Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1037

Rh THEMISTIUS. simply arises from his placing together, with his usual carelessness, two distinct facts in the life of Themistius. Shortly before the death of Julian, A.D. 363, Themistius delivered an oration in honour of him, which is no longer extant, but which is referred to at some length by Libanius, in a letter to Themistius {Ep. 1061). In a.d. 364 he went, as one of the deputies from the senate, to meet Jovian at Dadastana, on the confines of Galatia and Bithynia, and to confer the consulate upon him ; and on this occasion he delivered an oration, which he afterwards repeated at Constantinople, in which he claims full liberty of conscience both for the Christians and the heathen. {Orat. v.; Socrat. //. E. iii. 26.) In the same year he delivered an oration at Constantinople, in honour of the accession of Valentinian and Valens, in the presence of the latter. His next oration is addressed to Valens, congratulating him on his victory over Procopius in June 366, and interceding for some of the rebels; it was delivered in A. d, 367. (Orat. vii.) In the next year he accompanied Valeiis to the Danube in the second campaign of the Gothic war, and de- livered before the emperor, at Marcianopolis, a congratulatory oration upon his Quinquennalia, a.d. 368. (Orat. viii.) His next orations are to the young Valentinian upon his consulship, a. v. 369 Orat. ix.), and to the senate of Constantinople, in the presence of Valens, in honour of the peace granted to the Goths, b. c. 370 {Orat. x.). On March 28, A. D. 373, he addressed to Valens, who was then in Syria, a congratulatory address upon the emperor's entrance on the tenth year of his reign {Orat. xi, ). It was also while Valens was in Syria, that Themistius addressed to him an oration by which he persuaded him to cease from his per- secution of the Catholic party. (Socrat. H. E. iv. 32; Sozom. H. E. vi. 36.) It is thought by the best critics that this oration is lost, and that the extant oration to Valens on behalf of religious liberty {Orat. xii.) was delivered at some other time, probably soon after the emperor's accession. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vi. p. 797.) In addition to these numerous orations, which prove that the orator was in high favour with the emperor, we have the testimony of Themistius himself to his influence with Valens. {Orat. xxxi. where the words, 7]TTT]Qis uirh twv ijxwv k6'yuiv TroAAo/cis, seem to refer to such examples of the orator's power as that mentioned just above.) In A. D. 377 we find him at Rome, whither he appears to have gone on an embassy to Gratian, to whom he there delivered his oration entitled 'Epw- TiKos {Orat. xiii.). On the association of Theodosius in the empire by Gratian, at Sirmium, in a. d. 379, Themistius delivered an elegant oration, congra- tulating the new emperor on his elevation {Orat. xiv.). Of his remaining orations some are public and some private ; but i'ew of them demand special notice as connected with the events of his life. In A. D, 384, about the first of September, he was made prefect of Constantinople {Orat. xvii.), an office which had been offered to him, but declined, several times before {Orat. xxxiv. 13). He only held the prefecture a few months, as we learn from fin oration delivered after he had laid down the office {Orat. xxxiv.), in which he mentions, as he had done even six years earlier {Orat. xiv.), and more than once in the interval {Or. xv. xvi.), his I old age and ill-health. From the 34th oration we I also learn that he had previously held the offices of VOL. 111. THEMISTIUS. 1025 princeps senatus and pracfectus annonae, besides his embassy to Rome ; in another oration he mentions ten embassies on which he had been sent before his prefecture {Orat. xvii.) ; and in another, com- posed probably about a. d. 387, he says that he has been engaged for nearly forty years in public business and in embassies (Ora^. xxi.). So great was the confidence reposed in him by Theodosius, that, though Themistius was a heathen, the em- peror, when departing for the West to oppose Maximus, entrusted his son Arcadius to the tutor- ship of the philosopher, a. d. 387 — 388. (Socrat. H. E. iv. 32 ; Sozom. //. E. vi. 36 ; Niceph. H.E. xi. 46.) We have no particulars of the history of Themistius after this time ; and it may therefore be inferred that his life did not extend much, if at all, beyond A. d. 390. Besides the emperors, to whom so many references have been made, he numbered among his friends the chief orators and philosophers of the age, Christian as well as heathen. Not only Libanius, but Gregory of Nazianzus also was his friend and correspondent, and the latter, in an epistle still extant, calls him the " king of argu- ments" {^acriX^a Xoyccv, Greg. 'Naz. Epist. 140). The orations (ttoXitikoI Aojol) of Themistius, extant in the time of Photius, were thirty-six in number (Phot. Bibl. Cod. 74), of which thirty- three have come down to us in the original Greek, and one in a Latin version. The other two were sup- posed to be lost, until one of them was discovered by Cardinal Maio, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in 1816. His philosophical works must have been very voluminous ; for Photius (/. c.) tells ns that he wrote commentaries {vTTOjxviifiaTa) on all the books of Aristotle, besides useful abstracts {fieracppdareLs) of the Analytics, the books on the Soul, and the Physics, and that there were exegetical labours of his on Plato ; "and, in a word, he is a lover and eager student of philosophy" {epacTT'ljs iari Kal (TTrovSaaT^s <pioao<pias). Suidas mentions his Paraphrase of the Physics of Aristotle, in eight books ; of the Analytics, in two books ; of the Apodeictics, in two books ; of the treatise on the Soul, in seven books ; and of the Categories in one book. Of these, we have the Paraphrases of the Second Analytics, of the Physics, of the treatise on the Soul, and of the works on Memory and Recollection, on Sleeping and Waking, on Dreams, and on Divination in Sleep. Besides these, which are in the original Greek, we have two other com- mentaries in Latin, translated from Hebrew versions of the originals, namely, that on the work on Heaven, translated by Moses Alatinus, and that on the twelve books of the Metaphysics, translated by Moses Finzius. The earliest editions of Themistius contained only the philosophical works, in the Latin version of Hermolaus Barbarus, which was first published at Venice, 1481, fol., and reprinted, Venet. 1502, fol., 1520, fol., 1527, fob, Paris, 1528—1529, fol., Basil. 1530, fol., 1533, 4to., Venet. 1554, fol., 1559, fol., 1570, fol. : the last is the most complete of the old editions. The two commentaries which only exist in Latin were published at Venice in 1574 and 1576 respectively, both in folio. Of the Greek text the Editio Princeps is that of Aldus, 1534, fob, containing the Paraphrases and eight Orations, together with the treatises of Alex- ander Aphrodisiensis on the Soul and on Fate. There has been no subsequent edition of the whole works, or of the Paraphrases ; but the Orations 3u