Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1094

Rh 1082 THEOPHANES. by Aelian (V. H. ii. 44) of Theon's picture of a Boldier rushing to the battle. If we may believe Aelian, Theon even transgressed the limits of his own art in his attempt to produce a striking effect; for he never exhibited the picture without first causing a charge to be sounded on trumpets, and when the excitement produced by the music was at its highest, he drew up the curtain, and showed the warrior as if he had suddenly started into the presence of tlie spectators. Pliny places Theon among the painters who were pnmis proximi^ and mentions two of his works, namely, Orestis insania, and Tliamyrus citharoedus {H.N. xxxv. 11. s. 40. § 40). The former picture is also mentioned in the treatise of the Pseudo-Plutarch, de Audiendis Foetis, p. 1 8, from which we learn, what might be inferred from Pliny's words, that it represented Orestes slaying his mother. (See further, re- specting this picture, R. Rochette, Monum. Ined. p. 177.) [P. S.] THEONDAS, the chief magistrate in Samo- thrace at the time of the defeat of Perseus, in B.C. 16H. (Liv. xlv. 5.) THEO'NOE (Geoj/orj). 1. A daughter of Pro- teus and Psammathe, who is said to have been in love with Canobus, the helmsman of Menelaus, who died in Egypt, in consequence of the bite of a snake. She is also called Eido or Eidothea. (Eurip. i/e/e«. 11 ; Aristoph. Thesm. 897; Plat. Cratyl. p. 407 ; Hom. Od. iv. 363.) 2. A daughter of Thestor. [Thestor.] [L. S.] THEO'PHANE {@^o(pavf]), a daughter of Bisaltes, who, in consequence of her extraordinary beauty, was beleaguered by lovers, but was carried off by Poseidon to the isle of Crinissa. As the lovers followed her even there, Poseidon metamor- phosed the maiden into a sheep and himself into a ram, and all the inhabitants of the island into animals. As the lovers began to slaughter these animals, he changed them into wolves. The god then became by Theophane the father of the ram with the golden fleece, which carried Phrixus to Colchis. (Hvgin. Fa6. 188.) [L. S.] THEO'PHANES (0eo<|)aj/77s), literary. I, A writer on painting, mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (ii. 104). 2. Of Byzantium, one of the writers of the By- zantine history, flourished most probably in the latter part of the sixth century of our era. He wrote, in ten books, the history of the Eastern Empire {IcrTopiKwv yoL StKa), during the Persian war under Justin II., beginning from the second year of Justin, in which the truce made by Jus- tinian with Chosroes was broken, A. D. 567, and going down to the tenth year of the war, which, according to Mr. Clinton, was not A. d. 577, but A. D. 581, because the war did not begin till A. D. 571, although the history of Theophanes may have commenced with a. d. 567. Photius (Bibl. Cod. 64) gives an account of the work of Theophanes, and he repeats the author's Btatement that, besides adding other books to the ten which formed the original work, he had written another work on the history of Justinian. It well deserves mention that, among the historical state- ments preserved by Photius from Theophanes is the discovery, in the reign of Justinian, of the fact that silk was the production of a worm, which had not been before known to the people of the Roman empire. A certain Persian, he tells us, coming from the land of the Seres, brought to Constant!- THEOPHANES. nople " the seed " (rh erTrep/io, the eggs, of course ) of the silk- worm, and these " seeds " being hatched in the spring, and the worms fed with mulberry leaves, they spun their silk, and went through their transformations. The Excerpta of Photius from the ten books of the history of Theophanes were printed in Greek, with a Latin version by Andr. Schottus, and notes by Ph. Labbe, in Valesius's edition of the Excerpta de Legationibus., from Dexippus and others, Paris, 1648, fol. ; reprinted in the Venetian collection of the Byzantine historians, Venet. 1729, fol.: they are also printed in the volume of Niebuhr's Cor- pus Scriptorum Hist. Byzant.^ containing Dex- ippus, &c., Bonn. 1829, 8vo. (Cave, Hist. Litt. s. a. 580, vol. i. p. 537, ed. Basil. ; Hankius, Byz. Rer. Script, ii, 4, pp. 674, foil. ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. pp. 459, 541, 543 ; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. pp. 327, 328, ed. Westermann ; Clinton, Fasti Romani, s. aa. 567, 568, 571.) 3. Isaurus, also surnamed Isaacius*, from his father's name, and also Confessor, or Confessor Imaginum, from his sufferings in the cause of image worship, but more celebrated now as the author of a Chronicon in continuation of that of Syncellus, lived during the second half of the eighth century of our era, and the first fifteen years of the ninth. He was of noble birth, his parents being Isaacius, the praefect of the Aegeopelagitae, and Theodota. He was born in a. d. 858, and soon after, by the death of his father, he became a ward of the em- peror Constantinus Copronymus. While quite a youth, he was compelled by Leo the patrician to marry his daughter ; but, on the wedding-daj% Theophanes and his wife agreed that the marriage should not be consummated ; and, on the death of Leo, in a. d. 780, his daughter retired into a con- vent, and her husband Theophanes, who had in the meantime discharged various public offices, entered the monastery of Polychronium, near Singriana, in lesser Mysia. He soon left that place, and went to live in the island of Calonymus, where he con- verted his paternal estate into a monastery. After a residence of six years there, he returned to the neighbourhood of Singriana, where he purchased an estate, called by the simple name of Agir {irypos), and founded another monastery, of which he made himself the abbot. In A. D. 787, he was summoned to the second Council of Nicaea, where he vehemently defended the worship of images. We have no further details of his life until a.d. 813, when he was required by Leo the Armenian to renounce the worship of images, and, upon his refusal, though he was extremely ill, and had been bed-ridden for five years, he was carried to Con- stantinople, and there, after a further period of resistance to the command of the emperor to re- nounce his principles, he was cast into prison, at the close of the year 815 or the beginning of 816 ; and, after two years' imprisonment, he was banished to the island of Samothrace, where he died, only twenty-three days from his arrival. His firmness was rewarded by his party, not only with the title of Confessor, but also with the honours of canonization. Theophanes was the personal friend of Georgius him, as Vossius does, Georgius. The mistake pro- bably arose from some accidental confusion of his name with that of Georgius Syncellus.
 * There appears to be no authority for calling