Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/40

Rh 26 EPHORUS. must conclude that it contained an account of the burial of Alexander as well as of his death. From the few fragments still extant, it would appear that Ephippus described more the private and personal character of his heroes than their public careers. (Athen. iii. p. 120, iv. p. 146, x. p. 434, xii. pp. 537, 538.) It should be remarked that by a sin- gular mistake Suidas in his article Ephippus gives an account of Ephorus of Cumae. Pliny {Elench. lib. xii., xiii.) mentions one Ephippus among the authorities he consulted upon plants, and it is ge- nerally believed that he is a different person from our historian; but all the writers whom Pliny mentions along with him, belong to the period of Alexander, so that it is by no means improbable that he may be Ephippus of Olynthus. All that is known about Epliippus and the fragments of his work, is collected by R. Geier, in his Alexandri Magni Histor. Scriptores, aetate suppares. Lips. 1844, pp. 309—317. [L. S.] EPHIPPUS ("E^iTTTTos), of Athens, was a comic poet of the middle comedy, as we learn from the testimonies of Suidas (s. v.), and Antio- chus of Alexandria (Athen. xi. p. 482, c.),and from the allusions in his fragments to Plato, and the Academic philosophers (Athen. xi. p. 509, c. d.), and to Alexander of Pherae and his contempora- ries, Dionysius the Elder, Cotys, Theodorus, and others. (Athen. iii. p. 112, f. xi. p. 482, d.) The following are the known titles of his plays : "Apre- /ijs, Boicripis, rr]pv6v7]s, 'E^uttoAtj, "Ecprj^oi, KipKT], Ki55ftjt/, 'Navay6s,^Ofieia(p6poi,'"OfJLOioi, UeXTacrTTJs, XaircpoS, ^iXvpa. An epigram which Eustathius ascribes to Ephippus (ad Iliad, xi. 697, p. 879. 38) is not his, but the production of some un- known author. (Comp. Athen. x. p. 442, d.) There are some fragments also extant from the unknown plays of Ephippus. (Meineke, Fragm. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 351—354, iii. pp. 322—340 ; Fabric. Bihl. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 297, 298, 440.) [P. S.] E'PHORUS ("E^opos). 1. Of Cumae, a cele- brated Greek historian, was, according to Suidas, to whom we are indebted for our information re- specting his life, a son either of Demophilus or Antiochus ; but as Plutarch {Ei ap. Delpli. p. 389, a.) mentions only the former name, and as Ephorus's son was called Demophilus (Athen. vi. p. 232), we must believe that the father of Ephorus was called Demophilus. Ephorus was a contem- porary of Theopompus, and lived about b. c. 408, a date which Marx, one of his editors, strangely mistakes for the time at which Ephorus was born. Ephorus must have survived the accession of Alexan- der the Great, for Clemens of Alexandria {Strom. i. p. 403) states that Ephorus reckoned 735 years from the return of the Heracleidae down to B. c. 333, or the year in which Alexander went to Asia. The best period of his life must therefore have fallen in the reign of Philip. Ephorus was a pupil of Isocrates in rhetoric, at the time when that rhetorician had opened his school in the island of Chios ; but not being very much gifted by nature, like most of his countrymen, he was found unfit for entering upon life when he returned home, and his father therefore sent him to school a second time. (Plut. Vit. X Orat. p. 839, a.) In order not to disappoint his father again, Ephorus now zealously devoted himself to the study of oratory, and his efforts were crowned with success, for he and Theopompus were the most distinguished among the pupils of Isocrates (Menand. Rhet. Aiaipis. EPHORUS. dnodeiKT. p. 626, ed. Aldus), and from Seneca (de Tranq. Anim. 6) it might almost appear, that Ephorus began the career of a public orator. Isocrates, however, dissuaded him from that course, for he well knew that oratory was not the field on which Ephorus could win laurels, and he exhorted him to devote himself to the study and composition of history. As Ephorus was of a more quiet and contemplative disposition than Theopompus, Isocrates advised the former to write the early history of Greece, and the latter to take up the later and more turbulent periods of history. (Suidas ; Cic. de Orat. iii. 9 ; Phot. Bibl. Cod. 1 76, 260.) Plutarch (de Stoic. Repugn. 10) relates that Ephorus was among those who were accused of having conspired against the life of king Alex- ander, but that he successfully refuted the charge when he was summoned before the king. The above is all that is known respecting the life of Ephorus. The most celebrated of all his works, none of which have come down to us, was — 1. A History ('IcTTopmi) in thirty books. It began with the return of the Heracleidae, or, according to Suidas, with, the Trojan times, and brought the history down to the siege of Perinthus in B. c. 341 . It treated of the history of the barbarians as well as of that of the Greeks, and was thus the first attempt at writing a uni- versal history that was ever made in Greece. It embraced a period of 750 years, and each of the thirty books contained a compact portion of the history, which formed a complete whole by itself. Each also contained a special preface and might bear a separate title, which either Ephorus himself or some later grammarian seems actually to have given to each book, for we know that the fourth book was called Evpw-m]. (Died. iv. 1, v. 1, xvi. 14, 26 J Polyb. v. 33, iv. 3; Strab. vii. p. 302; Clem. Alex. Sti'om. i. p. 403.) Ephorus himself did not live to complete his work, and it was finished by his son Demophilus. [Demophilus, No. 1.] Diyllus began his history at the point at which the work of Ephorus left off. As the work is unfortunately lost, and we possess only isolated fragments of it, it is not possible in all cases to determine the exact contents of each book ; but the two collectors and editors of the fragments of Ephorus have done so, as far as it is feasible. Among the other works of Ephorus we may mention — ■ 2. TLepX evpTjfx.Q.Twu, or on inventions, in two books. (Suidas ; Athen. iv. p. 182, viii. p. 352, xiv. p. 637 ; Strab. xiii. p. 622.) 3. ^vvrayixa eirixoo- piov. (Plut. de Vit. et Poes. Homer. 2.) This work, however, seems to have been nothing but a chapter of the fifth book of the laropiai. 4. UepX Xe^ews. (Theon, Progymn. 2, 22 ; comp. Cic. Orat. 57.) This work, too, like a few others which are mentioned as separate productions, may have been only a portion of the History. Suidas mentions some more works, such as riepl dyaQciv Ka kukwu, and Uapado^ocv twv kKaaraxov fii§.ia, of which, however, nothing at all is known, and it is not impossible that they may have been excerpta or abridgments of certain portions of the History, which were made by late compilers and published under his name. As for the character of Ephorus as an historian, we have ample evidence that, in accordance with the simplicity and sincerity of his character, he desired to give a faithful account of the events he had to relate. He shewed his good sense in not