Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/844

Rh B26 CONON. and temples, and the remainder to his son Timo- theus. (Lys. de Arist. Bon. p. 638, ed. Reiske ; Com. Nep. /. c.) His tomb and that of his son, in the Cerameicus, were to be seen in the time of Pausanias. (L 29. § 15.) 2. Son of Timotheus, grandson of the pre- ceding. On the death of Timotheus nine-tenths of the fines which had been imposed on him were remitted, and Conon was allowed to discharge the remainder in the form of a donation for the repair of the long walls. (Com. Nep. Tim. 4.) He was sent by the Athenians, together with Phocion and Clearchus, to remonstrate with Nicanor on his seizure of Peiraeeus, a c. 318. (Diod. xviii, 64.) [C. P. M.] CONON, literary. 1. A grammarian of the age of Augustus, the author of a work entitled AtTryrja-eiy, addressed to Archelaus Philopator, king of Cappadocia. It was a collection of fifty narra- tives relating to the mythical and heroic period, and especially the foundation of colonies. An epitome of the work has been preserved in the Bibliotheca of Photius {Cod. 186), who speaks in terms of commendation of his Attic style, and re- marks {Cod. 189), that Nicolaus Damascenus bor- rowed much from him. There are separate editions of this abstract in Gale's Histor. Poet. Script, p. 241, &c., Paris, 1675; by Teucher, Lips. 1794 and 1802; and Kanne, Getting, 1798. Dion Chrysostom {Or. xviii. tom. i, p. 480) mentions a rhetorician of this name, who may pos- sibly be identical with the last. 2. A Conon is mentioned by the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (i. 1163), who quotes a pas- sage, h rfi 'RpaKeia^ and mentions a treatise by him, Ufpl Trjs "NritTiaSos. Josephus (c Apion. i. 23) also speaks of a writer of this name. 3. Another Conon, whether identical with any of those above-mentioned or not is uncertain, is mentioned by Servius {ad Virg. Aen. vii. 738) as having written a work on Italy. (Fabric. Biil. Graec. iv. p. 25 ; Voss. de Hist. Gr. pp. 206, 420, j ed. Westermann.) j 4. There was a Christian writer of this name, who wrote on the resurrection against Johannes Philoponus. (Phot. Cod. 23, 24.) [C. P. M. CONON (Koi'wi'), of Samos, a mathematician and astronomer, lived in the time of the Ptolemies Philadelphus and Euergetes (b. c. 283 — 222), and was the friend and probably the teacher of Archi- medes, who survived him. None of his works are preserved. His observations are referred to by Ptolemy in his (pdans airXavQu, and in the histo- rical notice appended to that work they are said to have been made in Italy (Petav. Uranolog. p. 93), in which country he seems to have been cele- brated. (See Virgirs mention of him, Ed. iii. 40.) According to Seneca {Nat. Quaest. vii. 3), he made a collection of the observations of solar eclipses preserved by the Egyptians. Apollonius Pergaeus {Conic, lib. iv. praef.) mentions his attempt to demonstrate some propositions concerning the num- ber of points in which two conic sections can cut one another. Conon was the inventor of the curve called the spiral of Archimedes [Archimedes]; but he seems to have contented himself with pro- posing the investigation of its properties as a pro- blem to other geometers. (Pappus, Math. Coll. iv. Prop. 18.) He is said to have given the name Coma Berenices to the constellation so called [Bkrbnice, 3], on the authority of an ode of | CONSENTIUS. Callimachus translated by Catullus (Ixvii. de Coma Berenices) ; a fragment of the original is preserved byTheon in his Scholia on Aratus. {Phaenom. 146; see also Hyginus, Polit. Astron. ii. 24.) But it is doubtful whether the constellation was really adopted by the Alexandrian astronomers. The strongest evidence which remains to us of Conon's mathematical genius consists in the admiration with which he is mentioned by Archimedes. See his prefaces to the treatises on the Quadrature of the Parabola and on Spira-ls. [W. F. D.] CONOSTAULUS BKSTES. [Bestes.] ^ CONO'NEUS {Kovwuevs), a Tarentine, is men- tioned by Appian {Annib. 32) as the person who betrayed Tarentum to the Romans in b. c. 213. (Comp. Frontin. Strateg. iii. 3. § 6, where Ouden- dorp has restored this name from Appian.) Poly- bius (viii. 19, &c.) and Livy (xxv. 8, &c.) say, that Philemenus and Nicon were the leaders of the conspiracy; but Schweighauser remarks {ad App. I. c), that as Percon was the cognomen of Nicon (see Liv. xxvi. 39), so there is no reason why we should not infer that Cononeus was the cognomen of Philemenus. [Philemenus.] P. CONS A. A Roman jurist of this name is mentioned by legal biographers and by writers who have made lists of jurists, as Val. Forsterus, Ruti- lius, GuiL Grotius, and Fabricius, but they give no authority for their statement. The only authority that we can find for this name is an anecdote in Plutarch's life of Cicero (c. 26), repeated in his Apophtlwgmuia. When P. Consa, an ignorant ami empty man, who held himself forth as a jurist, was summoned as a witness in a cause, and declared that he knew nothing whatever about the matter that he was examined upon, Cicero said to him, drily, " Perhaps you think that the question re- lates to law." The reading of the name in Plutarch is exceed- ingly doubtful, — Publius may be Popillius, and Consa may be Caius, Cassius, or Cotta. [J. T. G.] CONSENTES DIl, the twelve Etruscan goda, who formed the council of Jupiter. Their name is probably derived from the ancient verb consa, that is, consulo. According to Seneca {Quaest. Nat. ii. 41), there was above the Consentes and Jupiter a yet higher council, consisting of mysterious and nameless divinities, whom Jupiter consulted when he intended to announce to mankind great calami- ties or changes by his lightnings. The Consentes Dii consisted of six male and six female divinities, but we do not know the names of all of them ; it is however certain that Juno, Minerva, Sumraanus, Vulcan, Saturn, and !Mars were among them. Ac- cording to the Etruscan theology, they ruled over the world and time ; they had come into existence at the beginning of a certain period of the world, at the end of which they were to cease to exist. They were also called by the name of Complices, and were probably a set of divinities distinct from the twelve great gods of the Greeks and Romans. (Varro, R. R.i. 1, ap. Arnob. adv. Gent, iii, 40 ; Hartung, Die Relig. d. Rom. ii. p. 5.) [L. S.] P. CONSE'NTIUS, the author of a grammatical treatise "Ars P. Consentii V. C. de duabus parti- bus Orationis, Nomine et Verbo,"" published origi- nally by J. Sichard at Basle, in 1528, and subse- quently, in a much more complete fomi, in the collection of Putschius {Grammatical Latin. Auc- tores Antig. 4to. Hannov. 1605), who had access to MSS. which enabled him to supply numerous