Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/81

Rh of his time, and he adds, that he had undertaken the task especially on the advice of Eutychianus. (Ib.) However, he calls Eutychianus the ornament of the family of the Flori, a family to which Eutychianus did not belong at all. It is therefore probable that, instead of Eutychianus, we must read Paulus Silentiarius: Niebuhr is of this opinion. (Ib. not. 19.) Agathias is not a great historian; he wants historical and geographical knowledge, principally with regard to Italy, though he knows the East better. He seldom penetrates into the real causes of those great events which form the subjects of his book: his history is the work of a man of business, who adorns his style with poetical reminiscences. But he is honest and impartial, and in all those things which he is able to understand he shews himself a man of good sense. His style is often bombastic; he praises himself ; in his Greek the Ionic dialect prevails, but it is the Ionic of his time, degenerated from its classical purity into a sort of mixture of all the other Greek dialects. Nothwithstanding these deficiences the work of Agathias is of high value, because it contains a great number of important facts concerning one of the most eventful periods of Roman history. Editions: Ἀγαθίου Σχολαστικοῦ περὶ τῆς Βασιλείας Ἰουστινιανοῦ, τόμοι E., ed. Bonaventura Vulcanius, with a Latin translation, Lugduni, 1594. The Parisian edition, which is contained in the " Corpus Script. Byzant." was published in 1660; it contains many errors and conjectural innovations, which have been reprinted and augmented by the editors of the Venetian edition. Another edition was published at Basel (in 1576?). A Latin translation by Christophorus Persona was separately published at Rome, 1516, fol., and afterwards at Augsburg, 1519, 4to.; at Basel, 1531, fol., and at Leyden, 1594, 8vo. The best edition is that of Niebuhr, Bonn. 1828, 8vo., which forms the third volume of the " Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae." It contains the Latin translation and the notes of Bonaventura Vulcanius. The Epigrams form an appendix of this edition of Niebuhr, who has carefully corrected the errors, and removed the innovations of the Parisian edition.

AGATHI'NUS (Ἀγάθινος), an eminent ancient Greek physician, the founder of a new medical sect, to which he gave the name of Episynthetici. (Dict. of Ant. s. v. EPISYNTHETICI.) He was born at Sparta and must have lived in the first century after Christ, as he was the pupil of Athenaeus, and the tutor of Archigenes. (Galen. Definit. Med. c. 14. vol. xix. p. 335; Suidas, s. v. Ἀρχιγένης; Eudoc. Violar. ap. Villoison, Anecd. Gr. vol. i. p. 65.) He is said to have been once seized with an attack of delirium, brought on by want of sleep, from which he was delivered by his pupil Archigenes, who ordered his head to be fomented with a great quantity of warm oil. (Aetius, tetr. i. serm. 3.172, p. 156.) He is frequently quoted by Galen, who mentions him among the Pneumatici. (De Dignosc. Puls. 1.3, vol. viii. p. 787.) None of his writings are now extant, but a few fragments are contained in Matthaei's Collection, entitled XXI Veterum et Clarorum Medicorum Graecorum Varia Opuscula, Mosquae, 1808, 4to. See also Palladius, Comment. in Hippocr. " De Morb. Popul. lib. vi." ap. Dietz, Scholia in Hippocr. et Galen. vol. ii. p. 56. The particular opinions of his sect are not exactly known, but they were probably nearly the same as those of the Eclectici. (Dict. of Ant. s. v. ECLECTICI.) (See J. C. Osterhausen, Histor. Sectae Pneumatic. Med. Altorf. 1791, 8vo.; C. G. Kühn, Additam. ad Elench. Medic. Vet. a J. A. Fabricio in " Biblioth. Gracca" exhibit.)

AGATHOCLE'A (Ἀγαθόκλεια), a mistress of the profligate Ptolemy Philopator, King of Egypt, and sister of his no less profligate minister Agathocles. She and her brother, who both exercised the most unbounded influence over the king, were introduced to him bv their ambitious and avaricious mother, Oenanthe. After Ptolemy had put to death his wife and sister Eurydice, Agathoclea became his favourite. On the death of Ptolemy (B. C. 205), Agathoclea and her friends kept the event secret, that they might have an opportunity of plundering the royal treasury. They also formed a conspiracy for setting Agathocles on the throne. He managed for some time, in conjunction with Sosibius, to act as guardian to the young king Ptolemy Epiphanes. At last the Egyptians and the Macedonians of Alexandria, exasperated at his outrages, rose against him, and Tlepolemus placed himself at their head. They surrounded the palace in the night, and forced their way in. Agathocles and his sister implored in the most abject manner that their lives night be spared, but in vain. The former was killed by his friends, that he might not be exposed to a more cruel fate. Agathoclea with her sisters, and Oenanthe, who had taken refuge in a temple, were dragged forth, and in a state of nakedness exposed to the fury of the multitude, who literally tore them limb from limb. All their relations and those who had had any share in the murder of Eurydice were likewise put to death. (Plb. 5.63, 14.11, 15.25-34; Justin, 30.1, 2; Athen. 6.251, xiii. p. 576 Plut. Cleom. 33.) There was another Agathoclea, the daughter of a man named Aristomenes, who was by birth an Acarnanian, and rose to great power in Egypt. (Polyb. l.c.)

AGA'THOCLES (Ἀγαθοκλῆς), a Sicilian of such remarkable ability and energy, that he raised himself from the station of a potter to that of tyrant of Syracuse and king of Sicily. He flourished in the latter part of the fourth and the beginning of the third century, B. C., so that the period of his dominion is contemporary with that of the second and third Samnite wars, during which time his power must have been to Rome a cause of painful interest; yet so entire is the loss of all Roman history of that epoch, that he is not once mentioned in the 9th and 10th books of Livy, though we know that he had Samnites and Etruscans in his service, that assistance was asked from him by the Tarentines (Strab. vi. p.280), and that he actually landed in Italy. (See Arnold's Rome, c. xxxv.) The events of his life are detailed by Diodorus and Justin. Of these the first has taken his account from Timaeus of Tauromenium, a historian whom Agathocles banished from Sicily, and whose love for censuring others was so great, that he was nicknamed Epitimaeus (fault-finder). (Athen. 6.272.) His natural propensity was not likely to be softened when he was describing the author of his exile; and Diodorus himself does not hesitate to accuse him of having calumniated Agathocles very grossly. (Fragm. lib. xxi.) Polybins too charges him with wilfully perverting the truth (11.15), so