Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/496

Rh 478 BAUCIS. one main object of Pindar in the 4th Pythian ode seems to have been to induce Arcesilaus to adopt a more prudent and moderate course, and in particular to recall Demophilus, a banished Cyre- naean nobleman then living at Thebes. (See espe- cially Pyth. iv. 468, &c., ft yap ris 6^ovs^ k. t, A. ; Bbcich and Dissen, adloc.) It is further probable (Thrige, §45), that the city ''Hesperides" in the Cyrenaic Pentapolis (afterwards called *■' Bere- nice" from the wife of Ptolemy Euergetes) was founded by Arcesilaus IV., with the view of securing a retreat for himself in the event of the successful rebellion of his subjects. It is not known whether he died by violence or not ; but after his death royalty was abolished, and his son Battus, who had fled to Hesperides, was there murdered, and his head was thrown into the sea. Various dates have been assigned for the conclusion of the dynasty of the Battiadae ; but nothing is certain, except that it could not have ended before a c. 460, in which year Arcesilaus IV. won the chariot-race at Olympia, — nor after 401, when we hear of violent seditions between the Cyrenaean nobles and populace. (Diod. xiv. 34 ; Aristot. Polit. vi. 4, ed. Bekk.) Thrige is disposed to place the commencement of popular government about 450. {lies Cyrenensium, ^ 24, 45, 46, 48; comp. Miiller, Dor. iii. 9. § 1 3.) The father of Callima- chus was a Cyrenaean of the name of Battus {Suidas, s. r. KaAtVaxos); and the poet, who is often called " Battiades," seems to have claimed descent from the royal blood. (Callim. Hpnn in Jpoll. 65, &c., Ep. 37 ; Ovid. Trist. ii. 367 ; Catull Ge.) [E. E.] BAUBO {Bav€oi or Bag«), a mythical woman of Eleusis, whom He^xhius calls the nurse of De- meter; but the common story runs thus : — on lier wanderings in search of her daughter, Demeter came to Baubo, who received her hospitably, and offered her something to drink ; but when the god- dess, being too much under the influence of grief, refused to drink, Baubo made such a strange ges- ture, that the goddess smiled and accepted the draught. (Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 17.) In the frag- ment of the Orphic hymn, which Clemens Alex, adds to this account, it is further related, that a boy of the name of lacchus made an indecent ges- ture at the grief of Demeter. Amobius {Adv. Gent. v. p. 175) repeats the story of Baubo from Clemens, but without mentioning the boy lacchus, who is otherwise unknown, and, if meant for Dio- nysus, is out of place here. The different stories concerning the reception of Demeter at Eleusis seem all to be inventions of later times, coined for the purpose of giving a mj'thical origin to the jokes in which the women used to indulge at the festival of this goddess. [Ascalabus and Ascalaphus, No. 2.] [L. S.] BAUCIS, a Phrygian woman, in whose humble dwelling Jupiter and Mercury were hospitably re- ceived, after having been refused admission by every one else in the countr}-. Baucis and her husband Philemon were therefore saved by the gods when they visited the country with an inun- dation ; and Jupiter made Baucis and Philemon priests in his temple; and when the two mortals expressed a wish to die together, Jupiter granted their request by changing them simultaneously into trees. {0 Met. viii. 620-724.) [L. S.] BAUCIS (Bau/cts), a Greek poetess, who is called a disciple of Sappho. She was a native of BEBRYCE. Tenos, and a friend of Erinna. She died at a youth- ful age, just before her marriage, and Erinna is said to have written the epitaph upon her which is still extant, and which, together with another fragment of Erinna, contains all we know about Baucis. {Anthol. Gr. vii. 710, 712 ; Bergk, PoeU Lyr. Gr. p. 633.) " [L. S.] BA'VIUS and MAE'VIUS, whose names have become a bj'^-word of scorn for all jealous and ma- levolent poetasters, owe their unenviable immor- tality solely to the enmity which they displayed towards the rising genius of the most distinguished of their contemporaries, and would probably never have been heard of but for the well-known line of Virgil {Ed,, iii. 90) : " Qui Bavium non odit amet tua carmina, Maevi," the Epode of Horace where evil fortune is heartily anticipated to the ship which bore "rank Maenus" as its freight, and a caustic epigram ) Domitius Marsus, in which one and probably both are wittily assailed. Upon the first of these passages we have the remark of Ser- vius, " Maevius et Bavins pessimi fuenmt poetae, inimici tam Horatio quam Virgilio, unde Horatius Epod. X. etc." and again, upon the " serite hordea cam pis," in Georgic. i. 210, the same commentator observes, " sane reprehensus Virgilius dicitur a Bavio et Maevio hoc versu Hordea qui dixit, superest ut tritica dicat," from which it would appear, that their attJick was in the form of a poetical satire, and was moreover a joint undertaking. Philargyrius, in his exposi- tion of the third Eclogue, after giving the same account of these personages as Servius, adds, that M. Bavins was a " curator," a designation so inde- finite, that it determines nothing except the fact that he enjoyed some public appointment. Finally, St. Jerome, in the Eusebian chronicle, records that M. Bavins, the poet, stigmatised by Virgil in his Bucolics, died in Cappadocia, in the third year of the hundred and eighty-sixth Olympiad, that is, u.c.35. Porphyrion {ad Hot. Sat. ii. 3. 239) tells us, that Maevius was the author of a work upon the son of Aesopus the tragedian, and his luxury ; the old Scholiast published by Longinus {Epod. x.) ob- serves, " Maevius poeta fuit inimicus Horatii, ob- trectator certe omnium virorum doctorum, ipse sectator vocum antiquarum," and an early anno- tator upon the Ibis (1. 525) asserts, that Maevius is the person there spoken of who lampooned the Athenians, was thrown into prison in consequence, and starved to death ; but tliis story has not found credit among scholars, although many disputes have arisen as to the individual actually referred to. To one or other of these worthies has been at- tributed the practical joke played off upon Virgil, who, when rehearsing the first book of his Geor- gics, having chanced to make a pause after the words Nudus ara, sere nudus — some one of the audience completed the verse by exclaiming — habebis frigore febrem. And to them also have been ascribed tlie Anti- bucolica, two pastorals written expressly as a parody upon the Eclogues soon after their publication. (Donat. Vit. Virg. vii. §28, xvi. § 61 ; Weichert, Poet. Lat. Reliqit., &c., p. 308, &c.) [W. R.] BEBIUS MASSA. [Massa.] BEBRYCE (Begpi/KTj), one of the Danaids, whom Apollodorus (ii. 1. § 5) calls Bryce, and