Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1316

Rh 1304 XERXES. Rooke, London, 1727. (Comp. SchoU, Geschichte der Grkch. Lit vol. ii. p. 520, &c. ; Hoffmann, Leancon Biblioyraphicum^ s. r.) 6. A native of C3'prus, the author of a work of the same kind as the preceding, entitled KmrpiaKa. (Suid. s.v.) 7. For some others of this name the reader is referred to Fabricius {Bibl. Gr. vol. iii. p. 1, note a., p. 833 ; comp. Menag. ad Dioq. Lacrt. ii. 69). [C. P. M.J XE'NOPHON (Eei/oc^tSr), the name of two (or more probably three) physicians. 1. A pupil of Praxagoras (Oribas. Coll. Medic, xliv. 8, p. 12, in Mai's Class. Aud. e Vatic. Codic. Edit. Rom. 1831 ), who must therefore have lived in the fourth cen- tury B. c, perhaps also in the third. He is pro- bably the native of Cos mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (ii. 6. § 59) ; perhaps also the physician quoted by Caelius Aurelianus {De Morb. Chron. ii. 13, p. 416). It is also shown by M. Littre {Oeuvres d^Hippocr. vol. i. pp. 75, 76) that he is the person alluded to, but not named., by Galen {Com- vient. ill Hippoa: Prognost. i. 4, vol. xviii. pt. ii. p. 19) ; and therefore he is perhaps also the phy- sician mentioned by the same author {De Dieb. Decret. ii. 7, vol. ix. p. 872), as having written on the subject of critical days. 2. One of the followers of Erasistratus, who lived somewhat earlier than ApoUonius of Memphis (Galen, Introd. c. 10, vol. xiv. p. 700), and there- fore in the third century B. c, perhaps also in the fourth. He is by some modern writers supposed to be the same person as the physician mentioned above ; but it is hardly probable that the same person could have been pupil to both Praxagoras and Erasistratus. He wrote a work on the names of the parts of the human body. (Galen, /. c.) It is not certain which of these two physicans is the person quoted by Oribasius {ibid. xlv. 11, p. 41), and Soranus. {De Arte Obstetr. p. 257, ed. Dietz.) 3. A native of Cos, and a descendant of the family of the Asclepiadae, who was a physician to the em- peror Claudius, and who obtained from him certain privileges for his native island. He was afterwards induced by Agrippina to murder the emperor by means of a poisoned feather, which he introduced into his mouth under the pretence of making him vomit, A. D. 54. (Tac. ^«?2. xii. 61,67.) [W.A.G.] XE'NOPHON, artists. 1. A sculptor, of Athens, contemporary with the elder Cephisodotus, in con- junction with whom he made the statue of Zeus, which is described under Cephisodotus, No. 1, p. 667, b. In another passage, Pausanias mentions the statue of Fortune, carrying her son Plutus, in her temple at Thebes, the face and hands of which, the Thebans said, were made by Xenophon of Athens, and the rest of the work by a native artist, named Callistonicus. (Paus. ix. 16. § I.) 2. A sculptor, of Paros, of whom nothing is known, beyond the mention of his name by Dio- genes Laertius (ii. 59). [P. S.] XERXES I. (EeVlTjs), king of Persia b.c. 485 — 465. The name is said by Herodotus (vi. 98) to signify the warrior, but it is probably the same word as the Zend ksathra and the Sanscrit kshatra, Atossa. Dareius was married twice. By his first wife, the daughter of Gobryas, he had three chil- dren before he was raised to the throne ; and by his second wife, Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, he had four children after he had become king of XERXES. Persia. Artabazanes, the eldest son of the formor marriage, and Xerxes, the eldest son of the latter, each laid claim to the succession ; but Dareius decided in favour of Xerxes, no doubt through the influence of his mother Atossa, who completely ruled Dareius. Xerxes succeeded his father at the beginning of B. c. 485. Dareius had died in the midst of his preparations against Greece, which had been inter- rupted by a revolt of the Egyptians. The first care of Xerxes was to reduce the latter people to sub- jection. He accordingly invaded Egypt at the beginning of the second year of his reign (b. c, 484), compelled the people again to submit to the Persian yoke, and then returned to Persia, leaving his brother Achaemenes, governor of P'gypt. The next four years were devoted to preparations for the invasion of Greece. It was his object to collect a mighty armament, which might not simply be suffi- cient to conquer Europe, but which might display the power and magnificence of the greatest monarch of the world. Troops were gathered together from all quarters of the wide-spread Persian empire, and even the most distant nations subject to his sway were required to send their contingents. Critalla in Cappadocia was the place of meeting, and there they came pouring in, nomad hordes from the steppes of central Asia, dark-coloured tribes from the rivers flowing into the Indus, and negroes from the inland parts of Africa, as well as from all the intermediate countries. Immense stores of provi- sions were at the same time collected from all parts of the Persian empire, and deposited at suitable stations along the line of march. The fleet was furnished by the Phoenicians, lonians and other maritime nations subject to the Persians. An agreement also was made with the Carthaginians, that they should attack the Greek cities in Sicily and Italy, while Xerxes invaded the mother coun- try. Two great works were at the same time undertaken, which might bear witness to the grandeur and power of the Persian monarch. He ordered that a bridge of boats should be thrown across the Hellespont, and that a canal should be cut through the isthmus of Mount Atlios, on which the fleet of Mardonius had been wrecked in b. c. 492. The bridge across the Hellespont stretched from the neighbourhood of Abydos on the Asiatic side to the coast between Sestos and Madytus on the European, where the strait is about an English mile in breadth. The work was entrusted to Phoenicians and Egyptians ; but after it had been completed, it was destroyed by a violent storm. Xerxes was so enraged that he caused the heads of the chief engineers to be cut off, and commanded that the strait itself should be scourged, and a set of fetters cast into it. A new bridge was con- structed, of which Herodotus has left us a minute account (viii. 36). There were in fact two bridges formed of two lines of ships ; but our limits prevent us from entering into the details of their construc- tion. The canal cut through the isthmus of Mount Athos from the Strymonic to the Toronaic gulph was about a mile and a half long, and was loroad and deep enough for two triremes to sail abreast. This work is said to have occupied a multitude of work- men for a space of three years. That these works were unnecessary is no proof that they were never executed ; for Xerxes' invasion of Greece must not be judged by the necessities or probabilities of any ordinary war. It was rather a lavish display of
 * a king." Xerxes was the son of Dareius and