Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/113

Rh EUPHORION. and expand them by trivial and fanciful additions, while the noble forms of Terse in which they liad embodied their thoughts were made the vehi- cles of a mass of cumbrous learning. Hence the complaints which the best of succeeding writers made of the obscurity, verboseness, and tediousness of Euphorion, Callimachus, Parthenius, Lycophron, and the other chief writers of the long period dur- ing which the Alexandrian grammarians ruled the literary world. (Clem. Alex. Strom, v. p. 571 ; Cic. de Div. ii. 64 ; Lucian. de Conscrib. Hist. 57, vol. ii. p. 65.) These faults seem to have been carried to excess in Euphorion, who was particu- larly distinguished by an obscurity, which arose, according to Meineke, from his choice of the most out of the way subjects, from the cumbrous learning with which he overloaded his poems, from the ar- bitrary changes which he made in the common le- gends, from his choice of obsolete words, and from his use of ordinary words with a new meaning of his own. The most ancient and one of the most interesting judgments concerning him is in an epi- gram by Trates of Mallus (Brunck, Anal., vol. ii. p. 3), from which we learn that he was a great admirer of Choerilus [Choerilus, vol. i. p. 697, b.], notwithstanding which, however, the frag- ments of his poetry shew that he also imitated Antimach'us. Meineke conjectures that the epi- gram of Crates was written while the contest about receiving Antimachus or Choerilus into the epic canon was at its height, and that some of the Alex- andrian grammarians proposed to confer that ho- nour on Euphorion. In the same epigram Eupho- rion is called 'O/jltipikSs, which can only mean that he endeavoured, however unsuccessfully, to imitate Homer, — a fact which his fragments confirm. (Comp. Cic. de Div. I. c.) That he also imitated Hesiod, may be inferred from the fact of his writ- ing a poem entitled 'Uaiodos ; and there is a cer- tain similarity in the circumstance of each poet making a personal wrong the foundation of an epic poem, — Hesiod in the "Epya Koi 'Hfxepai, and Eu- phorion in the XiXiddfs. As above stated, Euphorion was greatly admired by many of the Romans, and some of his poems were imitated or translated by Cornelius Gallus ; but the arguments by which Heyne and others have attempted to decide what poems of Euphorion were so translated, are quite inconclusive. (Vos- sius, de Hist. Oraec. pp. 142, 143, ed. Wester- mann ; Fabric. BUd. Graec. vol. i. p. 594, &c. ; Meineke, de Euphorionis Qialcidensis Vila et Scrip- tis, Gedan. 1823, in which the fragments are col- lected ; a new edition of this work forms part of Meineke's Analecta Alexandrina, Berol. 1843 ; Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. iii. pp. 311, 312.) 4. Of Chersonesus, an author of that kind of licen- tious poetry which was called ITpjaTreja, is mentioned by Hephaestion {de Metr. xv. 59), who gives three verses, which do not, however, appear to be conse- cutive, but are probably single verses chosen as specimens of the metre. But yet some information may be gleaned from them, for the poet refers to rites in honour of the "young Dionysus," cele- brated at Pelusium. Hence Meineke infers that this Euphorion was an Egyptian Greek, and that the (Jhersonesus of which he was a native was the city of that name near Alexandria. He also con- jectures, and upon good grounds, that the " young Dionysus" was Ptolemy Philopator, who began to reign in b. c. 220. It is probable that the passage EUPHRANOR. 99 in Strabo (viii. p. 382) refers to this Euphorion, and that Eiicppovios in that passage is an error for Evipopiwv. There is an example of the same con- fusion in Athenaeus (xi. p. 495, c). That those who make this Euphorion the same as the Chalci- dian are quite wrong, is proved by the fact that the lines are neither hexameters nor elegiacs, but in the priapeian metre, which is a kind of anti- spastic. (Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina, Epim. i.) [P. S.] EUPHO'RION (Evcpopiuu), a Greek physi- cian or grammarian, who wrote a commentary on Hippocrates in six books, and must have lived in or before the first century after Christ, as he is mentioned by Erotianus. {Gloss. Hippocr. p. 12.) [W. A. G.] EUPHO'RION, a distinguished statuary and silver-chaser, none of whose works were extant in Pliny's time. (Plin. xxxiv. 8, s. 19, § 25.) [P. S.] EUPHRADES, THEMI'STIUS. [Themis- TIUS.] EUPHRA'NOR(E%c£i'wp). 1. Of Seleuceia, a disciple of Timon and a follower of his sceptical school. Eubulus of Alexandria was his pupil. (Diog. Laert. ix. 115, 116.) 2. A slave of the philosopher Lycon, who was manumitted by his master's will. (Diog. Laert. v. 73.) 3. A Pythagorean philosopher, who is mentioned by Athenaeus (iv. pp. 182, 184, xiv. p. 634) as the author of a work on flutes and flute players. {Uepl avKwv and Trept avk-qTciv.) It is not impossible that the Evanor mentioned by lamblichus ( Vit. Pyth. 36) among the Pythagoreans, is the same as our Euphranor. 4. A Greek grammarian, who was upwards of one hundred years old at the time when Apion was his pupil. (Suid. s. v. 'Attiuv.) [L. S.] EUPHRA'NOR {Edcppdvwp). 1. One of the greatest masters of the most flourishing period of Grecian art, and equally distinguished as a statuary and a painter. (Quintil. xii. 10. § 6.) He was a native of the Corinthian isthmus, but he practised his art at Athens, and is reckoned by Plutarch as an Athenian. {De Glor. Ath. 2.) He is placed by Pliny (xxxiv. 8. s. 19) at 01. 104, no doubt be- cause he painted the battle of Mantineia, which was fought in 01. 104, 3 (b. c. 36f ), but the list of his works shews, almost certainly, that he flourished till after the accession of Alexander, (b. c. 336.) As a statuary, he wrought both in bronze and marble, and made figures of all sizes, from colossal statues to little drinking-mps. (Plin. xxxv. 8, s. 40, § 25.) His most celebrated works were, a Paris, which expressed alike the judge of the god- desses, the lover of Helen, and the slayer of Achil- les ; the very beautiful sitting figure of Paris, in marble, in the Museo Pio-Cleraentino is, no doubt, a copy of this work ; a Minerva, at Rome, called the Catulian, from its having been set up by Q. Lutatius Catulus, beneath the Capitol : an Agatho- daemon (simulacrum Boni Eventus), holding a patera in the right hand, and an ear of corn and a poppy in the left : a Latona puerpera, carrying the infonts, Apollo and Diana, in the temple of Con- cord ; there is at Florence a very beautiful relief representing the same subject : a Key-bearer (Cli- duchus), remarkable for its beauty of form : colossal statues of Valour and of Greece, forming no doubt a group, perhaps Greece crowned by Valour. (Mlil- Icr, Arch'dol. d. Kunst, § 405, n. 3) : a woman wrapt in wonder and adoration (admirantem et