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Agasias, son of Dositheus, a distinguished sculptor of Ephesus. One of the productions
of his chisel, the statue known by the name of the Borghese gladiator, is still
preserved in the gallery of the Louvre. This statue, as well as the Apollo Belvidere,
was discovered among the ruins of a palace of the Roman emperors on the site of
the ancient Antium (Capo d'Anzo). From the attitude of the figure it is clear,
that the statue represents not a gladiator, but a warrior contending with a mounted
combatant. Thiersch conjectures that it was intended to represent Achilles fighting
with Penthesilea. The only record that we have of this artist is the inscription
on the pedestal of the statue; nor are there any data for ascertaining the age
in which he lived, except the style of art displayed in the work itself, which
competent judges think cannot have been produced earlier than the fourth century,
B. C.
It is not quite clear whether the Agasias, who is mentioned as the
father of Heraclides, was the same as the author of the Borghese statue, or a
different person.
There was another sculptor of the same name, also an Ephesian, the
son of Menophilus. He is mentioned in a Greek inscription, from which it appears
that he exercised his art in Delos while that island was under the Roman sway;
probably somewhere about 100, B. C.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Sep 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Mentor. The most celebrated master of the toreutic art among the ancients (Pliny , Pliny H. N.xxxiii. 154). As some of his works were destroyed at the burning of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, in B.C. 356, obviously he lived before that event, and probably flourished in the best period of Greek art, though he is never mentioned by any earlier Greek writer than Lucian (Lexiphanes, 7). He worked mainly in silver. The orator Crassus paid 100,000 sesterces ($4000) for two cups chased by his hand, but, from regard to their value, refrained from using them. Varro possessed a statue wrought by him in bronze; and one Diodorus at Lilybaeum, two fine cups in the style of those adorned with figures of animals by Thericles, the Corinthian potter. Martial (iii. 41) mentions a cup with a lifelike representation of a lizard, and often refers to him (cf. Juv.viii. 104).
Artemidorus Daldianus (Artemidoros). The Dream-interpreter, born at Ephesus at the beginning of the second century A.D., surnamed "the Daldian," from his mother's birthplace, Daldis in Lydia, wrote a work on the interpretation of dreams, the Oneirokritika, in four books. He had gathered his materials from the works of earlier authors and by oral inquiries during his travels in Asia, Italy, and Greece. The book is an acute exposition of the theory of interpreting dreams, and its practical application to examples systematically arranged according to the several stages of human life. An appendix, counted as a fifth book, gives a collection of dreams that have come true. For the light thrown on the mental condition of antiquity, especially in the second century A.D., and for many items of information on religious rites and myths relating to dreams, these writings are of value.
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
Artemidorus Daldianus, was a native of Ephesus, but is usually called Daldianus (Daldianos), to distinguish him from the geographer Artemidorus (Lucian, Philopatr. 22), since his mother was born at Daldia or Daldis, a small town in Lydia. Artemidorus himself also preferred the surname of Daldianus (Oneirocr. iii. 66), which seems to have been a matter of pride with him, as the Daldian Apollo Mystes gave him the especial commission to write a work on dreams (Oncirocr. ii. 70). He lived at Rome in the reign of Antoninus Pius and M. Aurelius, as we may infer from several passages of his work (i. 28, 66, iv. 1), though some writers have placed him in the reign of Constantine, and others identify him with the friend of Pliny the younger, and son-in-law of Musonius (Plin. Epist. iii. 11). But the passages of Artemidorus's own work cited above, place the question beyond all doubt. Artemidorus is the author of a work on the interpretation of dreams (Oneirokritika), in five books, which is still extant. He collected the materials for this work by very extensive reading (he asserts that he had read all the books on the subject), on his travels through Asia, Greece, Italy, and the Grecian islands (Oneir. Prooem. lib. i). He himself intimates that he had written several works, and from Suidas and Eudocia we may infer, that one was called uionoskopika, and the other cheiroskopika. Along with his occupations on these subjects, he also practised as a physician. From his work on dreams, it is clear that he was acquainted with. the principal productions of more ancient writers on the subject, and his object is to prove, that in dreams the future is revealed to man, and to clear the science of interpreting them from the abuses with which the fashion of the time had surrounded it. He does not attempt to establish his opinion by philosophical reasoning, but by appealing to facts partly recorded in history, partly derived from oral tradition of the people, and partly from his own experience. On the last point he places great reliance, especially as he believed that he was called to his task by Apollo (ii. 70). This makes him conceited, and raises him above all fear of censure. The first two books are dedicated to Cassius Maximus. The third and fourth are inscribed to his son. The fifth book is, properly speaking, an independent work, the title of which is peri oneiron anabaseon, and which contains a collection of interesting dreams, which were believed to have been realized. The style of the work is simple, correct, and elegant; and this. together with the circumstance that Artemidorus has often occasion to allude to or explain ancient manners and usages, give to it a peculiar value. The work has also great interest, because it shews us in what manner the ancients symbolized and interpreted certain events of ordinary life, which, when well understood, throws light on various points of ancient mythology. The first edition of the Oneirocritica is that of Aldus, Venice, 1518; the next is that of Rigaltius(Paris, 1603), which contains a valuable commentary; however, it goes down only to the 68th chapter of the second book. The last edition is that of J. G. Reiff, Leipzig, 1805. It contains the notes of Rigaltius, and some by Reiske and the editor.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Anti-Montanist Greek ecclesiastical writer, between 180 and 210, probably from Asia Minor, for he is thoroughly acquainted with the Christian history of Ephesus and the doings of the Phrygian Montanists. If we may accept what the unknown author of "Praedestinatus" says (I, 26, 27, 28; P.L., LIII, 596), he was a Bishop of Ephesus, but the silence of other Christian writers renders this testimony doubtful. He undertook the defence of the Church against Montanus, and followed in the footsteps of Zoticus of Comanus, Julian of Apamaea, Sotas of Anchialus, and Apollinaris of Hierapolis. His work is cited by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, 18), and is praised by St. Jerome (De vir. ill., c. xl), but has been lost, and not even its title is known. It seems certain that it showed the falsity of the Montanist prophecies, recounted the unedifying lives of Montanus and his prophetesses, also gave currency to the report of their suicide by hanging, and threw light on some of the adepts of the sect, including the apostate Themison, and the pseudo-martyr Alexander. The former, having evaded martyrdom by means of money, posed as an innovator, addresing a letter to his partisans after the manner of the Apostles, and finally blasphemed Christ and the Church; the latter, a notorious thief, publicly condemned at Ephesus, had himself adored as a god. We know from Eusebius that Apollonius spoke in his work of Zoticus, who had tried to exorcise Maximilla, but had been prevented by Themison, and of the martyr-Bishop Thraseas, another adversary of Montanism. He very probably gave the signal in it for the movement of opposition to Montanism which the reunion of the first synods developed. At all events, he recalls the tradition according to which Our Lord had advised the Apostles not to go far from Jerusalem during the twelve years immediately following His Ascension, a tradition known to Clement of Alexandria from the apocryphal "Praedicatio Petri". He moreover recounts the restoration to life of a dead man at Ephesus by the Apostle St. John, whose Apocalypse he knew and quotes. He takes rank among the opponents of Montanism with the "Anonymous" of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, 16, 17), with Miltiades and with Apollinaris. Eusebius (loc. cit.) says his work constituted "an abundant and excellent refutation of Montanism". St. Jerome qualified it as "a lengthy and remarkable volume". It did not therefore pass unnoticed, and must have roused some feeling among the Montanists since Tertullian felt it necessary to reply to it. After his six books peri ekstaseos, in which he apologized for the ecstasies into which the Montanist prophetesses fell before prophesying, Tertullian composed a seventh especially to refute Apollonius; he wrote it also in Greek for the use of the Asiatic Montanists.
Francis W. Grey, ed.
Transcribed by: Fr. Paul-Dominique Masiclat, O.P.
This text is cited July 2004 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
Apollonius, a Christian writer, whose parents and country are unknown, but who is believed to have been bishop of Ephesus, and to have lived about the year A. D. 192. He wrote a work exposing the errors and the conduct of the Christian sect called Cataphryges, some fragments of which are preserved in Eusebius. (Hist. Eecles. v. 18, 21.) Tertullian defended the sect of the Montanists against this Apollonius, and the seventh book of his work peri ekstaseos was especially directed against Apollonius.
Alexander (Alexandros), surnamed Lychnus (Luchnos), a Greek rhetorician and poet. He was a native of Ephesus, whence he is sometimes called Alexander Ephesius, and must have lived shortly before the time of Strabo (xiv., who mentions him among the more recent Ephesian authors, and also states, that he took a part in the political affairs of his native city. Strabo ascribes to him a history, and poems of a didactic kind, viz. one on astronomy and another on geography, in which he describes the great continents of the world, treating of each in a separate work or book, which, as we learn from other sources, bore the name of the continent of which it contained an account. What kind of history it was that Strabo alludes to, is uncertain. The so-called Aurelius Victor quotes, it is true, the first book of a history of the Marsic war by Alexander the Ephesian; but this authority is more than doubtful. Some writers have supposed that this Alexander is the author of the history of the succession of Greek philosophers (hai ton philosophon diadochai), which is so often referred to by Diogenes Laertius (i. 116, ii. 19, 106, iii. 4, 5, iv. 62, vii. 179, viii. 24, ix. 61); but this work belonged probably to Alexander Polyhistor. His geographical poem, of which several fragments are still extant, is frequently referred to by Stephanus Byzantius and others (Steph. Byz. s. vv. Aapethos, Taprobane, Doros, Hpsrkanoi, Melitaia, &c.). Of his astronomical poem a fragment is still extant, which has been erroneously attributed by Gale and Schneider to Alexander Aetolus. It is highly probable that Cicero (ad Att. ii. 20, 22) is speaking of Alexander Lychnus when he says, that Alexander is not a good poet, a careless writer, but yet possesses some information.
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
Democritus, (Demokritos). Of Ephesus, wrote works on the Ephesian temple and the town of Samothrace. (Diog. Laert. ix. 49.) A fragment of his is preserved in Athenaeus. (xii.)
Diodorus. Of Ephesus, is mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (viii. 70) as the author of a work on the life and philosophy of Anaximander.
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.
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
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.)
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.
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
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.)
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
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."
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
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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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).
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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.)
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.)
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
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.)
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.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Sep 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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