Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/80

62 the contemporary of Aeschylus, who, however, must have preceded him by a good half century. Müller, Arch. d. Kunst, p. 88.)

AGATHE'MERUS (Ἀγαθήμερος), the son of Orthon, and the author of a small geographical work in two books, entitled τῆς γεωγραφίας ὑποτυπώσεις ἐν ἐπιτομῆ (A Sketch of Geography in epitome), addressed to his pupil Philon. His age cannot be fixed with much certainty, but he is supposed to have lived about the beginning of the third century after Christ. He lived after Ptolemy, whom he often quotes, and before the foundation of Constantinople on the site of Byzantium in A. D. 328, as he mentions only the old city Byzantium. (2.14.) Wendelin has attempted to shew that he wrote in the beginning of the third century, from the statement he gives of the distance of the tropic from the equator; but Dodwell, who thinks he lived nearer the time of Ptolemy, contends that the calculation cannot be depended on. From his speaking of Albion ἐν ᾗ στρατόπεδα ἵδρυται, it has been thought that he wrote not very long after the erection of the wall of Severus. This is probably true, but the language is scarcely definite enough to establish the point. His work consists chiefly of extracts from Ptolemy and other earlier writers. From a comparison with Pliny, it appears that Artemiidorus, of whose work a sort of compendium is contained in the first book, was one of his main authorities. He gives a short account of the various forms assigned to the earth by earlier writers, treats of the divisions of the earth, seas, and islands, the winds, and the length and shortness of the days, and then lays down the most important distances on the inhabited part of the earth, reckoned in stadia. The surname Agathemerus frequently occurs in inscriptions. (Dodwell in Hudson's Geograph. Scriptores Gr. Minores; Ukert, Geogr. der Griechen u. Römer, pt. i. div. 1. p. 236.)

AGATHE'MERUS, CLAUDIUS (Κλαύδιος Ἀγαθήμερος), an ancient Greek physician, who lived in the first century after Christ. He was born at Lacedaemon, and was a pupil of the philosopher Cornutus, in whose house he became acquainted with the poet Persius about A. D. 50. (Pseudo-Sueton. vita Persii.) In the old editions of Suetonius he is called Agaternus, a mistake which was first corrected by Reinesius (Syntagma Inscript. Antiq. p. 610), from the epitaph upon him and his wife, Myrtale, which is preserved in the Marmora Oxoniensia and the Greek Anthology, vol. iii. p. 3811.224, ed. Tauchn. The apparent anomaly of a Roman praenomen being given to a Greek, may be accounted for by the fact which we learn from Suetonius (Suet. Tib. 6), that the Spartans were the hereditary clients of the Claudia Gens. (C. G. Kühn, Additam. ad Elench. Medic. Vet. a J. A. Fabricio, in "Biblioth. Gracca" eahibit.)]

AGA'THIAS (Ἀγαθίας) the son of Mamnonius, a rhetorician, was born, as it seems, in 536 or 537 A. D. (Hist. 2.16, and Vita Agathiae in ed. Bonn. p. xiv.), at Myrina, a town at the mouth of the river Pythicus in Aeolia (Agathiae Prooemium, p. 9, ed. Bonn.; p. 5, Par.; p. 7, Ven.), and received his education in Alexandria, where he studied literature. In 554 he went to Constantinople (Hist. 2.16), where his father then most probably resided, and studied for several years the Roman law. (Epigr. 4.) He afterward exercised with great success the profession of an advocate, though only for the sake of a livelihood, his favourite occupation being the study of ancient poetry (Hist. 3.1); and he paid particular attention to history. His profession of a lawyer was the cause of his surname Σχολαστικός (Suidas, s. v. Ἀγαθίας), which word signified an advocate in the time of Agathias. Niebuhr (Vita Agath. in ed. Bonn. p. xv.) believes, that he died during the reign of Tiberius Thrax, a short time before the death of this emperor and the accession of Mauritius in 582, at the age of only 44 or 45 years. Agathias, who was a Christian (Epigr. 3, 5, and especially 4), enjoyed during his life the esteem of several great and distinguished men of his time, such as Theodorus the decurio, Paulus Silentiarius, Eutychianus the younger, and Macedonius the ex consul. He shewed them his gratitude by dedicating to them several of his literary productions, and he paid particular homage to Paulus Silentiarius, the son of Cyrus Florus, who was descended from an old and illustrious family. (Hist. 5.9.) Agathias is the author of the following works :

1. Δαφνιακά, a collection of small love poems, divided into nine books; the poems are written in hexametres. Nothing is extant of this collection, which the author calls a juvenile essay. (Agath. Prooemium, p. 6;, ed. Bonn.; p. 4, Par.; p. 6, Ven.)

2. Κύκλος, an anthology containing poems of early writers and of several of his contemporaries, chiefly of such as were his protectors, among whom were Paulus Silentiarius and Macedonius. This collection was divided into seven books, but nothing of it is extant except the introduction, which was written by Agathias himself. However, 108 epigrams, which were in circulation either before he collected his Κύκλος, or which he composed at a later period, have come down to us. The last seven and several others of these epigrams are generally attributed to other writers, such as Paulus Silentiarius, &c. The epigrams are contained in the Anthologia Graeca (iv. p. 3, ed. Jacobs), and in the editions of the historical work of Agathias. Joseph Scaliger, Janus Douza, and Bonaventura Vulcanius, have translated the greater part of them into Latin. The epigrams were written and published after the Δαφνιακά.

3. Ἀγαθίου Σχολαστικοῦ Μυριναίου Ἱστορίων Ε., "Agathiae Scholastici Myrinensis Historiarum Libri V." This is his principal work. It contains the history from 553-558 A. D., a short period, but remarkable for the important events with which it is filled up. The first book contains the conquest of Italy by Narses over the Goths, and the first contests between the Greeks and the Franks; the second book contains the continuation of these contests, the description of the great earthquake of 554, and the beginning of the war between the Greeks and the Persians; the third and the fourth books contain the continuation of this war until the first peace in 536; the fifth book relates the second great earthquake of 557, the rebuilding of St. Sophia by Justinian, the plague, the exploits of Belisarius over the Huns and other barbarians in 558, and it finishes abruptly with the 25th chapter. Agathias, after having related that he had abandoned his poetical occupation for more serious studies (Prooemium, ed. Bonn. pp. 6, 7; Par. p. 4; Ven. p. 6), tells us that several distinguished men had suggested to him the idea of writing the history