Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1302

Rh 1290 XENOCLES. the likeness between poets and their works, he gays {Tkesm. 169), " but Xenocles, who is ugly, makes ugly poetry " (&v KaKhs kukcos Trote?). In his rapid survey of the poets who had survived Sophocles and Euripides, he dismisses Xenocles in this pithy manner {Han. 82), 'O 5e Eej/o/cAerjs; A. i^oAoiTO v}] Aia. There is another and a very important passage, in which the allusion to Xenocles is less apparent, but which, when properly understood, contains a very refined and ingenious attack upon him and his drama entitled Licymnius {Nub. 1259, foil. ; the correct explanation is given by some of the Scholiasts, and by Meineke and others, as quoted below). In these allusions we have sufficient materials for the date of Xenocles ; for it appears, from the passage last quoted, that he had met with a signal defeat in a dramatic contest, shortly before the exhibition of the Clouds (b. c. 423 or 422), and the mention of him in the Frogs shows that he was still alive in b. c. 405. In 01. 91, B.C. 415, he obtained a victory over Euripides (Aelian, V. H. ii. 8 ; the date being corrected from Diod. xii. 82, and Schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 1317). On this occasion each poet exhibited a tetralogy ; that of Xenocles consisting of the tragedies Oedipus, Lt/caon, Bacchae, and the satyric drama Athamas ; that of Euripides, of the tragedies Alexander, Palamedes, Troades, and the satyric drama Sisyphus. The indignation of Aelian at this judgment shows the low estimate in which Xenocles was held by the ancients ; but it is always difficult to judge how far such estimates are anything more than mere echoes of the opinions passed by the Athenian comic poets on their contemporaries. There are, however, other grounds for believing that the poetry of Xenocles was very indifferent ; that it resembled, in fact, the worser parts of Euripides. His sophistical declamations appear to be alluded to in one passage of Aristophanes (77ics?«. 440) ; and the scholiast on another passage {Ra7i. 86) tells us that his poetry was rude and allegorical. The impurity of his language has been already men- tioned. In another passage of Aristophanes {Pac. 792), and in a fragment of the comic poet Plato {Sophist., ap. Schol. Aristoph. I.e.), he is designated by the appellations firjxai'oS'Kpas and SouSeKa/iT}- Xavos, which refer, without doubt, to the unnatural construction of his plots, in which complicated devices and sudden surprises (the Deus ex machina for example) were employed to produce the result which ought to have been effected by the natural development of the drama itself. No fragments of the plays of Xenocles have come down to us, except the parody of a few words of the Licymnius, which is supposed to be con- tained in the passage of the Clouds referred to above. Respecting the younger Xenocles no particulars are recorded, except the fact of his being the son of Carcinus II., and the express distinction made between him and the elder Xenocles by a Scholiast on Aristophanes {Ran. 86). Tlie following genealogical table has been con- structed by Meineke to exhibit the probable rela- tions of the members of the family. The three persons in the left hand column were not literary j«ersons, and therefore nothing has been said of thorn iu this article. XENOCLES. Xenotimus (brothers) Thorycius Carcinus (general) Carcinus I. (trag.) I 1 I Xenotimus Xenocles I. (trag.) Xenotimus Xenarchus (choreut.) (choreut.) or Demotimus or Xenocleitus. Carcinus II. (trag.) Xenocles II. (trag.) It should be added, to guard the reader against some confusion, that Xenocles is sometimes erro- neously called Philocles, and even Meineke has slipped into this mistake three or four times (pp. 505, 515, bis, 516), and once (p. 108, comp. p. 506, note) he has written Xenocles for Carcinus. ( Fabric. Bill. Graec. vol. ii. p. 326 ; Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Grace, pp. 505 — 517 ; Welcker, die Griech. TragU. pp. 1016—1024, 1067 ; Kay- ser. Hist. Crit. Trag. Graec. pp. 84 — 105 ; Wag- ner, Frag. Trag. Gra£C. pp. 82, 83, in Didot's Biblioiheca. ) 3. A rhetorician, named Xenocles, is mentioned by Strabo, among the distinguished natives of Adra- myttium (xiii. p. 614),and Plutarch had a brother of this name. (Plut. Si/mpos. ii. Quaest. 3; Fabric. Bibl. Grace, vol. ii. p. 326, vol. iii. p. 613.) [P. S.] XE'NOCLES, artists. 1. An Athenian archi- tect, of the demos of Cholargos, was one of the architects who superintended the erection of the temple of Demeter, at Eleusis, in the time of Pericles. The part which Xenocles took in the work is described thus rh 8' oiraiou iirl rov 'Ava,- KTopov aevoKkris 6 XoAapy€vs iKopiKpooare (Plut. Per. 1 3). The precise meaning of this phrase is doubtful ; but it is most probable, as it occurs im- mediately after the account of the erection of the columns and entablature, that the addition made by Xenocles to the temple consisted of a pediment with its tympanum open, according to the ancient fashion, in order to light the Anactoron, or prin- cipal chamber of the temple. Another important testimony respecting this architect, or another of the same name, is fur- nished by an epigram, which is ascribed to Si- monides, but is more probably by Antagoras of Rhodes (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 138). It is as follows : — 'n ire A7)ixT]Tpos Trphs 'AvuKTOpov, S fre Mvarai, MtjS' vdaros npoxoas SeiSere x^^f^^p'^ovs. Tdiou Hcii'okAtjs yap 6 AivBios aa^ahhs ijfxfxiv Zfivyfxa 5ta TrKardos toDS' €€aiv Trora^oD. M. Raoul-Rochette (Lettre a M. Schorn, pp. 426, 427) is led to assume that the river here men- tioned was the Cephissus, and that the ^evyixa was the bridge by which the sacred procession to Eleusis crossed that river, on account of the obvious propriety of such a means of access to the temple being constructed by one of the same archi- tects who erected the temple itself ; and he quotes passages illustrating the dangers referred to in the second line of the epigram, to which the procession used to be exposed by the overflowing of the river (Pans. i. 38. § 5; Demosth. adv. CallicL p. 1279; Euseb. Chron. p. 81). This notion, which was also entertained by Casaubon {ad Strab. ix. p. 61 3, c), of course involves the necessity of supposing