Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1043

Rh p. 299, where the reference is defective), on the authority of the Latin Version of Avicenna (v. 2, § 2, vol. ii. p. 320, ed. Venet. 1595). The printed Arabic edition has juJ;?l^,l> which is an error. The Latin translator (Gerardus Cremonen- sis?) appears to have read in his MS. #juJ?tjS«lj' which is also wrong. Sontheimer, in his " Zusara- raengesetzte lieilmittel der Araber " (p. 218), has clumsily confounded the word with ^jsj ^^^ reads Hippocrates. The true reading is probably yJ^t} Naucratis, as appears from Galen, Dc Compos. Medicam, sec. Loc. iv. 8, vol. xii. p. 764, from which work the passage in question (as also many other medical formulae in the same chapter of Avicenna) is taken. Galen attributes the medi- cine to NauKpariTTjs, " the native of Naucratis " in Egypt ; but who is the individual thus desig- nated, the Writer is at present unable to deter- mine. [W. A. G.] THEOCRINES {@eoKpivr)s the person against whom Demosthenes spoke in one of his extant orations (p. 1 322, foil. ed. Reiske), which is, however, ascribed by Dionysius of Halicarnas- sus to Deinarchus. {Dcin. 10.) THEO'CRITUS, an actor, the dancing-master of Caracalla, under whom he enjoyed high honour and exercised unbounded influence. In the year A. D. 216 he was despatched at the head of an army against the Armenians, and sustained a signal defeat. (Dion Cass. Ixxvii. 21.) [W.R.] THEO'CRITUS (06oVtos). 1. Of Chios, an orator, sophist, and perhaps an historian, in the time of Alexander the Great, was the disciple of Metrodorus, who was the disciple of Isocrates. (Suid. s. V.) He was contemporary with Ephorus and Theopompus ; and the latter was his fellow- citizen and political opponent, Theopompus belong- ing to the aristocratic and Macedonian, and Theo- critus to the democratic and patriotic party. (Strab. xiv. p. 645 ; Suid.) There is still extant a passage of a letter from Theopompus to Alexander, in which he charges Theocritus with living in the greatest luxury, after having previously been in poverty. (Ath. vi. p. 230, f. ; Theop. Frag. 276, ed. Miiller, Frag. Hist. vol. i. p. 325, in Didot's Bibliotheca). Theocritus himself, too, is said to have given deep offence to Alexander by the sar- castic wit, which appears to have been the chief cause of his celebrity, and which at last cost him his life. When Alexander was making prepara- tions for a magnificent celebration of his Asiatic victories on his return home, he wrote to the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the islands, to send him a large supply of purple cloth ; and when the king's letter was read at Chios, Theocritus exclaimed that he now understood that line of Homer, — eAXage iropcpvpeos ^dvaros Kot jxalpa KpaTalt], (Pint. Op. Mar. p. 11, a. ; Ath. xii. p. 540, a.) It is observed by C. Miiller (loc. inf. cit.) that Arrian mentions {Anab. iv. 13. § 4), among the boys concerned in the conspiracy of Hermolaiis against Alexander, one Anticles, the son of Theocritus ; and that, if this was Theocritus the Chian, the fate of his son woul^ account for his enmity against Alexander, A very bitter epigram upon Aristotle, by Theocritus, is preserved, in separate portions, by Diogenes Laertius (v. 11), Plutarch {Op. Mor. p. 303, c), and Eusebius {Praep. Ev. XV. 1), and is contained in the Greek Anthology. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 184 ; Jacobs, ^h/A. Graec. vol. i. p. 117, comp. vol. xiii. p. 958). Numerous examples of his satirical wit might be quoted from the ancient authors : as a specimen we may men- tion his description of the speeches of Anaximenes as "a stream of words, but sense drop by drop" {Xe^iwv fihv TTOTUfxhs, vov Se araAay/xos, Stob. Serm. xxxvi. p. 217, ed. Gesner, comp. Ath. i. p. 21, c. ; and, for other examples, see Stob. Ser7n. ii., iv., xxi., xxxviii., Ixxxi., cxxiii. ; Ath. viii. p. 344, b. ; Plut. Mor. pp. 534, c, 631, f.). At last he was put to death by Antigonus Gonatas, in revenge for a jest upon the king's single eye, though perhaps he might have escaped, if he had not included the king's cook also in his Avitticism. That functionary, the story goes, having been de- spatched by Antigonus, to require the orator's attendance, " I perceive," replied Theocritus, " that you mean to serve me up raw to the C3'clops." " Yes I and without your head," retorted the cook, and repeated the conversation to Antigonus, who at once put Theocritus to death. (Plut. iMor. p, 633^ c. ; Macrob. Sat. vii. 3.) This must have happened before b. c. 301, when Antigonus fell in battle. The works of Theocritus, mentioned by Suidas, are XpeTat, tcrxopt'o Al§i)7}s, and iiricrToXal Sfavfia- aiai^ to which Eudocia (p. 232) adds, Aoyoi iraur]- yupiKoi. The Xpetat, that is, clever sayings, were probably, as C. Miiller suggests, not a work written by Theocritus himself, but a collection, made by some one else, of the witticisms ascribed to him. By iTTia-ToKal ^avixacriai is not meant, as Vossius calls them, epistolae admirahiles, but de rebus niira- bilibus. About the Libyan history there is perhaps some mistake, as the name of Theocritus might easily be confounded with that of Theocrestus, whose Libyan history we know. It is true that Fulgentius quotes a stupid story about the Gor- gons and Perseus from "Theocritus antiquitaiuvi historiographus" {Mythol. i. 26) ; but the same con- fusion of names might easily happen here ; and, even if the passage be from Theocritus, it would rather seem to belong to the lirKxroXaX ^av^aaiai than to the Libyan history. Another case, in which the name of Theocritus has probably been confounded with one like it, is pointed out by C. Miiller (Ath. p. 1 4, e., Aia§6r]T0L Se iirl acpatpiKy ArjiUOTeATjs 6 &^6yvidos rov Xtov r -J»i J»U» which is not a bad conjecture, but

Theocritus of Chios is mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus (Protrept. p. 45), as 6 ^etos ao(piaTT^s. A life of him by Ambryon, is quoted by Diogenes Laertius (v. 11). The epigram, prefixed to some editions of the poems of the more celebrated Theo- critus of Syracuse, as in Brunck's Analecta {Epig. 22, ed. Kiessling), is probably not the production of the poet himself, but of some grammarian who wished to mark clearly the distinction between the two persons. It is inscribed to Theocritus in the Palatine MS. and the Codex Politianus, and in the editions of the Anthology by Stephanus and Wechel ; but in the Aldine edition it is assigned to Artemidorus, who is also the author of a distich 3 u 4