv. 8, 36); but, on the contrary,
it is evident that Herodotus looked upon him as a rival, whom it was worth whileendeavouring
to refute and excel, and that he actually did excel him, does not require to be
proved in this place. Herodotus knew the works of Hecataeus well, and undoubtedly
availed himself of them ; but the charge of Porphyrius (ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang.
x.), that Herodotus literally transcribed whole passages from Hecataeus is wholly
without foundation. (Comp. Hermog. De Form. Orat. ii. 12; Dionys. Jud. de Thuc.
5; Diod. i. 37; Strab. i. ; Suidas.) Respecting the style of Hecataeus, Strabo
says, that though prose, it approached very nearly to poetry, and Hermogenes (l.
c.) praises it for its simplicity, purity, clearness, and sweetness, and adds
that the language was the pure and unmixed Ionic dialect.
The fragments of the Genealogies are collected in Creuzer's Histor.
Grace Anitiquissimorum Fragmenta, Heidelberg, 1806, 8vo.; and the fragments of
both the Periegesis and the Genealogies by R. H. Klausen, Hecataci Milcsii Fragmenta,
Berlin, 1831, 8vo., and by C. and Th. Muller, Fragm. Hist. Graec., Paris, 1841.
Each of these collections is preceded by a dissertation on the life and writings
of Hecataeus. (Comp. Dahlmann, Herodot.; Ukert, Untersuchungen uber die Geographie
des Hecataeus u. Damastes, Weimar, 1814.)
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Hecataeus (ca. 550-490 BC). Geographer and travel writer from Miletus (today's Turkey).
He wrote “Trip around the world” (Periodos Ges),
where he described local customs, anecdotes etc. in two volumes, one on Europe
and one on Asia. The work has only survived in fragments, and included a map as
well.
Hecataeus traveled in Egypt,
Persia and Scythia.
His father was a wealthy land owner and there are indications the family was involved
with trade.
He also wrote “Genealogies”, a treatise on noble families
and heir relations with mythical heroes. When he described the histories and myths,
he liked the stories to be reasonable, and so concluded that the Danaids were
20 and not 50 etc.
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Cadmus. A native of Miletus, who flourished about B.C. 520. Pliny calls him the most ancient of the logographi. In another passage he makes him to have been the first prosewriter, though elsewhere he attributes this to Pherecydes. According to a remark of Isocrates (in his discourse Peri Antidoseos), Cadmus was the first that bore the title of sophistes, by which appellation was then meant an eloquent man. He wrote on the antiquities of his native city. His work was abridged by Bion of Proconnesus.
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Cadmus of Miletus, a son of Pandion, and in all probability the earliest Greek historian or logographer. He lived, according to the vague statement of Josephus (c. Apion. i. 2; comp. Clem. Alex. Strom. vi.), very shortly before the Persian invasion of Greece; and Suidas makes the singular statement, that Cadmus was only a little younger than the mythical poet Orpheus, which arises from the thorough confusion of the mythical Cadmus of Phoenicia and the historian Cadmus. But there is every probability that Cadmus lived about B. C. 540. Strabo (i.) places Cadmus first among the three authors whom he calls the earliest prose writers among the Greeks: viz. Cadmus, Pherecydes, and Hecataeus; and from this circumstance we may infer, that Cadmus was the most ancient of the three--an inference which is also confirmed by the statement of Pliny (H. N. v. 31), who calls Cadmus the first that ever wrote (Greek) prose. When, therefore, in another passage (vii. 56) Pliny calls Pherecydes the most ancient prose writer, and Cadmus of Miletus simply the earliest historian, we have probably to regard this as one of those numerous inconsistencies into which Pliny fell by following different authorities at different times, and forgetting what he had said on former occasions. All, therefore, we can infer from his contradicting himself in this case is, that there were some ancient authorities who made Pherecydes the earliest Greek prose writer, and not Cadmus; but that the latter was the earliest Greek historian, seems to be an undisputed fact. Cadmus wrote a work on the foundation of Miletus and the earliest history of Ionia generally, in four books (Ktidis Miletou kai tes holes Ionias). This work appears to have been lost at a very early period, for Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Jud. de Thuc. 23) expressly mentions, that the work known in his time under the name of Cadmus was considered a forgery. When Suidas and others, call Cadmus of Miletus the inventor of the alphabet, this statement must be regarded as the result of a confusion between the mythical Cadmus, who emigrated from Phoenicia into Greece; and Suidas is, in fact, obviously guilty of this confusion, since he says, that Cadmus of Miletus introduced into Greece the alphabet which the Phoenicians had invented.
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Cadmus of Miletus, the Younger, is mentioned only by Suidas, according to whom he was a son of Archelaus, and a Greek historian, concerning whose time nothing is said. Suidas ascribes to him two works, one on the history of Attica, in sixteen books, and the second on the deliverance from the sufferings of love, in fourteen books.
Clytus (Klutos), a Milesian and a disciple of Aristotle, was the author of a work on the history of his native city. The two passages of Athenaeus (xii., xiv.), in which this work is quoted, must be assimilated to one another either by reading Klutos in the first or Kleitos in the second, for it is clear that reference is made in both to the same author and the same treatise. In the passage of Diogenes Laeirtius (i. 25) -kai autos de phesin, hos Herakleides historei, k. t. l.- Menagius proposes, with much show of probability, the substitution of Klutos for autos, as a notice of Thales would naturally find a place in an account of Miletus. It does not appear what ground there is for the assertion of Vossius, that Clytus accompanied Alexander on his expedition. The passage in Valerius Maximus to which he refers (ix. 3, extern.1), speaks only of the Cleitus who was murdered by the king.
Hesychius. Of Miletus, is called by almost all the ancients who mention him ho Illoustrios, which is commonly understood as an indication of rank (Illustris), derived from some office which he held, though by some construed as a cognomen " Illustrius." He was a native of Miletus, son of Hesychius, a dikegoros, or pleader, and his wife Sophia (Sophia), as she is called in Suidas and in the older editions of Photius, but, according to Bekker's Photius, Philosophia (Thilosophia). He lived in the time of the emperors Anastasius I., Justin I., and Justinian I.; but nothing is known of his history, except that he had a son Joannes, whose loss prevented his continuing his account of Justinian's reign. He is known as the author of the following works: 1. Peri ton en paideiai lampsanton sophon , De his qui Eruditionis Fama claruere. The word sophon in the above title is rejected by some critics as spurious. The notice of Hesychius in the present copies of Suidas, which is probably corrupt,--at any rate it is obscure, --is understood by some to affirm that Hesychius wrote two works, one entitled Pinax ton en paideai onomaston, the other called Onomatologos, an epitome of the Pinax. Meursius, who contends that the passage is corrupt, proposes a conjectural emendation, according to which the two titles belong to one and the same work, Onomatologos e Pinax, k. t. l., which he supposes Suidas to have described as an epitome of Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis Philosophorum. The work is in its general character similar to that of Diogenes ; and though a good deal shorter, comprehends much of the same matter. But the differences are too great to allow one to be regarded as the epitome of the other. As the ecclesiastical writers are avowedly omitted by Hesychius, the opinion has been entertained that he was a pagan; but his belief in Christianity has been satisfactorily shown by several writers, especially by Thorschmidius in a dissertation on the subject, reprinted by Orellius in his Hesychii Opuscula. The work of Hesychius was first published with a Latin version by Hadrianus Junius, 8vo. Antwerp, 1572, and has been reprinted several times. For a long time the standard edition was that of Meursius, in his Hesychii Opuscula, 8vo. Leyden, 1613, reprinted in the seventh vol. of the Opera Meursii, fol. Florence. 1741, &c. A late edition of the Opuscula Hesychii, that of Joan. Conrad. Orellius of Zurich, 8vo. Leipzig, 1820, contains much valuable illustrative matter, especially the dissertation of Thorschmidius above mentioned. 2. Patria Konstinoupoleos, Res Patriae Constantinopolitanae. It is probable that this work is a fragment of that next mentioned. A considerable part of it is incorporated, word for word, in the Peri ton Patrion Konstantinoupoleos,, De Originibus Constantinopolitanis of Codinus, which was first printed in A. D. 1596, by George Dousa; but the work (or fragment) of Hesychius with the author's name, was first published by Meursius in his Hesychii Opuscula, noticed above, and was reprinted in the Florentine edition of the works of Meursius, and in the Opuscula Hesychii of Orellius. 3. A work described by Photius as Biblion historikon hos en sunopsei kosmikes historias, a synoptical view of universal history, and by Suidas as Chronike tis Historia, and by Constantine Porphyrogenitus as Chronika. It is described by Photius as divided into six parts (tmemata), or, as the writer himself called them, diastemata, by which term they were commonly quoted, e. g. en toi e? (sive s?) diastemati tes historias . (See Charles Labbe's Veteres Glossae Verborum Juris quae passim in Basilicis reperiuntur, s. vv. Palmatiois ekouois (Palmatiis equis), Tholis.) The whole history comprehended a period of 1920 years, and extended from the reign of Belus, the reputed founder of the Assyrian empire, to the death of the Byzantine emperor, Anastasius I., A. D. 518: according to Photius, it was thus distributed among the six parts:-- (1) Before the Trojan war. (2) From the taking of Troy to the foundation of Rome. (3) From the foundation of Rome to the abolition of kingly power and the establishment of the consulship in the 68th Olympiad. (4) From the establishment of the consulship in the 68th, to the sole power (monarchia) of Julius Caesar in the 182d Olympiad. (5) From the sole power of Julius Caesar till Byzantium (Constantinople) was raised to greatness, in the 277th Olympiad. (6) From the settlement of Constantine at Byzantium to the death of Anastasius in the 11th year of the indiction. The Patria Konstantinoupoleos, published by Meursius, appears to be the earlier part of the sixth book. 4. A book recording the transactions of the reign of Justin I. (A. D. 518--527), and the earlier years of Justinian I., who reigned A. D. 527-566. This work, which was discontinued through domestic affliction, is lost. It was apparently intended as a continuation of the foregoing, and as the work of a contemporary whose high office (for the title "Illustris" was given to the highest officers, the praefecti praetorio, praefecti urbi, &c.) must have implied political knowledge, and have procured access to the best sources of information, it was probably the most valuable part. Photius characterizes the historical style of Hesychius as concise, his language well chosen and expressive, his sentences well constructed and arranged, and his figures as striking and appropriate. Hesychius of Miletus has sometimes been confounded with Hesychius of Alexandria, the author of the Lexicon. (Phot. Bibl. Codd. 69 ; Constant. Porphyrog. De Themat. lib. i. th. 2, lib. ii. th. 8; Suidas, s. v. Heouchios milesios; Tzetzes, Chil. iii. 877; the notes of Meursius in his Hesychii Opuscula ; Cave, Historic Litt. vol. i. p. 518; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. vii.; Thorschmidius, De Hesychio Milesio Illustri Christiano Commentatio, ap. Orellium, Hesychii Opera.)
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Hesychius. A Milesian, called Illustris, who lived about A.D. 540, and wrote an Onomasticon or biography of illustrious men (ed. by Orelli, 1820), and a Chronicon or synopsis of universal history, in six parts, beginning with Belus, the alleged founder of the Assyrian State, and ending with the death of the Byzantine emperor, Anastasius I. (A.D. 518). The latter work is lost. See Krumbacher, Grundriss der byzantinischen Literatur (in I. Muller's Handbuch, vol. ix.), pp. 110 foll.
Dionysius. Of Miletus, one of the earliest Greek historians, and according to Suidas (s. v. Hekataios), a contemporary of Hecataeus, that is, he lived about B. C. 520; he must, however, to judge from the titles of his works, have survived B. C. 485, the year in which Dareius died. Dionysius of Miletus wrote a history of Dareius Hystaspis in five books. Suidas further attributes to him a work entitled ta meta Dareion in five hooks, and also a work Persika, in the Ionic dialect. Whether they were actually three distinct works, or whether the two last were the same, and only a continuation of the first, cannot be ascertained on account of the inextricable confusion which prevails in the articles Dionusios of Suidas, in consequence of which our Dionysius has often been confounded with Dionysius of Mytilene. Suidas ascribes to the Milesian, " Troica," in three books, "Mythica," an "Historical Cycle," in seven books, and a " Periegesis of the whole world," all of which, however, probably belong to different authors. (Nitzsch, Hist. Homeri, i.; Bernhardy, in his edition of Dionys. Perieg., and ad Suidam, i.; Lobeck, Aglaoph. ii.; Welcker, Der Epische Cyclus.)
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Evanthes. Of Miletus, is mentioned as an author by Diogenes Laertius (i. 29), and seems to have been an historian, but is otherwise unknown.
Leander or Leandrius (Leansdros or Leandrios), of Miletus, seems to have been the author of a work on the history of his native city. A few quotations from it are still extant, but we have no means of determining the age at which Leander lived. (Diog. Laert. i. 28, 41; Clem. Alex. Protrept., Strom. i., vi.; Euseb. Praep. Ev. ii.; Theodoret. Therap. i., viii.; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. ii. 706.)
Maeandrius (Maiandrios), an historian (sungrapheus), who wrote a work in which
mention was made of the Heneti (Strab. xii.). He was also the author of a work
entitled parangelma, which is quoted by Athenaeus (x.), and which appears to have
been a kind of A B C book (comp. Welcker, in Rheinisches Museum for 1833, p. 146).
Maeandrius is also referred to by Macrobius (Sat. i. 17). We learn from an inscription,
which Boeckh places between Olymp. 140 and 155, that this writer was a native
of Miletus. It has been conjectured with considerable probability, that this Maeandrius
may be the same as the Leandrius or Leander of Miletus, who was also an historian,
and who is mentioned by several ancient writers.
TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
A Greek writer, of Tralles in Caria, freedman of the emperor
Hadrian. He wrote in the first half of the second century A.D. a work entitled
Peri Thaumasion ("On Wonderful Events"). It is a tasteless composition,
but instructive as to the superstitions of antiquity. Also a dry catalogue of
persons who attained a great age (Peri Makrobion). Of his great chronological
work, a catalogue of victors at the Olympian games in 229 Olympiads (B.C. 776
to A.D. 137) in 17 books, only fragments remain.
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Βatalus (Batalos), according to some, the author of lascivious drinking-songs,
and according to others, an effeminate flute-player, who must have lived shortly
before the time of Demosthenes, for the latter is said to have been nick-named
Batalus on account of his weakly and delicate constitution. (Plut. Dem. 4, Vit.
X. Orat.) According to Libanius ( Vit. Dem., ed. Reiske), Batalus, the flute-player,
was a native of Ephcsus, and the first man that ever appeared on the stage in
women-s shoes, for which reason he was ridiculed in a comedy of Antiphanes. Whether
the poet and the flute-player were the same, or two different persons, is uncertain.
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MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Greek musician and dithyrambic poet. He added one or more strings
to the lyre, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the Spartans and Athenians.
He was in fact condemned by the Lacedaemonians for adding four new strings to
lute.
He composed musical works of a mythological and historical character.
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ALAVANDA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Apollonius of Alabanda, surnamed ho Malakos, was some years older than Apollonius Molon,
with whom he has sometimes been confounded. He was a rhetorician, and went from
Aiabanda to Rhodes, where he taught rhetoric (Strab. xiv.). Scaevola in his praetorship
saw him and spoke with him in Rhodes. He was a very distinguished teacher of rhetoric,
and used to ridicule and despise philosophy (Cic. de Orat. i. 17). Whenever he
found that a pupil had no talent for oratory, he dismissed him, and advised him
to apply to what he thought him fit for, although by retaining him he might have
derived pecuniary advantages (Cic. de Orat. i. 28; comp. Spalding, ad Quintil.
i., ii., iv.)
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Hierocles (Hierokles), a Greek rhetorician of Alabanda in Caria, who, like his brother Menecles, was distinguished by that kind of oratory which was designated by the name of the Asiatic, in contrast with Attic oratory. His brother was the teacher of the famous Molo of Rhodes, tile teacher of Cicero, so that Hierocles must have lived about B. C. 100. We do not hear that he wrote any rhetorical works, but his orations appear to have been extant in the time of Cicero. (Brut. 95, Orat. 69, de Orat. ii. 23; Strab. xiv.)
(Hierokles). A rhetorician of Alabanda, in Caria, who lived in the beginning of
the first century before the Christian era. He excelled in what Cicero termed
the Asiatic style of eloquence.
(Menekles). Of Alabanda, a celebrated rhetorician. He and his brother Hierocles
taught rhetoric at Rhodes, where the orator M. Antonius heard them, about B.C.
94.
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EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Alexander the orator, surnamed Lychnus, who was a statesman, and wrote history, and left behind him poems in which he describes the position of the heavenly bodies and gives a geographic description of the continents, each forming the subject of a poem.
Damianus, (Damianos), of Ephesus, a celebrated rhetorician and contemporary of Philostratus, who visited him at Ephesus, and who has preserved a few particulars respecting his life. In his youth Damianus was a pupil of Adrianus and Aelius Aristeides, whom he afterwards followed as his models. He appears to have taught rhetoric in his native place, and his reputation as a rhetorician and sophist was so great, that even when he had arrived at an advanced age and had given up rhetoric, many persons flocked to Ephesus to have an opportunity of conversing with him. He belonged to a very illustrious family, and was possessed of great wealth, of which he made generous use, for he not only instructed gratis such young men as were unable to remunerate him, but he erected or restored at his own expense several useful and public institutions and buildings. He died at the age of seventy, and was buried in one of the suburbs of Ephesus. It is not known whether he ever published any scientific treatise on rhetoric or any orations or declamations. (Philostr. Vit. Soph. ii. 23; Suid. s. v. Damianos; Eudocia, p. 130.)
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MAGNESIA ON MEANDROS (Ancient city) TURKEY
A Greek orator, born in Magnesia on Mount Sipylus in the first
half of the third century B.C. He was the founder of what was termed the Asiatic
style of oratory.
Hegesias. A native of Magnesia, who addicted himself to rhetoric and history. There is some reason for supposing that he wrote not later than Timaeus of Tauromenium, and lived about the time of Ptolemaeus Lagi, in the early part of the third century B. C. Strabo (xiv.) speaks of him as the founder of that degenerate style of composition which bore the name of the Asiatic, though lie professed to be an imitator of Lysias and Charisius. Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus agree in thinking the man himself a thorough blockhead, and in describing his style as utterly destitute of vigour and dignity, consisting chiefly of childish conceits and minute prettinesses. (Cic. Brut. 83, Orat. 67, 69 ; Dionys. de Compos. Verb. 4, 18.) Specimens of his style are given by Dionysius and by Photius (Cod. 250., ed. Bekker.) Varro had rather an admiration for it. (Cic. ad Att. xii. 6.) The history of Alexander the Great was the theme which he selected to dilate upon in his peculiar fashion. As regards the subject-matter of his history, Gellius (ix. 4) classes him with those writers who deal rather plentifully in the marvellous. Plutarch (Alex. 3) makes rather a clumsy pun in ridicule of a joke of his about Diana not being at liberty to come to the protection of her temple at Ephesus, when it was set on fire on the day on which Alexander the Great was born. (Fabric. Bibl. Gracec. vol. iii., vol. ii.; Voss. de Hist. Gr., ed. Westermann; Ruhnken, ad Rutil. Lup. i. 7.)
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TEMNUS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Hermagoras. Of Temnos, a distinguished Greek rhetorician of the time of Pompey
and Cicero. He belonged to the Rhodian school of oratory, and appears to have
tried to excel as an orator (or rather declaimer) as well as a teacher of rhetoric.
(Quintil. v. 3.59, viii. pr. § 3; Suid. s. v. Hermagoras.) But it is especially
as a teacher of rhetoric that he is known to us. He devoted particular attention
to what is called the invention, and made a peculiar division of the parts of
an oration, which differed from that adopted by other rhetoricians. (Quintil.
iii. 1.16.) Cicero (de Invent. i. 6) opposes his system, but Quintilian defends
it (iii. 3.9, 5.4, 16, &c., 6.56), though in some parts the latter censures what
Cicero approves of. (Cic. de Invent. i. 11; Quintil. iii. 6.60, &c.) But in his
eagerness to systematise the parts of an oration, he entirely lost sight of the
practical point of view from which oratory must be regarded. (Quintil. iii. 11.22;
Tacit. de Oral. 19.) He appears to have been the author of several works which
are lost; Suidas mentions Hpetorikai, Peri ezergasias, Peri phraseos, Peri schenaton,
Peri prepontos. (See the passages in which Cicero discusses the views of Hermagoras
in Orelli's Onom. Tull. s. v.; comp. Westermann, Gesch. d. Griech. Beredtsamk.
§ 81. note 11, § 83. notes 11-13; C. G. Piderit, de Hermagora Rhetore Commentatio,
Hersfeld, 1839, 4to.)
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Hermagoras. Of Temnos, a distinguished Greek rhetorician of the time of Cicero, belonging to the Rhodian school of oratory.
TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Damasus, (Damasos), of Tralles in Cilicia, is mentioned by Strabo (xiv.) among the celebrated
orators of Tralles. He is surnamed Scombrus (Ekombros), and is in all probability
the same as the Damos Scombros mentioned by Seneca (Controv. ii. 14), and may
possibly be the same as the rhetorician who is also spoken of by Seneca (Suas.
1; comp. Schott, ad Controv. ii. 14) under the name of Damaseticus. But nothing
further is known about him.
Dionysocles, (Dionusokles), of Tralles, is mentioned by Strabo (xiv.) among the distinguished rhetoricians of that city. He was probably a pupil of Apollodorus of Pergamus, and consequently lived shortly before or at the time of Strabo.
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Parrhasius (Parrasios). A famous Greek painter of Ephesus, who with Zeuxis
was the chief representative of the Ionic school. He lived about B.C. 400 at Athens,
where he seems to have received the citizenship. According to the accounts of
ancient writers, he first introduced into painting the theory of human proportions,
gave to the face delicate shades of expression, and was a master in the careful
drawing of contours. His skill in indicating varieties of psychological expression
could be appreciated in the picture representing the Athenian State or Demos,
in which, according to ancient authors, he distinctly portrayed all the conflicting
qualities of the Athenian national character. Another of his pictures represented
two boys, one of whom seemed to personify the pertness, and the other the simplicity,
of boyhood. His inclination to represent excited states of mind is attested by
the choice of subjects like the feigned madness of Odysseus, and the anguish of
Philoctetes in Lemnos. His supposed contest with Zeuxis is well known. The grapes
painted by Zeuxis deceived the birds, which flew to peck at them; while the curtain
painted by Parrhasius deceived Zeuxis himself.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The greatest rival of Zeuxis was Parrhasius of Ephesus. It is true
that some late authors represent him as an Athenian, but there seems no ground
for supposing that, like Polygnotus, he obtained the freedom of Athens. He began
life at Ephesus under his father's (Euenor's) tuition, and went early to Athens,
which was the principal sphere of his activity. It was doubtless here that he
came into contact with Zeuxis; their rivalry, which is by some authors declared
to have been in favour of Parrhasius, appears to have been based principally on
the difference in their methods of art. After the Peloponnesian wars, he seems
to have left Athens, for we hear of him at Rhodes and Samos. About twenty pictures
in all are attributed to him, among which some appear to have been of the character
of genre, others mythological; in the latter class he seems to have come under
the influence of Euripidean tragedy (Robert, Bild und Lied, 35); as, for instance,
in the pictures representing the Healing of Telephus, the Madness of Odysseus,
and Philoctetes on Lemnos.
In the personal traits recorded of Parrhasius, his Ionian character
is strongly marked. His genial self-consciousness comes out in his love of luxury,
in his purple mantle and gold crown; his wit, and his gift of poetry In his own
verse he calls himself habrodiaitos aner; which is turned by a contemporary into
rhabdodiaitos, living by his pencil : and he says that he is Apollinis radice
ortum, that is, through Ion, founder of the Ionian race, sprung from the god.
As to his artistic style, Brunn thinks that he can trace a radical contrast to
that of Zeuxis: in Zeuxis the pictorial element had predominated; Parrhasius displayed
a treatment of form highly finished in the drawing and modelling, Milchhofer draws
attention to his partiality for subjects depicting the emotion of pain, and points
out the peculiar power which such a picture as his Demos of Athens must have demanded,
of representing in one and the same figure the most contrary psychological effects.
In Pliny, xxxv § 68, it is stated that Parrhasius left behind et alia
multa graphidis vestigia in tabulis ac membranis eius ex quibus proficere dicuntur
artifices. The passage has given rise to much discussion; that traces of the graphis
should remain in the easel pictures does not surprise us, but what are the membrana?
Klein proposes to refer them to the sketches which Parrhasius is known to have
made for works of toreutic art; from Pausanias and Athenaeus we learn that more
than one metal-worker were occupied in reproducing in his craft the designs of
this artist. Athenaeus further gives (xi, p. 782 b) the epigram on a skyphos of
Heraclea, which represented the Iliupersis; Gramma Parrhasioio, techna Muos, emmi
de eikon Iliou aipeinas han helon Aiakidai
Moreover Pausanias (i. 28, 2), in describing the work on the shield
of Athene Promachos, says that it was executed by Mys (toreusai Mun): the designs
of Mys for this and all other of his works were drawn by Parrhasius son of Euenor.
It is clear, then, that there was a close connexion between the great painter
and the toreutic art, and it is probable that the emphatic stress laid on the
excellence of Parrhasius' drawing is mainly due to the existence of these graphidis
vestigia. Pliny especially praises his skill in terms which would suit drawings
of this nature, and quotes as his authority two writers who are known to have
published books on the toreutic art. It is therefore highly probable that the
eulogia bestowed upon Parrhasius for his drawing refer specially to this branch,
and are not to be taken as detracting from his merit in the other branches of
his profession. The evidence indeed is rather to the contrary. Of his colouring
we learn from Diodorus (xxvl. 1) that Apelles and Parrhasius in the skilful mixing
of colours brought Painting to its highest point; Parrhasius is in fact the immediate
predecessor of the perfected colouring of Apelles; not yet indeed absolutely perfect
himself, so that he is not included among those in quibus iam perfecta sunt omnia;
but, on the other hand, not to be classed in this respect with Zeuxis, Polygnotus,
and Timanthes, who did not use more than four colours (Cicero, Brutus, 18, 70).
Quintilian, in a comparison between Zeuxis and Parrhasius, says of
the latter that he so circumscribed everything that they call him the Lawgiver,
because the types which he has handed down of gods and heroes are followed, as
of necessity, by all other artists. Klein seeks to show that gods and heroes were
in fact his principal theme; his heroes, in the mentions of them that have come
down to us, appear to have been mainly single portrait figures; of his gods, only
two are named, a Dionysus with Arete (the artist's favourite patroness) and a
Hermes. Whether or no this Hermes was painted by the artist from his own portrait,
it shows us at any rate the close relation which obtains now between the portrait
and the ideal type.
The main difficulties of technique are now overcome, and the period
of struggling with material is well-nigh past; with the new facilities opening
out, it is natural that we should now hear of a number of new claimants to fame:
principal among these stand the representatives of the Sicyonian school. We saw
already that Sicyon had been one of the earliest afoot in the field of Painting;
and there seems no doubt that the tradition had been carried on there uninterruptedly:
but it is in the age following Zeuxis and Parrhasius that its sphere of activity
is most strongly marked. The great sculptor Polycleitus had been a Sicyonian,
and doubtless had left his mark on the character of the training which was imparted,
for high prices, at the Sicyonian school.
This extract is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Parrhasius (Parrasios), one of the most celebrated Greek painters, was a native
of Ephesus, the son and pupil of Evenor (Paus. i. 28.2; Strab. xiv.; Harpoer.
s. r.). He belonged, therefore, to the Ionic school; but he practised his art
chiefly at Athens: and by some writers he is called an Athenian, probably because
the Athenians, who, as Plutarch informs him, held him in high honour, had bestowed
upon him the right of citizenship (Senec. Controv. v. 10; Acro, Schol. ad Horat.
Carm. iv. 8; Plut. This. 4; Junius, Catal. Artif. s. v.). With respect to the
time at which he flourished, there has been some doubt, arising from a story told
by Seneca, which, if true, would bring down his time as late as the taking of
Olynthus by Philip, in Ol. 108, 2, or B. C. 347. But this tale has quite the air
of a fiction; and it is rejected, as unworthy of attention, by all the authorities
except Sillig and Meyer, the latter of whom makes the extraordinary mistake of
bringing down the life of Parrhasius as late as the time of Alexander the Great.
On the other hand, the statement of Pausanias (i. 28.2), that he drew the outlines
of the chasing on the shield of Pheidias's statue of Athena Promachus, would place
him as early as Ol. 84, or B. C. 444, unless we accept the somewhat improbable
conjecture of Muller, that the chasing on the shield was executed several years
later than the statue. Now this date is probably too early, for Pliny places Parrhasius's
father, Evenor, at the 90th Olympiad, B. C. 420 (H. N. xxxv. 9. s. 36.1). According
to this date Parrhasius himself must have flourished about the 95th Olympiad,
B. C. 400, which agrees with all the certain, indications which we have of his
time, such as his conversation with Socrates (Xen. Mem. iii. 10), and his being
a younger contemporary of Zeuxis: the date just given must, however, be taken
as referring rather to a late than to an early period of his artistic career;
for he had evidently obtained a high reputation before the death of Socrates in
B. C. 399.
Parrhasius belongs to that period of the history of Greek painting,
in which the art may be said to have reached perfection in all its essential elements,
though there was still room left for the display of higher excellence than any
individual painter had yet attained, by the genius of an Apelles. The peculiar
merits of Parrhasius consisted, according to Pliny, in accuracy of drawing, truth
of proportion, and power of expression. "He first (or above all) gave to painting
true proportions (symmetriam), the minute details of the countenance, the elegance
of the hair, the beauty of the face, and by the confession of artists themselves
obtained the palm in his drawing of the extremities" (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 9. s.
36.5). His outlines, according to the same writer, were so perfect, as to indicate
those parts of the figure which they did not express. The intermediate parts of
his figures seemed inferior, but only when compared with his own perfect execution
of the extremities.
Parrhasius did for painting, at least in pictures of gods and heroes,
what had been done for sculpture by Pheidias in divine subjects, and by Polycleitus
in the human figure: he established a canon of proportion, which was followed
by all the artists that came after him. Hence Quintilian (xii. 10) calls him the
legislator of his art; and it is no doubt to this that Pliny refers in the words
of the above quotation (primus symmetriam picturae dedit). Several interesting
observations on the principles of art which he followed are made in the dialogue
in the Memorabilia, already referred to.
The character of Parrhasius was marked in the highest degree by that
arrogance which often accompanies the consciousness of pre-eminent ability: "Quo
nemo insolentius sit usus gloria artis", says Pliny. In epigrams inscribed on
his works he not only made a boast of his luxurious habits, calling himself Habrodiaitos,
but he also claimed the honour of having assigned with his own hand the precise
limits of the art, and fixed a boundary which was never to be transgressed. He
claimed (Epigrams in Ath. xii) a divine origin and divine communications, calling
himself the descendant of Apollo, and professing to have painted his Hercules,
which was preserved at Lindus, from the form of the god, as often seen by him
in sleep. When conquered by Timanthes in a trial of skill, in which the subject
was the contest for the arms of Achilles, he observed that for himself he thought
little of it, but that he sympathised with Ajax, who was a second time overcome
by the less worthy (Plin. l. c.; Ath.l. c.; Aelian. V.H. ix. 11; Eustath. ad Hom.
Od. xi. 545). Further details of his arrogance and luxury will be found in the
above passages and in Ath. xv. Respecting the story of his contest with Zeuxis,
see Zeuxis. The numerous encomiums upon his works in the writings of the ancients
are collected by Junius and Sillig.
Of the works of Parrhasius mentioned by Pliny, the most celebrated seems to have
been his picture of the Athenian People, respecting which the commentators have
been sorely puzzled to imagine how he could have exhibited all the qualities enumerated
by Pliny as belonging to his subject--"debebat namque varium, iracundum, injustum,
inconstantem, eundem exorabilem, clementem, misericordem, gloriosum, excelsum,
humilem, ferocem, fugacemque, et omnia pariter ostendere": as to how all these
qualities were expressed Pliny gives us no more information than is contained
in the words aryumento ingenioso. Some writers suppose that the picture was a
group, or that it consisted of several groups; others that it was a single figure;
and Quatremere de Quincy has put forth the ingeniously absurd hypothesis, that
the picture was merely that of an owl, as the symbol of Athens, with many heads
of different animals, as the symbols of the qualities enumerated by Pliny ! The
truth seems to be that Pliny's words do not describe the picture, but its subject;
the word debebat indicates as much: the picture he does not appear to have seen;
but the character of the personified Demos was to be found in the Knights of Aristophanes,
and in the writings of many other authors; and Pliny's words seem to express his
admiration of the art which could have given anything like a pictorial representation
of such a character. Possibly, too, the passage is merely copied from the unmeaning
exaggeration of some sophist.
Another famous picture was his Theseus, which was preserved in the
Capitol, and which appears to have been the picture which embodied the canon of
painting referred to above, as the Doryphorus of Polycleitus embodied that of
sculpture. This work, however, which was the masterpiece of Ionian art, did not
fully satisfy the severer taste of the Helladic school, as we learn from the criticism
of Enphranor, who said that the Theseus of Parrhasius had fed upon roses, but
his own upon beef. (Plut. de Glor. Ath. 2).
The works of Parrhasius were not all, however, of this elevated character.
He painted libidinous pictures, such as the Archigallus, and Meleager and Atalanta,
which afterwards gratified the prurient taste of Tiberius (Plin. l. c.; Suet.
Tib.44). A few others of his pictures, chiefly mythological, are enumerated by
Pliny, front whom we also learn that tablets and parchments were preserved, on
which were the valuable outline drawings of the great artist. He is enumerated
among the great painters who wrote upon their art.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Dec 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
AFRODISIAS (Ancient city) AYDIN
Alexander Aphrodisiensis (Alexandros Aphrodisieus), a native of Aphrodisias in
Caria, who lived at the end of the second and the beginning of the third century
after Christ, the most celebrated of the commentators on Aristotle. He was the
disciple of Herminus and Aristocles the Messenian, and like them endeavoured to
free the Peripatetic philosophy from the syncretism of Ammonius and others, and
to restore the genuine interpretation of the writings of Aristotle. The title
ho exegetes was the testimony to the extent or the excellence of his commentaries...
If we view him as a philosopher, his merit cannot be rated highly.
His excellencies and defects are all on the model of his great master; there is
the same perspicuity and power of analysis, united with almost more than Aristotelian
plainness of style; everywhere "a flat surface" with nothing to interrupt or strike
the attention. In a mind so thoroughly imbued with Aristotle, it cannot be expected
there should be much place for original thought. His only endeavour is to adapt
the works of his master to the spirit and language of his own age; but in doing
so he is constantly recalled to the earlier philosophy, and attacks bygone opinions,
as though they had the same living power as when the writings of Aristotle were
directed against them.
The Platonists and earlier Stoics are his chief opponents, for he
regarded the Epicureans as too sensual and unphilosophical to be worth a serious
answer. Against the notion of the first, that the world, although created, might
yet by the will of God be made imperishable, he urged that God could not alter
the nature of things, and quoted the Platonist doctrine of the necessary coexistence
of evil in all corruptible things. God himself, he said, was the very form of
things. Yet, however difficult it may be to enter into this abstract notion of
God, it would be unjust, as some have done, to charge him with atheism, as in
many passages he attributes mind and intelligence to the divine Being. This is
one of the points in which he has brought out the views of Aristotle more clearly,
from his living in the light of a later age. God, he says, is "properly and simply
one, the self-existent substance, the author of motion himself unmoved, the great
and good Deity, without beginning and without end": and again he asserts, that
to deprive God of providence is the same thing as depriving honey of sweetness,
fire of warmth, snow of whiteness and coolness, or the soul of motion. The providence
of God, however, is not directed in the same way to the sublunary world and the
rest of the universe : the latter is committed not indeed to fate, but to general
laws, while the concerns of men are the immediate care of God, although he find
not in the government of them the full perfection of his being. He saw no inconsistency,
as perhaps there was none, between these high notions of God and the materialism
with which they were connected. As God was the form of all things, so the human
soul was likewise a form of matter, which it was impossible to conceive as existing
in an independent state. He seems however to have made a distinction between the
powers of reflection and sensation, for he says, that the soul needed not the
body as an instrument to take in objects of thought, but was sufficient of itself;
unless the latter is to be looked upon as an inconsistency into which he has been
led by the desire to harmonize the early Peripateticism with the purer principle
of a later philosophy.
The most important treatise of his which has come down to us, is the
"De Fato," an inquiry into the opinions of Aristotle on the subject of Fate and
Freewill. It is probably one of his latest works, and must have been writtn, between
the years 199-211, because dedicated to the joint emperors Severus and Caracalla.
Here the earlier Stoics are his opponents, who asserted that all things arose
from an eternal and indissoluble chain of causes and effects. The subject is treated
practically rather than speculatively. Universal opinion, the common use of language,
and internal consciousness, are his main arguments. That fate has a real existence,
is proved by the distinction we draw between fate, chance, and possibility, and
between free and necessary actions. It is another word for nature, and its workings
are seen in the tendencies of men and things, for it is an all-pervading cause
of real, but not absolute, power. The fatalism of the Stoics does away with freewill,
and so destroys responsibility: it is at variance with every thought, word, and
deed, of our lives. The Stoics, indeed, attempt to reconcile necessity and freewill;
but, properly speaking, they use freewill in a new sense for the necessary co-operation
of our will in the decrees of nature : moreover, they cannot expect men to carry
into practice the subtle distinction of a will necessarily yet freely acting;
and hence, by destroying the accountableness of man, they destroy the foundation
of morality, religion, and civil government. Supposing their doctrine true in
theory, it is impossible in action. And even speculatively their argument from
the universal chain is a confusion of an order of sequence with a series of causes
and effects. If it be said again, that the gods have certain foreknowledge of
future events, and what is certainly known must necessarily be, it is answered
by denying that in the nature of things there can be any such foreknowledge, as
foreknowledge is proportioned to divine power, and is a knowledge of what divine
power can perform. The Stoical view inevitably leads to the conclusion, that all
the existing ordinances of religion are blasphemous and absurd.
This treatise, which has been edited by Orelli, gives a good idea
of his style and method. Upon the whole, it must be allowed that, although with
Ritter we cannot place him high as an independent thinker, he did much to encourage
the accurate study of Aristotle, and exerted an influence which, according to
Julius Scaliger, was still felt in his day.
The following list of his works is abridged from Harles's Fabricius.
I. Peri eimarmenes kai tou eph hemin, De Falo, deque eo quod in nostra potestate
est : the short treatise mentioned above, dedicated to the emperors Severus and
Caracalla; first printed by the successors of Aldus Manutius, 1534
II. Commentarius ((Upomnema) in primum librum Analyticorum Priorum Aristotelis,
Venet. Aldi, 1520
III. Commentarius in VIII libros Topicorum, Ven. Aldi, 1513
IV. Comment. in Elenchos Sophisticos; Graece, Ven. Aldi, 1520
V. Comment. in Metaphysicorum XII libros; ex versione J. G. Sepulvedae, Rom. 1527,
Paris, 1536, Ven. 1544 and 1561.
VI. In librum de Sensu et iis quae sub sensum cadunt ; the Greek text is printed
at the end of the commentary of Simplicius on the De Anima, Ven. Aldi, 1527
VII. In Aristotelis Meterologica; Ven. Aldi, 1527
VIII. De Mistione ; bound up in the same edition as the preceding.
IX. De Anima libri duo (two distinct works), printed in Greek at the end of Themistius
X. Physica Scholia, dubitationes et solutiones; in Greek, Ven. Trincavelli, 1536
XI. Iatrika Aporemata kai Phusika Problemata, Quaestiones Medicae et Problemata
Physica.
XII. Peri Pureton, Libellus de Febribus. The last two treatises are attributed
by Theodore Gaza and many other writers to Alexander Trallianus. They are spoken
of below.
His commentaries on the Categories, on the latter Analytics (of the last there
was a translation by St. Jerome), on the De Anima and Rhetorical works, and also
on those peri geneseos kai phthoras, together with a work entitled Liber I de
Theologia, probably distinct from the Commentaries on the Metaphysics, are still
extant in Arabic. A Commentary on the prior Analytics, on the De Interpretatione,
a treatise on the Virtues, a work entitled peri daimonon logos, a treatise against
Zenobius the Epicurean, and another on the nature and qualities of Stones, also
a book of Allegories from mythological fables, are all either quoted by others
or referred to by himself.
Besides the works universally attributed to Alexander Aphrodisiensis,
there are extant two others, of which the author is not certainly known, but which
are by some persons supposed to belong to him, and which commonly go under his
name. The first of these is entitled Iatrika Aporemata kai Phusika Problemata,
Quaestiones Medicae et Problemata Physica, which there are strong reasons for
believing to be the work of some other writer. In the first place, it is not mentioned
in the list of his works given by the Arabic author quoted by Casiri (Biblioth.
Arabico-Hisp. Escurial.); secondly, it appears to have been written by a person
who belonged to the medical profession, which was not the case with Alexander
Aphrodisiensis; thirdly, the writer refers to a work by himself, entitled Allegoriai
ton eis Theous Anaplattomenon Pithanon Historion, Allegoriae Hiistoriarum Credibilium
de Diis Fabricatarum, which we do not find mention ed among Alexander's works;
fourthly, he more than once speaks of the soul as immortal, which doctrine Alexander
Aphrodisiensis denied; and fifthly, the style and language of the work seem to
belong to a later age. Several eminent critics suppose it to belong to Alexander
Trallianus, but it does not seem likely that a Christian writer would have composed
the mythological work mentioned above. It consists of two books, and contains
several interesting medical observations along with much that is frivolous and
trifling. It was first published in a Latin translation by George Valla, Venet.
1488, The Greek text is to be found in the Aldine edition of Aristotle's works,
Venet. 1495, and in that by Sylburgius, Francof. 1585; it was published with a
Latin translation by J. Davion, Paris. 1540, 1541.
The other work is a short treatise, Peri Pureton, De Febribus, which
is addressed to a medical pupil whom the author offers to instruct in any other
branch of medicine; it is also omitted in the Arabic list of Alexander's works
mentioned above. For these reasons it does not seem likely to be the work of Alexander
Aphrodisiensis, while the whole of the twelfth book of the great medical work
of Alexander Trallianus (to whom it has also been attributed) is taken up with
the subject of Fever, and he would hardly have written two treatises on the same
disease without making in either the slightest allusion to the other. It may possibly
belong to one of the other numerous physicians of the name of Alexander. It was
first published in a Latin translation by George Valla, Venet. 1498, which was
several times reprinted. The Greek text first appeared in the Cambridge Museum
Criticum, transcribed by Demetrius Schinas from a manuscript at Florence; it was
published, together with Valla's translation, by Franz Passow, Vratislav. 1822,
and also in Passow's Opuscula Academica, Lips. 1835. The Greek text alone is contained
in the first volume of Ideler's Physici et Medici Graeci Minores, Berol. 1841.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Herminus (Herminos), a Peripatetic philosopher, a contemporary of Demonax (called by Porphyrius, Vit. Plot. 20, a stoic). He appears to have written commentaries on most of the works of Aristotle. Simplicius (ad Arist. de Caelo, ii. 23, fol. 105) says he was the instructor of Alexander of Aphrodisias. His writings, of which nothing now remains, are frequently referred to by Boethius, who mentions a treatise by him, peri Hermeneias, as also Analytica and Topica.
ANTIOCHIA PROS MAIANDRO (Ancient city) TURKEY
Strabon also states that the famous philosopher Diotrephes lived in Antiokheia, as a very delicious fig was grown in this city in Archaic Period.
Diotrephes, a rhetorician of high repute in his day (sophistes endoxos), born at Antioch on the Maeander. Hybreas, who was contemporary with Strabo, was his pupil. (Strab. xiii. p. 630, xiv.)
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Heraclitus, (Herakleitos). A Greek philosopher of Ephesus, who
lived about B.C. 535-475, during the time of the first Persian domination over
his native city. As one of the last of the family of Androclus, the descendant
of Codrus, who had founded the colony of Ephesus, Heraclitus had certain honorary
regal privileges, which he renounced in favour of his brother. He likewise declined
an invitation of King Darius to visit his court. He was an adherent of the aristocracy,
and when, after the defeat of the Persians, the democratic party came into power,
he withdrew in ill-humour to a secluded estate in the country, and gave himself
up entirely to his studies. In his later years he wrote a philosophical treatise,
which he deposited in the temple of Artemis, making it a condition that it should
not be published till after his death. He was buried in the marketplace of Ephesus,
and for several centuries later the Ephesians continued to engrave his image on
their coins.
Heraclitus was one of the subtlest of all the metaphysicians
of Greece, and his importance as a philosopher lies in the fact that he was the
founder of an independent metaphysical system which sought to obviate the difficulty
of overcoming the contradictions between the one and the phenomenal many. His
great work “On Nature” (Peri Phuseos), in three books, was written in the Ionian
dialect, and is the oldest monument of Greek prose. Considerable fragments of
it have come down to us. The language is bold, harsh, and figurative; the style
is so careless that the syntactical relations of the words are often hard to perceive;
and the thoughts are profound. All this made Heraclitus so difficult a writer
that he went in antiquity by the name "the Obscure" (ho skoteinos),
and Lucretius attacks him on this ground. From his gloomy view of life he is often
called "the Weeping Philosopher," as Democritus is known as "the
Laughing Philosopher."
Knowledge, according to Heraclitus, is based upon perception
by the senses. Perfect knowledge is only given to the gods, but a progress in
knowledge is possible to men. Wisdom consists in the recognition of the intelligence
which, by means of the world-soul, guides the universe. Everything is in an eternal
flux (panta rhei); nothing therefore, not even the world in its momentary form,
nor the gods themselves, can escape final destruction. The ultimate principle
into which all existence is resolvable is fire. As fire changes continually into
water and then into earth, so earth changes back to water and water again to fire.
The world, therefore, arose from fire, and in alternating periods is resolved
again into fire, to form itself anew out of this element. The division of unity,
or of the divine original fire, into the multiplicity of opposing phenomena, is
"the way downwards," and the consequence of a war and a strife. Harmony and peace
lead back to unity by "the way upwards." Nature is constantly dividing and uniting
herself, so that the multiplicity of opposites does not destroy the unity of the
whole. The existence of these opposites depends only on the difference of the
motion on "the way upwards" from that on "the way downwards";
all things, therefore, are at once identical and not identical. The principle
of the universe is "becoming,"which implies that everything is and,
at the same time, is not, so far as the same relation is concerned.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Heracleitus, (Herakleitos), of Ephesus, surnamed phusikos, son of Blyson, a philosopher
generally considered as belonging to the Ionian school, though lie differed from
their principles in many respects. He is said to have been instructed by Hippasus
of Metapontum, a Pythagorean, or by Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic schol,
but neither statement rests on any probable foundation. We read that in his youth
he travelled extensively, and that after his return to Ephesus the chief magistracy
was offered him, which, however, transsferred to his brother. He gave, as his
reason for declining it, the infamous state of morals prevalent in the city, and
employed himself in playing at dice with boys near the temple of Artemis, informing
the passers by that this was a more profitable occupation than to attempt the
hopeless task of governing them. He appears afterwards to have become a complete
recluse, rejecting even the kindnesses offered by Dareius, and at last retreating
to the mountains, where he lived on pot-herbs,but, after some time, he was compelled
by the sickness consequent on such meagre diet to return to Ephesus, where he
died. As to the manner of his death, various absurd stories are related. His age
at the time of his death is said, on Aristoale's authority, to have been sixty
(Diog. Laert. ix. 3, compared with viii. 52), and he flourished about the 69th
Olympiad (Ib. ix. 1), being later than Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecattaeus,
whom he mentions. With this date Suidas agrees, and hence Chnton (F. H. vel. ii
) places him under the year B. C. 513.
The philosophical system of Heracleitus was contained in a work which
received various titles from the ancients, of which the most common is On Nature
(peri phuseos). Some fragments of it remain, and have been collected and explained
by Schleiermacher, in Wolf and Buttmann's Museum der Alterthumswissenschaft. (vol.
i. part 3.) From the obscurity of his style, Heracleitus gained the title of skoteinos,
and, with his predilection for this method of writing, was probably connected
his aristocratical pride and hauteur (whence he was called ochloloidoros), his
tenacious adherence to his own views, which, according to Aristotle, had as much
weight with him as science itself (Eth. Nic. vii. 5), his contempt for the opinions
of previous writers, and the well-known melancholy of his disposition, from which
lie is represented in various old traditions as the contrast to Democritus, weeping
over the follies and frailties at which the other laughed. (See Juv. x. 34.) With
regard, however, to his obscurity, we must also take into account the cause assigned
for it by Ritter, that the oldest philosophical prose must have been rude and
loose in its structure; and, since it had grown out of a poetical style, would
naturally have recourse to figurative language. He starts from the point of view
common to all the Ionian philosophers, that there must be some physical principle,
which is not only the ground of all phenomena, but is also a living unity, actually
pervading and inherent in them all, and that it is the object of philosophy to
discover this principle. He declared it to be fire, but by this expression he
meant only to describe a clear light fluid, " self-kindled and self-extinguished,"
and therefore not differing materially from the air of Anaximenes. Thus then the
world is formed, " not made by God or man," but simply evolved by a natural operation
from fire, which also is the human life and soul, and therefore a rational intelligence,
guiding the whole universe. While, however, the other Ionian philosophers assumed
the real existence of individual things, and from their properties attempted to
discover the original from which they sprang, whether it were water or air, or
any other such principle, Heracleitus paid no regard to these separate individuals,
but fixed his attention solely on the one living force and substance, which alone
he held to be true and permanent, revealing itself indeed in various phenomena,
and yet not permitting them to have any permanence, but keeping them in a state
of continual flux, so that all things are incessantly moving and changing. In
the primary fire, according to Heracleitus, there is inherent a certain longing
to manifest itself in different forms, to gratify which it constantly changes
itself into a new phenomenon, though it feels no desire to maintain itself in
that for any period, but is ever passing into a new one, so that "the Creator
amuses himself by making worlds " is an expression attributed to Heracleitus.
(Procl. ad Tim.) With this theory was connected one of space and motion. The living
and rational fire in its perfectly pure state is in heaven (the highest conceivable
region), whence, in pursuance of its wish to be manifested, it descends, losing
as it goes the rapidity of its motion, and finally settling in the earth, which
is the furthest possible limit of descent. The earth, however, is not to be considered
immovable, but only the slowest of motions. Previous, however, to assuming the
form of earth, fire passes through the shape of water; and the soul of man, though
dwelling in the lower earthly region, must be considered a migrated portion of
fire in its pure state, and therefore an exception to the general rule; according
to which, fire by descending loses its etherial purity. And this, as Ritter remarks,
appears an almost solitary instance of Heracleitus condescending to mould his
theory in any respect according to the dictates of sense and experience. The only
possible repose which Heracleitus allowed the universe was the harmony occasionally
resulting from the fact, that the downward motion of some part of fire will sometimes
encounter the upward motion of another part (for the living fire, after manifesting
itself in the lower earthly phenomena, begins to return to the heaven from which
it descended), and so must produce for some time a kind of rest. Only we must
remember that this encounter is not accidental, but the result of law and order.
Ultimately, all things will return into the fire from which they proceeded and
received their life. The view that all things are arranged by law and order is
also the foundation of his moral theory, for he considered the summum bonum to
be contentment (enarestesis), i.e. acquiescence in the decrees of the supreme
law. The close connection of his physical and moral theories is farther shown
by the fact that he accounted for a drunkard's incapacity by supposing him to
have a wet soul (Stob. Serm. v. 120), and he even pushed this so far as to maintain
that the soul is wisest where the land and climate is driest, which would account
for the mental greatness of the Greeks. (Euseb. Praep. Evang. viii. 14.) There
is not to be found in Heracleitus any dialectical exposition of the sources of
our knowledge. He held man's soul to be a portion of the divine fire, though degraded
by its migration to earth. Hence he seems to have argued that we must follow that
which is commonly maintained by the general reason of mankind, since the ignorant
opinions of individuals are the origin of error, and lead men to act as if they
had an intelligence of their own, instead of a portion of the Divine intelligence.
" Vain man," he said, "learns from God as the boy from the man " (Orig. c. Cels.
vi. 283), and therefore we must trust this source of, knowledge rather than our
own senses, which are generally (though not invariably) deceitful. He considered
the eyes more trustworthy than the ears, probably as revealing to us the knowledge
of fire. The connection of pantheism and atheism is well illustrated by the system
of Heracleitus; nor is it difficult to see how the doctrine of an all-pervading
essence, revealing itself in various phenomena, might serve possibly for the origin,
and certainly for an attempt at a philosophical explanation of a polytheistic
religion. The Greek letters bearing the name of Heracleitus, published in the
Aldine collection of Greek Epistles, Rome, 1499, and Geneva, 1606, and also in
the edition of Eunapius, by Boissonade, are the invention of some later writer.
(Schleiermacher, l. c.; Ritter, Gesch. der Philosophie, vol. i., &c.; Brandis,
Handbuch d. Gesch. der Griech. Rom. Philosophie, vol. i.)
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Editor's Information
The e-texts of the works by Heracletus are found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings.
Hermodorus (Hermodoros). A philosopher of Ephesus, who is said to have assisted, as interpreter, the Roman decemvirs in the composition of the first ten tables of laws which had been collected in Greece (B.C. 451) ."An ancient tradition mentions," says Niebuhr, "as an auxiliary to the Decemviri, in this code, Hermodorus, an Ephesian, the friend of the sage Heraclitus, whom his fellow-citizens had banished because he filled them with shame, and they desired to be all on an equality in profligacy of conduct. It cannot, indeed, be well explained how this story could have been invented, for which nothing but a celebrated name could have given occasion, while that of Hermodorus appears to have been known to the Greeks themselves only by the saying of his friend. On this ground, the naming of the statue, which was inscribed as his at Rome, may pass for genuine."
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Hermodorus, (Hermodoros). Of Ephesus, a person of great distinction, but was expelled by his fellow-citizens, for which Heracleitus censured them very severely. (Diog. Laert. ix. 2; Cic. Tusc. v. 36.) He is said to have gone to Rome to have explained to the decemvirs the Greek laws, and thus assisted them in drawing up the laws of the Twelve Tables, B. C. 451. (Pompon. de Orig. Jur. Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 4.) Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 11) further states, that the Romans expressed their gratitude towards him, by erecting a statue to him in the comitium. This story of his having assisted the decemvirs has been treated by some modern critics as a fiction, or at least has been modified in a manner which reduces his influence upon that legislation to a mere nothing. But, in the first place, it would be arbitrary to reject the authority of Pomponius, or to doubt the merits of Hermodorus, which are sufficiently attested by the statue in the comitium, and, in the second, there is nothing for at all improbable in the statement, that a distinguished Greek assisted the Romans in the framing of written laws, in which they were surely less experienced than the Greeks. In what his assistance consisted is only matter of conjecture: he probably gave accounts of the laws of some Greek states with which he was acquainted, and we may further believe with Niebuhr (Hist. of Rome, vol. ii.), that the share he took related only to the constitution. (Ser. Gratama, de Hermodoro Ephesio vero XII. Tabularum Auctore, Groningen, 1818, 4to.)
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Hermodorus, concerning whom Heracleitus himself says:It were right for the Ephesians from youth upwards to be hanged, who banished their most useful man, saying: 'Let no man of us be most useful; otherwise, let him be elsewhere and with other people.'Hermodorus is reputed to have written certain laws for the Romans.
A Peripatetic philosopher of Ephesus, of whom is told the story that he discoursed for several hours before Hannibal on the military art and the duties of a general. When his admiring listeners asked Hannibal what he thought of him, the latter replied that of all the old fools whom he had ever seen, none could match Phormion.
Dias, of Ephesus, a Greek philosopher of the time of Philip of Macedonia. He belonged to the Academics, and was therefore considered a Sophist, that is, a rhetorician. When he saw the threatening position of Philip towards Greece, he prevailed upon the king to turn his arms against Asia, and advised the Greeks to accompany him on his expedition, saying that it was an honourable thing to serve abroad for the purpose of preserving liberty at home. (Philostr. Vit. Sophist. i. 3.)
Lollianus (Lollianos), a celebrated Greek sophist in the time of Hadrian and Antoninns
Pius, was a native of Ephesus, and received his training in the school of the
Assyrian Isaeus. He was the first person nominated to the professor's chair (Dronos)
of sophistik at Athens, where he also filled the office of strategos epi ton hoplon,
which, under the emperors, had become merely a praefectura annonae. The liberal
manner in which he discharged the duties of this office in the time of a famine
is recorded with well-merited praise by Philostratus. Two statues were erected
to him at Athens, one in the agora, and the other in the small grove which he
is said to have planted himself.
The oratory of Lollianus was distinguished by the skill with which
he brought forward his proofs, and by the richness of his. style: he particularly
excelled in extempore speaking. He gave his pupils systematic instruction in rhetoric,
on which he wrote several works. These are all lost, but they are frequently referred
to by the commentators on Hermogenes, who probably made great use of them. The
most important of these works are cited under the following titles: Techne rhetorike,
peri prooimion kai diegeseon, peri aphormon rhetorikon, &c. (Philostr. Vit. Soph.
i. 23; Suidas, s. v.; Westermann, Gesch. der Griech. Beredsamkeit, 95, 18.)
It was generally supposed till recently, as, for instance, by Bockh,
that the above-mentioned Lollianus is the same as the L. Egnatius Victor Lollianus
whose name occurs in two inscriptions (Bockh, Corp. Inscrip. vol. i.. n. 377 and
n. 1624), in one of which he is described as rhetor, and in the other as proconsul
of Achaia. But it has been satisfactorily shown by Kayser, in the treatise mentioned
below, that these inscriptions do not refer to the sophist at all; and it appears
from an inscription containing an epigram of four lines recently discovered by
Ross at Athens, that the full name of the sophist was P. Hordeonius Lollianus,
who would therefore seem to have been a client of one of the Hordeonii. This inscription
is printed by Welcker in the Rheinisches Museum (vol. i. p. 210, Neue Folge),
as well as by Kayser. (C. L. Kayser, P. Hordeonius Lollianus, geschildert nach
einer noch nicht haeausgegebenen Athenischen Inschrift, Heidelberg, 1841.)
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MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
610 - 547
Anaximander, (Anaximandros). A Greek philosopher of Miletus,
born B.C. 611, and hence a younger contemporary of Thales and Pherecydes. He lived
at the court of Polycrates of Samos, and died B.C. 547. In his philosophy the
primal essence, which he was the first to call arche, was the immortal, imperishable,
all-including infinite, a kind of chaos (apeiron), out of which all things proceed,
and into which they return. He composed, in the Ionic dialect, a brief and somewhat
poetical treatise on his doctrine, which may be regarded as the earliest prose
work on philosophy; but only a few sentences out of it are preserved. The advances
he had made in physics and astronomy are evidenced by his invention of the sundial,
his construction of a celestial globe, and his first attempt at a geographical
map.
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Anaximander (Anaximandros) of Miletus, the son of Praxiades, born B. C. 610 (Apollod.
ap. Diog. Laert. ii. 1, 2), was one of the earliest philosophers of the Ionian
school, and is commonly said to have been instructed by his friend and countryman
Thales, its first founder (Cic. Acad. ii. 37; Simplic. in Aristot. Phys. lib.
i.).
He was the first author of a philosophical treatise in Greek prose,
unless Pherecydes of Syros be an exception (Themist. Orat. xxvi.). His work consisted,
according to Diogenes, of summary statements of his opinions (pepoietai kephalaiode
ten ekthesin), and was accidentally found by Apollodorus. Suidas gives the titles
of several treatises supposed to have been written by him ; but they are evidently
either invented, or derived from a misunderstanding of the expressions of earlier
writers.
The early Ionian philosophy did not advance beyond the contemplation
of the sensible world. But it was not in any proper sense experimental ; nor did
it retain under the successors of Thales the mathematical character which seems
to have belonged to him individually, and which so remarkably distinguished the
contemporary Italian or Pythagorean school. The physiology of Anaximander consisted
chiefly of speculations concerning the generation of the existing universe. He
first used the word arche to denote the origin of things, or rather the material
out of which they were formed: he held that this arche was the infinite (to apeiron),
everlasting, and divine (Arist. Phys. iii. 4), though not attributing to it a
spiritual or intelligent nature ; and that it was the substance into which all
things were resolved on their dissolution.
We have several more particular accounts of his opinions on this point,
but they differ materially from each other.
According to some, the apeiron was a single determinate substance,
having a middle nature between water and air; so that Anaximander's theory would
hold a middle place between those of Thales and Anaximenes, who deduced everything
from the two latter elements respectively; and the three systems would exhibit
a gradual progress from the contemplation of the sensible towards that of the
intelligible (compare the doctrine of Anaximenes concerning air, Plut. de Pluc.
Phil. i. 3), the last step of which was afterwards to be taken by Anaxagoras in
the introduction of nous. But this opinion cannot be distinctly traced in any
author earlier than Alexander of Aphrodisias (ap. Simpl. Phys. fol. 32, a.), though
Aristotle seems to allude to it (de Coel. iii. 5). Other accounts represent Anaximander
as leaving the nature of the apeiron indeterminate (Diog. Laert.; Simplic. Phys.
fol. 6, a; Plut. Plac. Ph. i. 3). But Aristotle in another place (Metaph. xi.
2), and Theophrastus (ap. Simpl. Phys. fol. 6, b, 33, a), who speaks very definitely
and seems to refer to Anaximander's own words, describe him as resembling Anaxagoras
in making the apeiron consist of a mixture of simple unchangeable elements (the
homoiomere of Anaxagoras). Out of this material all things were organized, not
by any change in its nature, but by the concurrence of homogeneous particles already
existing in it; a process which, according to Anaxagoras, was effected by the
agency of intelligence (nous), whilst Anaximander referred it to the conflict
between heat and cold, and to the affinities of the particles (Plut. ap, Euseb.
Praep. Evang. i. 8). Thus the doctrines of both philosophers would resemble the
atomic theory, and so be opposed to the opinions of Thales, Anaximenes, and Diogenes
of Apollonia, who derived all substances from a single but changeable principle.
And as the elemental water of Thales corresponded to the ocean, from which Homer
makes all things to have sprung, so the apeiron of Anaximander, including all
in a confused unorganized state, would be the philosophical expression of the
Chaos of Hesiod.
In developing the consequences of his fundamental hypothesis, whatever
that may really have been, Anaximander did not escape the extravagances into which
a merely speculative system of physics is sure to fall. He held, that the earth
was of a cylindrical form, suspended in the middle of the universe, and surrounded
by water, air, and fire, like the coats of an onion; but that the exterior stratum
of fire was broken up and collected into masses; whence the sun, moon, and stars
; which, moreover, were carried round by the three spheres in which they were
respectively fixed (Euseb. l. c. ; Plut. de Plac. ii. 15, 16; Arist. de Coel.
ii. 13).
According to Diogenes, he thought that the moon borrowed its light
from the sun, and that the latter body consisted of pure fire and was not less
than the earth; but the statements of Plutarch (de Plac. ii. 20, 25) and Stobaeus
(Ecl. i. 26, 27) are more worthy of credit; namely, that he made the moon 19 and
the sun 28 times as large as the earth, and thought that the light of the sun
issued through an orifice as large as the earth; that the moon possessed an intrinsic
splendour, and that its phases were caused by a motion of rotation.
For his theory of the original production of animals, including man,
in water, and their gradual progress to the condition of land animals, see Plut.
de Plac. v. 19; Euseb. l. c.; Plut. Sympos. viii. 8; Orig. Phil. c. 6; and compare
Diod. i. 7. He held a plurality of worlds, and of gods; but in what sense is not
clear. (Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 10; Plut. de Plac. i. 7)
The use of the Gnomon was first introduce into Greece by Anaximander
or his contemporaries (Favorin. ap. Diog. l. c.; Plin. ii. 8; Herod. ii. 109).
The assertion of Diogenes that he invented this instrument, and also geographical
maps, cannot be taken to prove more than the extent of his reputation. It probably
consisted of a style on a horizontal plane, and its first use would be to determine
the time of noon and the position of the meridian by its shortest shadow during
the day; the time of the solstices, by its shortest and longest meridian shadows;
and of the equinoxes, by the rectilinear motion of the extremity of its shadow:
to the latter two purposes Anaximander is said to have applied it; but since there
is little evidence that the ecliptic and equinoctial circles were known in Greece
at this period, it must be doubted whether the equinox was determined otherwise
than by a rough observation of the equality of day and night. Anaximander flourished
in the time of Polycrates of Samos, and died soon after the completion of his
64th year, in Ol. lviii. 2 (B. C. 547), according to Apollodorus. But since Polycrates
began to reign B. C. 532, there must be some mistake in the time of Anaximander's
death, unless the elder Polycrates (mentioned by Suidas, s. v. Ibukos) be meant.
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585 - 525
Anaximenes. A Greek philosopher of Miletus, a younger contemporary and pupil
of Anaximander, who died about B.C. 502. He supposed air to be the fundamental
principle, out of which everything arose by rarefaction and condensation. This
doctrine he expounded in a work, now lost, written in the Ionic dialect.
Anaximenes, who is usually placed third in the series of Ionian philosophers,
was born at Miletus, like Thales and Anaximander, with both of whom he had personal
intercourse: for besides the common tradition which makes him a disciple of the
latter, Diogenes Laertius quotes at length two letters said to have been written
to Pythagoras by Anaximenes; in one of which he gives an account of the death
of Thales, speaking of him with reverence, as the first of philosophers, and as
having been his own teacher. In the other, he congratulates Pythagoras on his
removal to Crotona from Samos, while he was himself at the mercy of the tyrants
of Miletus, and was looking forward with fear to the approaching war with the
Persians, in which he foresaw that the Ionians must be subdued (Diog. Laert. ii.
3, &c.).
There is no safe testimony as to the exact periods of the birth and
death of Anaximenes: but since there is sufficient evidence that he was the teacher
of Anaxagoras, B. C. 480, and he was in repute in B. C. 544, he must have lived
to a great age (Strab. xiv.; Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 11).
Like the other early Greek philosophers, he employed himself in speculating
upon the origin, and accounting for the phenomena, of the universe: and as Thales
held water to be the material cause out of which the world was made, so Anaximenes
considered air to be the first cause of all things, the primary form, as it were,
of matter, into which the other elements of the universe were resolvable (Aristot.
Metaph. i. 3). For both philosophers seem to have thought it possible to simplify
physical science by tracing all material things up to a single element: while
Anaximander, on the contrary, regarded the substance out of which the universe
was formed as a mixture of all elements and qualities. The process by which, according
to Anaximenes, finite things were formed from the infinite air, was that of compression
and rarefaction produced by motion which had existed from all eternity: thus the
earth was created out of air made dense, and from the earth the sun and the other
heavenly bodies (Plut. ap. Euseb. Praep. Evang. i. 8). According to the same theory,
heat and cold were produced by different degrees of density of the primal element:
the clouds were formed by the thickening of the air; and the earth was kept in
its place by the support of the air beneath it and by the flatness of its shape
(Plut. de Pr. Frig. 7, de Plac. Ph. iii. 4; Aristot. Metaph. ii. 13).
Hence it appears that Anaximenes, like his predecessors, held the
eternity of matter : nor indeed does he seem to have believed in the existence
of anything immaterial; for even the human soul, according to his theory, is,
like the body, formed of air (Plut. de Plac. Ph. i. 3); and he saw no necessity
for supposing an Agent in the work of creation, since he held that motion was
a natural and necessary law of the universe. It is therefore not unreasonable
in Plutarch to blame him, as well as Anaximander, for assigning only the material,
and no efficient, cause of the world in his philosophical system.
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Dionysius. Of Miletus, a sophist of the time of the emperor Hadrian. He was a pupil of Isaeus the Assyrian, and distinguished for the elegance of his orations. He was greatly honoured by the cities of Asia, and more especially by the emperor Hadrian, who made him praefect of a considerable province, raised him to the rank of a Roman eques, and assigned to him a place in the museum of Alexandria. Notwithstanding these distinctions, Dionysius remained a modest and unassuming person. At one time of his life he taught rhetoric at Lesbos, but he died at Ephesus at an advanced age, and was buried in the marketplace of Ephesus, where a monument was erected to him. Philostratus has preserved a few specimens of his oratory. (Vit. Soph. i. 20.2, c. 22; Dion Cass. lxix. 3; Eudoc.; Suidas.)
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Eubulides (Euboulides). A native of Miletus and successor of Euclid in the Megaric school. He was a strong opponent of Aristotle, and seized every opportunity of censuring his writings and calumniating his character. He introduced new subtleties into the art of disputation, several of which, though often mentioned as proof of great ingenuity, deserve only to be remembered as examples of egregious trifling. Of these sophistical modes of reasoning, called by Aristotle "Eristic syllogisms," a few examples may suffice. (1) The Lying. If, when you speak the truth, you say, you lie, you lie: but you say you lie when you speak the truth; therefore, in speaking the truth, you lie. (2) The Occult. Do you know your father? Yes. Do you know this man who is veiled? No. Then you do not know your father, for it is your father who is veiled. (3) Electra. Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, knew her brother and did not know him; she knew Orestes to be her brother, but she did not know that person to be her brother who was conversing with her. (4) Sorites. Is one grain a heap? No. Two grains? No. Three grains? No. Go on, adding one by one; and if one grain be not a heap, it will be impossible to say what number of grains make a heap. (5) The Horned. You have what you have not lost: you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns. In such high repute were these quibbles that Chrysippus wrote six books on the first of them; and Philetas of Cos died of consumption which he contracted in the close study which he bestowed upon them.
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Eubulides (Euboulides), of Miletus, a philosopher who belonged to the Megaric school. It is not stated whether he was the immediate or a later successor of Eucleides (Diog. Laert. ii. 108); nor is it said whether he was an elder or younger contemporary of Aristotle, against against whom he wrote with great bitterness (Diog. Laert. ii. 109; Athen. vii.; Aristot. ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev. xv. 2.). The statement that Demosthenes availed himself of his dialectic instruction (Plut. Vit. X Orat.; Apul. Orat. de Mag.; Phot. Bibl. Cod. 265) is alluded to also in a fragment of an anonymous comic poet (ap. Diog. Laert. ii. 108). There is no mention of his having written any works, but he is said to have invented the forms of several of the most celebrated false and captious syllogisms (Diog. Laert. l. e.), some of which, however, such as the dialanthanion and the keratines, were ascribed by others to the later Diodorus Cronus (Diog. Laert. i. 111), and several of them are alluded to by Aristotle and even by Plato. Thus the enkekalummenos, dialanthanon or Elektra, which are different names for one and the same form of syllogism, as well as the pseudomenos and keratines, occur in Aristotle (El. Soph. 24, 25, 22), and partially also in Plato (Euthyd.). We cannot indeed ascertain what motives Eubulides and other Megarics had in forming such syllogisms, nor in what form they were dressed up, on account of the scantiness of our information upon this portion of the history of Greek philosophy; but we may suppose, with the highest degree of probability, that they were directed especially against the sensualistic and hypothetical proceedings of the Stoics, and partly also against the definitions of Aristotle and the Platonists, and that they were intended to establish the Megaric doctrine of the simplicity of existence, which could be arrived at only by direct thought. Apollonius Cronus, the teacher of Diodorus Cronus, and the historian Euphantus, are mentioned as pupils of Eubulides.
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Leucippus. Presocratic philosopher and atomist. His views were more fully developed and expressed by Democritus and Epicurus.
Editor's information: All information about Leucippus at Ancient Abdera, the seat of the Atomist school.
NYSSA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Jason, of Nysa, a Stoic philosopher, son of Menecrates, and, on the mother's side, grandson of Posidonius, of whom also he was the disciple and successor. He therefore flourished after the middle of the first century B. C. (Clinton, Fasti, vol. iii. s. a. 51, B. C.) Suidas (s. v.) mentions his works Bioi endoxon and Philosophon diadochai, and adds that some ascribed to him a Bios Hellados, in four books, which, however, as well as the work Peri Hpodou, should perhaps be assigned to Jason of Argos.
TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Asclepius of Tralles, a Peripatetic philosopher and a disciple of Ammonius, the son of Hermias. He lived about A. D. 500, and wrote commentaries on the first six or seven books of Aristotle's Metaphysics and on the arithmetike of Nicomachus of Gerasa. These commentaries are still extant in MS.
YLLARIMA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Hierocles. Of Hyllarima in Caria, is mentioned by Stephanus Byzantius (s. v. Hullarima),
and from an athlete turned philosopher. Whether he is the same as the Stoic who
is spoken of by Gellius (ix. 5), cannot be decided. Vossius (de Hist. Graec.,
ed. Westermann) conjectures that he is the same as Hierocles the author of a work
entitled Oeconomicus, from which some extracts are preserved in Stobaeus (Flor.
lxxxiv. 20, 23, lxxxv. 21, lxxix. 53, xxxix. 34-36, lxvii. 21-24), and that he
also was the author of a work on justice (Stob. viii. 19). though the name is
there perhaps a mistake for Hierax. (Comp. v. 60, ix. 56-59, x. 77, 78, xciii.
39.) There is also a Hierocles, of whom there is still extant a commentary on
the golden verses of Pythagoras, and who may be the same as the one of Hyllarima.
Suidas, it is true, calls him an Alexandrian, but this may be only because he
studied philosophy at Alexandria. (Comp. No. 5.) Vossius goes still further, and
identifies him with the Hierocles who compared Apollonius of Tyana with Jesus
Christ, in a work to which Eusebius wrote a reply (see No. 4) : it is, however,
not impossible that Hierocles of Hyllarima may be the same as the one alluded
to by Apostolius. (Proverb. viii. 20, xi. 90.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Callinus, (Kallinos). The creator of the Greek political elegy.
He was a native of Ephesus, and flourished probably about B.C. 700, at the time
when the kings of Lydia were harassing the Greek colonies of Asia Minor by constant
wars. One elegy from his hand has survived, in which, in a simple and manly tone,
he endeavours to arouse the degenerate youth of his fatherland.
Callinus (Kallinos), of Ephesus, the carliest Greek elegiac poet, whence either he or Archilochus is usually regarded by the ancients as the inventor of elegiae poetry. As regards the time at which he lived, we have no definite statement, and the ancients themselves endeavoured to determine it from the historical allusions which they found in his elegies. It has been fixed by some at about B. C. 634, and by others at about B. C. 680, whereas some are inclined to place Callinus as far back as the ninth century before the Christian aera, and to make him more ancient even than Hesiod. The main authorities for determining his age are Strabo (xiv.), Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. i.), and Athenaecus (xii.). But the interpretation of these passages is involved in considerable difficulty, since the Cimmerian invasion of Asia Minor, to which they allude, is itself very uncertain; for history records three different inroads of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor. We cannot enter here into a refutation of the opinions of others, but confine ourselves to our own views of the case. From Strabo it is evident that Callinus, in one of his poems, mentioned Magnesia on the Maeander as still existing, and at war with the Ephesians. Now, we know that Magnesia was destroyed by the Treres, a Cimmerian tribe, in B. C. 727, and consequently the poem referred to by Strabo must have been written previous to that year, perhaps about B. C. 730, or shortly before Archilochus, who in one of his earliest poems mentioned the destruction of Magnesia. Callinus himself, however, appears to have long survived that event; for there is a line of his which is usually referred to the destruction of Sardis by the Cimmerians, about B. C. 678. If this calculation is correct, Callinus, must have been in the bloom of life at the time of the war between Magnesia and Ephesus, in which he himself perhaps took a part. We possess only a very few fragments of the elegies of Callinus, but among them there is one of twenty-one lines, which forms part of a war-elegy, and is consequently the most ancient specimen of this species of poetry extant (Stobaeus, Floril. li. 19). In this fragment the poet exhorts his countrymen to courage and perseverance against their enemies, who are usually supposed to be tile Magnesians, but the fourth line of the poem seems to render it more probable that Callinus was speaking of the Cimmerians. This elegy is one of great beauty, and gives us the highest notion of the talent of Callinus. It is printed in the various collections of the "Poetae Graeci Minores". All the fragments of Callinus are collected in N. Bach's Callini, Tyrtaei et Asii Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1831).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Elegia (elegeion, a distich consisting of an hexameter line followed by a pentameter;
then in the plural, a collection of such distichs, and hence elegeia). The general
term in Greek for any poem written in the elegiac metre, a combination of the
dactylic hexameter and pentameter in a couplet. The word elegos is probably not
Greek, but borrowed from the Lydians, and means a plaintive melody accompanied
by the flute. How it happened that the word was applied to elegiac poetry, the
earliest representatives of which by no means confined it to mournful subjects,
is doubtful. It may be that the term was chosen only in reference to the musical
setting, the elegy having originally been accompanied by the flute. Like the epic,
the elegy was a production of the Ionians of Asia Minor. (See Epos.)
Its dialect was the same as that of the epos, and its metre only a variation of
the epic metre, the pentameter being no more than an abbreviation of the hexameter.
The elegy marks the first transition from the epic to lyric proper. The
earliest representatives of the elegy, Callinus of Ephesus (about B.C. 700)
and Tyrtaeus of Aphidnae in Attica (about B.C. 600), gave it a decidedly warlike
and political direction, and so did Solon (B.C. 640-559) in his earlier poems,
though his later elegies have mostly a contemplative character. The elegies of
Theognis of Megara (about B.C. 540), though gnomic and erotic, are essentially
political. The first typical representative of the erotic elegy was Mimnermus
of Colophon, an elder contemporary of Solon. The elegy of mourning or sorrow was
brought to perfection by Simonides of Ceos (died B.C. 469). After him the emotional
element predominated. Antimachus of Colophon (about B.C. 400) gave the elegy a
learned tinge, and was thus the prototype of the elegiac poets of Alexandria,
Phanocles, Philetas of Cos, Hermesianax of Colophon, and Callimachus of Cyrene,
the master of them all. The subject of the Alexandrian elegy is sometimes the
passion of love, with its pains and pleasures, treated through the medium of images
and similes taken from mythology; sometimes learned narrative of fable and history,
from which personal emotion is absent.
This type of elegy, with its learned and obscure manner, was taken
up and imitated at Rome towards the end of the Republic. The Romans soon easily
surpassed their Greek masters both in warmth and sincerity of feeling and in finish
of style. The elegies of Catullus are among their earliest attempts; but in the
Augustan Age, in the hands of Cornelius Gallus , Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid,
the elegiac style was entirely appropriated by Latin literature. Ovid, in his
Fasti, showed how a learned subject could be treated in this metre. From his time
onward the elegiac metre was constantly employed, and was used even in schools
for practice in style. In the later literature it was applied, like the epic metre,
to every possible subject, as, for instance, by Rutilius Namatianus in the description
of his return from Rome to Gaul (A.D. 416). In the sixth century A.D. the poet
Maximianus, born in Etruria at the beginning of that century, is a late instance
of a genuine elegiac poet.
This text is cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ananius (Ananios), a Greek iambic poet, contemporary with Hipponax (about 540 B. C.) The invention of the satyric iambic verse called Scazon is ascribed to him as well as to Hipponax. (Hephaest. p. 30, 11, Gaisf.) Some fragments of Ananius are preserved by Athenaeus, and all that is known of him has been collected by Welcker. (Hipponactis et Ananii Iambographorum Fragmenta)
Ctesias, of Ephesus, an epic poet, who is mentioned by Plutarch (de Fluv. 18) as the author of an epic poem, Perseis. His age is quite unknown. Welcker (Der Episch. Cycl.) considers this Ctesias to be the same as the Musaeus (which he regards as a fictitious name) of Ephesus to whom Suidas and Eudocia ascribe an epic poem, Perseis, in ten books. But this is a mere conjecture, in support of which little can be said.
Hipponax. A Greek iambic poet of Ephesus, who about B.C. 540
was banished to Clazomenae by Athenagoras and Comas, tyrants of his native city.
At Clazomenae, two sculptors, Bupalus and Athenis, made the little, thin, ugly
poet ridiculous in caricature; but he avenged himself in such bitter iambic verses
that, like Lycambes and his daughter, who were persecuted by Archilochus, they
hanged themselves.
The burlesque character of the poems which he composed in the
Ionic dialect found an appropriate form in his favourite metre, which was probably
invented by himself. This metre is known as the choliambus ("the halting
iambus"), or the scazon ("limping"), from its having a spondee
or trochee in the last place, instead of the usual iambic foot. He is also reckoned
among the very first to produce parodies of epic poetry, and in his satire he
spared neither his own parents nor the gods. Of his poems we have only a few fragments,
which are collected by Bergk in his Poetae Lyrici Graeci (4th ed. 1878).
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hipponax, (Ipponax). Of Ephesus, the son of Pytheus and Protis, was, after Archilochus
and Simonides, the third of the classical Iambic poets of Greece. (Suid. s. v.
; Strabo, xiv.; Clem. Alex. Strom. i.; Procl. Chrestom. ap. Phot. Cod. 239, ed.
Bekker; Solin. xl. 16.) He is ranked among the writers of the Ionic dialect. (Gram.
Leid. ad calcem Gregor. Cor.; comp. Tzetz. Proley. ad Lycoph. 690.) The exact
date of Hipponax is not agreed upon, but it can be fixed within certain limits.
The Parian marble (Ep. 43) makes him contemporary with the taking of Sardis by
Cyrus (B. C. 546) : Pliny (xxxvi. 5. s. 4.2) places him at the 60th Olympiad,
B. C. 540: Proclus (l. c.) says that he lived under Dareius (B. C. 521--485) :
Eusebius (Chron. Ol. 23), following an error already pointed out by Plutarch (de
Mus. 6, vol. ii.), made him a contemporary of Terpander; and Diphilus, the comic
poet, was guilty of (or rather he assumed as a poetic licence) the same anachronism
in representing both Archilochus and Hipponax as the lovers of Sappho. (Athen.
xiii.) Hipponax, then, lived in the latter half of the sixth century B. C., about
half a century after Solon, and a century and a half later than Archilochus.
Like others of the early poets, Hipponax was distinguished for his
love of liberty. The tyrants of his native city, Athenagoras and Comas, having
expelled him from his home, he took up his abode at Clazomenae, for which reason
he is sometimes called a Clazomenian. (Sulpicia, Sat. v. 6.) He there lived in
great poverty, and, according to one account, died of want.
In person, Hipponax was little, thin, and ugly, but very strong. (Athen.
xii.; Aelian. V. H. x. 6; Plin. l. c.) His natural defects, like the disappointment
in love of Archilochus, furnished the occasion for the development of his satirical
powers. The punishment of the daughters of Lycambes by the Parian poet finds its
exact parallel in the revenge which Hipponax took on the brothers Bupalus and
Athenis. These brothers, who were sculptors of Chios, made statues of Hipponax,
in which they caricatured his natural ugliness ; and he in return directed all
the power of his satirical poetry against them, and especially against Bupalus.
(Plin. l. c.; Horat. Epod. vi. 14 ; Lucian, Pseudol. 2; Philip. Epiyr. in Anth.
Pal. vii. 405; Brunck. Anal. vol. ii.; Julian. Epist. 30; Schol. ad Aristoph.
Av. 575; Suid. s. v.) Later writers improved upon the resemblance between the
stories of Archilochus and Hipponax, by making the latter poet a rejected suitor
of the daughter of Bupalus, and by ascribing to the satire of Hipponax the same
fatal effect as resulted from that of Archilochus. (Acron. ad Horat. l. c.) Pliny
(l. c.) contradicts the story of the suicide of Bupalus by referring to works
of his which were executed at a later period. As for the fragment of Hipponax
(Fr. vi., Welcker) O Klasomenoioi, Boupalos katekteithen, if it be his (for it
is only quoted anonymously by Rufinus, p. 2712, Putsch.), instead of being considered
a proof of the story, it should more probably be regarded as having formed, through
a too literal interpretation, one source of the error.
The most striking feature in the satirical Iambics of Hipponax is
the change which he made in the metre, by introducing a Spondee or Trochee in
the last foot, instead of an Iambus. This change made the verse irregular in its
rhythm (arruthmon), and gave it a sort of halting movement, whence it was called
the Choliambus (Choliambos, lame iambic), or Iambus Scazon (skason, limping).
By this change the Iambic Trimeter was converted into much ingenuity has been
expended in the explanation of the effect of this change; but only let the reader
recite, or rather chaunt, a few verses of Hipponax according to the above rhythm,
and he will have little difficulty in perceiving how admirably adapted it is to
the warm, but playful satire of the poet. He introduces similar variations into
the other Iambic metres, and into the Trochaic Tetrameter.
When the variation on the sixth foot of the trimeter coexists with
a spondee in the fifth place, the verse becomes still more irregular, and can,
in fact, hardly be considered an Iambic verse, but is rather a. combination of
an iambic diameter with a trochaic monometer. Such lines are called by the grammarians
Ischiorrhogic (broken-backed) : they are very rarely used by Hipponax. The choliambics
of Hipponax were imitated by many later writers: among others, the Fables of Babrius
are composed entirely in this metre. (Clem. Alex. Strom. i.; Cic. Orat. 56; Athen.
xv.; and the Latin grammarians, see Welcker, p. 18; Bockh, de Metr. Pind.) A few
of the extant lines of Hipponax are in the pure iambic metre; but there is no
evidence that he used such verses in connection with choliambi in the same poem.
We know, from Suidas, that he wrote other poems besides his choliambi
and his parody. His choliambi formed two books, if not more. (Bekker, Anecd. vol.
i.; Pollux, x. 18.) The other poems mentioned by Suidas were probably lyrical.
As to parody, of which Suidas and Polemo (Athen. xv.) make him the inventor (though
it is self-evident that the origin of parody is much older), we possess the opening
of a poem in heroic metre which he composed as a parody on the Iliad. (Athen.
l. c.) The Achilles of the parody is an Ionian glutton, and the object of the
poet seems to have been to satirize the luxury of the Ionians. (See Mozer, Ueber
d. parod. Poes. d. Griech. in Daub and Creuzer's Studien, vol. vi., Heidelb. 1811.)
The choliambics of Hipponax, though directed chiefly against the artists
Bupalus and Athenis, embraced also other objects of attack. He severely chastised
the effeminate luxury of his Ionian brethren; he did not spare his own parents;
and he ventured even to ridicule the gods. The ancients seem to have regarded
him as the bitterest and most unkindly of all satirists, generally coupling his
name with the epithet pikros. (Eustath. in Od. xi.; Cic. Epist. ad Fam. vii. 24.)
Leonidas of Tarentum, in an elegant epigram, warns travellers not to pass too
near his tomb, lest they rouse the sleeping wasp (Brunck. Anal. vol. i.); and
Alcaeus of Messene says that his grave, instead of being covered, like that of
Sophocles, with ivy, and the vine, and climbing roses, should be planted with
the thorn and thistle. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i.) But Theocritus, probably with greater
truth, warns the wicked alone to beware of his tomb, and invites the good to sit
near it without fear, applying to the poet at the same time the honourable epithet
of mousopoios. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i.) He may be said to occupy a middle place
between Archilochus and Aristophanes. He is as bitter, but not so earnest, as
the former, while in lightness and jocoseness he more resembles the latter. Archilochus,
in his greatest fury, never forgets his dignity: Hipponax, when most bitter, is
still sportive. This extends to his language, which abounds with common words.
Like most satirists, he does not spare the female sex, as, for instance, in the
celebrated couplet in which he says that " there are two happy days in the
life of a married man--that in which he receives his wife, and that in which he
carries out her corpse."
There are still extant about a hundred lines of his poems, which are
collected by Welcker (Hipponactis et Ananu Iambographorum Fragmenta, Getting.
1817, 8vo.), Bergk (Poetae Lyrici Graeci), Schneidewin (Delect. Poes. Graec.),
and by Meineke, in Lachmann's edition of Babrius. (Babru Fat. Aesop. C. Lachmannus
et amic. emend., ceteror. poet. chcliamb. ab A. Meinekio coll. et emend. Berol.
1845.) Several ancient grammarians wrote in Hipponax, especially Hermippus of
Smyrna. (Schol. ad Arist. Pac. 484; Athen. vii.)
Contemporary with Hipponax was another iambic poet, Ananius or Ananias.
The two poets are so closely connected with one another that, of the existing
fragments, it is sometimes impossible to determine which belongs to the one and
which to the other.
The invention of the choliambus is by some ascribed to Ananius. One
grammarian attributes the regular Choliambus to H ipponax, and the Ischiorrhogic
verse to Ananius (see Tyrwhitt, Dissert. de Babrio), but no reliance can be placed
on this statement. The fragments of Ananius accompany those of Hipponax in the
collections mentioned above. (Welcker, as above cited ; Muller, Hist. of Lit.
of Greece; Ulrici, Gesch. d. Hellen. Dichtkunst, vol. ii.; Bode, Gesch. d. Hellen.
Dichtkunst, vol. ii.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Herodes, an ancient Greek Iambic poet, a contemporary and rival, as it seems, of Hipponax, though there is some doubt about the true reading of the line in which Hipponax mentions him. The ancient writers quote several choliambic lines of Herodes, who also wrote mimes in Iambic verse.
(Manouel ho Philes). A Byzantine poet, and a native of Ephesus, was born about A.D. 1275, and died about 1340. His poem, De Animalium Proprietate, chiefly derived from Aelian, is edited with a revised text by Lehrs and Dubner in the Bucolici Graeci, forming part of Didot's Bibliotheca Graeca (Paris, 1846), and his other poems on various subjects by Wernsdorf (Leip. 1768
Menecrates, A poet of Ephesus, who wrote of husbandry, Varr. R. R. 1, 1, 9
Ion, of Ephesus, a rhapsodist in the time of Socrates, from whom one of Plato's dialogues is named, has been confounded by many writers with Ion of Chios; but Bentley has clearly proved that they are different from the character and circumstances of the rhapsodist as described by Plato. (Epist. ad Mill.; Nitzsch, Proleg. ad Plat. Ion. ; Kayser, Hist. Crit. Trag. Graec. p. 180.)
MAGNESIA ON MEANDROS (Ancient city) TURKEY
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Timotheus, (Timotheos). A celebrated musician and poet of the
later Athenian dithyramb. He was a native of Miletus, and the son of Thersander.
He was born B.C. 446, and died in 357, in the ninetieth year of his age. He was
at first unfortunate in his professional efforts. Even the Athenians, fond as
they were of novelty, were offended at the bold innovations of Timotheus, and
hissed his performance. On this occasion it is said that Euripides encouraged
Timotheus by the prediction that he would soon have the theatres at his feet.
This prediction appears to have been accomplished in the vast popularity which
Timotheus afterwards enjoyed. He delighted in the most artificial and intricate
forms of musical expression, and he used instrumental music, without a vocal accompaniment,
to a greater extent than any previous composer. Perhaps the most important of
his innovations, as the means of introducing all the others, was his addition
to the number of the strings of the cithara, which he seems to have increased
to eleven.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Timotheus : Perseus Encyclopedia
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