Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1104

Rh 1092 THEOPOMPUS. are noticed by Fabricius [Bibl. Grace, vol. vii. p. 586). [P. S.] THEOPOMPUS (0e(J7ro;U7ros), king of Sparta, and 9th of the Euiypontids. His name is con- nected with two important but obscure events in Spartan histor}% viz. the establishment of the power of the ephors, and the first Messenian war. With respect to the former, it was about 130 years, according to Plutarch, after the legislation of Lycurgus, that the popular party obtained the ephoralty from Theopompus, as a check on the oligarchy ; on which occasion he was reproached by his wife for his tameness in surrendering so large a portion of the royal prerogative, and de- fended himself by alleging that its limitation would ensure its continuance. (Plut. Li/c. 7 ; Aristot. Pol. V. 11, ed. Bekk.) From Plutarch, however, we also learn that Theopompus and his colleague Po- ly dorus gave additional stringency to the Rhetra, which enjoined that the popular assembly should simply accept or reject the measures proposed by the senate and the kings, without introducing any amendment or modification of them ; and from the oligarchical character of this act of Theopompus, Miiller argues that the extended political power of the ephors could not have originated in his time. More satisfactory, however, is the explana- tion of Platner and Arnold, that the people ob- tained the institution of ephors by way of com- pensation for the Rhetra in question, and that " the king was obliged to confirm those liberties, which he had vainly endeavoured to overthrow." (Plut Lye. 6, comp. C/eom. 10 ; Miiller, Dor. iii. 5, § 8, 7. § 2 ; C. F. Hermann, Pol. Ant. ch. 2. § 43 ; Arnold, 7'huc. vol. i. App. 2 ; G. C. Lewis, in the Philol. Museum^ vol. ii. pp. 51, 52.) As to the first Messenian war, thus much appears from Tyr- taeus, that Theopompus was mainly instrumental in bringing it to a successful issue, though the inference of Pausanias, that he lived to complete the actual subjugation of Messenia, is more than the words of the poet warrant. They are, how- ever, inconsistent with the date which Eusebius assigns to the death of Theopompus, viz. B. c. 740. Clinton gives, for the duration of his reign, about B. c. 770 — 720. But we can arrive at no cer- tainty in the chronology of this period. According to the Messenian account, Theopompus was slain, not long before the end of the war, by Aristo- menes, while the Spartan tradition was, that he was only wounded by him. We are accustomed, indeed, to regard Aristomenes as the hero of the second war ; but this, after all, is a doubtful point. (Paus. 4, 6, &c. ; Plut. Agis. 21 ; MuUer, Dor. App. ix. ; Clint. F. H. vol. ii. App. ch. 3 ; Grote's Greere vol. ii. pp. 558, 559.) [E. E.J THEOPOMPUS i ©eoTTOMTTOs), literary. 1. An Athenian comic poet, of the Old, and also of the Middle Comedy, was the son of Theodectes or Theodorus, or Tisamenus. (Suid. s. v. ; Aelian. ap. Said. ib. and s. vv. Uapias XiQov, ^667]). According to Suidas, he was contemporary with Aristophanes ; but the fragments and titles of his plays give evidence that he wrote during the latest period of the Old Comedy, and during the Middle Comedy, as late as a. c. 380. Of his personal history we have no information, except a story, of a fabulous appearance, about his being cured of a disease by Aesculapius, which Suidas (//. cc.) copies from Aelian, with a description of a piece of statuary in Pai'iiin marble, which was made in commemoration THEOPOMPUS. of the cure, and which represented Theopompus lying on a couch, by the side of which the god stood, handing medicine to the poet ; there was also a boy standing by the couch. The number of dramas exhibited by Theopompus is diiferently stated at seventeen (Anon, de Com. p. xxiv.) and twenty-four (Suid., Eudoc). We possess twenty titles, namely, "'AS^utjtos, *AA.0afa, 'AcppoSiaria, BarvKr]^ Elpt^vr], 'Udvxdprjs, ©Tjcreus, KdWaiaxpos, KaTrrjKides, MijSos, "NffMea'Odvaa-eis^ naiSey, IlaiJ.(pi'n, UavraXewi^, UrjvekoTrri^'Seipijves, ':ZTpari(t}Tidcs, TicrdfJievoSy ^ivevs. Three other plays, besides those which are merely variations ol the above titles, are erroneously ascribed to Theo- pompus, namely, 'ETroTroto/, IloAets, TpiKapavos. The extant fragments of Theopompus contain ex- amples of the declining purity of the Attic dialect. (Fabric. Bibl. Graee. vol. ii. pp. 501 — 503 ; Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 236 — 244, vol. ii. pp. 792—823 ; Editio Minor, pp. 441—457 ; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. Introd. pp. xlvii., xlviii). 2. Of Sinope, the author of a work on earth- quakes, quoted by Phlegon {de Reb. Mirab. 19). 3. Of Colophon, an epic poet, whose book en- titled ap/xdriov is quoted by Athenaeus (iv. p. 183, b. ; comp. Fulgent. Myihol. p. 36 ; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 57; Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 40, ed. Westermann, in whose note two or three other persons of the name are mentioned). [P. S.] THEOPOMPUS (0€O7ro/x7ros), of Chios, the historian, was the son of Damasistratus and the brother of Caucalus, the rhetorician. He accom- panied his father into banishment, when the latter was exiled on account of his espousing the interests of the Lacedaemonians, but was restored to his native country in the forty-fifth year of his age, after the death of his father, in consequence of the letters of Alexander the Great, in which he ex- horted the Chians to recal their exiles (Phot. Cod. 176, p. 120, b. ed. Bekker). But as these letters could not have been written at the earliest till after the battle of Granicus, we may place the restoration of Theopompus in B. c. 333, and his birth in B. c. 378. Suidas assigns a much earlier date to Theopompus, stating that he was born at the same time as Ephorus, during the anarchy at Athens in the 93d Olympiad, that is in B. c. 404 ; but as we know that Theopompus was alive in B. c. 305, we may safely conclude that Suidas is in error, and that the date in Photius is the correct one. In what year Theopompus quitted Chios with his father, can only be matter of conjecture ; and the various suppositions of the learned on the point are not worth repeating here. We know, however, that before he left his native country, he attended the school of rhetoric which Isocrates opened at Chios, and he profited so much by the lessons of his great master, that he was regarded by the ancients as the most distinguished of all his scholars. (Plut. Vit. dec. Orat. p. 837, b; Phot. Cod. 260; Dionys. Ep. ad Cn. Pomp. c. 6.) Ephorus the historian was a fellow-student with him, but was of a very difi'erent character ; and Isocrates used to say of them, that Theopompus needed the bit and Ephorus the spur. (Cic. Brut. 56, ad Att. vi. 1. § 12.) In consequence of the advice of Isocrates, Theopompus did not devote his oratorical powers to the pleading of causes, but gave his chief attention to the study and composi- tion of history. (Cic. de Orat. ii. 13, 22.) Like his master Isocrates, however, he composed many