Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1071

Rh THE0D0RU3. sician ; but not receiving from the prince tlie welcome he expected, he went on to Armenia, to the court of Constantine the father of King Hatem, and afterwards to one of the Latin emperors of Con- stantinople. Here he was loaded with riches and honours ; but after a time he was seized with a great desire to revisit his friends and native coun- try, and requested permission to return home. This was refused, so Theodorus took an opportunity of leaving the city by stealth, while the emperor was absent, and set sail for Acre. He was, however, compelled by stress of weather to put into a port where the emperor then happened to be, which had such an effect upon Theodorus that he poisoned himself. (Abu-1-Faraj, Hist. Dynast, p. 341 ; D'Herbelot, Bill. Orient.) Haller by some confusion makes two physicians out of this last Theodorus. {Bill. Med. Pract. vol. i. pp. 311, 406.) [W. A. G.] THEODO'RTTS (0e(5Sa>pos), artists. This name occurs in several passages of the ancient authors, in such a manner as to give rise to great difficulties. There existed, at an early period in the history of Grecian art, a school of Samian artists, to whom various works and inventions are ascribed in architecture, sculpture, and metal- work, and whose names are Rhoecus^ Teleclcs, and T/ieo- doncs. The genealogical table of the succession of these artists, according to the views of Muller, given under Rhoecus, may be referred to as a key to the ensuing discussion of the ancient testimonies, which is necessary in order to make the subject at all intelligible. First of all, a manifest error must be cleared away. Thiersch (Epoclien, p. 50), following Heyne and Quatremere de Quincy, places this family of artists at the very beginning of the Olympiads, that is, in the eighth century, b. c. The sole au- thority for this date is a passage of Pliny which, be- sides being quite vague, contains a decided mistake. (H. N. XXXV. 12. s, 43.) He says that " some relate that the first who invented the plastic art (plasticen) were Rhoecus and Theodorus, in Samos, long before tlie Bacchiadae were expelled from Co- rinth^"' an event which is supposed to have occurred about the 30th Olympiad, b. c. 660 ; and he then proceeds to relate how, when Demaratus fled from that city into Italy, he was accompanied by the modellers (fictores) Eucheir and Eugrammus, and so the art was brought into Italy. Now, in the whole of this passage, Pliny is speaking of plastice in the literal sense of the word, modelling in elay, not in the secondary sense, which it often has in the Greek writers, of castitig in metal; but it is quite in accordance with his mode of using his authorities, that he should have understood the statements of those writers who ascribed to Rhoe- cus and Theodorus the invention of plastice in the latter sense, as if they had been meant in the former. Having thus fallen into the mistake of making these artists the inventors of modelling, he was compelled to place them considerably earlier than Eucheir and Eugrammus, by whom that art was said to have been brought into Italy. Even if this explanation be doubted, the statement of Pliny cannot be received, inasmuch as it is incon- sistent with other and better testimonies, and is entirely unconfirmed ; for the passage in which Plato mentions Theodorus in common with Dae- dalus (Ion, p. 533, a.) has no chronological refer- ence at all, but the names of eminent artists are THEODORUS. i059 there purposely taken at random. The blundering account of Athenagoras (Legat.pro Christ. 14. p. GO, ed. Dechair), that Theodorus of Miletus, in con- junction with Daedalus, invented the arts of statuary and modelling (dj/Spta^TOTrotT/Tj/f^ji/ koX irXacrTiKriv) scarcely deserves to be mentioned, except that it may perhaps be regarded as involving a tradition of some value, because it indicates the coast of Asia Minor - as one scene of the artistic activity of Theodorus. We proceed therefore to the positive testimonies respecting these artists. The most definitely chronological of these testi- monies are the passages in which Herodotus men- tions Theodorus as the maker of the silver crater which Croesus sent to Delphi (i, 51), and of the celebrated ring of Polycrates (iii. 41). Now we learn from Herodotus that the silver crater was already at Delphi when the temple was burnt, in 01. 58. 1, B. c. 548 ; and Polycrates was put to death in 01. 64. 3, B. c. 522. Again, with respect to his identity, for this, as well as his date, is a point to be ascertained ; in both passages Herodo- tus makes Theodorus a Samian, and in the latter he calls him the son of Telecles ; in both it is im- plied that he was an artist of high reputation ; and, in the former, Herodotus expressly states that he believed the tradition which ascribed the crater to Theodorus, because the work did not appear to be of a common order {(rvyrvxov). Pausanias (viii. 14. § 5. s. 8) also mentions the ring of Poly- crates as the work of Theodorus, whom he also calls a Samian and the son of Telecles, and to whom, in conjunction with Rhoecus, the son of Philaeus, he ascribes the first invention of the art of fusing bronze or copper, and casting statues (Ste'xeaj/ Se xaX/cbv irpwToi koL aydXixara i^^vev- (TavTo). There appears here to be a difficulty as to the distinct specific meaning of the two verbs : but the true meaning is, that Rhoecus and Theo- dorus invented the art of casting figures, and at the same time made improvements in the process of mixing copper and tin to form bronze ; as we learn from another passage (x, 38. § 3. s. 6), in which Pausanias states that he has already, in a former part of his work (that is, in the passage just cited) mentioned Rhoecus, the son of Philaeus, and Theo- dorus, the son of Telecles, as those who invented the process of melting bronze more accurately, and who first cast it (tous evpduras ■x.^^XK.hv e$ t^ aKptSfaTepou TTjIar Kal ix^^v^vaav ovroi irpwroi). In still another passage (lii. 12. § 8. s. 10) he makes the statement respecting the fusing and casting of metal, but in a slightly different form ; namely, that Theodorus of Samos was the first who discovered the art of fusing iron, and of making statues of it (ts -irpwros diax^ai oldijpov evpe Kal aydh^ara air' avTOu irhdaai). Here nothing is said of Rhoecus, nor of Telecles ; and it is also worth while to observe that we have here an example of the use of irXdaai in the sense which we supposed above to have misled Pliny. There is another set of passages, in which various architectural works are attributed to those artists. Herodotus (iii. 60), speaking of the temple of Hera at Samos as the greatest known in his time, states that its architect was Rhoecus. the son of Phileas, a native of the island ; and Vitruvius (vii. Praef. § 12), mentions Theodorus as the author of a work on the same temple. Pliny (//. N. xxxvi. 13. s. 19. § 3), in describing the celebrated Lemnian labyrinth, says that its architects were Sniilis, 3 Y 2