Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/480

Rh 462 BARJiULA. the Tarentinss in the open field, and took several of their towns. Alarmed at his progress, and trusting to his clemency, as he had treated the prisoners kindly and dismissed some without ran- som, the Tarentines appointed Agis, a friend of the Romans, general with unlimited powers. But the arrival of Cineas, the chief minister of Pyrrhus, almost immediately afterwards, caused this ap- pointment to be annulled ; and as soon as Milo landed with part of the king's forces, he marched against Barbula and attacked the army as it was passing along a narrow road by the sea-coast. By the side of the road were precipitous mountains, and the Tarentine fleet lay at anchor ready to discharge missiles at the Roman army as it march- ed by. The army would probably have been destroyed, had not Barbula covered his troops by placing the Tarentine prisoners in such a manner that they would have become the first object of the enemj^'s artillery. Barbula thus led his army by in safety, as the Tarentines would not injure their own countrymen. Barbula continued in southern Italy after the expiration of his consulship as proconsul. He gained victories over the Samnites and Sallentines, as we learn from the Fasti, which record his tri- umph over these people, as well as over the Etruscans, in Qiiinctilis of 280. (Zonar. viii. 2; Oros. iv. 1 ; Appian, Samn. p. 58, &c., ed. Schw. ; Dionys. Exc. p. 2342, &c,, ed. Reiske ; Frontin. Stmt. i. 4. § 1, where Aemilius PauUus is a mis- take.) 3. M. Aemilius L. f. Q. n. Barbula, son of No. 2, was consul in b. c. 230, and had in con- junction with his colleague the conduct of the war against the Ligurians. (Zonar. viii. 19.) Zonaras says (/. c), that when the CarUiafjinians heard of the Ligurian war, they resolved to march against Rome, but that they relinquished their design when the consuls came into their country, and re- ceived the Romans as friends. This is evidently a blunder, and must in all probability be referred to the Gauls, who, as we learn from Polybius (ii. 21), were in a state of great ferment about this time owing to the lex Flaminia, which had been passed about two years previously, b. c. 232, for the division of the Picentian land. 4. Barbula purchased Marcus, the legate of Brutus, who had been proscribed by the triumvirs in B. c. 43, and who pretended that he was a slave in order to escape death. Barbula took Marcus with him to Rome, where he was recognized at the city- gates by oneof Barbula's friends. Barbula, by means of Agrippa, obtained the pardon of Marcus from Octavianus. Marcus afterwards became one of the friends of Octavianus, and commanded part of his forces at the battle of Actium, b. c. 31. Here he had an opportunity of returning the kindness of his for- mer master. Barbula had served under Antony, and after the defeat of the latter fell into the hands of the conquerors. He, too, pretended to be a slave, and was purchased by Marcus, who procured his par- don from Augustus, and both of them subsequently obtained the consulship at the same time. Such is the statement of Appian {B. C. iv. 49), who does not give us either the gentile or fiimily name of Marcus, nor does he tell us whether Barbula be- longed to the Aemilia gens. The Fasti do not contain any consul of the name of Barbula, but he and his friends may have been consuls suffecti, the names of all of whom are not preserved. BARDESANES. BARCA, the surname of the great Hamilcar, the father of Hanibal. [Hamilcar."} It is pro- bably the same as the Hebrew Barak., which sig- nifies lightning. Niebuhr {Ram. Hist. iii. p. 609) says, that Barca must not be regarded as the name of a house, but merely as a surname of Hamilcar: but, however this may be, we find that the family to which he belonged was distinguished subse- quently as the " Barcine family," and the war and democratical party as the " Barcine party." (Liv. xxi. 2, 9, xxiii. 13, xxviii. 12, xxx. 7, 42.) BARDANES. [Arsaces XXL, p. 358.] BARDESANES, a Syrian writer, whose hia- tory is involved in partial obscurity, owing to the perplexed and somewhat contradictory notices of him that are furnished by ancient authorities. He was bom at Edessa in MesopotJimia, and flourished in the latter half of the second century, and perhaps in the beginning of the third. The Edessene Chronicle (Assemani, BiU. Orient, i. 389) fixes the year of his birth to a. d. 154 ; and Epiphanius {Haer. bQ) mentions, that he lived in favour with Abgar Bar Manu, who reigned at Edessa from a. d. 152 to a. d. 187. It is difficult to decide whether he was originally educated in the principles of the famous Gnostic teacher Valen- tinus (as Eusebius seems to intimate), or whether (as Epiphanius implies) he was brought up in the Christian faith and afterwards embraced the Valentinian heresy. It is clear, however, that he eventually abandoned the doctrines of Valentinus and founded a school of his own. For an account of the leading principles of his theology see Mosheim, de Rebiis Christian, ante Constantinum M. pp. 395—397, or C. W. F. Walch's Ketzer- historie^ vol. i. pp. 415 — 422. Bardesanes wrote much against various sects of heretics, especially against the school of Marcion. His talents are reported to have been of an elevated order, and Jerome, refernng to those of his works which had been translated out of Syriac into Greek, observes, " Si autem tanta vis est et fulgor in inter- pretatione, quantam putamus in sermone proprio." He elsewhere mentions that the writings of Bar- desanes were held in high repute among the philosophers. Eusebius, in his Fraeparatio Evan- yelica (vi. 10), has preserved a fragment of the dialogue on Fate by this writer, and it undoubtedly displays abilities of no ordinary stamp. This frag- ment is published by Gmbe, in his Spicilecfium SS. Patrum., vol. i. pp. 289-299 ; and by Orelli, in the collection entitled Alexajidri,A»imonii^ IHotini^Bar- dcsanis, (|'c., de Fato, quae supersunt^ T.mc, 1824. Grabe there shews that the writer of the Recog- ?iitiunes, falsely ascribed to Clemens Romanus, has committed plagiarism by wholesale upon Bardesanes. It appears from this fragment that the charge of fatalism, preferred against Bardesanes by Augus- tin, is entirely groundless. It is acutely conjec- tured by Colberg (de Orig. et Progress. Haeres. p. 140), that Augustin knew this work of Bardesanes only by its title, and hastily concluded that it contained a defence of fatalism. Eusebius says that this work was inscribed to Antoninus, and Jerome declares that this was the emperor Marcus Aure- lius ; but it was most probably Antoninus Verus, who, in his expedition against the Parthians, was at Edessa in the year 165. Eusebius mentions that Bardesanes wTote several works concerning the persecution of the Christians. The majority of the learned suppose that this was