Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/695

Rh CIIAEREAS. was successfully advocated by Demosthenes in B.C. .•J5.5. (Pint. Phoc. 6, 7 ; Dem. c. I^ept. pp. 479 — 483.) Pausanias (i. 29) speaks of the tomb of Chabrias as lying between those of Pericles and Phonuion on the way from the city to the Aca- demy. [E. E.] CHAE'REA, C. CA'SSIUS, the slayer of the emperor Caligula, was tribune of the praetorian cohort. He is said to have been incited to con- spire against the emperor partly by his noble spirit and love of liberty, partly by his disgust at the cruelties which he was employed to execute, partly by his suspicion that the confidence and fiivour of Caligula was the forerunner of his des- truction, and most of all by the insults of the em- peror, who used himself to ridicule him as if he were Jui effeminate person, and to hold him up to ridicule to his fellow-soldiers, by giving through him such watchwords as Vmvs and Priapus. Hav- ing formed a conspiracy with Cornelius Sabinus and other noble Romans, he fixed on the Palatine games in honour of Augustus for the time of ac- tion. On the fourth day of the games, as the em- peror was going from the theatre to his palace, the conspirators attacked him in a narrow passage, and killed him with many wounds, Chaerea striking the first blow. (Jan. 24, a. d. 41.) In the confu- sion which ensued, some of the conspirators were killed by the German guards of Caligula ; but others, among whom was Chaerea, escaped into the palace. Chaerea next sent and put to death Cali- gula's wife Caesonia and her daughter. He warmly supported the scheme, which the senators at first adopted, of restoring the republic, and received from the consuls the watchword for the night, — Liberty. But the next day Claudius was made emperor by the soldiers, and his first act was to put Chaerea and the other conspirators to death. Chaerea met his fate with the greatest fortitude, the executioner using, at Chaerea's own desire, the sword with which he had wounded Caligula. A few days afterwards, many of the people made of- ferings to his manes. (Josephus, Ant. Jud. xix. 1-4 ; Sueton. Calig. 56-58, Claud. 11 ; Dion Cass. lix. 29; Zonaras, xi. 7; Seneca, de Const. 18; Aurel. Vict. Caes. 3.) [P. S.] CHAE'REAS {Xaipias). 1. An Athenian, son of Archestratus, was sent by the people of Samos and the Athenian armament there stationed (who were ignorant of the overthrow of the democracy at Athens by the Four Hundred) to report the defeat of a late attempt at an oligarchical revolution in the island, b. c. 411. The crew of the ship were arrested, on their arrival at Athens, by the new government; but Chaereas himself escaping, re- turned to Samos, and, by his exaggerated accounts of the tyranny of the oligarchs, led to the strong measures which ensued in favour of democracy under Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. (Thuc viii. 74, 86.) 2. A historian, so miscalled, of whom Polybius, speaking of his account of the proceedings at Rome when the news arrived of the capture of Saguntum in B. c. 219, says that his writings contained, not history, but gossip fit for barbers' shops, Kovpeaidjs Kal iravSififjLov KaXids. (Polyb. iii. 20.) We find no record either of the place of his birth or of the exact period at which he flourished. A writer of this name is mentioned by Athenaeus also (i. p. 32, d.), but whether he is the same person as the preceding cannot be determined. [E. E.] CHAEREMON. 677 CHAE'REAS, artists. 1. A statuary in bronze, who made statues of Alexander the Great and his father Philip. (Plin. //. N. xxxiv. 8. 8. 10. §14.) 2. A goldsmith. Xaipeas 6 xP^cot^ktwv 6 kutcL vuTov iroiKiAos. (Lucian, Lesriph. xxxiv, 9.) [L. S.] CHAE'REAS, C. FA'NNIUS, seems from his name to have been of Greek extraction, and was perhaps a freedman of some C. Fannius.* He had a slave whom he entrusted to Roscius the actor for instruction in his art, and it was agreed that any profits the man might acquire should be shared between them. The slave was murdered by one Q. Flavius, against " whom accordingly an action was brought by Chaereas and Roscius for damages. Roscius obtained a farm for himself from the de- fendant by way of composition, and was sued by Chaereas, who insisted that he had received it for both the plaintiffs. The matter was at first referred to arbitration, but further disputes arose, and the transaction ultimately gave occasion to the action of Chaereas against Roscius, in which the latter was defended by Cicero in a speech (proQ.Roscio) partially extant. We must form but a low opinion of the respectability of Chaereas if we trust the testimony of Cicero, who certainly indulges himself in the full license of an advocate, and spares neither the character nor the personal appearance of the plaintiff. (See especially c. 7.) [E. E.] CHAERE'CRATES {XaipfKpdTrjs), a disciple of Socrates, is honourably recorded (Xen. Mem. i. 2. § 48) as one of those who attended his instruc- tions with the sincere desire of deriving moral ad- vantage from them, and who did not disgrace by their practice the lessons they had received. An inveterate quarrel between himself and his elder brother Chaerephon serves in Xenophon as the oc- casion of a good lecture on the subject of brotherly love from Socrates, who appears to have succeeded in reconciling them. (Xen. Mem. ii. 3.) [E. E.] CHAERE'MON (Xajprf^ccj'). 1. An Athenian tragic poet of considerable eminence. We have no precise information about the time at which he lived, but he must certainly be placed later than Aristophanes, since, though his style was remark- ably calculated to expose him to the ridicule of a comoedian, he is nowhere mentioned by that poet, not even in the Frogs. On the other hand, he was attacked by the comic poets, Eubulus (Athen. ii. p. 43, c.) and Ephippus, of whom the latter, at least, seems to speak of him as of a contemporary. (Athen. xi. p. 482, b.) Aristotle frequently men- tions him in a manner which, in the opinion of some critics, implies that Chaeremon was alive. {Rhet. ii. 23, 24, iii. 12; Problem, iii. 16 ; Poet. i. 9, xxiv. 6.) The writers also who call him a comic poet (see below) assign him to the middle comedy For these and other reasons, the time when Chae- remon flourished may be fixed about B. c. 380. Nothing is known of his life. It may be assumed that he lived at Athens, and the fragments of hia poetry which remain afford abundant proofs, that he was trained in the loose morality which marked Athenian society at that period, and that his taste was formed after the model of that debased and florid poetry which Euripides first introduced by his innovations on the drama of Aeschylus and Sophocles, and which was carried to its height by the dithyrambic poets of the age. Accordingly, the fragments and even some of the titles of Chae- remon 's plays shew, that be seldom aimed at the