Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/107

Rh EUNAPIUS. differ very much. According to some, the Eleusi- nians imder Eumolpus attacked the Athenians under Erechtheus, but were defeated, and Eumol- pus with his two sons, Phorbas and Immaradus, were slain. (Thuc. ii. 15 ; Pint. Menex. p. 239 ; Isocrat. Pa7iath. 78 ; Plut. Parall. Gr. et. Rom. 20; Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 854.) Pausanias (i. 38. § 3) relates a tradition that in the battle between the Eleusinians and Athenians, Erechtheus and Immaradus fell, and that thereupon peace was con- cluded on condition that the Eleusinians should in other respects be subject to Athens, but that they alone should have the celebration of their mysteries, and that Eumolpus and the daughters of Celeus should perform the customary sacrifices. When Eumolpus died, his younger son Ceryx succeeded him in the priestly office. According to Hyginus {^F'ab. 46; comp. Strab. vii. p. 321), Eumolpus came to Attica with a colony of Thracians, to claim the country as the property of his father, Poseidon. Mythology regards Eumolpus as the founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, and as the first priest of Demeter and Dionysus ; the goddess herself tauglit him, Triptolemus, Diodes, and Celeus, the sacred rites, and he is therefore sometimes described as having himself invented the cultivation of the vine and of fruit-trees in general. (Ilom. Hymn, in Cer. 476 ; Plin. H. N. vii. 53 ; Ov. Met. x. 93.) Respecting the privileges which his descendants enjoyed in Attica, see Did. of Ant. s. v.EvixoKTriSai. As Eumolpus was regarded as an ancient priestly bard, poems and writings on the mysteries were fabricated and circulated at a later time under his name. One hexameter line of a Dionysiac hymn, ascribed to him, is preserved in Diodorus. (i. 11 ; Suid. s. V.) The legends connected him also with Heracles, whom he is said to have instructed in music, or initiated into the mysteries. (Hygin. Fa. 273; Theocrit. xxiv. 108; Apollod. ii. 5. <S 12.) The difference in the traditions about Eu- molpus led some of the ancients to suppose that two .or three persons of that name ought to be dis- tinguished. (Hesych. s. v. Ew^oATriSat ; Schol. ad Oed. Col. 1051 ; Phot. Lex. s. v. EvfioAiridai.) The tomb of Eumolpus was shewn both at Eleusis and Athens. (Pans. i. 38. $ 2.) [L. S.] EUMNESTUS(Eu^i/r?o-Tos), son of Sosicratides, an Athenian sculptor, about b. c. 24. (Bockh, Coif. Inscr. i. p. 430, No. 359, comp. Add. p. 911.) [P. S.] EUNA'PIUS (Ewdirios)., a Greek sophist and historian, was bom at Sardis in A. D. 347, and seems to have lived till the reign of the emperor Theodosius the Younger. He received his first education from his kinsman Chrysanthius, a sophist at Sardis, who implanted in him that love of the pagan and that hatred of the Christian religion which so strongly marked his productions. In his sixteenth year he went to Athens to cultivate his mind under the auspices of Proaeresius, who con- ceived the greatest esteem for the youth, and loved him like his own son. After a stay of five years, he prepared to travel to Egypt, but it would seem that this plan was not carried into effect, and that he was called back to Phrygia. He was also skilled in the medical art. During the latter period of his life, he seems to have been settled at Athens, and engaged in teaching rhetoric. He is the author of two.works. 1. Lives of Sophists (Biot (piKocro- <pwv Kal cTocpLOTwv), whlch work is still extant. He composed it at the request of Chrysanthius. It con- EUNEICE. .0.'^ tains 23 biographies of sophists, most of whom were contemporaries of Eunapius, or at least had lived shortly before him. Although these biographies are extremely brief, and are written in an intolerably inflated style, yet they are to us an important source of information respecting a period in the history of philosophy which, without this work, would be buried in utter obscurity. Eunapius shews him- self an enthusiastic admirer of the philosophy of the New Platonists, and a bitter enemy of Chris- tianity. His biographies were first edited with a Latin translation and a life of Eunapius by Hadrianus Junius, Antwerp, 1568, 8vo. Among the subsequent editions we may mention those of H. Commelinus (Frankfurt, 1596, 8vo.) and Paul Stephens. (Geneva, 1616, 8vo.) The best, how- ever, which gives a much improved text, with a commentary and notes by Wyttenbach, is that of J. F. Boissonade, Amsterdam, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo. 2. A continuation of the history of Dexippus (MercJ Ae'liTTTTOt' xpo'-'tK') icTTopia), in fourteen books. (Phot. Bill. Cod. 77.) It began with the death of Claudius Gothicus, in a. d. 270, and carried the history down to A. d. 404, in which year St. Chrysostom was sent into exile, and which was the tenth year of the reign of Arcadius. This account of Photius (/. c.) seems to be contradicted by a passage of the excerpta (p. 96, ed. Bekker and Niebuhr), in which Eunapius speaks of the avarice of the empress Pulcheria, who did not ob- tain that dignity till A. d. 414 ; but the context of that passage shews that it was only a digression in the work, and that tlie work itself did not extend to A. D. 414. It was written at the' request of Oribasius, and Photius saw two editions of it. In the first, Eunapius had given vent to his rabid feel- ings against Christianitj', especially against Con- stantine the Great; whereas lie looked upon the emperor Julian as some divine being that had been sent from heaven upon earth. In the second edi- tion, from which the excerpta still extant are taken, those passages were omitted ; but they had been expunged with such negligence and carelessness, that manj'- parts of the work were very obscure. But we cannot, with Photius, regard this " editio pur- gata" as the work of Eunapius himself, and it was in all probability made by some bookseller or a Christian, who thus attempted to remedy the de- fects of the original. Tlie style of the work, so far as we can judge of it, was as bad as that of the Lives of the Sophists, and is severely criticised by Photius. All we now possess of this work consists of the Excerpta de Legationibus, which were made from it by the command of Constantine Porphyroge- nitus,and a number of fragments preserved in Suidas. These remains, as far as they were known at the time, were published by D. Hoschel (Augsburg,! 603, 4to.), H. Fabrotti (Paris; 1648, fol.), and in Bois- sonade's edition of the Lives of the Sophists, (vol. i. p. 455, &c.) A. Mai discovered considerable additions, which are published in his Scriptorum Vet. Nova CoUedio, vol. ii. p. 247 — 31 6, from which they are reprinted in vol. i. of the Corpics Script, Hist. Byzant. edited by I. Bekker and Niebuhr. Whether the rhetorician Eunapius, whom Suidas (s. V. Mou&aii'Los) calls 6 e/c ^pvyias, is the same as our Eunapius, is uncertain. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. p. 538.) ^ [L. S.] EUNEICE (Euvei/c^), a daughter of Nereus and Doris, caused the death of Hylas. (Hes, T/ico(/. 247 ; Theocrit. xiii. 45.) [L. S.J