Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1042

Rh 1030 THEOCLES. ticularly worthy of admiration ; for by his natural understanding, without any education originally to form it, or afterwards to strengthen it, he had the best judgment in actual circumstances, and he formed his judgment with the least deliberation ; and as to future events he made, in the general, the best conjectures ; whatever he took in hand, he was also able to expound ; and on matters where he had no experience, he was not unable to form a competent judgment ; and both of the better and the worse, while it was still in uncertainty, he had a most excellent foresight ; and to express all in brief, by the force of his natural capacity, and the quickness of his determination, he was the most efficient of all men in promptlj'' deciding what was to be done." Undoubtedly he possessed great talents as a statesman, great political sagacity, a ready wit, and excellent judgment: but perhaps he was not an honest man ; and, like many other clever men with little morality, he ended his career unhappily and ingloriously, an exile and a traitor too. Some of the anecdotes about him deserve little credit ; but an examination of them belongs to another kind of work. There is a life of Themistocles in the collection which goes under the name of Nepos. Plutarch has enlivened his biography with several curious stories about Themistocles, after his arrival in Asia. Diodorus (xi.), always a careless writer, is of little value for the biography of Themistocles. One and twenty letters attributed to Themistocles are spurious. [G. L.] THEMISTO'GENES (eefxtcrroy^uns), of Sy- racuse, is said by Xenophon (Hell. iii. 1. § 2) to have written a work on the Anabasis of Cyrus ; but most modern writers, following the statement of Plutarch {de Gloria AtJien. p. 361), suppose that Xenophon really refers to his own work, to which he prefixed the name of Themistogenes. It appears, however, that Themistogenes is not a fictitious name, since Suidas says (s. v.) that he wrote other •works. (C. Miiller, Fragm. Historic. Graec. vol. ii. p. 74, Paris, 1848.) THEMISTUS, the son-in-law of Gelon, was slain along with Andranodorus. (Liv. xxiv. 24, 25.) [Andranodorus.] THEOCHRESTUS {@€6xP'r(TTos of Gyrene, grandfather and grandson, won a victory at the Olympic games in the chariot-race, but in what Olympiad is not stated (Pans, vi, 12. § 7). A person of the same name is quoted by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (iv. 1750) as the author of a work on Libya ; and from the subject of the book we may reasonably infer that he was a native of Africa, and may have been the same as one of the Olympic victors. Pliny also refers to Theo- chrestus as one of his authorities. (H. N. Index, lib. xxxvii. and xxxvii. 2. s. 11. § 1.) THEOCLEIA. [Aristocleia.] THE'OCLES (eeoKA.???). 1. A Pythagorean philosopher. (lamblich. Vit. Pyth. 27.) 2. Of Naxos or Eretria, a poet of unknown time, to whom some ascribed the invention of the elegiac metre ; but there can be little doubt that the tra- dition is as untrustworthy, as the etymology, in connection with which it is mentioned, is absurd. (Suid. and Etym. Mag. s. v. iXeydveiv), His Terses appear to have been of a licentious charac- ter, and it is most probable that he is the same per- son as the Theocles from whose Itht/pJiallics Athe- naeus(xi. p. 497, c.) quotes three lines. [P. S.J THEOCRATES. THE'OCLES (eeoKKrjs), the son of Hegylus, was a Lacedaemonian statuarj'-, and one of the disciples of Dipoenus and Scyllis. He therefore flourished about b. c. 550. He wrought in wood and in ivory and gold. Two of his works are ap- parently mentioned by Pausanias ; but they were only separate parts of one and the same group, representing Hercules preparing to carry oif the golden apples of the Hesperides. This group con- sisted of a celestial hemisphere {ttSKos, see Diet, of Antiq. s. v. 2d ed.) upheld by Atlas, with Her- cules, and the tree which bore the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the dragon coiled around the tree, all carved out of cedar wood. An inscription on the tto'Aos stated that the work was executed by Theocles and his son. It stood at Olympia, in the treasury of the Epidamnians ; but, in the time of Pausanias, the figures of the Hesperides had been removed from it by the Eleians, and placed in the temple of Hera. (Pans. vi. 19. § 5. s. 8.) In his description of the temple of Hera (v. 17. § 1), Pausanias mentions these statues, five in number, as being of gold and ivory, which is not inconsistent with the other statement, that they were of cedar-wood ; for the two accounts can easily be reconciled by supposing that they were of cedar-wood gilt, and the faces, hands, and feet covered with plates of ivory. Possibly the ivory may have been added to the statues when they were transferred to the temple of Hera. [P. S.] THEO'CLIUS, a Greek writer of the lives of the Caesars, appears to have lived in the time of Aurelian or shortly afterwards. (Vopisc. Aurel. 6.) THEOCLY'MENUS (QeoKXifxeuos). 1. A son of Polypheides of Hyperasia, and a descendant of Melampus, was a soothsayer, who, in consequence of a murder, was obliged to take to flight, and came to Telemachus at the time when the latter quitted Sparta to return to Ithaca. (Hom. Od. xv. 256, &c., 507, &c., xvii. 151, &c., xx. 350, &c.) 2. A son of Proteus. (Eurip. Hele?i. 9.) [L. S.l THEOCOSMUS {QeSicoa/jios), of Megara, a statuary, whose time is accurately defined by two statements in Pausanias. In the temple of Zeus Olympius at Megara, the traveller saw an un- finished chryselephantine statue of the god, which Theocosmus had undertaken to make, with the assistance of Pheidias, but the execution of which was interrupted by tlie breaking out of the Pelo- ponnesian War, and the consequent incursions of the Athenians into the Megarensian territory. The face alone was of ivory and gold, and the rest of the statue of mud (or plastic clay) and gypsum ; and behind the temple there lay some half- wrought] logs of wood, which Theocosmus had intended cover with ivory and gold, and to use in com-l pleting the statue. Above the head of the godj were the Hours and the Fates (Paus.i. 40. § 3. s.4).. Theocosmus also made the statue of Lysander's] pilot, Hermon, which formed a portion of the great votive offering dedicated by the Lacedaemo- nians at Delphi, out of the spoils of the battle of Aegospotami (Pans. x. 9. § 4. s. 8). Hence Theo- cosmus must have flourished from before the begin- ning till after the end of tlie Peloponnesian War, that is, in round numbers, about b. c. 435 — 430. He was the father of Callicles I. [P. S.] THEO'CRATES is given as the name of a physician by Fabricius (Bibl. Gr. vol, xiii. p. 432, ed. vet.) and Haller (Bibl. Medic. Pract. vol..