Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/706

Rh 68a CHARISIUS. age. Three works of Charisius are cited in the Digest. Four extracts (Dig. •22. tit. 5. s. 1 ; Dig. 22. tit. 5. s. 21 ; Dig. 22. tit. 5. s. 25 ; Dig. 48. tit. 18. s. 10) are made from his Liber singularis de Testibus ; one (Dig. 50. tit. 4. s. 18) from his Liber singularis de Muneribus civilibus ; and one (Dig. 1. tit. 1. s. un.) from his Liber singularis de Officio Praefecti praetorio. In the inscription prefixed to the latter passage (Dig. 1. tit. 11. s. un.), he is styled magister libellorum, and Cujas (Obss. vii. 2), probably suspecting that he held office under Constantine, conjectures that he was a Christian. For this conjecture, however, there is no sufficient ground, for, as Ritter has remarked (ad Heineccii Historiam Jur. Rom. § 358), even under Valentinianus the younger, Rome was still for the most part pagan, and men, the most ad- dicted to paganism, held the highest dignities even in the imperial household. Both the matter and the language of the extracts from Charisius in the Digest mark the declining age of jurisprudence and Latinity. The matter betrays the mere compiler. The language is dis- figured by barbarisms, e. g. participales, regimen- turiL, incunctalUe, munus camelasiae. (Jac. Godefroi, ad Cod. Theodos. 11. tit. 30. s. 16; Guil. Grot. Vitae Jurisc. ii. 11 ; Chr. Rau, de Aur. Arc. CliOr risio. Vet. Jurisc.^ 4to., Lips. 1773; Zimmem, R. R. G. l % U.) [J. T. G.] CHARI'SIUS, FLA'VIUS SOSI'PATER, a Latin grammarian, author of a treatise in five books, drawn up for the use of his son, entitled Instituiiones Grammaiicae, which has come down to us in a very imperfect state, a considerable por- tion of the first and fifth books being entirely wanting, as we at once discover by comparing the table of contents presented in the prooemium with what actually remains. It is a careful compilation from preceding writers upon the same subject, such as Flavins Caper, Velius Longus, Terentius Scau- rus, and above all Comrainianus and Julius Ro- manus, from whom whole chapters are cited, and is particularly valuable on account of the number of quotations, apparently very accurate, from lost works. We cjin detect a close correspondence with many passages in the Ars Grammatica of Diomedes, but Charisius is so scrupulous in refer- ring to his authorities, that we are led to conclude, since he makes no mention of Diomedes, that the latter was the borrower. Comminianus is known to have flourished after Donatus and before Servius [Comminianus], therefore Charisius, be- ing mentioned by Priscian, must belong to some period between the middle of the fourth and the end of the fifth centuries. Osann, who has in- vestigated this question with great care, decides that he ought to be placed about the year a. d. 400, in which case he j)robably enjoyed the advantage of consulting the great libraries of the metropolis, before they were pillaged by the Goths. We gather from his own words that he was a native of Campania, in religion a Christian, by profession a grammarian, following his occupation at Rome. Tiie Editio Princeps of Charisius was published by J. Pierius Cyminius, a pupil of Janus Parrha- sius, who first discovered the work, at Naples, foL 1532; the second, superintended by G. Fabricius Chemnicensis, was printed by Frobenius at Basle, 8vo., 1551, and contains many corrections and improvements, but likewise many interpolations, since the editor was not assisted by any MS. ; CHARITON. the third, included in the " Grammaticae Latinae Auctores Antiqui," of Putschius, Hanov. 4to, lfi05, professes to be far more complete and accurate than the preceding, in consequence of the additional matter and various readings obtiiined from an ex- cellent codex, the property of Janus Douza, oi which, however, no detailed account is given, and of which no trace now remains. Niebuhr had paved the way for a new edition by collating and making extracts from the Neapolitan MS. origin- ally emploj'ed by Cyminius, which affords means for greatly purifying and enlarging the text. These materials were promised by Niebuhr to Linde- mann, who, however, in consequence of the death of his friend and the destruction of a portion of his papers by fire, succeeded in obtaining only a copy of Putschius with the various readings of the Neapolitan MS. marked on the margin. These are given in the edition of Charisius, which forms the first part of the fourth volume of the " Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum Veterum," Lips. 4to. 1840. (Funccius, De inerti ac decrepita Linguae Ixitinae SenectiUe, c. iv. § 11; Osann, Beitr'dge zur Griech. und Rom. Litteraiurgesch. vol. ii. p. 319 ; Lersch, Die Sprachphilosophie der Alien, vol. i. p. 163.) [W. R.] CHA'RITES. [Charis.] CH A'RITON (XaplTwv) of Aphrodisias, a town of Caria, is the name by which one of the Greek erotic prose writers calls himself; but the name is probably feigned (from x<*P*5 ^^^ ^AcppoShrf), as the time and position of the author certainly are. He represents himself as the secreUiry (vnoypacpeiis) of the orator Athenagoras, evidently referring to the Syracusan orator mentioned by Thucydides (vi. 35, 36) as the political opponent of Hermo- crates. The daughter of Hermocrates is the he- roine of Chariton's work, which is a romance, in eight books, on the Loves of Chaereas and Callir- rhoe, under the following title, XapiTufos *Aoriv tpuiTiKwu SjTjyrj/uaTwj/ yoi i^. The work begins with the marriage of the heroine, which is presently followed by her burial. She comes to life again in the tomb, and is carried off by robbers. After various ad- ventures, she is restored to Chaereas. The inci- dents are natural and pleasing, and the style sim- ple ; but the work as a whole is reckoned inferior to those of Achilles Tatiua, Heliodorus, Longus, and Xenophon of Ephesus. Nothing is known respecting the real life or the time of the author. The critics place him variously between the fifth and ninth centuries after Christ. The general opinion is, that he was the latest of the erotic prose writers, except perhaps Xenophon of Ephesus. There is only one known MS. of the work, from which it was printed by James Philip D'Orville, with a Latin version and notes by Reiske, in 3 vols. 4to. Amst. 1750. The comraentary of D'Orville is esteemed one of the best on any an- cient author. It was reprinted, with additional notes by Beck, 1 vol. 8vo. Lips. 1783. A very beautiful edition of the text was printed at Venice, 1812, 4to. The book has been translated into German by Heyne, Leipz. 1753, and Schneider, Leipz. 1807; into French by Larcher, Par. 1763 (reprinted in the Bibliotheque des Romans Grecs, Par. 1797). and Pallet, 1775 and 1784 ; into Italian by M. A. Giacomelli, Rom. 1752, and others; into English by Becket and de Hondt, 1764. [P. S,J