Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/252

Rh 238 GEMINIUS. Va//>.s. xxvi. p. 568.) Livy asserts that after the battle of Cannae, Gelon was preparing to abandon the alliance of Rome for that of Carthage, and that he was only prevented from doing so by his sudden death ; but this seems quite at variance with the statement of Polybius of his uniform submission to his father's views, and may very likely deserve as little credit as the insinuation with which Livy immediately follows it — that his death occurred so opportunely, as to cast suspicion upon Hieron him- self. (Liv. xxiii. 30.) Gelon was married to Nereis, daughter of Pyrrhus, by whom he left a son, Hieronymus, and a daughter, Harmonia, mar- ried to a Syracusan named Themistus, (Polyb. vii. 4 ; Justin, xxviii. 3 ; Pans. vi. 12. § 3.) Ar- chimedes dedicated to him his treatise called Arenarius, in which it may be observed that he addresses him by the title of king. {Arenar. p. 319. ed Torell.) The coins referred by earlier writers to the elder Gelon are generally admitted by modern numis- matists to belong to this prince ; the head on the obverse is probably that of Gelon himself ; though Ilckhel (vol. i. p. 255) considers it as that of the elder Gelon, and that the coins were struck in his honour, under the reign of Hieron II. 3. A native of Epeirus, in the service of Neop- tolemus II., king of that country, who took occasion to form a plot against the life of Pyrrhus, when that prince and Neoptolemus had met to perfoim a solemn sacrifice. The conspiracy was, however, discovered, and Neoptolemus himself assassinated by his rival, B. c. 296. (Plut. Fi/rrh. 5.) [E.H.B.] GELO'NUS. [Echidna.] GE'MINA, one of the ladies who attended the philosophical instructions of Plotinus when he was at Rome in the early part of the reign of the em- peror Philip, A. D. 244. Her affluence is indicated by the circumstance that the philosopher resided and taught in her house, and her age by the cir- cumstance that her daughter, of the same name with herself, was also one of his zealous disciples. (Porphyr. Fit. Plotin. c. 3, 9.) [J. C. M.] GEMI'NIUS, 1. C. Praetor of Macedonia, B.C. 92. He sustained a severe defeat from the Maedians, a Thracian tribe, who afterwards ra- vaged the province. (Liv. Epit. 70 ; Jul. Obseq. de Prodig. 113.) 2. A decurio of Terracina, and a personal enemy of C. Marius the elder. The troop of horse which discovered Marius in the marshes of Minturnae, B. c. 88, had been despatched by Gerainius to apprehend him. (Plut. Mar. 36, 38.) 3. A zealous partizan of M. Antony, was de- puted by the triumvir's friends in Rome to re- monstrate with him on his niinous connection with Cleopatra. Geminius went to Athens in the winter of B. c. 32 — 31, but could not obtain a pri- vate audience from Antony. At length, being menaced by Cleopatra with the torture, he with- drew from Athens, leaving his mission unaccom- plished. (Plut. Ant. 59.) GEMiNcra. 4. A Roman eques, put to death at the end of A. D. 33, on a charge of conspiracy against Tiberius, but really because of his intimacy with Sejanus (Tac. Ann. vi. 14.) [ W. B. D.] GEMPNIUS METTIUS. [Mettius.] GEMrNUS {Vijxivos). This name comes down to us in the manuscripts of Proclus, with a cir- cumflex on the penultimate syllable. Gerard Vos- sius believes, nevertheless, that it is the Latin word : Petavius and Fabricius admit the circum- flex without other comment than reference to Proclus. Any one is justified in saying either Gerainus or GemTnus, according to his theory. Of the man belonging to this dubious name we know notliing but that, from a passage in his Avorks relative to the Egyptian aiinus vagus of 120 years before his own time, it appears that he must have been living in the year b. c. 77. He was a Rhodian, and both Petavius and Vossius sus- pect that he wrote at Rome ; but perhaps on no stronger foundation than his Latin name and his Greek tongue, which make them suppose that he was a likrtus. Proclus mentions him (p. 11 of Grynoeus) as distinguishing the mathematical sciences into vorjTd and atadriTa, in the former of which he places geometry and arithmetic, in the latter mechanics, astronomy, optics, geodesy, ca- nonics, and logic (no doubt a corruption of logisticr, or computation ; Barocius has ars supputati-ir). Again (p. 31) Proclus mentions him as author of a geometrical work containing an account of spiral, conchoid, and cissoid lines. But Delambre {A sir. Anc. vol. i. p. 21 1) saw reason to question the skill of Geniinus both in arithmetic and geometry. The only work of Geminus now remaining is the YA.aaywyii els rcL ^aivo/xcva, which many wrongly make to be a commentary on the PhieiKj- mena of Aratus. The work on the sphere attri- buted to Proclus is not much more than an abridgment of some chapters of Geniinus. The book of the latter is a descriptive treatise on ele- mentary astronomy, with a great deal of historical allusion. There is a full account of it in Delambre {I. c.). The total rejection of the supposed effects of the risings and settings of the stars, &c. upon the weather is creditable to Geminus. The work was first published by Edo Hildericus, Gr. Lat., Altorf, 1590, 8vo. This edition was reprinted at Leyden, 1603, 8vo. H. Briggs diligently compared the edition with a manuscript at Ox- ford, and handed the results to Petavius, who made a similar comparison with another manuscript of his own, and published a corrected edition (Gr. Lat.) in his Uranologion, Paris, 1630, fol. The most recent edition is that in Halma's edition of Ptolemy, Paris, 1819, 4to. Petavius also informs us that another work of Geminus was sent to England in manuscript, with other portions of the library of Barocius (the editor of Proclus, we presume). (Proclus ; Fabric. Bill. Grace, vol. iv. p. 31, &c. ; Petavius, Uranologion ; Weidler, i/zs<. Astron. ; Delambre, Astron. Anc.) [A. De M.] GE'MINUS, ANTON I'N US, son of M. Aure- Hus and Faustina, twin brother of the emperor Commodus. He died when a child of four yeara old. [M. AUREMUS.] [W.li.] GE'MINUS, ATI'DIUS, a praetor of Achaia, but at what time is unknown. (Tac. Ann. iv. 43.) [L. S.] GE'MINUS, DUCE'NNIUS, was appointed by Nero, in a. d. 63, one of the three consulars