Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1091

Rh THEOMNESTUS. beginning of the ninth century after Christ. He was the author of a work on prosody, which is still extant in manuscript, addressed to the em- peror Leo, the Armenian. He also wrote a history of the reign of Michael II., surnamed the Stam- merer, the successor of Leo. (Villoison, Anecd. Graec. vol. ii. p. 127 ; Fabric. Bibl. Grace, vol. vi. p. 350.) [C. P. M.] TMEO'LYTUS (0e(5uTos), of Methymna, in Lesbos, an epic poet of an unknown, but certainly not an early period, who is mentioned once by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, and twice by Athenaeus. The latter author, in one passage (vii. p. 296, a, b.) quotes three lines from his Buk- XiKo, cTTTj, that is, an epic poem on the adventures of Dionysus, to whose contest with the sea-god Glaucus, his rival in the love of Ariadne, the lines quoted by Athenaeus refer. The other reference to Theolytus is a quotation from him, eV Seurepi^ 'npwv (Ath. xi, p. 470, c), not 'Cipuv, as the read- ing was before Schweighauser, who shows that here, and in other references to similar works, the genitive is not that of w/?a, but of copos, a word of the same meaning as wpa, but used in the plural in the specific sense of Annals. (See Liddell and Scott, and Seller and Jacobitz, s. v.) Another cor- rection made by Schweighauser in this latter pas- sage is the restoration of the true form of the poet's name, which Casaubon had altered to @i6- kAvtos. (Plehn, Lesbiaca, p. 201.) [P. S.] THEO'MEDON (©eo/AeScoj/), a physician who accompanied Eudoxus the astronomer and phy- sician in his first visit to Athens, about the year B. c, 386, and who supported him while he was attending Plato's lectures in that cit}'. (Diog. Laert. viii. 8. § 86.) [ W. A. G.] THEOMESTOR (Seofi-fiffTup), a Samian, son of Androdamas, commanded a vessel in the Persian fleet at Salamis (b. c. 480), and for his services in that battle was made tyrant of Samos by Xerxes. (Herod, viii. 85, ix. 90.) [E. E.] THEOMNASTUS, one of the instruments of Verres in his oppression of the Sicilians. (Cic. Verr. ii. 21, 51, iv. 66.) THEOMNESTUS (©e^Tjo-ros), one of the Greek writers on veterinary surgery, who may perhaps have lived in the fourth or fifth century after Christ. None of his works remain, but some fragments are to be found in the collection of writers on veterinary surgery, first published in Latin by John Ruellius, 1530, fol. Paris, and after- wards in Greek by Simon Grynaeus, 1537, 4to. Basil. [W. A. G.] THEOMNESTUS (QeV^o-rov), artists. 1. A statuary of Sardis, of unknown time, who made the statue of the Olympic victor Ageles of Chios. (Paus. vi. 15. § 2.) He may safely be identified with the Theomnestus mentioned by Pliny among those who made athlctas et armaios et venatores sacrificaniesqtie {H.N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 34). 2. A sculptor, the son of Theotimus, flourished in Chios, under the early Roman emperors, as we learn irom a Chian inscription, in which his name occurs as the maker, in conjunction with Dionysius, the son of Astius, of the monument erected to the memory of Claudius Asclepiadea, a freedman of the emperor, by his wife, Claudia Tertulla. (Murator. vol. ii. p. mxiv. 11 ; Boeckh, Corp. Inner. No. 2241, vol. ii. p. 210 ; R, Rochette, Leitre a M. Schom^ pp.417, 418, 2d ed.) 3. A painter, contemporary with Apelles. All THEON. 1079 that is known of him is contained in the statement of Pliny, that Mnason, the tyrant (of Elateia), gave him one hundred minae apiece for certain pictures, each of which represented a single hera (Plin. H. N. XXXV. 10. s. 36. § 21.) [P. S.] THEON (0eW). Of three of this name whose writings yet remain, two are mathematicians who are often confounded together. The first is Theon the elder, of Smyrna, best known as an arithme- tician, who lived in the time of Hadrian. The second is Theon the younger, of Alexandria, the father of Hypatia, best known as an astronomer and geometer, who lived in the time of Theodosius the elder. Both were heathens, a fact which tiie date of the second makes it desirable to state ; and each held the Platonism of his period. The confusion would probably be avoided, if they were named after their leaders in science : they would then be called Theon the Pythagorean, and Theon the Ptolemaist. The date of " Theon of Smyrna the philosopher," to quote in full the account which Suidas gives of him, depends upon the assumption (which there seems no reason to dispute) that he is the Theon whom Ptolemy and the younger Theon mention as having made astronomical observations in the time of Hadrian. Theon of Smyrna certainly wrote on astronomy. On the assumption just made, Ptolemy has preserved his observations of Mercury and Venus (a. D. 129 — 133). Bouillaud supposes that it is Theon of Smyrna to whom Proclus alludes as having written on the genealogies of Solon and Plato, and Plutarch as having written on the lunar spots. (See Bouillaud's preface, or the quotations in Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iv. p. 35.) All that we have left is a portion of a work en- titled, Tcoi/ Kara ^aQif]jxariK7}v XP'70''A"»"' «'S t^/i/ Toy HXdrwvos avdyvwaiv. The portion which now exists is in two books, one on arithmetic, and one on music : there was a third on astronomy, and a fourth riepl rryj eV KSaficp apjxovias. The work on arithmetic is of the same character as that of NicoMACHUs ; and as both these writers name Thrasyllus, and neither names the other, it may be supposed that the two were nearly contemporary. The book on music is on the simplest appli- cation of arithmetic. The two books were pub- lished by Bouillaud, from a manuscript in De Thou's library, Paris, 1644, quarto (Gr. Lat.). The book on arithmetic has been recently published, with Bouillaud's Latin, various readings, and new notes, by Professor J. J. de Gelder, Leyden, 1827, 8vo : the preface is the fullest disquisition on Theon which exists. We may refer to it for an account of the bust which was found in Smyrna by Fouquier, with the inscription ©EflNAnAATnN IKON*IAOCO*ONOIEPETC0EnNTONnATEPA, now in the museum at Rome. There are scattered notices (for which see De Gelder) by which it seems that Theon had written other works: a manuscript headed ^eoXoyov/xeva is mentioned as attributed to him, which is probably only the work known under that name, with an assumed author- ship. Bouillaud mentions an astronomical fragment which he found ; and also the assertion of Isaac Vossius, made to him, that an astronomical treatise existed in the Ambrosian library at Milan. Of the life of Theon of Alexandria, called the younger (described by Suidas as 6 e'/c tou iJ.ov(Tciov nothing is known except the melancholy history of his daughter Hypatia. We shall now take the 3z 4