Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1057

Rh TIIEODORIDAS. of the Thuringiaris. So widely extended was Tbeo- doric's name that the most distant nations courted his alliance and his friendship, and embassies from the rude people on the shores of the Baltic came to Ravenna to present to him their gifts. He became ruler of the Visigoths on the death of his son-in- law Alaric 1 1. The only legitimate son of Alaric was a child named Amalaric, whom he had by the daughter of Theodoric ; and to protect the rights of his grandson against the Franks, he sent an army into Gaul, by which he established his power in that co^lntr^^ Theodoric usually resided at Ravenna, but he re- moved his court to Verona, whenever his kingdom was threatened by the neighbouring barbarians. On one occasion (a. d. 500), he visited Rome, where he convened the senate, and assured them of his intention to govern with justice. Although ignorant of literature himself, Theodoric encouraged learned men ; and among his ministers were Cas- siodonis and Boethius, the two last writers who can claim a place in the literature of ancient Rome. Prosperous as had been the reign of Theodoric, his last days were darkened by disputes with the Ca- tholics, and by the condemnation and execution of Boethius and Symraachus, whom he accused of a conspiracy to overthrow the Gothic dominion in Italy. [Boethius ; Symmachus.] Theodoric died in 526. His death is said to have been hastened by remorse. It is related that one evening, when a large fish was served on the table, he fancied that lie beheld the head of Symmachus, and was so terrified that he took to his bed, and died three days afterwards. Theodoric was buried at Ra- venna, and a monument was erected to his memory by his daughter Amalasuntha. His ashes were de- posited in a porphyry vase, which is still to-be seen at Ravenna. Theodoric left no male issue. He bequeathed his dominions to his two grandsons, Athalaric, the Bon of his daughter Amalasuntha by a prince of the royal race of the Amali, and Amalaric, the son of Alaric II. and Theodichusa. The Rhone was declared to be the boundary of their dominions : Athalaric was to possess Italy and the conquests of the Ostrogoths, wliile Amalaric was to succeed to the sovereignty of the Visigoths in Gaul and Spain. The great monarch of the Ostrogoths was long ce- lebrated in the old Teutonic songs. He appears in the '* Niebelungen-Lied " under the title of Dietrich of Bern, that is, Verona. (Jornandes, de Reb. Get.; Procopius, de Bell. Goth.; Ennodius, P anegyricus Theodoric. ; Cassiodorus, C%rore. and Va- riar. ; Cochlaeus, Vit. Theodoric, ed. Peringskjold, Stockholm, 1699, 4to ; Tillemont, Histoire des Einpcreurs, vol. vi. ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. xxxix. ; Manso, Geschichte des Ost-Gothischen JHeiches in Italien, Breslau, 1824.) THEODO'RIDAS (QeoScopiSas), of Sicyon, was one of the ambassadors sent by the Achaeans in B. c. 187, to renew the alliance with Ptolemy Epiphanes, king of Egypt. (Polyb. xxiii. 1.) He must have been a man of considerable power and influence in his native country, as at a later period (b. c. 168), we find the two Ptolemies (the sons of Epiphanes), who were then joint rulers of Egypt, applying to him to raise for them 1000 mercenaries. (Id. xxix. 8.) [E. H. B.J THEODO'RIDAS (©eoSw^'Sas), of Syracuse, a lyric and epigrammatic poet, who is supposed to have lived at the same time as Euphorion, that is, THEODORUS. 1045 about B.C. 235 ; for, on the one hand, Euphorion is mentioned in one of the epigrams of Theo- doridas (Ep. ix.), and, on the other hand, Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom, v. p. 673) quotes a verse of Euphorion eV ra7s irphs QEcopiBau avr iypa<pa7s, where Schneider suggests the emendation QeoSu- piSav. He had a place in the Garland of Me- leager. In addition to the eighteen epigrams ascribed to him in the Greek Anthology, about the genuineness of some of which there are doubts (Brunck, Anal. vol. ii. p. 41 ; Jacobs, Jnth. Grace. vol. ii. p. 42, vol. xiii. p. ^b'd), he wrote a lyric poem Eis^Epwra, upon which a commentary was written by Dionysius, surnamed 6 AeTrro's (Ath. xi. p. 475, f.), a dithyramb entitled KeVraupot (Ath. XV. p. %^^ ; Eustath. ad Odyss. p. 1571, 16), licentious verses of the kind called (pKvaKes (Suid. s. V. 2wTc{57?s, as corrected by Meineke, Anal. Alex. p. 246), and some other poems, of which we have a few fragments, but not the titles. The name is more than once confounded with &e6Swpos and QeoBcapnos. (Fabric. Bibl. Grace. vol. iv. p. 496 ; Bode, Gcsch. d. Hellcn. Dicht- Jcunst, vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 333 ; Ulrici, vol, ii. p. 613; Schmidt, Diatribe in Dithyramb, pp. 147 — 150.) [P. S.] THEODORITUS. [Theodoretus.] THEODO'RUS I. LA'SCARIS, Greek em- peror of Nicaea, a. d. 1206 — 1222, was descended from a noble family at Constantinople. While in a private station he married Anna Angela Com- nena, the second daughter of the emperor Alexis III. Angelus. He was a man of energy and ability, and exhorted his father-in-law to resist the Latins when they laid siege to Constantinople in 1203 ; but Alexis in despair abandoned the city and fled to Italy, to Conrad, Marquis of Monteferrato, who had married his sister. In the troubles which fol- lowed at Constantinople, the history of which has been related elsewhere [Alexis IV. and V.], Theodore continued to support the party that was opposed to the Latins ; but after Constantinople had been taken by storm on the 12th of April 1204, and Baldwin, count of Flanders, had been placed on the imperial throne, Theodore fled with his wife to the Asiatic coast. Here he succeeded in raising some troops, by means of which he made himself master of the town of Nicaea, and the greater part of Bithynia. He was, however, soon deprived of his conquests by Louis Count of Blois, who had received Bithynia as his share of the Byzantine dominions ; but he recovered them again when Louis was recalled to Constantinople to the assistance of Baldwin, who was hard pressed by the Bulgarians and the revolted Greeks. Theo- dore had previously governed with the title of Despot, in the name of his father-in-law, the de- posed emperor Alexis III. ; but as the latter was still retained in captivity by the Marquis of Monte- ferrato, he now assumed the title of emperor of the Romans, as lawful heir to the crown, in virtue of his marriage with Anna, and was publicly crowned at Nicaea as emperor by Michael Auto- rianus, the Greek patriarch (1206). His title, however, was disputed by several other Greek princes, who had established for themselves inde- pendent principalities in Asia Minor. The most formidable of these rivals was Alexis Comnenus, who reigned as emperor at Trebizond, with whom Theodore carried on a successful war for some years. He also had to contend with Henry, the 3 X 'd